Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News Editorials & Other Articles General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

Kid Berwyn

Kid Berwyn's Journal
Kid Berwyn's Journal
January 28, 2022

Did JHB take today off?

If so, I don’t blame JHB. Takes a lot of work to gather up all the cartoons.



No matter what: Thanks, JHB!

January 27, 2022

She defended Justice Kennedy's kid's relationship with Trump at Deutsche Bank.

Seems to have helped bury that story by making out Justin had left before Trump came in to borrow, which seems in conflict with more recent reporting.

https://www.salon.com/2018/07/02/its-not-about-the-money-donald-trump-anthony-kennedy-and-the-kid-at-deutsche-bank/

January 22, 2022

Well, it matters to me if the USA becomes a fascist country.

That’s exactly what the GOP is doing today with the Big Lie and all the rest of their sordid treasons.

Here’s history on how the NAZIS came to America and befriended Old Money:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1547206&mesg_id=1547206

As for one wing of the one percent…

https://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=133897&mesg_id=135696

January 22, 2022

What Kissinger said about Democracy in Chile...

“The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves. l don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist because of the irresponsibility of its own people." -- Henry Kissinger on the US-backed coup d'etat in Chile.





"The Chicago Boys in Chile: Economic Freedom's Awful Toll"

Orlando Letelier
August 28, 1976

EXCERPT...

The Economic Prescription and Chile's Reality

SNIP...

These are the basic principles of the economic model offered by Friedman and his followers and adopted by the Chilean junta: that the only possible framework for economic development is one within which the private sector can freely operate; that private enterprise is the most efficient form of economic organization and that, therefore, the private sector should be the predominant factor in the economy. Prices should fluctuate freely in accordance with the laws of competition. Inflation, the worst enemy of economic progress, is the direct result of monetary expansion and can be eliminated only by a drastic reduction of government spending.

Except in present-day Chile, no government in the world gives private enterprise an absolutely free hand. That is so because every economist (except Friedman and his followers) has known for decades that, in the real life of capitalism, there is no such thing as the perfect competition described by classical liberal economists. In March 1975, in Santiago, a newsman dared suggest to Friedman that even in more advanced capitalist countries, as for example the United States, the government applies various types of controls on the economy. Mr. Friedman answered: I have always been against it, I don't approve of them. I believe we should not apply them. I am against economic intervention by the government, in my own country, as well as in Chile or anywhere else (Que Pasa, Chilean weekly, April 3, 1975).

SNIP...

A Rationale tor Power

SNIP...

Until September 11, 1973, the date of the coup, Chilean society had been characterized by the increasing participation of the working class and its political parties in economic and social decision making. Since about 1900, employing the mechanisms of representative democracy, workers had steadily gained new economic, social and political power. The election of Salvador Allende as President of Chile was the culmination of this process. For the first time in history a society attempted to build socialism by peaceful means. During Allende's time in office, there was a marked improvement in the conditions of employment, health, housing, land tenure and education of the masses. And as this occurred, the privileged domestic groups and the dominant foreign interests perceived themselves to be seriously threatened.

Despite strong financial and political pressure from abroad and efforts to manipulate the attitudes of the middle class by propaganda, popular support for the Allende government increased significantly between 1970 and 1973. In March 1973, only five months before the military coup, there were Congressional elections in Chile. The political parties of the Popular Unity increased their share of the votes by more than 7 percentage points over their totals in the Presidential election of 1970. This was the first time in Chilean history that the political parties supporting the administration in power gained votes during a midterm election. The trend convinced the national bourgeoisie and its foreign supporters that they would be unable to recoup their privileges through the democratic process. That is why they resolved to destroy the democratic system and the institutions of the state, and, through an alliance with the military, to seize power by force.

In such a context, concentration of wealth is no accident, but a rule; it is not the marginal outcome of a difficult situation -- as they would like the world to believe -- but the base for a social project; it is not an economic liability but a temporary political success. Their real failure is not their apparent inability to redistribute wealth or to generate a more even path of development (these are not their priorities) but their inability to convince the majority of Chileans that their policies are reasonable and necessary. In short, they have failed to destroy the consciousness of the Chilean people. The economic plan has had to be enforced, and in the Chilean context that could be done only by the killing of thousands, the establishment of concentration camps all over the country, the jailing of more than 100,000 persons in three years, the closing of trade unions and neighbourhood organizations, and the prohibition of all political activities and all forms of free expression.

While the Chicago boys have provided an appearance of technical respectability to the laissez-faire dreams and political greed of the old landowning oligarchy and upper bourgeoisie of monopolists and financial speculators, the military has applied the brutal force required to achieve those goals. Repression for the majorities and economic freedom for small privileged groups are in Chile two sides of the same coin.

CONTINUED...

http://www.ditext.com/letelier/chicago.html



Three weeks after this was published in The Nation (Aug. 28, 1976), Orlando Letelier was assassinated by a car bomb in Washington, D.C. Also killed was Ronni Moffit, an American. Albritton’s chum, CIA Director George H. W. Bush, seems to have known in advance, yet let it happen.

Source: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2010/04/lete-a20.html
January 22, 2022

It's what the US Senate found.

What Those Glowing Obits Didn't Tell You About Joe Allbritton

by Ken Silverstein
The New Republic, Dec. 14, 2012

EXCERPT…

Almost entirely glossed over, except for a single sentence, is the sordid narrative that led to the PNC takeover. In 2004, the U.S. Senate released a report, prompted by a story I wrote in the Los Angeles Times, saying Riggs had “turned a blind eye” to evidence that the bank was “handling the proceeds of foreign corruption.” The Treasury Department hit the bank with a $25 million penalty. The next year, Riggs paid a $16 million criminal fine over related charges that it had failed to report suspicious transactions with foreign account holders. The judge who imposed the fine described Riggs as "a greedy corporate henchman of dictators and their corrupt regimes." With its reputation in tatters, the bank was a ripe target for PNC.

The Senate reported that Riggs conducted business with clients from several countries “with high risks of money laundering and foreign corruption.” Among those was Chile’s long-time dictator, Augusto Pinochet. According to the report, Riggs opened multiple accounts for the dictator and his family, used aliases and offshore shell corporations to disguise his ownership, and “accepted millions of dollars in deposits from him with no serious inquiry into the source of his wealth.”

All this was done “with the knowledge and support of the Bank’s leadership,” including Allbritton, who, along with other senior bank officials, would periodically jet down to Santiago for meetings with the dictator. “As a horse enthusiast, your fine young calvary officers, their horses and the superb performance they put on was excellent,” Allbritton wrote the dictator after a 1996 visit that included a reception at a military academy. “We attach great importance to our relationship with you and the Chilean Military and look forward to expanding our cooperation in the future.”

The letter thanked Pinochet for “the superb cufflinks you presented to me” and invited him to visit “my wife Barby and me at our house in Middleburg, Virginia where we raise our thoroughbred race horses.” (Allbritton’s wife was also a longtime Riggs board member.)

Allbritton wrote again following a 1997 trip to Santiago to express his gratitude for “our thriving personal friendship, which you have demonstrated through your gracious hospitality and stalwart support of Riggs.” He thanked Pinochet for having “rid Chile from the threat of totalitarian government” – Pinochet, at that point, had held power for 24 years after leading a coup against a democratically elected government – and said the entire Western world owed him “a tremendous debt of gratitude.”

Continues…

https://newrepublic.com/article/111093/joe-allbritton-what-those-glowing-obits-didnt-tell-you
January 22, 2022

"Say hello to your boy. Special guy."



“Say hello to your boy,” Trump said, “Special guy.”

“Your kids have been very nice to him,” Kennedy replied.

“Well,” Trump said, “they love him, and they love him in New York.”

Source: https://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/donald-trump-supreme-court-236925
January 19, 2022

Only the wealthiest can put Clarence Thomas up at Bohemian Grove.

Justice Thomas reported a wealth of gifts

In the last six years he has accepted free items valued at $42,200, the most on the high court.


December 31, 2004|Richard A. Serrano and David G. Savage | LA Times Staff Writers

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has accepted tens of thousands of dollars worth of gifts since joining the high court, including $1,200 worth of tires, valuable historical items and a $5,000 personal check to help pay a relative's education expenses.

SNIP...

He also took a free trip aboard a private jet to the exclusive Bohemian Grove club in Northern California -- arranged by a wealthy Texas real estate investor who helped run an advocacy group that filed briefs with the Supreme Court.

Those and other gifts were disclosed by Thomas under a 1978 federal ethics law that requires high-ranking government officials, including the nine Supreme Court justices, to file a report each year that lists gifts, money and other items they have received.

Thomas has reported accepting much more valuable gifts than his Supreme Court colleagues over the last six years, according to their disclosure forms on file at the court.

CONTINUED...

http://articles.latimes.com/2004/dec/31/nation/na-gifts31

Gee. I wonder what the rich get in return?
January 18, 2022

Ex-FBI Strzok: Concerning Ginni Thomas wrote 1/6 participants 'have done nothing wrong.'

Tea Partier.



Former Top FBI Official: ‘Concerning’ Ginni Thomas Signed Letter Saying Jan. 6 Participants ‘Have Done Nothing Wrong’

by David Badash
New Civil Rights Movement, January 18, 2022

A former top FBI official who served as Chief of the Bureau’s Counterespionage Section and led the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election says it’s “concerning” that Ginni Thomas signed a letter attacking the House January 6 Select Committee.

Peter Strzok, who also led the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email server and for a short time served on the Mueller Investigation, responded to Tuesday’s social media eruption over the resurfaced letter signed by Thomas, a far right wing conspiracy theorist and lobbyist who happens to be married to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

That letter calls for U.S. Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger to be expelled from the House Republican conference, which would also involve stripping them of their committee assignments.

Strzok was more focused on the current makeup of the Supreme Court, and other points of the letter which was signed in December by Thomas and more than 60 other mostly far right wing conservatives – making it a veritable who’s who of well-known extreme conservative activists including the head of an anti-LGBTQ hate group.

“Which is more concerning: That the spouse of a SC Justice recently signed a letter calling the Jan 6 Cmttee ‘an overtly partisan political persecution that brings disrespect to our country’s rule of law [and] legal harassment to private citizens who have done nothing wrong’ Or,” Strzok wrote, “The fact that the former President who encouraged those ‘private citizens who have done nothing wrong’ to violently oppose the peaceful transfer of power appointed three of nine Justices to the Supreme Court?”

Continues…

https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2022/01/former-top-fbi-official-concerning-ginni-thomas-signed-letter-saying-jan-6-participants-have-done-nothing-wrong/

January 17, 2022

Nessel is the real deal.

Michigan Is Calling on the Feds to Investigate Trumpers Who Sent Forged Election Documents

“Obviously this is part of a much bigger conspiracy,” Michigan AG Dana Nessel told MSNBC


https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-fake-election-documents-michigan-dana-nessel-1284781/

Profile Information

Member since: Mon May 6, 2019, 07:01 PM
Number of posts: 17,866

About Kid Berwyn

I am the DUer who once posted as Octafish. Ask me about the BFEE.
Latest Discussions»Kid Berwyn's Journal