July 15, 2018

Open.

Thread.

28 comments:

Kirby Olson said...

Finland is a neat place. Unlike England, I doubt if we will see any serious protests. I lived in Finland for five years, and married a Finn. I love them. They are so nice, and they are welcoming. They might hate your guts, but you are still welcome. They are used to hiding their feelings because they had to live next door to Russia for a thousand years. They would all gladly obliterate Russia. However, if you meet a Finn and you are Russian, you would think they liked you. Until the Finn got drunk. Then he would knock your teeth out. He wouldn't, however, take your wallet. At Finnish universities, the students hang up their coats in the lobby and leave them there, unlocked for eight hours. No one takes them. The Finns wouldn't even think about taking your coat.

Kirby Olson said...

Not even Melania's beautiful coat from today! What is the name on that coat? It was something else, wasn't it?

FullMoon said...



"On 9-10 May of this year," the May 14 memorandum explained, "Sen. Edward Kennedy's close friend and trusted confidant [John] Tunney was in Moscow." (Tunney was Kennedy's law school roommate and a former Democratic senator from California.) "The senator charged Tunney to convey the following message, through confidential contacts, to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Y. Andropov."

Kennedy's message was simple. He proposed an unabashed quid pro quo. Kennedy would lend Andropov a hand in dealing with President Reagan. In return, the Soviet leader would lend the Democratic Party a hand in challenging Reagan in the 1984 presidential election. "The only real potential threats to Reagan are problems of war and peace and Soviet-American relations," the memorandum stated. "These issues, according to the senator, will without a doubt become the most important of the election campaign."

Kennedy made Andropov a couple of specific offers.

First he offered to visit Moscow. "The main purpose of the meeting, according to the senator, would be to arm Soviet officials with explanations regarding problems of nuclear disarmament so they may be better prepared and more convincing during appearances in the USA." Kennedy would help the Soviets deal with Reagan by telling them how to brush up their propaganda.

Then he offered to make it possible for Andropov to sit down for a few interviews on American television. "A direct appeal ... to the American people will, without a doubt, attract a great deal of attention and interest in the country. ... If the proposal is recognized as worthy, then Kennedy and his friends will bring about suitable steps to have representatives of the largest television companies in the USA contact Y.V. Andropov for an invitation to Moscow for the interviews. ... The senator underlined the importance that this initiative should be seen as coming from the American side."

Kennedy would make certain the networks gave Andropov air time--and that they rigged the arrangement to look like honest journalism.

...In 1992, Tim Sebastian published a story about the memorandum in the London Times. Here in the U.S., Sebastian's story received no attention. In his 2006 book, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, historian Paul Kengor reprinted the memorandum in full. "The media," Kengor says, "ignored the revelation."

The document," Kengor continues, "has stood the test of time. I scrutinized it more carefully than anything I've ever dealt with as a scholar. I showed the document to numerous authorities who deal with Soviet archival material. No one has debunked the memorandum or shown it to be a forgery. Kennedy's office did not deny it."

https://www.forbes.com/2009/08/27/ted-kennedy-soviet-union-ronald-reagan-opinions-columnists-peter-robinson.html#72ec984e359a

rcocean said...

BTW, I'm currently reading "World War 1 and America" Told By the Americans Who Lived It. Library of America 2017.

Its almost a poster child for how Left-wing political correctness is ruining American History. There are about 100 chapters and about 800 (small) pages and its the contemporaneous letters, speeches, etc. of Americans about WW 1 from 1914-1921.

So, you'd imagine it was mostly about, well, World War 1 and America. But its not!

Only about 30 of the 100 chapters are about the US Fighting in France. Half the book, 50 chapters, relate to WW 1 prior to the USA, getting involved. Of the 50 after that date, 11 relate to "Racism" against Blacks, 4 are about "women's suffrage" and 10 are about Wilson's peace conference.

So, anyway, who cares about all that fighting and 50,000 dead Americans and who actually won the war - and how. Or the Versailles treaty. Lets talk about Emma Goldman and W.E.B Du Bois!

FullMoon said...

TIME MAGAZINE: Secret story of how America helped Yeltsin win Russian election

Quayle said...

I pulled into Nazareth, was feeling 'bout half past dead
I just need some place where I can lay my head
Hey, mister, can you tell me, where a man might find a bed?
He just grinned and shook my hand, "No" was all he said.

Ralph L said...

Copying Glenn Reynolds!

FullMoon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
M Jordan said...

So now Mueller’s has, what, some 25 indictments of Russians. That’s a neat trick. Accuse the Russians of a crime you are accusing them of. Houses of mirrors are fun! And even more fun is the fact that they’ll never show up in court to defend themselves.

Except one is.

Oopsies!

What we are witnessing is the American Stasi. Ugly. Stupod. Dark.

sane_voter said...

Why isn't Robert Mueller investigating Donna Brazile? She is the only Anerican I know that colluded to fix the 2016 election.

narciso said...

Patent fraud, that's been going on for years


https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/07/13/dangerous-pseudo-science-in-cyber-security/?cn-reloaded=1

narciso said...


More detail:

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/07/the_forgotten_ii_the_strange_case_of_the_missing_russians.html

Bob said...

Take a look at the moon tonight, with Venus "nearby"

walter said...

San Francisco Mayor London Breed, in her first one-on-one interview since taking office, said homeless advocacy groups that receive funding from the city need to better educate the homeless to "clean up after themselves."

"I work hard to make sure your programs are funded for the purposes of trying to get these individuals help, and what I am asking you to do is work with your clients and ask them to at least have respect for the community — at least, clean up after themselves and show respect to one another and people in the neighborhood," Breed told the Investigative Unit, referencing her conversations with nonprofit groups aimed at serving the homeless.

When pressed about whether her plan calls for harsher penalties against those who litter or defecate on city streets, Breed said "I didn’t express anything about a penalty." Instead, the mayor said she has encouraged nonprofits "to talk to their clients, who, unfortunately, were mostly responsible for the conditions of our streets."

narciso said...


Yes San Francisco will never be space force headquarters


https://www.wsj.com/articles/an-ally-sizes-up-donald-trump-1531521949

Lucien said...

Those who watched the World Cup Final will have noticed that Vladimir Putin attended it.

So he was not cloistered with hid KGB team planning on taking the ignorant American President after all.

Josephbleau said...

But San Francisco was ( will be?) the location of the federations Starfleet headquarters.

FIDO said...

It seems that 21 different newspapers ran almost identical letters criticizing Kavanaugh as SCOUTUS pick. When the befuddled (or complicit) opinion editors were forced to follow up on this, they could not confirm the identities of the letter writers.

This is that 'Blue Wave' Inga keeps going on about.

Ann Althouse said...

"Copying Glenn Reynolds!"

Ha ha. I should have written, "At the Photographless Café... ... you can get the picture," but I was writing on my iPad and it seemed like an uphill climb, especially so late at night.

somewhy said...

Shades of The Me Blog.

Tank said...

Not British Open?

Oh.

Rusty said...

Today I have endured thirty years of marriage.
My wife is holding up better than I am.
Must be all the drugs and alchahol.

Whirred Whacks said...

Two tips if you want your open thread to work:

1) encourage gifs (lots and lots of them)

2) add a rating system so that your readers can upvote their favorites. This allows the cream to rise to the top and readers can get the good stuff at the beginning without having to sort through the mediocre comments.

Fritz said...

So now Mueller’s has, what, some 25 indictments of Russians. That’s a neat trick. Accuse the Russians of a crime you are accusing them of. Houses of mirrors are fun! And even more fun is the fact that they’ll never show up in court to defend themselves.

Except one is.

Oopsies!

What we are witnessing is the American Stasi. Ugly. Stupod. Dark.


If Putin were half as clever as people seem to think he is, he would direct one of the 12 GRU guys to surrender for trial (Potemkin would be a good choice, for the name alone), and force Mueller to put up or shut up.

MadTownGuy said...

FIDO said...
It seems that 21 different newspapers ran almost identical letters criticizing Kavanaugh as SCOUTUS pick. When the befuddled (or complicit) opinion editors were forced to follow up on this, they could not confirm the identities of the letter writers.

Was one of them Ellie Light?

MadTownGuy said...

That blog post about Ellie Light.

Mark said...

Fake.

Anon said...

Lucien said...

"Those who watched the World Cup Final will have noticed that Vladimir Putin attended it.

So he was not cloistered with hid KGB team planning on taking the ignorant American President after all."

Do you need to strategize when meeting with a compliant underling who is largely unable to think for himself? I doubt it.