trump (convicted felon, defamer, insurrectionist, contemnor, and rapist - $537M)

[SuzieC]

That is a beautiful and gracious statement from Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter. I would have expected nohing less.

[noblepa]

That's what he did expect.

Has that ever worked when the US tried it? Has any country, faced with the US threatening (or actually) to not recognize their newly elected leader, backed down and said "Oh, well, if the US doesn't like it, we'll just have to elect someone else"?

I'm not saying that it is a bad policy, but, even when a country with the size and both military and economic clout of the US can't convince a banana republic to overturn their elections, how can anyone expect the tactic to work on us?

Iran, 1953. That worked out great, long term.

Plus, we totally did it, time and again, all over Central America. The term "Banana Republic" comes from the fact that United Fruit Corporation (Chiquita Banana people) determined who the new General-President-Dictator was going to be, not the people of Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua or Belize.

Not quite what I was talking about. In Iran, we fomented an armed coup that forcibly removed the elected president and reinstated the Shah.

I was referring to the times that countries have elected a despot and the US loudly proclaimed that he was unfit. I don't think that that kind of PR campaign ever resulted in any nation voluntarily booting their newly elected president. I think Trump expected world leaders to reject Biden and that, subsequently, someone in the US, maybe congress, maybe the courts, maybe the military, would frogmarch Biden out of the WH, and usher TFG back in.

And, in the case of the United Fruit company, they were not (officially) acting on behalf of the US government. They pulled all the strings to see that their choice was the one who was elected, or at least the one who the elections officials ANNOUNCED as the winner.

[Gregg]

Dude, before I built cars I worked for Chiquita and when the feds started asking about what we called ''security'' and the UN called ''death squads'' I had to go answer questions for them.

United Fruit owned Central America, from the Spanish American was up the Sandinista's. And the State Department, the Navy and the CIA did whatever was needed to keep it that way.

[Kendra]

[poplove]

I came across this on the twitter. It's verrrry interesting.

Timeline you might be interested in. MOBBED UP AF - A RETROSPECTIVE

https://www.sutori.com/en/story/timelin ... F51JZi4BVt

[Lani]

I came across this on the twitter. It's verrrry interesting.

Timeline you might be interested in. MOBBED UP AF - A RETROSPECTIVE

https://www.sutori.com/en/story/timelin ... F51JZi4BVt

I read the whole thing. I remembered most of it from when those events were first published. Horrifying then, horrifying now. And still no justice in sight.

[RTH10260]

the doubly impeached and his generals, his fucking generals...

View at least the first 30 seconds, the commenting lady if you wish

[Slim Cognito]

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-b ... na-1658541

Not a very impressive start to the trump/O’Reilly self love fest.

[bill_g]

But, they'll have each other. True love.

[jemcanada2]

The Republicans and Trumpers always seem to project their own crimes in their accusations. The Clintons have been accused of having everyone who has ever looked at them sideways killed. There are a lot deaths, death threats, suspicious fatal accidents, and defenestrations in that timeline.

[RTH10260]

did we already know about this snippet, watch to the 1:09 marker

[p0rtia]

did we already know about this snippet, watch to the 1:09 marker

Yes, we knew. Never gets old, though. Unless you're Merrick Garland.

[RTH10260]

I must be losing track of all the nefarious stuff

[p0rtia]

Forest. Trees.

[RTH10260]

With all the autumn leaves dropping in front of the J6 committee we get to see a clearer

[p0rtia]

Agreed.

Though it makes me wonder why Garland hasn't talked to all these witnesses. Y'know?

[northland10]

1. Garland would not talk to witnesses. A US Attorney would.

2. How do you know if Garland or the DOJ talked to them or not?

When dealing with high level investigations, it is ideal to keep it quiet so the persons of interest don't get wise and start using their resources to interfere (or exciting their base).

[p0rtia]

1. Garland would not talk to witnesses. A US Attorney would.

2. How do you know if Garland or the DOJ talked to them or not?

When dealing with high level investigations, it is ideal to keep it quiet so the persons of interest don't get wise and start using their resources to interfere (or exciting their base).

I understand. I think that if Meadows, Flynn, or Bannon et al. had been approached by anyone besides the House Select Committee, they would have announced it. IOW, I think there would be leaks from the witnesses, if not the investigators.

I think that Garland's silence is having a terrible effect on the country, whether it is caused by an unwillingness to tell the victims (us) that he is investigating, or an unwillingness to tell us that he is not.

Assuming you are implying that you believe that Garland is going after TFG, as he should be doing, I hope you are right. Do you take the silence as confirmation? Do you think that if Garland has no intention to go after TFG for his many, many crimes, he should tell us so? I'd love to hear from someone willing to defend him for being silent if there is no investigation.

Mueller issued his blueprint for indictment quite a while ago. How long does Garland need?

[RTH10260]

first reported further upthread

Civilian Deaths Mounted as Secret Unit Pounded ISIS
An American strike cell alarmed its partners as it raced to defeat the enemy.

By Dave Philipps, Eric Schmitt and Mark Mazzetti
Dec. 12, 2021

A single top secret American strike cell launched tens of thousands of bombs and missiles against the Islamic State in Syria, but in the process of hammering a vicious enemy, the shadowy force sidestepped safeguards and repeatedly killed civilians, according to multiple current and former military and intelligence officials.

The unit was called Talon Anvil, and it worked in three shifts around the clock between 2014 and 2019, pinpointing targets for the United States’ formidable air power to hit: convoys, car bombs, command centers and squads of enemy fighters.

But people who worked with the strike cell say in the rush to destroy enemies, it circumvented rules imposed to protect noncombatants, and alarmed its partners in the military and the C.I.A. by killing people who had no role in the conflict: farmers trying to harvest, children in the street, families fleeing fighting, and villagers sheltering in buildings.

Talon Anvil was small — at times fewer than 20 people operating from anonymous rooms cluttered with flat screens — but it played an outsize role in the 112,000 bombs and missiles launched against the Islamic State, in part because it embraced a loose interpretation of the military’s rules of engagement.

“They were ruthlessly efficient and good at their jobs,” said one former Air Force intelligence officer who worked on hundreds of classified Talon Anvil missions from 2016 to 2018. “But they also made a lot of bad strikes.”

The military billed the air war against the Islamic State as the most precise and humane in military history, and said strict rules and oversight by top leaders kept civilian deaths to a minimum despite a ferocious pace of bombing. In reality, four current and former military officials say, the majority of strikes were ordered not by top leaders but by relatively low-ranking U.S. Army Delta Force commandos in Talon Anvil.




https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/12/us/c ... -isis.html

[Volkonski]

[AndyinPA]

Grift. Grift. Grift.

[pipistrelle]

Some states frown on that kind of misleading advertising.

[RTH10260]

"Void where ..."

[neonzx]

Yep...

You know, with all the Dinner with Trump grifts during the campaigns, we never saw a winners list -- nor any photos of happy winners.

[RTH10260]