Venezuela Imploding and world media talks about ....

Caracas (AFP) - Crisis-hit Venezuela devalued its currency by 64 percent in a dollar auction that aimed to stabilize its foreign exchange market, officials said Wednesday.

Under an overhauled official exchange system, the government let investors bid for the dollars at a new higher rate in what President Nicolas Maduro said was an effort to undermine the black market.

But its great our media spend so much time on an inevitable and catastrophic collapse in Venezuela.

So responsible.

 

Mexico: Unjust and Unfair with Horrid Treatment for All.

This is an excerpt from a longer column in the Washington Post




But in Veracruz, Mexico, you don't rely on the police to punish the guilty and protect the innocent. “The last thing the system of justice provides is justice. I just didn’t trust the authorities,” Fernández said. He worried that the police would humiliate his daughter and then delay her case endlessly. “I knew they would fail us,” he said in an interview.

Instead, Fernández decided to meet with the men — the three alleged perpetrators and the purported driver of the car — and their well-to-do parents. In those sit-downs, which he taped, he demanded apologies. The young men complied.
“I regret what happened,” one said, his words captured on video. “I did great harm.”
“I don’t doubt it happened and we made a mistake,” another said. “We were wrong.”

Fernández hoped the expressions of contrition would help his daughter. Instead, things got worse. Rumors of Daphne's “promiscuity” began to spread on social media. In a note on Facebook, she described those days as a “kick in the stomach.” “If I’ve gone out drinking, if I have worn short skirts, like the great majority of girls my age, that’s why they’re going to judge me?” she asked. “For that reason, I deserved it?”

Out of options, the father and daughter filed a police report against some of the families, among the city's wealthiest. The case languished for months, until Fernández released the men's taped words to the news media, sparking national outrage. Finally, arrest warrants were issued. The first trial began a couple of months ago, after Diego Cruz, 21, was extradited to Mexico from Spain. (In a statement, the four accused deny ever admitting to the rape. They say Daphne got inside the Mercedes voluntarily because “she wanted the party to go on.")

It seemed as if Daphne might finally get something like justice. Instead, her father's prediction came true. A judge found that Cruz had touched the victim’s breasts and penetrated her with his fingers. But, the judge said, that didn't make Cruz guilty of assault, because he'd acted without “carnal intent.” The judge also found that while Daphne was forced into the car, she was never “helpless.” Cruz was deemed innocent.

Daphne's story — its horrible beginning and unjust end — has rippled across Mexico. Perhaps that's because the tale is so familiar. “To many citizens” in Veracruz, “there is little difference between the rich and the government, and between the government and the criminals,” according to the New Yorker piece. The ferocious Zeta drug cartel has a near-monopoly over the state. Eight out of 10 people there say they live in fear. Since 2011, at least 15 journalists have been killed and hundreds of people have vanished. (One human rights advocate, Father Alejandro Solalinde, called the city “a factory of forced disappearances.”)
Unsurprisingly, few trust the justice system and fewer come forward after an attack. In 2014, only 1 in 10 was reported to local authorities, according to Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography. The Mexican government’s National Institute for Women says more than 80 percent of sexual assaults are not reported, and barely 4.5 percent of criminals face sentencing in Mexico. A majority of victims told researchers that they didn't report because they didn't want to “waste their time,” the New Yorker piece said, citing a study.



There are two issues here - 1) the abuse/rape treatment of women and how rampant, and 2) how the trust in government/law/justice system is not just low, it is near non-existent due to corruption.

Insightful: Hillary Should Quit!

The best thing would be for Democrats to ask her to step down now. It would be the most responsible thing to do, if the nation were more important to them than power. And the American news media — fairly or not firmly identified in the public mind as Mrs. Clinton's political action committee — should begin demanding it.


They won't.  She won't.

Power.  It's all about power.



The writer of the above words, John Kass, has written a well-reasoned article.

Trump: The Reckless Excuse for Yesteryear

What is the attraction to Trump's campaign.  What could possibly propel this man into the White House against all odds, all efforts by the media, all polls, and all conventional wisdom ...

for a moment, I imagine it is possible, as the world collapses for Hillary -

- the 'basket of deplorables', all 48% of the American people don't want to give up our borders.
- they do not want to surrender sovereignty to Mexico or Hillary
- they don't want free immigration across our borders
- they don't want a supranational entity directing our future
- they don't want billionaires colluding and determining what is best for 300 million people
- they do not want the atmosphere of corruption that surrounds the poster child of corruption, Hillary
- they do not want the media dictating what is and is not important to them
- they do not want the culture of corruption that surrounds the Clinton Family Inc
- they do not want politicians who say one thing to the wealthy and elite and say something different to the masses of people.

They want honesty and that is something Hillary can't do if her life depended upon it.

Donald Trump bothers the elite, bothers the media, bothers academics and all the special snowflakes because ... he simply doesn't live according to their design.  He is not politically correct.  He hugs women and maybe at some point grabbed their butt, maybe held them a little longer than a customary 4 seconds ... Donald Trump is a poster child for the masculine male of the 70s ... and he was never changed as times changed.

The Republican party has distanced itself not because what he did was immoral or unethical or wrong, but because they have bought into the idea that masculine is bad, and if they didn't deny him ... they would lose the votes of special snowflakes and women.  But what they didn't realize was the disdain so many people have for the culture of snowflakes.  And a yearning for some medium between Trumps masculine extreme and an effeminate future.

He stands a chance.  Pennsylvania.  N Carolina.  Nevada.  Arizona.  - he can take it if he gets these states.

And Nevada is doable and so is Arizona.  Pennsylvania is a state affected by the loss of manufacturing - they are the people Hillary holds in greatest disdain - and West Virginians.

It is possible.  And in the next 8 days as more shit tumbles out of her corrupt closet ...

Clinton: No one says no to her!

A President Clinton would be out of control: Glenn Reynolds

Glenn Harlan Reynolds 10:38 a.m. EDT October 30, 2016

He's no paragon of virtue, but it won’t be that way with a President Trump.

 “Someone somewhere should have told her no.” Those are the words of a Clinton ally quoted in a roundup of Democratic reactions to Hillary Clinton’s FBI news by congressional newspaper The Hill. And, despite the fact that they come from a Clinton supporter, albeit an angry and disappointed one, they may illustrate the best reason for choosing Donald Trump instead of Clinton.

Here’s the full quote:

“I'm livid, actually. . . .This has turned into malpractice. It's an unforced error at this point. I have no idea what Comey is up to but the idea this email issue is popping back up again is outrageous. It never should have occurred in the first place. Someone somewhere should have told her no. And they didn't and now we're all paying the price.”

Someone, somewhere, should have told her no. Well, yes. But who? That was the problem with Secretary of State Clinton, and it will be a bigger problem with a President Clinton. Because, by all appearances, nobody tells Clinton no, and Clinton has no compunction about breaking the rules when it suits her purposes.

Thus the Clinton Foundation became a global money-laundering and influence-peddling organization without precedent in American history. Donors to the foundation were encouraged to steer money to what one employee called “Bill Clinton, Inc.,” and later to Clinton. State Department personnel did favors for people who donated money to the Foundation. And to make sure that nobody found out what was going on, Clinton ran her own homebrew server operation designed to ensure that Freedom of Information Act requests turned up nothing — and even President Obama, rather than saying no, went along, sending her emails at her non-government address under a fake name.

Someone somewhere should have told her no. But if the president wasn’t going to tell her no, who would? Staff at the State Department? They might have been willing to tell some other secretary of state no, but Clinton? Too risky, it seems. They certainly went along without visible objection, and without even leaks.

The press? When The New York Times reported Clinton’s secret, illegal server, Politico’s Glenn Thrush, far from condemning it, called it “badass.”

Congress? Clinton has stonewalled and run rings around numerous committees investigating her. 

Besides, Congress had already told her no, in the form of statutes governing the treatment of government communications and classified information. She just ignored those rules and did what she wanted. Hotel magnate Leona Helmsley famously said that “only little people pay taxes.” Clinton seems to feel the same way about obeying laws.

It won’t be that way with a President Trump. This isn’t because Trump is any less arrogant than Clinton (though it would be hard to be more arrogant). It’s because more people will be willing to tell Trump no. The civil service, which leans overwhelmingly Democratic, won’t be bending over backwards to do his will. The press can’t stand him. And the Congress, even if controlled by the GOP, won’t support him if he misbehaves because so many Republicans dislike him, too.

The truth is, neither one of our leading candidates for president is a paragon of virtue. But only one of them has already made a habit of flouting the law while in office, selling favors and escaping the consequences, and only one of them is likely to be able to pull it off from the White House.

And that’s the problem. If Secretary of State Clinton, serving under a president and with an eye on winning a second term in the White House, wasn’t constrained by the rules, who will constrain her if she’s president?

The answer, most likely, is nobody. And, once again, we’ll all be paying the price.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor and the author of The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself, is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

Age and Experience

Society, ours and for the most part, humanity, give a pass on behavior (excepting murder) while you are in your teens or twenties.  You could be 50 and a story comes out from 30 years ago in which you behaved badly and ... you get a pass.  You grew up and ... hopefully behaved.

Donald Trump gets no such pass.  Regardless of his actions ten years, twenty years, or thirty years ago - he was still a mature adult when he did those things and as psychologists tell us, after your mid/late 20s you don't change your character much.  In his case, his behavior hasn't changed much at all.  Whether 30 years ago, 20, 10, or 5 years ago, his words and behavior were then, and are today,  unacceptable.

Richard Branson tells a story about lunch with Donald Trump many years ago in which Trump told him he would get a few people who didn't help Trump in his time of need.  He would spend the rest of his life getting even with them.  And this made Branson uncomfortable.

It should.

Just as it should make us all uncomfortable that Bill and Hillary never let go or forgive people who cross them.  They make a list and check it every so often to remind themselves who they still have to destroy.   They keep secret files and use various entities and resources to destroy people.

There is no difference but scale and the fact the Clintons have access to extreme power and have used it.

Note to Republican and Democratic Party

Why?

You selected a woman the vast majority of your own party do not want.  A woman who is deeply disturbed.  Her health is at best ... not good.  She will probably not finish 4 years because she simply cannot.  Her financial mess makes the Keating scandal look like a few cents were missing, Michael Milken misplaced a few dollars and Goldman Sachs issues seem like it involves change.

She has a husband who may well be a sexual predator.  He is mysogynistic at the very least and has assaulted multitudes of women, carrying on affairs with countless others, including quite possibly, under age girls (Jeffrey Epstein's private island, Prince Andrew et al).  She has allowed it.  Enabling a sexual predator is a crime, and she knew full well all about his extra curricular activities.  How else does he explain flights on Epstein's private plane darting off to a private island?

You can dress Hillary up but it doesn't change the fact she has lied to the American people on numerous occasions, lied to Congress, lied to everyone ... and you, the Democratic party know this full-well.  She has accepted donations from countries who butcher homosexuals, beat women, enslave women, traffic in human beings, and have no regard for free speech - yet your party attacks the Republicans for supporting Trump.

You have chosen someone who will very nearly be, as old or older than Ronald Reagan and you remember your attacks on Reagan for being too old.  Do you recall?  You should.  She is medically infirm.  Emails released by Wikileaks reveals a lot of evidence of her inability to stay on her feet very long.  I suppose she can be pushed around in a wheelchair.

The security who have protected her, secret service agents, and others have revealed just how much contempt she has for the military and intelligence agencies.  She lied about the classified emails, and we know she knew ... she was in the White House for 8 years.  She attended many meetings and those meetings had classified documents which she was made aware of, during attendance of same.  She is a liar, a horrible and pathological liar, and is unfit to serve in any government position.  She should not be privy to secret documents, nor should she ever be given top secret briefings.  Let her read the NY Times.  In fact, Kaine shouldn't either.  Why does your party select a VP candidate who worked with and aided a communist government.  A vice-presidential candidate who accepts liberation theology.  And you dared whine about Palin and her comments, which were true about Russia being visible from Alaska.  I feel very sad you are so pathetic a group, to have come so far from the time of Carter or even Kennedy.  And despite Kennedy's atrocious personal behavior, he believed in the United States.  The same cannot be said for Kaine and Clinton.

How do you sleep?

And Republicans, you allowed Trump to be in the position he now holds.  You are responsible.  You have allowed this to happen -  by making deals with Democrats, siding with ideologies anathema to your values, and by allowing millions of [Muslims or whomever] into this country is not an American value.  I would explain it to you but it would not be worth the time.  I'm sorry you have bought into the Democrats lies.  That is why the people of the party have deserted you and embraced an obnoxious and crass asshole.  You have created this monster and you have brought the Republican party to the brink of destruction.  He is a by product of your lack of conservative values.  He is a product of the distrust people now have for you.

And why do they distrust you?  Ever wonder?  Making deals that diminish American jobs and world respect.  Supporting policies in order that the administration throw you some crumbs.  Tolerating crumbs.  Tolerating the one-sided policies toward the United States.  Watching as a president uses force in more countries around the world than the previous two Republican presidents combined.  Allowing the use of executive orders/presidential findings, without taking the issue to the American people.  You become complicit in all that crap and why should they trust you.  Running candidates that are deeply flawed (yes, I know, Hillary was ...) - buying into the guilt complex Democrats throw at you. 

You should have had 3 of the Republicans drop out on day 1.  Yes, made them do so.  Had a tête à tête and sided with 1 and made it clear to the others everyone had to, or ... some consequence would befall them.  Then use everything on Hillary and dump it.  Attack her time in the White House - the amazing box of files on the sofa, the lies, the obfuscation, the filegate, travelgate ... then go after her financial and who has given to her ... every name.  Then go after the people around her and where their money was invested or received from.  Go after her time as Secretary of State ... each and every awful moment.  Go after everything ... but you did hodgepodge .... and it failed.  You didn't and now we find ourselves with Hillary Clinton on the verge of taking the White House ... a woman who has held congress in contempt, ignored laws and taken hundreds of millions from people and countries .... she is so tainted I cannot believe she is allowed to remain.  You all disgust me.

Where to go?  I wish there was somewhere.

None of you are worth it.

F@#$ you all.  FX$%# you all for ruining this country, for sending our country on a spiraling downward trajectory from which we cannot ever recover.  F@&%# you all for doing away with our sovereignty and independence.  F%@& you all.