Lol….who cares what disgraced, sanctioned, up for disbarment, Epstein friend and child fucker (Giuffre) Dershowitz says?
He’s proven himself a complete fraud willing to make any claim or accusations in the last 4 years…that or he has complete full blown dementia. He’s a loser…one in the parade of losers…not worth 30 seconds, forget 30 minutes. Get real.

Whatever he said, I’ll bet $ to $ he’s misdirecting at best, more likely totally lying. The case isn’t about Trump’s right to free speech any more than arresting a mobster that set up a hit would be…he only spoke, others did the crimes. Derp…doesn’t work that way sucker.

P.S.-
101 Republican Township Supervisor Robert Holland pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a 92-year-old nursing home resident in 2006. He was given a two-to-four-year sentence.

102 Antigay pastor Leonard Ray Owens told a woman who had miscarriage she was possessed by a sex spirit and lesbian demon so he raped her.
103 GOP State Rep & House Minority Leader Galen Fox convicted of molesting a woman who was a flight with him from Honolulu to Los Angeles

104 Albert Andre Zimmerman, a GOP-appointed spokesperson for the State of Florida Department of Children and Families, producing child porn. See also The Wrong Voice

105 The Republican Mayor of Collins Missouri, and Pastor of the Temple Lot Church in Collins, Allen D. Kauffman caught in internet sting by an adult pretending to be 13

106 Dana Rorabacher's aide Jeffrey Nielson, sex with underage boys

107 SD State GOP Rep Ted Klaudt: rape, sexual exploitation of a minor, witness tampering, stalking. Five victims, three foster children who lived with Klaudt.

108 Elyria Ohio city councilman, Republican Joseph Monteleone Jr. was found guilty of fondling underage girls

109 GOP County Commissioner Patrick Lee McGuire child molestation

110 Republican Mayor Jeffrey Kyle Randall was sentenced nine months in jail and six years on probation on charges that he molested two boys

111 Republican Judge Donald Thompson from Oklahoma, was found guilty on four counts of indecent exposure after using a penis pump while presiding over court cases.

112 Ohio GOP Caucus lawyer Stephen Linne - "Naked Photographer" a moniker suggesting his snapping pics of women in the nude was harmless. It was not

113 OP Sheriff candidate Eddie Frankum indicted for sexual harassment and illegally detaining women while police chief.

114 GOP campaign volunteer and national convention delegate Ted Bundy - kidnapping, rape, murder

115 Gun activist Cody Wilson - child sexual assault

116 Christian Television Network entertainer Ronald William Brown convicted for child porn, the rest is just too disturbing to go into

117 GOP state Senate aide Alan Berlin - internet child sex. I don't care about him being a furry. I know a few furries who are lovely people, including one of my nephews. They are not pedophiles and the headline is offensive.

118 Trump White House aide Rob Porter - domestic violence

119 Roger Ailes, Republican propagandist, sexual harassment

120 Jason Miller, Trump campaign staffer and Trump advocate on CNN - poisoned ex with abortion pill It's not the sex, it's not the desire for abortion, it's the doing it against her will

121 GOP megadonor Steve Wynn - sexual harassment

122 Former Republican Michael Cohen used threats and money to silence women and reporters who could expose sexual predator

123 GOP Sen Patrick Meehan - sexual harassment

124 GOP Congressman Blake Farenthold - sexual harassment

125 Former Republican WY Sec of State Ed Murray - sexual assault

This video somewhat glosses over how Dr. Strangelove-level nuts Holland was. His little stunt in Yakima was the least of his batshittery. He almost augured a '52 into his daughter's softball game when he stalled the fucking thing pulling a maneuver similar to the one that caused the Spokane crash. Yes, the crazy bastard used a B-52 to show off -- over a goddamn kid's softball game.

Also not mentioned is how close he came to turning a large part of Spokane into a radioactive wasteland when he missed plowing into a nuclear weapons storage depot by about the length of one of Roger Waters' better spits.

If there's one lesson I hope all members of the USAF take from this incident, it's that B-52s are not toys.

San Marino? Iceland? Finland? New Zealand? Switzerland? Holland? Denmark? Canada? Possibly Sweden? Id give them a shot.

Funny to imagine that. Montenegro pulling the strings for once instead of being pushed away from the camera by Trump. Half the world scurrying to maps in vain, trying to find it, the other half not knowing what the fuss is about as usual. You will buy our goat milk or we will impose tariffs on your fancy gangster guns, automobiles and helicopters!

As superpowers go, the US is not too bad. Its a fairly hands-off type superpower if you compare it to say the Roman Empire or Napoleonic France. Taking a long time to even annex Puerto Rico properly.

Wondering really how China will fare. Give it 25 years. And they sure wont ask as nicely as you just did.

The Cranberries - Dreaming My Dreams (Live on Jools Holland) has been added as a related post - related requested by newtboy on that post.

Wha... What is the budget for this?
From Wikipedia:
Starring

Robert Downey Jr.
Josh Brolin
Mark Ruffalo
Tom Hiddleston
Chris Evans
Chris Hemsworth
Jeremy Renner
Chris Pratt
Elizabeth Olsen
Sebastian Stan
Benedict Cumberbatch
Paul Bettany
Cobie Smulders
Benedict Wong
Zoe Saldana
Karen Gillan
Vin Diesel
Dave Bautista
Bradley Cooper
Pom Klementieff
Scarlett Johansson
Benicio del Toro
Tom Holland
Anthony Mackie
Chadwick Boseman
Danai Gurira
Paul Rudd
Don Cheadle
Letitia Wright

As depressing as it is, Trump might very well be the preferable outcome for people in the Maghreb. Clinton has been a major driver behind the clusterfuck that used to be Syria and Libya.

Also, if you browse through the economics commentaries outside the mainstream, you'll notice that the US-based crowd seems to be borrowing yet another word from German: Lumpenproletariat. Old Marx is back with a vengeance.

And if people like Clinton, Cameron, Hollande, Rajoy and Merkel piss on the Lumpenproletariat, you get your Farages, your le Pens, your Trumps, your Petrys. Treat the plebs like rats, and many will follow whatever rat-catcher comes along...

When I went to bed, the word was that Hollande is about to end the state of emergency in France. About time.

When I got up, the first item in the news: 80 dead in Nice, state of emergency extended...

Obama, Merkel, Hollande, Renzi and Cameron are going to be in town on Monday. I suppose parts of the city will be locked down tighter than a duck's ass...

As if that wasn't enough, public transit workers are on strike next week, so it'll be quite a mess. On the upside, the resulting traffic jam ought to make it safer for cyclists like myself...

Historically Islam didn't really engage in forced conversions, partly because under both the Caliphate and the Ottoman empire the tax break given to Muslims would've been problematic if given to the entire population (this tax break is the flip side of the "extort money" that you refer to).

Also speaking historically, Jews were much safer in Muslim lands than Christian since Christians tended to massacre them on a fairly regular basis until 1945 and despite what you've heard most Muslims are fairly tolerant. The same applies to minority Christian sects, the Nestorians for instance had to flee to Persia in 489 AD, and I seem to recall another minority group who fled England to Holland and then to the Americas (perhaps you've heard of them?).

I used to think that Buddhists and Hindus were more tolerant than the Abrahamic religions, but unfortunately I've since learned that I only thought so due to ignorance.

It's all up to Francois Hollande now. Matteo Renzi is reasonably angry at how Germany is handling this shit, and France + Italy might just be enough to rein in the hardliners in Germany/Finland. If Hollande doesn't go into open opposition against Schäuble et al tonight, Grexit becomes inevitable.

Luckily though, my neighbours found some fitting stone plates at an abandoned(?) house to finally finish a spot in their backyard. I'll be over there the rest of the afternoon, pounding those plates into place with a rubber mallet.

Edit: Also, fuck the social democrats for turning on the people again.

Let's ignore for the moment what led to this current mess within the Eurozone. You point out, correctly, that Greece is too poor to service its debt. And yes, for the German government to do whatever is required to get back their loans is to be expected. However, Greece was incapable of servicing its debt five years ago. Yet the subsequent programs, all supported or even demanded by the German government, reduced Greece's ability to pay back at least portions of its debt. At the end of the day, goods and services are what it's all about. And by dismantling the Greek economy, nevermind the Greek society, they actively undermined what they publicly claimed to be working for: a self-reliant Greek economy, capable of financing the needs of Greece. And capable of paying back what is owed.

The question inescapably poses itself: was it done intentionally or are they blinded by ideology?

One doesn't have to be as far left as I am to see that it didn't work, doesn't work, and never could have worked. Even the likes of Krugman and Stiglitz are perfectly clear about it.

Varoufakis, as you note, has been just as clear about this at least since late 2010, when he published the first draft of his Modest Proposal with Stuart Holland. There was a very good discussion about it in Austin in 10/2013 under the topic "Can the Eurozone be saved?" Participants included Varoufakis, Tsipras, Flassbeck, Holland and Galbraith, amongst others. I submitted a short clip back then.

His argument that Germany won't see a dime when Greece is shoved off a cliff, as correct as it is, never had any bite to begin with. The German government, and large parts of parliament, are operating in a parallel universe, economically. Over here, mercantilism is the road to success. Monetarism works. Surplus good, deficit bad. Saving good, spending bad. Everyone should have a current account surplus.

It's horseshit by the gallons, and it's the official economic policy of the largest economy in the EU.

And we're not even getting into the political aspects of it. Throwing a member of the EU into debt bondage, suspending its democracy to please the gods of the market... that's a travesty and a half. Yet it's also inevitable if they insist on going down the road of neoliberalism.

Worst of all, Greece is just the canary in the coal mine, as Varoufakis likes to point out. Greece had plenty of issues before they joined the EZ, but when they chose to adapt the same currency as a much larger economy hell bent on competitiveness, which is the favorite euphemism for Germany's beggar-thy-neighbour policies, they were doomed to be crushed. The rest of the PIIGS are next in line, unless this whole mess explodes beforehand. Maybe Rajoy's Franco-esque repression techniques fail, maybe le Pen wins in 2017, who knows. Maybe Schäuble finds the 100k of bribes that he conveniently forgot about back in the '90s and chokes on them.

Last but not least, 208 billion Euros – that's the projected current account surplus of Germany this year. That's 208 billion Euros of debt foreign economies have to accumulate, so that the German public and private sector can run a combined surplus of €208b. That's the elephant in the room. Systematic undercutting of the inflation target through suppression of unit labour costs and a dysfunctional focus on exports.

Well, Syriza is an acronym for Coalition of the Radical Left (roughly), and everything left of the Berlin Consensus is considered to be radical left. So they are going to call Syriza a radical leftist party until the political landscape itelf has been pulled back towards more leftist positions. But you're right, if they were judged by their positions, they'd be centre-left in theory, if centre-left hadn't turned into corporatism by taking up the Third Way of Schröder/Blair/Clinton.

They are, without a doubt, radically democratic though. As your Grauniad article points out, they haven't turned on their election promises yet, which is quite unheard of for a major European party. Francois Hollande in particular was a major letdown in this regard. Few people expected him to bow down to German demands so quickly. Aside from his 75% special tax for the rich, he dropped just about every single part of his program that could be considered socialism.

Grexit... that's a tough one.

Syriza cannot enforce any troika demands that relate to the programmes of the Chicago School of Economics. Friedman ain't welcome anymore. No cuts to wages or pensions, to privatisation of infrastructure, no cuts to the healthcare system, nor any other form of financial oppression of the lower class. That is non-negotiable. In fact, even increases in welfare programs and the healthcare system are pretty much non-negotiable. Even if Syriza wanted to put any of this on the table, and they sure as hell don't, they couldn't make it part of any deal without further damages to an already devasted democratic system in Greece.

So with that in mind, what's the point of all the negotiations?

Varoufakis' suggestions are very reasonable. The growth-linked bonds, for instance, are used very successfully all over the world in debt negotiations, as just about any bankrupty expert would testify. Like Krugman wrote today, Syriza is merely asking to "recognize the reality everyone supposedly already understands". His caveat about the German electorate is on point as well, we haven't had it explained to us yet – and we chose to ignore what little was explained to us.

Yet the troika insists on something Syriza cannot and will not provide, as just outlined above. Some of the officials still expect Syriza to acknowledge reality, to come to their senses and to accept a deal provided to them. Good luck with that, but don't hold your breath. Similarly, Varoufakis is aware that Berlin is almost guaranteed to play hardball all the way.

Of course, nothing is certain and they might strike a deal during their meeting in Wednesday that offers Greece a way out of misery. Or maybe the ECB decides that to stabilize to Euro, as is their sole purpose, they need to keep Greece within the EZ and away from default. That would allow them to back Greece, to provide them with financial support, at least until they present their program in June/July. Everything is possible. However, I see very little evidence in support of it.

Therefore Grexit might actually be just a question of who to blame it on. Syriza is not going to exit the EZ willy nilly, they need clear pressure from outside, so the record will unequivocally show that it wasn't them who made the call. No country can be thrown out, they have to leave of their own. Additionally, Merkel will not be the person to initiate the unravelling of the EU, as might be the consequence of a Grexit. That's leverage for Greece, the only leverage they have. But it has to be played right or else the blame will be put squarely on Greece, even more so than it already is.

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Edit #1: What cannot be overstated is the ability of the EZ to muddle through one crises after another, always on the brink of collapse, yet never actually collapsing. They are determined to hold this thing together, whatever the cost.
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Speaking of blame, Yves Smith linked a fantastic article the other day: Syriza and the French Indemnity of 1871-73.

The author makes a convincing case why the suppression of wages in Germany led to disaster in Spain, why it was not a choice on the part of Spain to engage in irresponsible borrowing and how it is a conflict between workers and the financial elite rather than nations. He also offers historical precedent, with Germany being the recipient of a massive cash influx, ending in a catastrophe similar to Spain's nowadays.

It strikes me as a very objective dissection of what happend, what's going on, and what needs to happen to get things back in shape. Then again, it agrees with many points I made on that BBC videos last week, so it's right within my bubble.

The first thing I thought after watching this was, where can I listen to music that hasn't been altered?

I think Later with Jools Holland is a good start. Just been watching Paloma Faith - great stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA7JxUgqRUk


With the expectations set now for mainstream pop stars to sound perfect during live performances, is there a chance of going back? In reality, do everyday pop star fans want to hear Madonna and Britney's imperfections?

The scientific community *knows* that climate change is real. The scientific community is made up of individual researchers at universities all over the world, anyone who practices good science and adheres to the scientific method is in no doubt about what the research points to. You can't buy the global scientific community, there are too many of "us" (i guess) that are all absolutely anal about good scientific practice. You could buy one or two, you could buy a small group, but the only thing that changes the opinion of the global scientific community is hard scientific reasoning.

I can't speak for where you live, but if you were to walk into my university's physics department tomorrow and ask any lecturer or professor about climate change, they'd tell you that, and the same goes for just about any university in the UK, holland and france i imagine, if not more like germany and so on. Anyone who has spent any amount of time comparing graphs and looking for statistical anomalies will tell you that there is a god damn big and unwieldy peak sticking up on the temperature/time graph right about where we started mass producing greenhouse gases, and the only new influence into the equation was us, because the old peaks are flat compared to this one. This is happening on a HUMAN timescale, not on a geological one.

We're seeing ocean floor methane bubbling up to the surface that we haven't seen before due to the heating of the ocean, and only this week the scientist who studied it tweeted flat out that if even a fraction of that methane is released into the atmosphere... "we're fucked."

It's pretty damn serious, but i'm not telling you that you need to pay huge taxes or fees to green companies or anything, and no scientist ever will. The agendas that politicians take up in the name of science should not stop you from accepting the science, and there are simple, good common sense things you can do to make a small difference that would cumulate to something big if we all did them. The only reason governments haven't been investing more into green energy is because they are relentlessly lobbied by the hugely wealthy and powerful and corrupt energy firms.

What is more likely?