Snake Plissken for President in 2020! No Donald 'Erdogan' Trump! No Joe 'Empath' Biden!

Bob Hauk: There was an accident. About an hour ago, a small jet went down inside New York City. The President was on board.

Snake Plissken: President of what?

Bob Hauk: That's not funny, Plissken. You go in, find the President, bring him out in 24 hours, and you're a free man.

Snake Plissken: 24 hours, huh?

Bob Hauk: I'm making you an offer.

Snake Plissken: Bull&%$#!

Bob Hauk: Straight just like I said.

Snake Plissken: I'll think about it.

Bob Hauk: No time. Give me an answer.

Snake Plissken: Get a new president!

Bob Hauk: We're still at war, Plissken. We need him alive.

Snake Plissken: I don't give a f*&^ about your war. . .or your president.

Bob Hauk: Is that your answer?

Escape from New York, 1981

In the dark, comedy-drama science fiction cult classic Escape from New York, New York City (the Manhattan borough but referred to here as New York City) has become a penitentiary secured by "50 foot high concrete walls and the bridges are all mined." Aircraft that patrol its perimeter fire on and kill any prisoners who scale the wall and make it near the top.

If President Donald Trump wins a second term, he probably will attempt to build a wall on the northern border and continue his southern border barrier project. He will issue subsequent orders for patrolling drones to shoot and kill anyone trying to get in or out. He'll have a mandate to do it after a 2020 election victory and will have an obsequious military to carry out the building of and security for such a wall. Large American urban centers will teem with paramilitary enforcers of Trump's elected dictatorship.

Anyway, the Supermax New York City prison in Escape from New York was needed because the United States had turned into one massive crime scene from border to border. There was a  400 percent increase in crime. New York City, with massive buildings in place, surrounded by water, was an ideal place for a prison to house the worst criminals in the United States.

One can't but help watch the cast of characters who play the movie's characters without some admiration. They include Kurt Russell (SD Snake Plissken), Lee Van Cleef (Hauk, Commissioner US Police Force), Donald Pleasence (President), Ernest Borgnine (Cabbie, jazz fanatic), Isaac Hayes (the Duke), Adrienne Barbeau (Maggie), and Harry Dean Stanton (Brain).

John Carpenter co-wrote and directed Escape from New York. In an interview he said that he "wrote the screenplay in the mid-1970's during the time of Watergate when Nixon was run out of office because he was involved in a burglary. The whole feeling in the nation was of real cynicism about our president...Its kind of America in a way, put into the future. It's...our fears."

After a long and deadly trek, Snake succeeds in getting the president out of New York City. The rescue was made more urgent by a cassette tape of a speech on nuclear fusion that the president was carrying. The tape's contents would lead to the end of the war that the US was waging against China and the Soviet Union (Russia).

The president, as played by Donald Pleasence, is a close approximation of Donald Trump; or, arguably, any president. When the president's Air Force One is falling from the sky, his words to the doomed crew are, "God save me and watch over you." Pleasence's president is smarmy and psychopathic. After Snake has gotten the president to safety he asks for a few minutes of the president's time. Here is the dialogue that follows:

President: I want to thank you back there for saving my life. If there's anything you want... anything at all...

Snake Plissken: Just a moment of your time.

President: Of course...Yes?

Snake Plissken: We did get you out. But a lot of people died in the process. I just wondered how you felt about it.

President: Well, I...I wanna thank them. This nation appreciates their sacrifice."

The president leaves Snake and moves to a microphone to play the contents of the tape. He fetches the tape from his briefcase not knowing that Snake replaced the president's tape with Cabbie's jazz tape. The president loads what he thinks is a recording dealing with nuclear fusion into a tape-deck and what gets aired is Cabbie's Bandstand Boogie. Snake walks away while pulling the tape out of the president's cassette and ripping it up.

Why Snake for President of the United States?

Snake is a decorated combat veteran, a plus for any presidential candidate. He gets the job done: the buck stops with him. Americans like a clean beginning and end, not an endless War on Terror. He'd have acted on the COVID 19 Pandemic aggressively.

• Plissken speaks his mind, pulls no punches. He is a big believer in the First Amendment to the US Constitution.
• Snake is a firearms/weapons specialist. He supports the Second Amendment.
• He has a wry sense of humor. He knows the world needs to lighten up. He knows Jazz is good medicine for an uptight world.
• Snake is an Independent. He has not been vetted by the Democratic or Republican Party. He owes nothing to them.
• Snake works with the downtrodden, the imprisoned. He is a diversity candidate.
• He had enough of the American federal government and war. He knew the process that manufactures US presidents is absolutely corrupt.
• Snake was imprisoned for robbing a bank. He'd be no fan of the police, Wall Street or big banking concerns.

A Donald "Erdogan" Trump Second Term

Trump is taking a page out of Recep Erdogan's, president of Turkey, electoral playbook. If Trump scores a second term as president the media analysis will read exactly like this 2018 report from Haaretz.

"In elections that were neither free nor fair, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stage-managed a mandate for ultimate power...But the victory is at expense of national cohesion. The country is more divided than ever - while looking ahead towards an economic disaster... The June 2018 elections will go down as the day that Turkey's opposition could have defeated President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and halted the country's decent towards an elected dictatorship, but failed...There's also of course the fact that the elections were neither free nor fair. Erdogan and the AKP used state resources to ensure victory. The media is almost totally pro-Erdogan after years of co-option and censorship. On election day, there were reported cases of fraud, including ballot stuffing, an incident where a car filled with ballots was pulled over heading to a polling station near the southern city of Urfa. Ahead of the elections, legislation was passed to allow ballots without official seals to be counted..."

A Joe "Empath" Biden Victory

As a reminder of Joe Biden's "empathy" we turn to a piece written in The Guardian in 2019.

"As times have changed, Biden has expressed retrospective misgivings about some of those earlier actions and stances. For example, he very recently attempted to offer an apology of sorts, more like an unpology, to Anita Hill, which she quite understandably rejected. And he remains a pure, dyed-in-the-wool neoliberal, as much as ever a tool of Wall Street and corporations. We deserve better than a candidate who wants us to look past his record and focus only on the image he wants to project and, when that tack fails, can offer progressives only a "my bad".

[Biden's] most conspicuous affront to women was his role as chair of the Senate judiciary committee in condoning committee members' vile and viciously sexist attacks on Anita Hill when she came forward to testify against the supreme court nominee Clarence Thomas. He then abruptly adjourned the hearing while two other female former employees of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under Thomas were waiting to give testimony corroborating Hill's allegations; Biden thus assured confirmation of one of the worst, most dangerously conservative supreme court appointees of the 20th century.

In addition to Biden's disturbing record on domestic policy, he has been a consistent warmonger. He has supported every military intervention he's been able to, including, most disastrously voting for the 2002 resolution authorizing war against Iraq and ushering the country into the endless war against "terror" we remain immersed in."

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

John Stanton can be reached at jstantonarchangel@gmail.com

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The Kathopnishad: A Commentary(Part I)

The Kathopnishad: A Commentary(Part I)

Dr. Sheeba Rakesh

  

"The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to Salvation is hard."

Once an ascetic by the name of Vajshravar , desired the absolute freedom of his soul from the cycle of birth and death. In order to attain this gift, he could think of no better way than the donation of whatever he had, to the others. This included all of his wealth, his cattle and also his own children. Of all his kids, there was one named Nachiketa, whom asked his father, as to whom would he be given to? His father replied, "I shall offer you to Death!"

Nachiketa

Nachiketa thought of himself as an obedient and well behaved child. He could not understand the reason of his father's desire to donate him to Death, when he was good enough to be alive!? This thought was much the result of the fear of Death he harboured within himself. Of this fear, he thought to cure himself, by thinking deeply about the transience of human life. "In all truth, in fact", so he thought, "...human life is no better than a grain of rice...cultivated today, gone tomorrow!"

With such thoughts and more, he entered the abode of Yamacharya (Yam is the God of Death in the Vedic system of thought while the word Acarya means teacher), who grants him three boons for patiently waiting upon him, in his absence!(In the Indian culture, a guest is equivalent to God, so Yama was very sorry for having caused trouble to Nachiketa who had to wait upon him for three days.Before this dialogue is proceeded with, the readers must know that, Nachiketa means "One who is a seeker after knowledge", whereas, Death has been personified as the teacher who teaches the absolute truth of life.) The Rgveda says, "The Teacher is Death!"  So said, because indeed, the darkness of individuality or the ego of the learner is killed, when, in front of the one teacher, who bestows the light of knowledge. Also,  there is no better teacher in this world, than Death. In this sense, the teacher gives the disciple, the gift of a new birth....a new life!

For the first boon, Nachiketa asks Death for the appeasement of his father in the face of life i.e. when he returns to his father, alive after gaining all the knowledge from Death, his father shouldn't be angry with him. This boon is immediately granted by Death.

The second boon

For the second boon, Nachiketa  asks, "O Death! Tell me of the ways which lead to the doors of heaven, where it is said, there is no fear, neither you, nor hunger, nor thirst, nor old age, nor sadness....all that is there, is bliss! What "Fire" within is that, which leads us to this bliss!?"

The great teacher of Life, i.e. Death, told him of all the ways that lead to the heavens. He expatiated , at length about the "fire" that takes human life to the higher spheres and blessed  Nachiketa, that this fire would be known as the Tri- Nachiketa Agni (Where Agni is the Sanskrit word for Fire and Tri  is the Sanskrit word for three, here meaning threefold.)

Death told him, that this fire, does not comprise any form of ritualistic fiery oblations or sacrifices. Instead, this Tri Nachiketa Agni, propels the human soul towards the attainment of the ultimate bliss, resting in the Brahma Yagna( Where Brahma ,meaning great refers also to the source of all the power in the Universe; Yagna is the Sanskrit word for oblation)In other words, the one who makes all the efforts to be great, in terms of expanding his life and actions and does not allow his life to be overshadowed by mundane negativities, is the one who performs the Brahma Yagna.  The sacrificial fires that leap up in this Brahma Yagna consist  of the passing of the human being  through the three stages of social life, where each juncture signifies the coming together of two stages. The real test of a human being is in being able to successfully embrace, the change that each juncture embodies.

Juncture 1: The change from being a celibate to a married person.

Juncture 2: The shift from the role of being a married person to an advisory role, where everything is handed over to the new generation.

 Juncture 3: The change from being a family and social advisor to being a total renouncer.

(Thus, the Vedic system of thought, enunciates the four stages of human life  also a part of the Dharamasharam, calling upon a human being to follow the call of duty in all the different stages of life. Dharma means Duty. The four stages are: Brhmcharya i.e celibacy; Grahasth i.e married life; Vanprasth i.e. the advisory role in the family circle; Sanyas i.e. Total renunciation of the world and its cares.)

This system has been evolved to underline the importance of the process of gradual detachment in the life of a commoner, not immediately attracted to the thoughts of a higher universe or aspirations, thereof. (It is also to be noted here, that  it is basically , the concept of adherence to the call of duty, that lay behind the postulation of concepts like the Dharmasharma and the Varnasharama, the latter being loosely understood as the institution of caste, castigated by some people as being primarily responsible for the escalation of caste issues in the Indian society. To an extent , it has been grossly misunderstood.  Meriting a detailed discussion in future, also  please refer to an earlier article in this publication  entitled , "Caste and Karma: An India Perspective.")

Death teaches

Death teaches, Nachiketa, that when a human life has "ripened" by passing through all these junctures and the "fires" hidden in them, in the shape of the duties and roles that they entail; when he has understood the philosophy of life, of living for the others, through living for those, he calls his own, in this immediate world....is when he comes to a certain level of detachment and then, the human soul shall easily be able to attain heavenly bliss.

{Note: This dialogue between Death and Nachiketa shall continue in the ensuing articles carrying my commentary on the Upanishads.}

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Russian ruble on the way to hit another all-time low

29.09.2020 21:01

The euro exchange rate on the Moscow Exchange exceeded 93 rubles per euro for the first time since January 21, 2016. The US dollar is rising in value as well: on September 29, the dollar was traded at the rate of 79.68 rubles per one dollar.

The historical maximum of the euro rate in Russia makes up 100.74 rubles - the European currency was traded at this price in December 2014. For the dollar, the all-time high is 85.50 - the maximum value of the US dollar against the Russian ruble was registered on January 21, 2016.

Analysts linked the decline of the ruble exchange rate to the armed conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan: instability near Russia sends a negative signal to markets. According to experts, an increase in the number of coronavirus-infected people, the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic in Europe and the possible imposition of sanctions against Russia due to the situation with Alexei Navalny make the Russian ruble even weaker.

The rate of the Russian ruble may stabilise after the Russian currency hits another low. In general, however, the ruble continues declining in value as it receives neither external, nor internal support.

On September 28, at the opening of trading, the euro and dollar rates rose sharply (from 90.9 to 91.7 rubles per one euro and from 78.15 to 78.92 rubles per one dollar. After fluctuations during the day, they stopped at even higher levels (euro - 92.2 rubles, dollar  - 79.05).

Last week, the dollar and the euro renewed their highs since April 2020. During the trading day, the US dollar rate reached 77.87 rubles, while the euro - 90.58 rubles. Experts linked the depreciation of the Russian currency to the strengthening of the dollar on world markets, falling oil prices and risks of new sanctions against Russia.

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Is Russia going to declare war on Turkey?

Russia does not need to get involved in the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Russian politicians should ensure only Russian interests.

There can be only one big war in the region - the war between Russia and Turkey.

According to Andrei Perla, an observer with TsarGrad, hundreds of men stand in lines at the military registration and enlistment offices in Armenia, waiting in line to go to war.

It is worth noting that the Armenians living as diasporas outnumber the Armenians residing in Armenia.

• Today, three million Armenians live in Russia.
• Approximately 1 million Armenians live in France and they enjoy enormous political influence there.
• About half a million Armenians live in the United States, and their influence is very conspicuous there among other diasporas too.

This conflict will not remain local anyway: Turkey, Russia and France have already joined this story.

Armenia and Russia are bound by allied obligations. There is a Russian military base in Armenia, and Armenia is a member of the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization) and the EAEU (European-Asian Economic Union).

In turn, Azerbaijan is undoubtedly Russia's economic partner, but Turkey's military ally at the same time.

Russian political scientist Gleb Kuznetsov wrote:

"Everyone was not ready to cover the conflict, but  not Turkish news agencies that were "attacked" by the Armenians right in the morning ... One should not think that the conflict is going to end when Azerbaijan regains sovereignty over the regions around Karabakh or over all of Karabakh."

Nobody even concealed that Azerbaijan sees Armenia as a terrorist state. Over the past 20 years, traces of Armenian architecture or history would be systematically destroyed in Nakhichevan, Azerbaijan and Turkey.

Many believe that there is no real danger of a new Russian-Turkish war to break out, but Russia cannot just sit back and enjoy the battle of gladiators.

What should Russia do?

Russia should maintain the status of an observer and guarantor of peace, even though it is going to be fragile peace. The conflict is already happening, and one needs to keep it local.

Sergey Markedonov, a leading researcher at the Center for Euro-Atlantic Security at the Institute for International Studies at MGIMO, said that "the current escalation comes as a direct consequence of frozen negotiations."

Russia does not need this conflict at all, no one will say 'thanks' anyway.

If Russia has to take part in hostilities, it is obvious that Russia is not going to find itself on the same side with Turkey. This will entail irreversible consequences.

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The weak voice of France wants to talk to the weaker voice of Belarus

Emmanuel Macron is the first Western leader to meet Belarus opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. Why does the French president need this initiative?

Macron wants France involved in Belarusian crisis

French President Emmanuel Macron held a meeting in Lithuania with ex-presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya on September 29.

Prior to the meeting with the French leader, Tikhanovskaya was "inaugurated by the people," which evidences that the West is going to recognise her as the President of Belarus, similarly to how it happened to Juan Guaido in Venezuela.

According to Le Monde publication, Macron becomes increasingly "involved" in the crisis in Belarus. Indeed, he became the first Western leader who met with the leader of the Belarusian opposition, who was forced to leave the country.

"We, as Europeans, will do our best to assist mediation in the Belarusian crisis," the newspaper quotes the French president, who added that he intended to return to OSCE mediation in order to achieve progress."

Le Monde also said that Tikhanovskaya was going to speak before members of the French parliament. "We received an invitation (from Macron) to speak at the French parliament and we accepted it," she said.

The politician also said that Macron "supports the idea of mediation, because he understands that in order to start negotiations with Lukashenko, powerful countries must be involved."

"I think he will discuss Belarus with the Russian side and will do everything possible to involve Russia in these negotiations," she added.

According to Tikhanovskaya, the crisis should be resolved "as soon as possible" and new free and fair elections should be held by the end of the year.

Europe will wait for the next electoral cycle in Belarus

Nikolai Litvak, Professor of the Department of Philosophy at MGIMO, author of International Affairs Journal, Doctor of Sociology, told Pravda.Ru that meetings with opposition activists comes as common practice that Western politicians follow, perhaps, with the exception of their "outspoken" allies.

"For example, I don't know that Macron has ever had special meetings with the opposition in the United States, even though they stage rallies there," the expert noted.

According to him, the purpose of Macron's meeting with Tikhanovskaya is to receive first-hand information.

"What statements may follow next from the point of view of the development of the situation is another question. Yet, talking to a person directly to find out and understand their views on things without any misinterpretations - this is a good idea," Nikolai Litvak noted.

According to the sociologist, France and Europe, will most likely take a balanced position and wait for a new electoral cycle in Belarus to start to bring the right person to power, similarly to how it happened in Ukraine.

The sociologist believes that the Belarusian opposition should "seek funding so that European observers attend every polling station next time to record violations."

"One needs to take the matter to the court, rather than to the street. In the United States, they always have 50x50 votes at almost every election. In many cases, the winner of the election is decided by mere hundreds of votes, even though there are 200 million voters in the US. The winner is decided at court, rather than on the street," Nikolai Litvak concluded.

Both the European Union and the United States refuse to recognize the legitimacy of Alexander Lukashenko. On the eve of his three-day visit to Lithuania and Latvia, Emmanuel Macron called the President of Belarus fo resign.

"What is happening in Belarus is a crisis of power, authoritarian power that cannot accept the logic of democracy. It is clear that Lukashenko should leave," Macron said.

Alexander Lukashenko, in response, advised Macron should take a greater effort to look into internal affairs of France.

Experts interviewed by 20minutes.fr publication believe that Macron has extensive presence on the international arena to hide the "vacuum" of his actions in his own country. For example, everyone was waiting for the Macron's reaction to the attack on two journalists in Paris last week, but there was no response from the president of France.

Even when it comes to international agenda, Macron talks a lot about things of no importance.

"He is everywhere, but he is on the pages at the bottom of the stack that no one reads. When it comes to the United States, China or Brexit, we do not hear his opinion," political scientist Jean-Vincent Brisset, senior fellow at the Institute for International and Strategic Studies said.

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COVID-19: Only one in eight countries worldwide have measures in place to protect women

COVID-19: Only one in eight countries worldwide have measures in place to protect women against social and economic impacts, new data shows

UN Women and UNDP's newly launched COVID-19 Global Gender Response Tracker shows the social protection and jobs response to the pandemic has largely overlooked women's needs.

[New York] Most of the world's nations are not doing enough to protect women and girls from the economic and social fallout being caused by the COVID-19 crisis, according to new data released today by UN Women and UNDP from the COVID-19 Global Gender Response Tracker (1).
 
The tracker, which includes over 2,500 measures across 206 countries and territories, specifically analyses government measures with a gender lens in three areas: those that tackle violence against women and girls (VAWG), support unpaid care, and strengthen women's economic security.

The results signal that 42 countries, one fifth (20 per cent) of those analysed, have no gender-sensitive measures in response to COVID-19 at all. Only 25 countries, 12 per cent of the world, have introduced measures that cover all three areas. These may include the provision of helplines, shelters, or judicial responses to counter the surge in violence against women and girls during the pandemic, cash transfers directly targeted at women, the provision of childcare services or paid family and sick leave.

"It's clear that the COVID-19 pandemic is hitting women hard - as victims of domestic violence locked down with their abusers, as unpaid caregivers in families and communities, and as workers in jobs that lack social protection. The Global Tracker supports governments in making the right policy decisions by sharing good practices and monitoring progress in care policies and measures to address violence against women", said UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.

"The COVID-19 crisis provides an opportunity for countries to transform existing economic models towards a renewed social contract that prioritizes social justice and gender equality. This new gender response tracker can help accelerate policy reform by guiding on gaps in national efforts and funding and highlighting best practices," said UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner.

The new data show that governments have primarily focused their gender-related COVID-19 efforts on preventing and/or responding to violence against women and girls (VAWG) - these measures account for 71 per cent of all actions identified, or 704 measures across 135 countries. Out of this, 63 per cent focus on strengthening essential services, such as shelters, helplines and other reporting mechanisms. However, only 48 countries, less than a quarter of those analysed, treated VAWG-related services as an integral part of their national and local COVID-19 response plans, with very few adequately funding these measures.

Meanwhile, the social protection, care crisis and jobs response has been largely blind to women's needs, with only 177 measures (10 per cent of the total) across 85 countries explicitly aimed at strengthening women's economic security, and less than one-third of countries (60 in total) taking action to support unpaid care and strengthen care services for children, older persons or persons with disabilities.

The tracker also shows that the gender response varies widely across countries and regions.

Europe is leading the response on addressing VAWG and unpaid care - accounting for almost 32 per cent of all violence measures and 49 per cent of all unpaid care measures. The American continent has the largest number of measures aimed at strengthening women's economic security, followed by Africa.

Some positive examples:

• Bosnia-Herzegovina has developed a plan to support civil society organizations running shelters; and in Colombia and Sweden financial resources have or will be made available to support gender-based violence survivors.

• In response to the care crisis, Argentina has increased monthly child allowance payments; Australia and Costa Rica have ensured that childcare services remain open during lockdown; Austria, Cyprus and Italy have granted additional family leave to affected working parents, and Canada, Spain and Republic of Korea, have introduced cash benefits for parents who are affected by school and day care closures.

• Countries like Togo, Georgia and Morocco are providing cash transfers or grants to women entrepreneurs and informal traders.

Recommendations based on the tracker findings

The findings suggest that even where countries have adopted an impressive number of gender-sensitive measures, these will only be effective if they are adequately financed and sustained over time. Further recommendations include:

• Services to respond to and prevent VAWG must be treated as essential services, should be adequately funded and an integral part of national and local COVID-19 response plans;

• Fiscal packages must be devised to ensure that women are not left out of the pandemic response and recovery; and

• Governments must support women's active participation in leadership and decision-making processes in their COVID-19 response and invest in sex-disaggregated data to ensure that the gender-differentiated impacts of the pandemic are recognized and effectively addressed.

Source: UN Women

Photo: https://ift.tt/2EN1xIi

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Memo To Trump: Pick Heroes, Not Hymens, for the Court

Politics can be a dirty business and often to get what you want you have to ask for something else...or more properly stated - to get what you want you need to threaten what your opponent does not want.

A Couple Historical Examples

Abraham Lincoln - Few today recollect Hannibal Hamlin aside from certain scholars of Abraham Lincoln, yet this curious figure holds a significant place as first Vice President to our Sixteenth President.

Now memorialized for Freeing The Slaves, in truth Lincoln was at best moderate on the matter. Throughout his career Abraham claimed his motivating factor was preservation of the Union by any means necessary - with or without Slavery.

By contrast, the most fervent desire of Hamlin was the institution not be expanded, which evolved into a passion for emancipation. Old Hannibal was not quite at the level of John Brown...but he was definitely traveling the road toward Harper's Ferry.

So if you were an ambitious Nineteenth Century politician in a country smoldering over the incendiary issue but with no particular yearning to be outflanked on the matter, what to do?

Choose a Running Mate more extreme in order you appear mild by comparison. Indeed, during the war Hannibal passively encouraged Abolitionist Senators and by the end favored Radical Reconstruction.

It was an opportunity ultimately denied Hamlin - replaced on the Presidential ticket before re-election of Lincoln, the feeling being he had outlasted his usefulness and the Republican Party needed to "nationalize" itself by choosing Southerner Andrew Johnson for that role.

Another piquant tidbit of Presidential appointment-making would come a century afterward.

John Kennedy - Having achieved the Executive Office despite his youthful age, and much to the chagrin of the Washington Establishment, John Kennedy was in a quandary to find an Attorney General. He duly consulted all the best advisors before eventually asking his father who should be given the spot.

The reply from his old man was - your brother Robert.

While one should never discount the extraordinary nepotism of the Kennedy Clan, at the same time (otherwise despicable) Old Joe made a good point. His reasoning being John, though previously a Congressman and Senator, was still relatively new to Washington and needed someone he could trust to tell him what was really going on when he was not in the room where policies were carried out.

Likewise, Robert could act as the Enforcer of Presidential decision-making which would allow John as Conciliator-in-Chief to smooth any ruffled feathers.

It is important to note while Attorney General is considered the top legal position in the nation, Robert had scant experience as a lawyer. In fact, he had no experience in any state or federal court at all.

Facts In Evidence

What does this tell us about the inner-workings of political office and selections?

1. If you want to get things done, pick a more extreme partner to focus the enmity of your enemies.
2. When it comes to experience, no one need have any until the day they show up for the job.

Thus, regarding the current Supreme Court nomination Trump should primarily look for Integrity and secondarily ignore political Familiarity.

Here are some suggestions starkly in contrast to the modern mania for Diversity and Inclusivity...

The Howard Roark Option

In support of the above thesis is the manner of man this country needs - Howard Roark.

He was the protagonist of a novel in which an architect refuses to compromise his ideals or ability for the sake of a debased humanity. It is the sort of man who made America and of which we are in depressingly inadequate supply.

Such men do exist - they may be banned from the internet, they may be shunned from polite conversation, they may be the heretics of the Great Unanimity - yet they do exist.

Since Trump is a putative Conservative his platform ought to be Conservation of the historic nation.

As that as his basis the President ought to propose the following in ascending order of immoderation:

• Tucker Carlson, a media commentator who is politically a staunch republican in the classical sense.
• Darren Beattie, a social analyst who is politically a staunch meritocratist in the intellectual sense.
• Alex Jones, a conspiracy theorist who is politically a staunch autarkist in the libertarian sense.

In other words, Trump should begin with a strict though mainstream social and political conservative and if that person be rejected by the Senate the President should nominate ever more zealous candidates until he reverts back to another strict but mainstream individual.

Make it clear to the Politicians this is his Grand Compromise - an acceptably principled man or a drastically principled man, but no others.

Given our historical examples, there is precedent. Lincoln chose as Running Mate a man considered radical by most of the country at the time. Kennedy chose as Attorney General a man with fundamentally no practice for highest legal office in the land.

Trump has the power to do the same thing - the right thing.

The Mr. Smith Option

In the classic film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington a political flunky in the form of a Midwestern Governor has the unexpected duty to nominate an interim Senator from his state.

Normally this would be a simple matter, except in the circumstance pressure is placed on the Governor by two opposing factions which control his fortunes. He realizes his own power hangs in the balance as alienating either group will cause the end of his career. Meanwhile, his young sons idealistically encourage their father to choose a decent and hard-working political neophyte leading their social club.

The determination is left to chance when the Governor flips a coin and it lands on a newspaper, shockingly coming up even - right over a headline on that very idol of the boys.

Needless to say, the novice who is both moral and honest is picked...with predictable results when he encounters the sharp dealing and gross corruption of official Washington.

While the rest of the plot is not germane to our purposes there is no reason this has to be mere fantasy.

If Trump had any integrity at all he could very well nominate some small-town, forthright, unblemished lawyer without any prior connection to the swamp that is the Imperial City.

There is no requirement in the Constitution Supreme Court nominees must be demented, academic, multi-millionaire decadents lacking practical interaction with actual Americans.

Find a male who has worked with middle-class families trying to find health insurance for their child born with diabetes, get a fellow who has been fighting to have disability paid to blue-collar workers, locate a guy who toils out of his low-rent office in a strip-mall because he is still paying off his own student debts at the same time he is battling to obtain a second-chance for some bankrupt merchant.

There is no reason this country needs one more elite, effete, effeminate attorney on the Supreme Court who loves humanity...except in person.

The Caligula Option

While not strictly accurate Roman Caligula appointed his horse Incitatus to the Senate it is nonetheless correct in spirit - the leader intended to do it but was deterred.

Even so, the Caligula Option should be the course of action in the event the Politicians refuse to affirm an incorruptible man or Trump is unable to find a single honorable man in the entire country.

Should neither of these immaculate models be evident in all of America then the most sullied example must instead be chosen to decide the legalities of these United States.

In that disgusting circumstance, when no worthwhile man can be found or confirmed, the President ought to demonstrate for the citizens exactly how debauched their Political Class has become.

There are thousands, probably tens of thousands, of attorneys who have been censured for drug-dealing...spousal abuse...misappropriation of funds...criminal acts not technically prosecuted so they could keep their license to solicit ill-gotten gains.

The President should find one of them - the worst of the worst.

Choose a lawyer who defends repeat child molesters, who argues in favor of hedge funds breaking pensions for elderly retirees and (legally, always legally) steals their life-savings, someone who successfully exonerates rapists, one who gets acquittals for race murderers called a "bad name."

There is no shortage of shysters in America from which to select.

No Country For Decent Men

The United States is nearing the cross-roads it has been approaching for the past fifty years or more.

Time and again the nation has chosen to reject the capable in favor of the diseased, disabled and degenerate. The result has been a crippled excuse for a country which has been riding former achievements for the better part of two generations.

It is required for Trump to name a noble representative to the Supreme Court - and if he does not, choosing instead to pander and wallow in the filth of good intentions and poor outcomes - then the homeland has little hope of enduring unto the next century.

Indeed, it is increasingly ridiculous to make a plausible case that it should.

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10 Beautiful But Deadly Places of Russia

These sewage drainage channels, ash dumps and settling basins look like space landscapes but it’s dangerous to contact them. Alexander Sukharev, participant of Kosmaj Project had a journey across Russia this summer and took these curious images from a quadcopter.

Red mud disposal field of an uluminium smelter in Kamensk-Uralsky in the Sverdlovsk region of Russia. Looks beautiful but highly dangerous for environment.

Power plant in Novosibirsk

Mine water settler in Levikha village, Sverdlovsk region

Settler under the city Zima

Setller on the road Chita-Khabarovsk. It’s not recommended to walk there… Skin contact with such water can cause local allergic rections due to high mineralization.

Sterlitamak treatment facilities. Beautiful colors are explained by chemical processes.

Technical basin of the heating and power plant-2 in Tyumen. “The deadly pallet of an artist”.

Ash-disposal area of the Artem heating and power plant in the Primorye region.

Settler of the power plant in Omsk.

Settler on the road Irkutsk-Krasnoyarsk

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Turkey wages war in Nagorno Karabakh. What should Russia do?

The crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh poses a huge challenge for Russian diplomacy. A breakthrough is needed, otherwise it will be Turkey, not Russia, that will bring its erstwhile empire back to life.

Turkey conducts military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh

On Sunday, September 27, the active phase of hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh resumed. In the south of the unrecognized republic, the army of Azerbaijan launched an offensive using heavy equipment and artillery. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said at a meeting of the Security Council that Azerbaijan must resolve the conflict once and for all to restore historical justice. The President of Azerbaijan added that he would never allow a second so-called Armenian state on Azerbaijani land.

As a result of the hostilities, the parties have suffered losses both in military hardware and manpower. According to the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, 31 people were killed on the line of contact from the Armenian side during the battles. Azerbaijan says that Armenia lost 550 people.

Armenia has so far refused assistance from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), since Armenia does not recognise Nagorno-Karabakh as a sovereign state - it means that the war is not taking place on the territory of Armenia. However, the current aggravation is not just a matter of the positional advance of Azerbaijan to occupy a few dominant heights. The current crisis comes as part of the plan to bring Karabakh back under the control of Azerbaijan under the leadership of such a strong regional player as Turkey.

According to political scientist Semyon Baghdasarov, the offensive is being conducted in coordination with Turkey as a "well planned operation."

"Both Turkish special forces and militants of the Syrian so-called opposition are fighting on the side of Azerbaijan - they are, in fact, representatives of terrorist organizations from all over the world and from the East - 4,000 people. This is a pre-planned military operation," Semyon Bagdasarov told Pravda.Ru.

According to him, Turkey's President Recep Erdogan is preparing for the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Lausanne Agreement in 2023 and for the presidential election. Erdogan is active on all fronts at once: Cyprus, Greece, Libya, Iraq and South Caucasus.

Russia's three most important objectives in the conflict

In this regard, Moscow faces the first objective to show CSTO allies and observers that this organization actually exists and has power to defend others. This is very important, because security is the only factor that today keeps Armenia and the Central Asian states in Russia's sphere of influence and protects them from the destructive influence of the West.

Objective No. 2 is to once again stop Turkey in its revanchist ideas of neo-Ottomanism and Pan-Turkism.

Turkey, in contrast to Russia, which called on the warring parties to show restraint in connection with the crisis in Karabakh, clearly expressed its support for Azerbajian. Azerbaijan and Turkey are "one nation in two states," as Erdogan once noted.

Erdogan calls himself Putin's "friend," but in fact he undermines "fraternal" relations with Russia.

Ankara openly pushes Gazprom out of the Turkish gas market at a difficult time for the Russian economy. Russia currently ranks fifth on the list of gas suppliers to Turkey, while Azerbaijan ranks first with a 23.5 percent of the share of the Turkish market. Natural gas supplies via the Turkish Stream pipeline system actually stopped, while the Blue Stream never came out of repairs.

Turkey has been reducing its purchases of Russian oil too lately in an effort to replace Russian oil with that from Azerbaijan. Turkey's largest refinery STAR, which belongs to SOCAR of Azerbaijan,  has not bought a barrel of Urals oil from Russia for two months already, although in the past it used to be one of the country's largest buyers of Russian oil.

Russia's third objective is to prevent the triumph of one religion over another, which in this case is fraught with the strengthening of Islamic extremism in the region, which is critically dangerous for Russia. Erdogan once threatened to "blow up Russia" from the inside in its Islamic regions.

All this does not come contrary to the fact that Azerbaijan has the right to return its territories, but not within the framework of the former Soviet autonomy, whose people made their choice in a referendum in 1991 - but within the framework of Azerbaijani regions that Armenia seized around the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region. One ha to return those territories, albeit with the recognition of the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh. That would be fair.

The crisis must be resolved within the framework of the Eurasian counterparts of OSCE

The Karabakh crisis is tackled within the framework of the OSCE (the Minsk Group), which includes, in addition to Russia, the United States and France. The unresolved conflict indicates the weakness of the alliance with the West, which is destabilizing Russia by fueling up conflicts in post-Soviet countries.

It is obvious that Russia needs a new Eurasian security system instead of the OSCE. Russia needs to work with China, Kazakhstan, India, but the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) does not become an analogue of Western peacekeeping structures. It lacks political will, which is suppressed by the threat of economic sanctions.

Vladimir Lepekhin, Director General of the EAEU Institute, told Pravda.Ru that it is impossible to create an alternative to the West quickly.

This is a consequence of Gorbachev's perestroika, when Russia eyed integration with international law, world economy and everything else, where the West dominates, the political scientist explained.

According to Vladimir Lepekhin, it took Russia time to see the dangers of integration with the West, the goal of which was to subjugate Russia to his interests completely. When Russia started showing its desire to secure its sovereignty, the West received this extremely negatively, the political scientist continued.

The West subsequently punished Russia with Georgia's invasion in South Ossetia, the coup in Ukraine. Crises are brewing in Moldova, the Baltics, Belarus, Georgia and so on. The most recent events in the South Caucasus, in the opinion of Vladimir Lepekhin indicate that the West shows support to the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.

"The Russian leadership and many elites of post-Soviet space are beginning to understand that, in fact, the West is pursuing a colonial policy to achieve revanchist goals that had been set during the Second World War with respect to the Soviet Union, but had not been implemented," said Vladimir Lepekhin.

According to him, Russia is growing to apply its structures in international affairs. Several international organisations have already been created for the purpose: the club of presidents of post-Soviet countries, the CIS, the Eurasian Economic Union, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which is a military-political organization.

"Now it is becoming more obvious that Russia does not need the World Trade Organization - Russia needs its own Eurasian trade organization, Eurasian health organization, its own organization for the protection of human rights, which would be identical to the OSCE," the expert added.

According to him, in order to create an analogue of the OSCE, other countries need to exercise their will to participate in the endeavour, because such organizations require serious funding.

The expert believes that BRICS or SCO may ultimately create such structures.

"China is a closed country for the whole world, for the West. But China may perhaps soon evince interest in creating such an organization. Therefore, Beijing will create an analogue to the OSCE together with Russia and other countries," Vladimir Lepekhin said.

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Western And Soviet Movie Episodes Get Mixed!

It’s not new when someone uses Photoshop to combine Soviet and Western movies. But it’s always much fun. This time it’s an illustrator from Kazan who shared these pictures.

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Artist From Kazakhstan Makes Amazing Works From Fallen Leaves

Kanat Nurtazin is a self-taught artist from Astana, Kazakhstan, who makes incredible works from fallen leaves with help of a utility knife. They became so popular that the author was contacted by Disney and Nickeldeon with cooperation offers. Works of Kanat were used in advertising campaigns for movies Maleficent 2 and Frozen 2 of Disney. Nickeldeon also used his works for popularization of its characters in social media.

via @kanat_n

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