#161
Post rating: +

cars posted:


I'm just playing around. I forget where it was but one poster made a joke like "I love Trump and I hope he Makes America Great Again" with a reference to shoring up his brownie points with the secret police as if the poster was living under an occupation. I thought that was funny. This place doesn't seem like the kind to have meltdowns when regimes change over in any case.

#162
Post rating: +
this forum's prophetic genius brung me to this dance, and i feel blessed i was accepted here, where i can praise putin and bernard with wild abandon
#163
Post rating: +
Stocks literally went up t
Friday because of a weak jobs report because it might mean the Fed will cut rates again. Lollllll

Trade is slowing, inventories are piling up and the PMI is starting to not look too good, but if credit doesn't dry up (i.e. rates are lowered) they'll keep this thing going for god knows how long

Edited by marlax78 ()

#164
Dont Mess With Sucess
Post rating: +

marlax78 posted:

Stocks literally went up t
Friday because of a weak jobs report because it might mean the Fed will cut rates again. Lollllll

Trade is slowing, inventories are piling up and the PMI is starting to not look too good, but if credit doesn't dry up (i.e. rates are lowered) they'll keep this thing going for god knows how long

my friend just applied for a $30000 unsecured loan and was encouraged to lie about their income and expenses by the banker.

#165
lies half the time
Post rating: ~
fuck applyin for a $30000 unsecured loan. ill just work for seventy or ninety years until i can pay in cash
#166
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: +
I would simply ask the bank for the money, then have an exciting adventure spanning ninety minutes to two hours where I acquired it by other means.
#167
Post rating: +

cars posted:

I would simply ask the bank for the money, then have an exciting adventure spanning ninety minutes to two hours where I acquired it by other means.


#168
Post rating: +
While other socialists flounder for yet another year, Chairman Bob keeps racking up the victories.

#169
Post rating: +
The new restrictions on travel to Cuba could be a big deal in Cuba. They have been investing heavily in a tourist industry since Obama opened things up a bit. Hotels being opened in partnership with some European banks. Streets lined with "casa particulares" (bed and breakfast type lodging). New restaurants and bars, tour buses bought from China, hiking trails and horseback rides in the mountains and growing regions: it was all filled with tourists spending their Cuban Convertible Pesos helping fill the public coffers and supplementing Cuban salaries. According to the Cuban statistics and information agency, Americans were the second largest group of tourists, behind Canada.

I doubt any other countries will follow suit and add restrictions since they don't need to court Miami Cubans for their elections, but losing the second largest source of tourists during a pivot toward tourism will hurt regardless.
#170
Post rating: +
Edit: Buttigieg endorsed Israel's claim over Jerusalem. This election cycle sucks.

Edited by wasted ()

#171
lies half the time
Post rating: +

Ayatollah Khamenei apparently poked fun at Trump and said, “That fellow had said the Iranian nation is no longer chanting ‘Death to America.’”

https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/06/27/599547/Iran-Ayatollah-Khamenei-Donald-Trump

#172
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: +
Khamenei's statement is good because he's like: By 'Death to America', we in Iran specifically mean that the United States guy who said we don't say that anymore should die... I will now list some names of other people who should die under the 'Death to America' trolling philosophy,
#173
Post rating: +
The Pentagon seems to have slow-rolled Trump on his military parade for another year, but relented slightly to allow a few static tank displays on tractor trucks. My guess is the American brass looks at military parades as a waste of time with the term "parade army" being a pejorative among those guys for pissant third world armies which spend all their time drillin' and not killin'. My reading though is that socialist states have military parades as a way of demonstrating unity between the army and party (and the latter's authority over the former), whereas right-wing regimes have them as a way for the military to flex its ability to put boots down in the capital.



That's not necessary in the U.S. which can freeze a political crisis in the courts i.e. the Florida recount in 2000. The people who do rise above the military and set the priorities is the arms industry which can reach a much bigger audience with Super Bowl commercials. I've even seen them roll a float at the Pride parade here (40,000+ spectators) with a little toy drone suspended over it.

#174
Post rating: +
jeffrey epstein got arrested again. popcorn please
#175
[account deactivated]
#176
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#177
lies half the time
Post rating: ~
wait yr turn doershiwotz they just started w epsteim
#178
[account deactivated]
#179
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: +

trakfactri posted:

My guess is the American brass looks at military parades as a waste of time



Nah a bunch of the head baby-killers are just currently on the opposing side of an intra-bourgeois publicity war from the president and don't want to give him the publicity. Their only real problem with trundling a bunch of billion-dollar vehicles through the streets of the country's capital is that their catamites wouldn't get to unload on the crowd if they saw something or someone they didn't like.

#180
Post rating: +
neoliberals, neocons, zionists... one thing they can all agree on, is fucking kids. they just love it, and who could blame them. it's tough trying to get your kicks when you don't have a soul
#181
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#182
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That's got to be one of the greatest examples of burying the lede of all time
#183
Post rating: ~
That reads like intelligence agency blackmail shit
#184
Post rating: +

trakfactri posted:

That reads like intelligence agency blackmail shit



yeah, there's huge sections of Epstein's official story that make no sense at all. he was hired as a teacher at the trust-fund playground Dalton School as a college dropout (by the current AG's father!) he was a junior analyst at Bear Stearns, and somehow parlayed that into starting a company managing the assets of people with $1BN+, when he was 29 years old, back in an age with a lot fewer billionaires. nobody on Wall St has worked with him, nobody is really clear how much money he has or how he made it

so some combination of high-level procurer/blackmail, for both ultra-elites and intelligence agencies, tied into his "asset management" probably makes the most sense.

under normal circumstances, i'd just assume that Epstein fell out of favor with intelligence apparatuses for whatever reason (he got sloppy, he was too much of a liability, whatever palace intrigue), and the whole thing will be painted as some lone-wolf pervert. i'm already seeing liberals pretty much resigned that this won't touch Trump. and that makes sense -- under normal circumstances, this would't come 100 miles of the president, and Trump has shown a certain reptile instinct for survival

but the timing of all this, the agencies involved, makes me wonder if this isn't actually an attempt at a soft coup, that getting Trump is the whole point, and the alphabet boys are willing to offer up Epstein if it means they get their way.

keep an eye on what gets leaked to the press in the upcoming months. if "sources with inside knowledge of the investigation" indicate that it's widening...

#185
Post rating: +
Ehhh... There's clearly potential here for this to be weaponised against the current administration to some extent but the risk of devastating collateral damage makes me think this latest arrest actually happened organically.

Anyway, I'm sure every hack journalist and his dog is mining this for Trump contacts right now, but the original publication of epstein's little black book is here: http://gawker.com/here-is-pedophile-billionaire-jeffrey-epsteins-little-b-1681383992
#186
[account deactivated]
#187
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: ~
imo there are mostly 1) reds who realize what the CIA’s done and 2) those who don’t acknowledge it because they’re too worried about looking silly in front of nobody in particular.

The problem with that is, the CIA kills people and fucks up everything they can, and contrary to the reputation they cultivate, acknowledging that really can mess (and has messed) with their bullshit.
#188
Post rating: +
Marx and Engels were super paranoid about the "agents of the czar" in their letters, so i'm merely following correct praxis
#189
Post rating: +
One weird trick: Marx and Engels also brutally owned the agents of the czar from beyond the grave
#190
lies half the time
Post rating: ~
wait why would marx or engels be worried about the czar
#191
Post rating: +
Because you touch yourself at night.
#192
lies half the time
Post rating: +++++
that presents even more timeline problems
#193
Post rating: +++++

ialdabaoth posted:

wait why would marx or engels be worried about the czar



imperial Russia was the arch-reactionary European government in the 19th century, the country that would rather come to the rival Hapsburgs' aid during the 1848 Revolutions (which M&E were witnesses to) than allow even a smidgeon of revolutionary sentiment in its neighborhood

it was not complete paranoia, either. the Czar did have international agents to keep tabs on expats and exiles. and they did some pretty unbelievable things. this guy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevno_Azef) was a secret police informant in Russia's Socialist Revolutionary Party, who both double crossed party members AND organized assassinations, including Russia's own Minister of the Interior (ie, the guy in charge of the secret police, ie, his own boss)

so for European socialists in the 19th, early 20th century, Russia occupied the same boogeyman status that the CIA does now. so much so that when WWI broke out, part of the justification that the SDP used for supporting the war and the Kaiser was that they simply couldn't allow Germany to fall into the hands of the hated Czar.

i even remember reading that, prior to the October Revolution, something like 10-20% of the Bolshevik Central Committee were informants.

#194
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: +
The Okhrana also introduced that catch-and-release policy where they'd arrest a revolutionary or terrorist cell, then just dump a key member or two back out on the streets, not even necessarily as an active agent under their control. The idea was, they knew those groups would keep popping up as quickly as they could smash them, and it was easier to keep a boot-heel on the problem if whenever a new group sprang up, its leadership included someone the Okhrana already had on their lists.
#195
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: +++++
the thing about Okhrana strategy, though, is, funny thing is, kind of, funny how,
#196
[account deactivated]
#197
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: ~
Some funny Washington Mafia shit happened today when the top U.S. spook, recently fired and on the way out the door, interrupted a meeting held by his second-in-command and demanded that she quit and leave along with him. She was otherwise possibly going to inherit her boss's old job for 69 seconds until Trump installed his own guy. To resign, the second-in-command spook wrote a letter to the president but submitted it to the vice president's office, who weren't expecting to receive it and paid no attention to it, a master troll which successfully confused every single person in government and the media for hours as to who currently held which top-level position in the United States.
#198
Post rating: +
Just for posterity, a short post to say that the evidence Trump flew on Epstein's "Lolita Express" has now been made public. https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-jeffrey-epstein-flight-logs-unsealed-2019-8
#199
Post rating: +
whoopsie!

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/10/nyregion/jeffrey-epstein-suicide.html
#200
Post rating: +++++
we all know how easy it is for things like this to slip through the cracks! it's like... where in the heck did that matching sock go?? did the dryer eat them?? oh no, my billionaire pedophile procurer with ties to two US presidents and the British Royal Family managed to hang himself even after we put him on suicide watch! you know you're getting older when you put your witness in the cellar cooler and your bottle of wine in a noose LOL