Author: Marie2

At least this one is amusing.  However, if they can’t get the facts and storyline correct on this, it’s no wonder that they fail on even slightly more complex stories.

Girl, 4, Sneaks out, Hops Bus in Search of 3 a.m. Slushie

Suburban folks are often struck by how easily city kids navigate travel on public transportation all by themselves.   (Oliver did it in St. Vicent, and while he looked to be about ten years old, he was twelve.)  But a four year old?  At 3:00 a.m?

It’s not easy to repress a laugh from the SEPTA bus video.

Annabelle was on a mission and she was totally cool when she hit a snag.

The 4-year-old grabbed her purple rain coat, slipped out the back door of her family’s Tacony home, and wandered along Torresdale Avenue.

Not wandering but on her way to get a slushie.  (Reportedly heading for the 7-11 at 6927 Torresdale Ave, but the Wawa at 6400 Torresdale is also possible.)  She was near a bus stop when a man waiting for the bus noticed her.  When the bus arrived, the man told the driver, Mr. Jenifer, he’d better wait as Annabelle trundled up the steps and onto the bus.  Jenifer called SEPTA supervisors and the police arrived to rescue her twenty minutes later.

A bus to take her to the store might have seemed like a good idea to Annabelle as it was cold and wet outside.  And everybody was so nice as she told them that she was on her way to get a slushie.

America look and see what Annabelle knows.  What black men are really like.  Nice.
 

I’m going to need some help from the Pond in connecting a couple of dots here.  But first a review and the latest development.

The stumbling block for observers of the Ft. Lee lane closures to the GW Bridge has been why?  We’re way past the point of knowing that it was political and a calculated and conspiratorial action.  What was the point?  Did it have any relationship to the major Ft Lee development projects?  What made that speculation difficult is that both of those projects were by then essentially done deals.  The other claim that it was payback to Ft. Lee Mayor Sokolich for not endorsing Christie’s re-election always seemed so thin or overkill that it almost failed a laugh test.

From there it wasn’t difficult for investigators in the NJ legislature and US Attorney’s  office, journalists, and mere bloggers to consider any of the hinky Christie and NY-NJ Port Authority deals.  Mostly far afield of the bridge toll lanes closure but shedding little penlights on the corruption in the Christie administration.  That is outside my self-selected beat of the GW Bridge toll lane closures and therefore, no diaries from me on this in the past nine months.  The news from a few days ago, Federal prosecutors subpoena Port Authority over claims Christie retaliated against Fulop, report says seemed to be more of that and not tied to the Ft. Lee/GW Bridge issue.  

Brian Murphy at TPM suggests that maybe it is: Neverending Story: Feds’ Bridgegate Probe Takes New Turn.

Those who studied some of the Wildstein, Baroni, and Bridget Kelly emails that were released over some period of time noted that the plan (plot) to close the Ft. Lee toll lanes appeared to have been constructed by early August but it only became operational over a month later.  In those communications there was no hint of what prompted the plan and what they hoped to accomplish.

In going back over this data more carefully, Murphy has identified possibly two smoking guns and some interesting timing “coincidences.”

The first possible “smoking gun.”  

Monday morning 9/9/13, Mayor Sokolich called and left a message for Baroni reporting the urgent matter of public safety in Ft. Lee.  Baroni forwarded this to Wildstein at 9:41 AM.  Wildstein forwarded it to Bridget Kelly.  Kelly asked if Baroni returned Sokolich’s call.  At 10:13 AM, Wildstein wrote, “Radio silence” and “His name comes right after mayor Fulop.”

Why would Wildstein have had Fulop on his mind the day the GW Bridge toll lanes were closed?

Second one.  Day two, 9/10/13, of the toll lane closures.

Mayor Sokolich texts Baroni at 8:04 AM

Presently we have four very busy traffic lanes merging into one toll booth … The bigger problem is getting the kids to school.  Please help.  It’s maddening.

Text received by Baroni at 8:05 AM.  Forwarded to Wildstein at 9:41 AM.  

At 8:05 AM, Kelly wrote, Is it wrong that I’m smiling.  No from Wildstein.
At 8:05-06, Kelly wrote, I feel badly for the kids.  I guess
At 8:11 AM, Wildstein wrote, They are the children of Buono voters.

Why would Kelly and Wildstein have been chatting about a text message from Sokolich to Baroni almost two hours before Boroni forwarded it to Wildstein?  As if Sokolich had texted Kelly and Wildstein and the two of them were instantly on it?  As if they had been monitoring Sokolich’s communications before he sent that text.

Nothing about the team Christie and Mayor Sokolich relationship fitted with planning the bridge toll lane closures in late July – early August.  Murphy documents how the timing fits perfectly with the team Christie and Mayor Fulop relationship.  Including this:

In August 2013, Fulop wrote [to Bill Baroni], “I am not sure if it is a coincidence that your office cancelled a meeting several weeks back that seemed to be simultaneous to other political conversations elsewhere that were happening…. I sincerely hope the two issues are not related as it wouldn’t be in the PA, Jersey City, or the residents of the state’s best interest.”

Any New Jersey denizens or Mafia aficionados here that can supply the correct word or term for what this looks like?  Whacking a not so important, minor irritant to send a message to more important rival?

Suddenly, this seems less coincidental

One night before local access lanes to New Jersey’s George Washington Bridge were closed last fall in an apparent act of political retribution that sparked miles-long traffic jams for four straight days, an air quality monitor run by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection in Trenton abruptly ceased collecting data.

The closest state-run monitor to the bridge with its data posted online, the monitor started measuring air pollution again more than two days later – just as a key pollution indicator was starting to decline.
“They’re missing data for 2 1/2 days – that’s weird,” says Ann Marie Carlton, an assistant professor at Rutgers University who studies air quality.

More reasons why the plan was to keep those toll lanes closed for an extended period of time?  The part of the plot that was foiled by Pat Foye.

M was smart.  My high school graduating class valedictorian.  We knew each other, but other than gym, she wasn’t in any of my classes.  Only once did we have a one-on-one conversation and that was in our senior year.  A rainy day when we were stuck in the gym locker room with nothing to do.  As these times often go for me, we began sharing what we had been reading for pleasure.  

M monopolized the conversation and I politely listened.  Kept expecting her to move on to a book or magazine that we both had read or at least one that interested me.  I’d been reading Camus and Harper’s, and working on my lines for a little theater production of The Night of the Iguana (which was of zero interest to M).  Her pleasure reading passion – and she was passionate about it – was contemporary romance novels.  Instead of smart, she sounded dull.  And boring.

Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, and Rand Paul remind me of M.  Labeled smart and academically impressive.  Then they open their mouths without a script.

Paul was admitted to medical school after five semesters of college.  Apparently because his MCAT scores were at the top.  Cruz graduated cum laude from Princeton (presumably on the four year program) and magna cum laude from Harvard Law.  Then there’s Tom Cotton:

Harvard College, AB magna cum laude 1998 (graduated in three years)
Claremont College – 1998-99
Harvard Law, JD, 2002
clerk, U.S. Court of Appeals, 2002-2003
Gibson Dunn & Crutcher – 2003-04
Cooper & Kirk
US Army – January 2005-09
McKinsey & Co. – 2009

I’ve known and worked with many attorneys.  Most not graduates of prestigious law schools.  All were intelligent to highly intelligent.  (With one exception, but that seemed to be due to aging and/or alcoholism and not his Harvard Law degree.)   I’ve also worked with a few McKinsey & Co folks who ranged from bright to wicked smart.  Not one of them would ever have received an assessment of his/her work product like this one:  

Reluctantly, Rep. Cotton withdrew his amendment when basically everyone on the Committee informed him that he is a dumb, ridiculous piece of shit and a complete embarrassment to the entire state of Arkansas, and even to Congress. The GOP Committee chair basically laughed in his face and told him to go blow a goat.

His amendment?

Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Wednesday introduced legislation that would “automatically” punish family members of people who violate U.S. sanctions against Iran, levying sentences of up to 20 years in prison.
…
Cotton also seeks to punish any family member of those people, “to include a spouse and any relative to the third degree,” including, “parents, children, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, grandparents, great grandparents, grandkids, great grandkids,” Cotton said.
“There would be no investigation,” Cotton said during Wednesday’s markup hearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Can Harvard Law revoke a JD?  With his “Iran letter,” Harvard might want to consider revoking his AB in Government as well.  Or perhaps Cotton should demand a refund because he didn’t get an education.  Although he did pass the AR bar exam and was admitted on 4/9/03

Cotton on Face the Nation today wrt Iran:

They already control Tehran and, increasingly, they control Damascus and Beirut and Baghdad. And now, Sena’a as well.

Duh!

The Atlantic has some choice bits from Cotton’s senior thesis.  

Men who seek national office, Cotton wrote in his thesis, are the most ambitious men, seeking the headiest sort of power over a nation’s commerce, finance, and affairs of state. Self-selection ensures that they have “a superior intelligence compared to the unambitious and to the lesser ambitious.” This does not necessarily mean that they are wise, he notes, but “it does imply some amount of sheer, raw brainpower. National officeholders will all possess something akin to shrewdness, cleverness, or perhaps even cunning.”

As sophomoric as that reads, do wonder if his thesis and law school papers could withstand a close scrutiny for plagiarism.  Particularly in light of the high probability that AIPAC wrote “his” Iran letter.

Will let Jim Wright at Stonekettle Station take it from here: The Second Coming of Richard Milhous Nixon

…
We haven’t lost enough of America’s future in the Middle East.

We haven’t bled enough.
It’s never enough for these sons of bitches.

People like Senator Johnson, they walk past those 58,220 names inscribed on the cold black granite of the Vietnam Memorial, they can see it, they can touch it, they argue over the endless appropriations for war and its terrible aftermath, trillions in blood and treasure, bills they can not afford to pay and that they have mortgaged our children’s future for, they have their noses rubbed in the futility and the utter criminal waste of it all every single goddamned day and it’s still not enough for these insane fuckers.  

It will never be enough. Never.
…

Issue #1 –Letterhead

While the letterhead doesn’t include the Seal of the United States Senate, it was meant to look like an official communication from the US Senate.  A communication that wasn’t authorized by that legislative body.  With forty-seven signatories, the promoters couldn’t even get a majority of US Senators on board.  Why didn’t they use the letterhead of any one of the forty-seven Senators to which the others could add their signatures?

Is there a US Senate rule that proscribes the use “US Senate” letterhead?  Individual Senators may not use their Senate Office letterhead for other than official office business or otherwise proscribed.

Issue #2 – Logan Act

Plenty of fodder here for public arguments.  Technically, it’s not difficult to find violations of the law over the past 215 years.  Practically, it’s never used.  The historical antecedents to the act was a private US citizen encouraging French officials to negotiate peaceful resolutions to conflicts with the US government.  That enraged the quasi-monarchist President Adams.  The prohibitive act subsequently passed by Congress is silent as to the intent of any non-US government authorized communication.  Thus, legally, encouraging foreign governments to engage in conflict or war with the US or stymying official peace  negotiations is on equal footing with unauthorized peace efforts.  As colluding with  foreign powers to wage war against the US had already been dealt with, the intent of  “Logan” was to prohibit peace efforts by unauthorized US citizens.  However, even those guys weren’t about to sign on to anything so blatantly anti-peace; thus, the silence on the intent.  

With regard to the letter of the law (where are those Congressional “rule of law” thugs now?), John Boehner and 47% of the US Senate appear to be in violation of the law.  Yet, to charge them would not only create a partisan political super-storm, but also require application of the law in the future for peace-seekers, the original intended targets.  It’s a bad, dishonest, and poorly written law.  In a functioning democracy, it would long ago have been repealed.  But for reasons inexplicable to me, US lawmakers prefer to leave inoperable laws on the books.

Issue #3 – Decency

It’s not hyperbole to reference Senator Joseph McCarthy as a precursor to the current sitting 47 Senators and their bleitzkrieg to destroy President Obama.  They have no decency.  No respect for all the unwritten rules and manners that are conditions precedent to a modicum of democracy.

So, why is Boehner’s invitation to Netanyahu such a big deal?
First off, it’s a huge violation of protocol and massively disrespectful to President Obama and the authority of the executive branch.
It is completely unprecedented for the Speaker of the House, or any member of Congress, to invite a foreign leader to come to the US and speak to Congress without getting authorization and/or cooperation from the White House.  

The 47% Senate letter is similarly unprecedented.  Imagine such a letter being sent to Mao by 45 Senators during the years the Korean Armistice Agreement was negotiated!

The 47% are indecent and as drunk on hate as all similar vermin in US history.  They are unacceptable. The people in the states that elected them should be ashamed of themselves.  One Joseph McCarthy was too many for this nation.  Wisconsin still has some explaining to do for that, but instead chose to toss out the decent Senator Feingold in favor of a McCarthy clone.  Shame on the majority of Wisconsin voters.

Shame on Iowa for Grassley and Ernst.

Shame on Kentucky for McConnell and Paul.

Shame on Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Georgia, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, etc.

Not on this wall of shame is amazingly enough Mississippi.  Something to be said for old school manners which might be the only reason that Senator Thad Cochran didn’t sign this abomination.  Cochran appears to have managed to retain a shred of decency in a time when his political party has sunk to a new depth of depravity.  Not something any of the 47% can ever claim to possess forever more.  Here’s looking at you, Senators Orrin Hatch and Chuck Grassley.  

Rand couldn’t make it because he was busy with his personal Kentucky Derby.  Overturning that law that he can’t appear on the ballot for both the Senate and POTUS.

A couple of others were also no shows.  With only three weeks advance notice, Dr. Ben and Ms. Fiorina couldn’t fit an agriculture briefing session into their schedules before the event.  Rubio opted to attend a wedding.

Otherwise it was a full house with notable ag specialists Governors Chris Chris and Jeb Bush and George Pataki and Senators Cruz, Graham and Santorum, the farm boys Governors Perry and Pataki, Governor Walker who grew up near farms (and his daddy was a preacher), and Governor Huckabee who may or may not have preached that pray is the best answer for good crops.

Pigs are an Iowa crowd pleaser as the new pig castrator Senator demonstrated.  So, JEB! went with it:

Calling the Environmental Protection Agency “a pig in slop,” Jeb Bush said, “We have to begin to rein in this top-down driven regulatory system.” Asked how to achieve that, the former Florida governor said, “The first thing you do is you change presidents.”

That’s called throwing down a gauntlet.  And hoping it goes unnoticed that in a combined twelve years his daddy and bro didn’t fix the “pig slob.”  

Graham was apparently humorous.  (No, not about his “why not run for President?” campaign that some of us thought was a joke.)  He and JEB! stood out by supporting some way for undocumented workers in the US to become documented.  The “Christian” preacher asked,“What do we do to stem the tide of people who are rushing over because they’ve heard that there’s a bowl of food just across the border?”  (Huck and Christie then rushed out because they heard the free donuts and corndogs tent was open.)

On corn ethanol, Cruz (who also has a daddy preacher) was edgy:

“The answer you’d like me to give is, `I’m for the RFS, darnit,’ ” Cruz said. “But I’ll tell you, people are pretty fed up, I think, with politicians who run around telling one group one thing, another group another thing, and then go to Washington and they don’t do anything they said they’d do.”

Papa Cruz might have to do a bit more preaching to those Iowa corn farmers after that his son’s moment of honesty.

Christie is down with ethanol.  Christie will verbally kiss any butt (including Sheldon Adelson’s) if that’s what it takes.  Santorum moaned about the loss of US manufacturing jobs that may or may not have been in response to the ethanol question, but doesn’t matter because he already answered that one four years ago.  The current Iowa front runner, Walker said,

he would continue the subsidies for now but phase them out once ethanol producers are assured access to markets. “I think eventually you can get to that,” he said. “But you can’t get to that unless you deal with market access.”

He either screwed up his talking point or it was code only ethanol producers understand.

It’s going to be a long ten months.

And raiding other money chests as well.

Corporations and their elected handmaidens never sleep in their quest for another way to shift costs and life burdens from the haves to the have nots.  And they continue to get away with it because “we the people” have been in a very long slumber.

US Treasury reports: Social Security Income disability program approaching insolvency.  Why?  The ratio of beneficiaries to workers is rising.  Why?  Too few workers or a higher percentage of disabled Americans?   That question is outside the purview of Treasury.

The US Labor Department has the data on the Employment:Population ratio.  In 1970 (before the first Nixon recession), EmPop was 58%.  Today, in the sluggish US economy it’s 59%.

Treasury publicly reports on applications, awards, and total disability beneficiaries.  The number of beneficiaries has ballooned from five million in 2000 to almost nine million in 2014.  Obviously the ratio of covered disabled Americans to total population has significantly increased in the past fourteen years.  How many beneficiaries are disabled workers?  All but about one million.  In 1970 the number was approximately 1.8 million.  The US population in 1970 was 205 million and today it’s 319 million.  Why has the number of disabled workers eligible for SSD quintupled when the population has only increased  by a bit over 50%?  How is it that after over forty years of OHSHA, safer cars, safer home, and amazing advances in medical treatments, the rate of disabled adults has mushroomed?

Okay, some of that increase is because the death rates for accidents and certain chronic health conditions have been reduced.  But there’s another important part to the story.  ProPublica has it: The Demolition of Workers’ Compensation.  It’s an eye-popping, and extremely well-written, piece of investigative journalism.  A must read.  Now.

I will only contribute a smidgen to how the SSD pot of gold was raided without public awareness.

Over the past decade, state after state has been dismantling America’s workers’ comp system with disastrous consequences for many of the hundreds of thousands of people who suffer serious injuries at work each year, a ProPublica and NPR investigation has found.

The cutbacks have been so drastic in some places that they virtually guarantee injured workers will plummet into poverty. Workers often battle insurance companies for years to get the surgeries, prescriptions and basic help their doctors recommend.

Note: Over the past decade …  Gee, that looks a lot like the time-frame when the number of SSD beneficiaries shot up.  Bingo!

Not to be overlooked in the ProPublica report:

Workers’ comp was born in the early 1900s as a “grand bargain” forged by business and labor as awareness grew about the grisly workplace accidents that came with industrialization.

“As the work is done for the employer, and therefore ultimately for the public,” President Theodore Roosevelt said in 1907, “it is a bitter injustice that it should be the wage-worker himself and his wife and children who bear the whole penalty.”

In return for a measure of a security, workers gave up their right to sue their employers — even in cases of gross negligence — protecting businesses from lawsuit judgments that could bankrupt them. By 1920, nearly every state had enacted workers’ comp laws.

The granddaddy to the New Deal social programs, if you will.  Was this “grand bargain”system broken?  Not really.  Definitely aggravated by the continuing and increasingly dysfunctional US health care “system.”  But medical costs for disabled adults are embedded in Medicare and Medicaid, both of which also have financial challenges (that the GOP continuously remind us of and Democrats look for but have yet to find major solutions).

Like the Waltons and Walmart stockholders that grew wealthy on cheap labor that had to rely on SNAP and Medicaid to make ends meet (aka socializing operating costs), employers have done the same thing with workers’ compensation costs.  Employers reap the reward of lower work comp insurance costs and pass actual operating costs onto SSD, Medicare, and Medicaid and injured workers and their families.  (And remember workers pay half the payroll tax for SSD.)  (California workers also pay all the cost for the short term disability program.)

Are there individuals that scam the disability programs?  Sure.  I’ve even known a few that did so for a few months.  However, they’re as prevalent and/or destructive to the system as fraudulent voters are to elections.  The real crooks are those that rig the voting systems and socialize costs that are their responsibility.

Now that the private sector has looted SSD down to the point of insolvency, who is going to pay to fix yet another “neoliberal” fine mess?

On the simplistic left-right, political spectrum, every good USian knows that communism is on the far left.  Anti-capitalism.  The Soviet Union and Russia today equals communism regardless of how little or poorly implemented such an economic policy prevails there.  They are the enemy.  And Putin is always guilty.

Putin’s Foe Boris Nemtsov Gunned Down Outside Kremlin, Days After Family Predicted His Murder

Boris Nemtsov, a charismatic Russian opposition leader and sharp critic of President Vladimir Putin, was gunned down Saturday near the Kremlin, just a day before a planned protest against the government.
The death of Nemtsov, a 55-year-old former deputy prime minister, ignited a fury among opposition figures who called the brutal killing an assassination. Putin quickly offered his condolences and called the murder a provocation.
Nemtsov himself had said in recent days that his family believed he would be murdered for his anti-Putin activism. Britain has said it will follow closely investigations in to the killing.
…
“He did so without fear, and never gave in to intimidation. He was greatly admired in Britain, not least by his friend Lady Thatcher, who visited him in Russia and who would have been appalled by today’s news.

Mark Ferguson tweet

Boris Nemtsov is dead. Another opponent of Putin gunned down or poisoned or imprisoned. No-one can claim these are coincidences.

The quick denunciation of Putin in the west whenever a Russian of minor or modest public profile who opposed the Russian government is murdered is interesting because high level, western leaders are never suspected when one of their opponents is bumped off.  Not that assassinations and murders of politicians, judges, and journalists are unheard of in the west.  (Ten US assassinations in the past eighteen years.)   And no, the CT folks that finger LBJ in the assassination of JFK is not analogous to accusing Putin of the murder of Nemtsov in Russia.

We have to go somewhat far back in time to consider something that could have been similar.  Not for how it would have played in the US, but in the USSR.  Did Moscow newspaper headlines scream in 1935:

Roosevelt rival assassinated!

With opinions from the press and denizens of the Kremlin not too subtly suggesting that FDR was the murderer?  After all, politically Huey Long was further to the left than FDR and many viewed FDR as having dictatorial aspirations.

Long often attempted to upstage FDR and the congressional leadership by mounting populist appeals of his own, most notably his “Share Our Wealth” program.
…
In the critical 100 days in spring 1933 Long was generally a strong supporter of the New Deal, but differed with the president on patronage. Roosevelt wanted control of the patronage and the two men broke in late 1933.  Aware that Roosevelt had no intention to radically redistribute the country’s wealth, Long became one of the few national politicians to oppose Roosevelt’s New Deal policies from the left.
…
Long was shot [9/8/35] a month after announcing that he would run for president. …

Americans would have rightly scoffed at suggestions from the USSR that FDR had Long assassinated.

The Vineyard of the Saker provides an antidote to the anti-Putin western hysteria with regard to this murder, but likely errs as well.

There is no doubt in my mind at all that either this is a fantastically unlikely but always possible case of really bad luck for Putin and Nemtsov was shot by some nutcase or mugged, or this was a absolutely prototypical western false flag: you take a spent politician who has no credibility left with anyone with an IQ over 70, and you turn him into an instant “martyr for freedom, democracy, human right and civilization”.

“Nutcases” are too frequently responsible for assassinations of political figures to declare that it would be “fanstastically unlikely” in the case of Nemtsov.  What’s more typical is that assassinations are perpetrated by powerless or not powerful people that have a personal grudge against the target or an intra-group conflict.  Long’s assassin was the son-in-law of a Long LA political rival.  Ousted American Nazi Party member murdered George Rockwell.  Derwin Brown, sheriff-elect, was a contract killing by his defeated opponent.  General rule, losers murder.  

Don’t necessarily disagree with Saker that the assassination of a “spent politician” can turn him/her into an instant martyr.  (Why I said a little prayer for the odious George Wallace to live after he was shot.)  But it’s not a guarantee, and seriously question the assertion that it’s a “prototypical western false flag.”  Saker should have stuck with the observation that Nemtsov wasn’t much of a threat to Putin and Putin isn’t Stalin (or J. Edgar Hoover or the mafia).  OTOH, would rule out an anti-Russian Ukrainian “false flag” in this instance.  Considering that when the 55 year old Nemstov was murdered, he was in the company of his 23 year old anti-Russia Ukrainian girlfriend.  Plenty of anti-Russian Ukrainians could have come up with such a plot all on their own.
Update –

Suspects Named in Nemtsov’s murder

The Nemtsov murder investigation has focused on the theory that the crime was organized  by a Chechen militant commander Adam Osmayev, of the Dzhokhar Dudayev battalion, who also was named in the case concerning the attempt to assassinate Vladimir Putin. …

I have no idea how credible this source is, but it appears to me that this reported focus of the Russian investigators is spot on even if they don’t catch the operational perps and those who directed the assassination.

This was a sophisticated hit. Not Russian. Only remotely possible that there was any US involvement. Possible but unlikely that the Kiev government was a participant. More possible that Kolomoisky, one of his associates, or his Dnipro Battalion were involved. However, in tone and feel, it points to someone educated in the west, and that’s a reason why Adam Osmayev is at the top of the focus list.

Things I didn’t know that are required to appreciate why it was Nemtsov that was assassinated.

Chechens fighting for Ukraine

In a statement dated August 28, Isa Munayev appeals to the United States and “the countries of the democratic world” to provide “comprehensive military assistance” to the Ukrainian people, whom Munayev describes as victims of Russian imperial aggression, just as the Chechens were 20 years ago.

Munayev identified himself in that statement as commander of the Dzhokhar Dudayev international volunteer peacekeeping battalion and a brigadier general of the armed forces of the Chechen Republic Ichkeria (ChRI) of which Dudayev was the first president. He spoke to RFE/RL’s Radio Marsho a week ago, shortly before he travelled to Ukraine to show “international support for the Ukrainian people.” The strength of his battalion, and who is bankrolling it, is not known.

Munayev died fighting in Ukraine on 2/1/15. Revenge for his death is one motive for the assassination of Nemtsov. Not an intuitively obvious target since he was aligned with Kiev. They want Putin. But Nemtsov held the potential to be an even better than a direct hit on Putin. A detour is needed to explain that.

With the Muslim Kadyrov as President of Chechnya, he, and not Russia and Putin, handle the internal conflicts (and alliances) with the remaining Muslim rebel separatists and apparently with little regard for human rights. Yet,

…
Meanwhile, evidence continues to mount of the presence on the side of the pro-Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine of hundreds of fighters sent by Chechen Republic head Ramzan Kadyrov. Those fighters are apparently primarily volunteers from among the various police and security forces subordinate to Kadyrov, who has consistently denied that there are any “Chechen battalions” in Ukraine, even after the “Financial Times” quoted a fighter named Zelimkhan who said he and his comrades in arms had been sent to Ukraine in mid-May on Kadyrov’s orders.
…

An enemy of my enemy is my friend sort of situation. (We USians have some experience with that, but the shifting alliances in many conflicts confounds us. One reason we should stay away from them.) A recent confounding variable in the three-part (Chechnya, Ukraine, Russia) internal-external nexis takes us to France. The Charlie Hebdo cartoons and the Islamic terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo personnel on January 7, 2015. “Je suis Charlie Hebdo” didn’t take hold everywhere.

In January 2015, Kadyrov said he would organize protests if a Russian newspaper published the Charlie Hebdo cartoons, saying “we will not allow anyone to insult the prophet, even if it will cost us our lives.”

Nemtsov got on the “Je suis Charlie Hebdo” side. That made this darling of the west, Kiev supporter, and Putin opponent the perfect, expendable martyr for Muslim Chechen purposes. DC, London, Kiev, etc. fell for it faster than a New York minute. Confirmation that Putin is a monster. Now, surely monies and arms would quickly begin to flow to rebel Chechen fighters in Ukraine. An alliance that wants to take out Putin and take down Russia. Because funding the Afghan Mujahideen and the imported Saudi fighters worked out so well for the US.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”

And the same damn architect of that the Afghanistan debacle continues playing his fiddle:

Brzezinski also said that Western governments should provide “defensive” weapons to Ukraine …

Update #2 Rounding up the usual suspects?

From RT 5 suspects arrested over Nemtsov murder, 1 ‘confessed’ – court RT lists the names of those charged but little else.
Al Jezeera released more

State news agencies Tass and RIA Novosti said they were detained in Ingushetia, a republic bordering Chechnya, citing Ingush Security Council chief Albert Barakhoev.

Zaur Dadayev, served in a battalion of Interior Ministry troops in Chechnya, Barakhoev was quoted as saying.

He said Anzor Gubashev, had worked in a private security company in Moscow, according to the reports.

According to the WSJ, Chechen officials aren’t talking other than Kadyrov who has denied any involvement in the murder. The sparse information released according to a senior security official in Ingushetia. So, was the assassination plot hatched in Chechnya, Ingushetia, or a joint effort?
Plenty of animosity and armed conflicts between Ingushetia rebels and Moscow. A cursory impression is that Nemtsov as a target of these rebels seems a stretch as they and Nemtsov were on the same side in support of Kiev and opposed to Putin, but anything to make Putin appear bad can’t be rejected. Note:

10 December 2013 Ingush opposition leader Magomed Khazbiev, who was a close friend of assassinated Magomed Yevloyev, attends Euromaidan in Ukraine and participates in anti-Russian campaign there after which his parents were threatened and harassed in Russia. On his website he writes: “the fact that Putin’s slaves harass my parents do not make any sense, if you [Russians] want me to stop you have to kill me like Magomed Yevloyev and Makhsharip Aushev”

Not noted in the first update is that there was personal animosity between Kadyrov and Nemtsov.

Radio Free Europe – Radio Liberty (no less !! )

But the possibility of a Chechen connection should not be dismissed out of hand, given Nemtsov’s repeated criticism of Chechen Republic head Ramzan Kadyrov, and the fact that since 2011, security personnel loyal to Kadyrov have reportedly engaged with total impunity in abductions and killings in Moscow. …

Radio Free Europe is not exactly a reputable source, but this information is probably correct. Particularly since the report went on to speculate that Kadyrov could have ordered the murder as a favor to Putin. Doubt Mr. Putin would consider this a favor.

The NYTimes reports that the suspects are Chechen. Will wait for further confirmation* as it’s possible that the NYTimes reporters accepted “ethnic north Caucus” suspects to mean that they are, or was in the case of the one that blew himself up before being apprehended, Chechens.

Also note that western leaders and media are backing away from the strident accusations that the murder of Nemtsov was a Putin/Moscow/FSB hit job.

*Several sources now reporting that Zaur Dadayev, who has allegedly confessed to the murder, is Chechen and had recently been dismissed as deputy commander of a unit of the Chechen Republic Ministry of Internal Affairs’s “Sever” battalion per Sputnik News

But that George understood that leaders had to lead.

In the early years of the American Revolution, George Washington faced an invisible killer that he had once battled as a teenager. While the earlier fight had threatened only his life, at stake in this confrontation were thousands, including military and civilian alike, the continued viability of Washington’s army, and the success of the war for independence from Britain.

He also understood that a husband should not neglect a wife.

After Washington left Mount Vernon in 1775, he would not return again for over six years. Every year, during the long winter months when the fighting was at a standstill, the General asked Martha to join him at his winter encampment.

Nor would a good husband ask his dearly beloved to risk her life to the invisible killer.

Smallpox

…the most successful way of combating smallpox before the discovery of vaccination [1798] was inoculation. The word is derived from the Latin inoculare, meaning “to graft.” Inoculation referred to the subcutaneous instillation of smallpox virus into nonimmune individuals. The inoculator usually used a lancet wet with fresh matter taken from a ripe pustule of some person who suffered from smallpox. The material was then subcutaneously introduced on the arms or legs of the nonimmune person. The terms inoculation and variolation were often used interchangeably. The practice of inoculation seems to have arisen independently when people in several countries were faced with the threat of an epidemic.  

Primitive in the understanding of the science and in its medical application.  Not without treatment side effects either.  A period of illness and convalescence.  Approximately one in a thousand died from the inoculation.  By modern standards that’s a high percentage, but we don’t face the risk of easily communicable diseases with a 30-35% fatality rate.    

Before she could make the first trip, however, Martha had to undergo her own ordeal. …She had to be inoculated for smallpox. …Martha could then travel to the soldiers’ camp without fear of contracting the disease or transmitting it to others.

If it was good enough for General Washington’s wife:

…Washington eventually instituted a system where new recruits would be inoculated with smallpox immediately upon enlistment. As a result soldiers would contract the milder form of the disease at the same time that they were being outfitted with uniforms and weapons. Soldiers would consequently be completely healed, inoculated, and supplied by the time they left to join the army.

There would have been no place for today’s teabagger “freedom” warriors and hippie-dippy, all-natural fetishists in the Continental Army.  Those types were probably as obnoxious and dangerous to the well-being of others then as they are today.

Wikipedia

The last naturally occurring case of smallpox (Variola minor) [in the world] was diagnosed on 26 October 1977.
…
The global eradication of smallpox was certified, based on intense verification activities in countries, by a commission of eminent scientists on 9 December 1979 and subsequently endorsed by the World Health Assembly on 8 May 1980.

CDC.

Routine smallpox vaccination among the American public stopped in 1972 after the disease was eradicated in the United States. Until recently, the U.S. government provided the vaccine only to a few hundred scientists and medical professionals working with smallpox and similar viruses in a research setting.

Thanks to all the scientists, pioneers, and leaders.  Real leaders and not the large number of poseurs that now prance around the US national stage.

And thanks to Justices John Marshall Harlan, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Melville Fuller, Henry Brown, and Joseph McKenna (a pox on Rufus Peckham and David Brewer) for the 1905 decision in Jacobson v. Massachusetts.

The Revised Laws of that commonwealth, chap. 75, 137, provide that ‘the board of health of a city or town, if, in its opinion, it is necessary for the public health or safety, shall require and enforce the vaccination and revaccination of all the inhabitants thereof, and shall provide them with the means of free vaccination. Whoever, being over twenty-one years of age and not under guardianship, refuses or neglects to comply with such requirement shall forfeit $5.’

An exception is made in favor of ‘children who present a certificate, signed by a registered physician, that they are unfit subjects for vaccination.’

…

…But the liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States to every person within its jurisdiction does not import an absolute right in each person to be, at all times and in all circumstances, wholly freed from restraint. There are manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the common good. On any other basis organized society could not exist with safety to its members. …

Did public officials and most Americans accept the need for good publc health policies better 110 years ago than they do today? I suspect they did.

While news reports of Mr. Epstein engaging in sexual activities with or assaults on underage girls first appeared in 2006 and continued through 2009 when he was released from prison and then briefly resurfaced in 2011 when Epstein was photographed with Prince Andrew and Jane Doe #102 (in an earlier lawsuit and #3 in a current and open lawsuit) publicly revealed that she had had encounters with Prince Andrew, this scandal seems not to have become high-profile until a few weeks ago.  Or not on the radar of many like me until now.  Curious considering that the story had sex, big money, and big names in politics, business, and society.  (The only thing missing was drugs.)

The Guardian report by Paul Lewis and John Swain Jeffrey Epstein: inside the decade of scandal entangling Prince Andrew is by far the best in reviewing the “who, what, why, when and how” of this story.  If there’s a material factual error in it, I couldn’t find it.  (Although IMHO, the title was an unfortunate mistake.  Prince Andrew may be relevant to the story, but seems to be at best a minor character in it.)  What I particularly like about this report is that the writers included suggestions, hints, and questions that others have dismissed, downplayed, or not seen at all.  
If the scandal still interests you (and even if you think you know the facts ), Lewis and Swain’s article is well worth reading in its entirety.  To entice you, here’s the opening:

The desperate woman who telephoned Detective Michele Pagan of the Palm Beach police declined to give her name and would not leave a call-back number. But she had some information that she had to tell someone.
Her stepdaughter, a 14-year-old pupil at Royal Palm Beach high school, had told a friend that she’d had sex with a middle-aged man who gave her money.
The man was said to have a long face and bushy eyebrows and he lived in a big house at the end of a dead-end street. His name was Jeff. A teacher found $300 in the 14-year-old’s purse.
That call to police – made 10 years ago this March – soon led Florida detectives to 358 El Brillo Way, a mansion owned by Jeffrey Epstein, one of America’s wealthiest hedge fund tycoons. …
…

SG told detectives that Epstein had made her remove her clothes and give him a massage while he masturbated, according to a police report.

Those details conform with the Palm Beach Police Department Probable Cause Affidavit that covers their evidence collection from March 15, 2005 through February 2006.  The affidavit was filed to secure a search warrant of Epstein’s Palm Beach  house which was issued in May 2006. (The redactions make it somewhat difficult reading.)

Lewis and Swain then add:

Within weeks the FBI was listening to Epstein’s calls, rifling through his trash and searching for other potential victims. They eventually identified around 40.

There is no mention in the police affidavit of FBI participation in the investigation, but that may be nothing more than SOP.    Except there is something at least curious about the police investigation.  The  investigators seemed to hit the ground running from March 15th until April 5th.  Then nothing other than continuing with trash pulls until October when they began interviewing young women that had been identified as having some involvement.  While not specifically stated as such, it looks as it was an unrelated marijuana arrest in September 2005 of a young woman that put the case back on the front burner.  This young woman was aware of the existence of an investigation in Epstein’s activities and claimed to be a victim and was willing to talk.

Regardless of the veracity of that young woman’s statement, what seems key to me is that a circle of potential victims and the culprits were onto the investigation well in advance of being asked to make statements.  The stories many of them told later have a sameness that make them almost boring to read.  Doesn’t mean they aren’t true, but does suggest some questions.  Did they edit their stories down to close to whatever the 14 year old SG could have or been known to have reported?   Did any of them have any assistance before making statements to the police?  An investigator hired by Epstein or one or more of his associates (will refer to as EpCo) had contacted at least one of these girls.  Two of the young women were provided with cars by EpCo subsequent to the initiation of the police investigation.  Was that a payoff for keeping their mouths shut?

Unvarying key elements in the girls’ stories are:

1. They were solicited to give an older man a massage for money (ranging from $200-$300) and would do so partially undressed.
2. They were introduced to the man and his female assistant in the kitchen of his home.
3. The man left the kitchen and separately his female assistant ushered the girl to an upstairs bedroom that was equipped with a massage table.
4. The assistant told the girl to undress and she then left the room.
5. The man entered the bedroom wearing a towel around his waist which at some point he removed when he was on the massage table.
6. If the girl wasn’t sufficiently undressed, the man would ask that she undress further but didn’t push if she balked at taking off a thong and/or bra.
7. As for the sexual activities, the girls were urged to go beyond their comfort zone but they weren’t compelled to go further if they resisted.

Some could rightly object to my speculation that any of the girls’ statements could have been prepared for them on the basis that many of them disclosed more sexual contact with Epstein than what SG reported.  However, once SG had put Epstein in statutory rape territory, whatever other girls could and might say about the specific sexual activities they engaged in was of lesser importance than that they said they hadn’t been coerced and had been paid.  Epstein then denied any knowledge that the girls were underage.  And, presto the FL State Attorney Barry Krischer put on his kid gloves and in 2006 the grand jury returned a single charge of felony solicitation of prostitution from an underage girl.  (The Palm Beach police chief was, to say the least, not pleased.)  Epstein pleaded not guilty.

Lewis and Swain include information the US attorney Ann Marie Villafaña provided to Epstein’s attorneys in a 2007 letter and evidence that was collected when Epstein’s house was raided in 2006.  The number of claimed victims mushroomed and more reported sexual intercourse, and the photos and sexual paraphernalia seized in the raid were extensive.  To all objective appearances there had been no witness nor evidence tampering.  What happened next is curious.  

Using her personal Gmail account, for example, Villafaña proposed to one of Epstein’s lawyers that they could file associated legal papers in a different jurisdiction, a move she said “will hopefully cut the press coverage significantly.”

In 2015 The Daily Mail reported

According to official documents, Epstein’s attorney Jay Lefkowitz – a former deputy director of domestic policy at the White House under George W Bush – sent a one-line email to the US Attorney’s Office on September 24, 2007: `Please do whatever you can to keep this from becoming public’.

On November 29, 2007, Lefkowitz called for more secrecy in a letter to the Florida state attorney: `We don’t understand the basis for your Office’s belief that it is appropriate for any letter to be sent to these individuals at this stage – before Mr Epstein has either entered a plea or been sentenced.’

After wrangling for a year, the US attorney and Epstein signed a secret  NPA (non-prosecution agreement).  Several months later, Epstein agreed to plead guilty to the FL solicitation of prosecution charge.  He received an eighteen month sentence and served thirteen months (released during the day to conduct his business operations and reportedly was allowed also to take a few out of state trips).

(A note about The Daily Mail reporting on this scandal –  check out its September 2007 report.  After two years of investigation, claim and counterclaim, Epstein is about to plead guilty to a charge of soliciting underage girls for sex and is likely to spend 15 months behind bars.  That was when the feds were putting the final touches on the secret NPA, but Epstein didn’t plead guilty to the FL charge against him until June 30, 2008!  Appears to me that DM has had a well connected inside source on this story.)

Making a story that the general public could understand, and a large portion of whom would be outraged that prosecutors at the state and federal levels didn’t throw the book at Epstein, quietly disappear is a neat trick.  But why would so many in high places want this one to go away?  

Does Epstein’s reported wealth and reported connections explain the actions of the prosecutors?  The slowdown in the Palm Beach Police investigation from April to October?  What about Epstein’s apparent willingness from early in the investigation to practically hand over evidence of having a fetish for under age girls and having engaged in sexual activities with them?  Is “Epstein the perv with friends in high places and the best defense attorneys money can buy” the whole story?  Perhaps.

I’m not buying it.  Too much about this man doesn’t add up.  Vicky Ward in her fine 2003 Vanity Fair piece The Talented Mr. Epstein couldn’t crack open the mystery of how he got so rich, so fast.    Although she indicated some skepticism that he was really that rich.  His business model – flat multi-million dollar ($25 to $100 million) annual fees to manage all assets of only undisclosed billionaire clients – makes no sense to any finance professional.  He’s not a hedge fund manager – he does no stock portfolio trading.  Employs no stock analysts nor traders.  If he were engaged in a Madoff style Ponzi scheme, it would have crashed when he was busted for sexual assaults.    

In the high finance arena, his deals with Steven Hoffenberg in the latter half of the 1980s were relatively small (and sleazy).  He claims to have purchased the Palm Beach house in 1989 (public records list the sales date as 9/1/90 for $2.5 million, but any mortgage on it is unreported.)  His two known main squeezes have been Les Wexner and Ghislaine Maxwell.  (Publicly Wexner has parted ways with Epstein since his arrest.)  He claims to have purchased Wexner’s impressive NYC townhouse sometime from the mid to late 1990s and the terms, etc. seems to be as hidden and secret as his billionaire client list.

What someone like Epstein needs to maintain his standard of living with the multiple residences, vehicles, airplanes, and a helicopter is substantial annual positive cash flow.  His net worth could for all practical purposes be close to zero as long as the cash keeps rolling in.  Not in $100 million dollar chunks but not chump change either.  If his business income earnings are derived from management fees as he says they are, he may not spend (or need) much that isn’t deductible for income tax purposes.   (That’s a tax return I’d like to have a peek at.

A more authoritative word on this aspect:

…media outlets on both sides of the pond have described him as a “billionaire”. Because we here at Forbes are in the billionaire business, I feel compelled to point out, as I did last summer, that Epstein may deserve all manner of colorful descriptors (“sex offender”, “scum bag”, etc) but “billionaire” isn’t one of them. Here, from my last report on the matter, is why he’s never made the Forbes 400:  

The source of his wealth — a money management firm in the U.S. Virgin Islands — generates no public records, nor has his client list ever been released. …

…”It was a bone of contention with Esptein’s lawyers,” said Spencer Kuvin, an attorney who represented three of Epstein’s alleged victims on the case, of the “billionaire” designation. “In the litigation itself we were never able to get him to produce verified financial information. …

So, have we yet only seen the proverbial tip of the iceberg?

Senator Barbara Boxer announcement that she will not be a candidate for reelection in 2016 wasn’t more or less expected.  She was first elected to the Senate in 1992, replacing the then retiring Senator Alan Cranston, first elected in 1968.  Thus, for forty-eight years, a real Democrat has held this CA Senate seat.  The other Senate seat hasn’t been less stable and held by several Republicans and the conservative Democrat Feinstein.  As California has trended more Democratic in the past thirty odd years, there is no reason why Boxer’s successor should be one iota more conservative than she is.

(Disclosure: I’ve voted for Boxer in almost all her races, including her first and the only one that she lost.)
Lots of names are being floated to succeed Boxer:

Rep. Xavier Becerra
Treasurer John Chiang
Rep. John Garamendi
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti (publicly announced that he’s not running)
Former Rep. Jane Harman
Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones
Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom
Secretary of State Alex Padilla
Rep. Raul Ruíz
Rep. Loretta Sanchez
Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg (reportedly pressed the “unlike button.”)
Rep. Jackie Speier
Billionaire Tom Steyer
Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa
Former Controller Steve Westly
A long, mostly male, list of higher profile CA Democrats and doesn’t include the highest profile female Democratic politician, Kamala Harris.  However, on the propensity of California voters to choose well and long for this Senate seat, how do these potential candidates stack up?

On the issues and gender, there is but one that lines up almost perfectly with Boxer.  That’s Congressional Representative Jackie Spier.  Her tenure in elective office began in 1980 when she won a seat on the San Mateo Board of Supervisors.  From there to the CA Assembly and then the CA Senate.  It was only in 2008 that she won a Congressional race for the seat once held by Leo Ryan.   (Jackie was on Ryan’s delegation to the People’s Temple and was shot four times at the Kaituma airstrip.)   Spier would make a fine Senator, but unfortunately, her statewide name recognition isn’t high and she’s not the strongest of campaigners outside her home district.  And in 2016 she’ll be 66 years old.

An equally good fit and deserving of a promotion is Xavier Becerra.  A SoCal Latino could be a welcome change.  At age 58 he could be expected to serve at least two and up to four terms.  He would be my first choice, but he would have to give up his House seat and is likely to be squeezed out by those with more money and higher name recognition.  

John Garmendi (71) and Jane Harmon (71) (yuck) are too old to be practical.  Former LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will be slightly younger at 63, but other than decent campaign chops, he doesn’t have a strong record to run on.  

At the other end of the age range are three talented politicians that have time to wait and build a bigger base and longer record: Garcetti, Padilla, and Ruiz.  That leaves:

Treasurer John Chiang
Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones
Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom
Rep. Loretta Sanchez
Billionaire Tom Steyer
Former Controller Steve Westly

None of these potential candidates are without positive attributes, and none are particularly appealing for this tume in history.  At the risk of being somewhat selfish, John Chiang was an excellent controller and was only elected Treasurer last year.  As long as he’s competent in this position, he could expect to remain in that office until 2022.  Running for a higher profile office so soon after his election is also probably risky.

As a member of the “Blue Dog Coalition,” Sanchez falls too far short of a liberal standard for this Senate seat.  (Maybe she can wait for Feinstein to retire in 2018.)  As for Steyer and Westly, California  voters tend to reject wealthy candidates for high office that have no or limited experience in elective office.  (Is Carly Firorina itching to have another go at this Senate seat, or does she hitch a ride in the GOP POTUS clown car?)

Jones and Newsom ran equally strong in their 2014 statewide reelection contests – 57% of the vote.  However, wouldn’t read too much into that as the CA 2014 statewide general election races were essentially a Democrat, mostly incumbents, against an unimpressive Republican.  Jerry Brown at the top of the ticket received 60% of the vote.  Newsom isn’t quite the empty suit his detractors portray him as, but he hasn’t made his political fortunes on his own.  He is a product of the SF Democratic machine.   Politically, I’d say that he straddles the line between Pelosi and Feinstein, but was also an early supporter of same sex marriage and marijuana legalization.

Steyer, Jones, and Newsom all strike me as retrograde choices.  Therefore, at this time, I’m indifferent to this line-up.