zenpundit.com

[ by Charles Cameron — #Malheur — from a lemonade stand to “Russia needs to bomb the United States” ]
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A series of posts from JJ MacNab today:

#oregonstandoff hold-out David Fry's latest posts on FB aren't subtle. pic.twitter.com/Plnt00j0A5

— JJ MacNab (@jjmacnab) May 13, 2017

Another example: pic.twitter.com/GtreXwXK9C

— JJ MacNab (@jjmacnab) May 13, 2017

None of his followers are saying that such a response is problematic. pic.twitter.com/RiNfaAIJUy

— JJ MacNab (@jjmacnab) May 13, 2017

This stuff isn't new, but it's been getting more explicit. pic.twitter.com/yF2bV6mpNk

— JJ MacNab (@jjmacnab) May 13, 2017

And another. pic.twitter.com/Z0NmdU5FgA

— JJ MacNab (@jjmacnab) May 13, 2017

Some of his "solutions" are more interesting than others. pic.twitter.com/6SPBg7j5ZU

— JJ MacNab (@jjmacnab) May 13, 2017

[ by Charles Cameron — whether Russian or Chinese, European or American, the wealthiest are, d’oh, world citizens ]
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Arrangements have been made..

What’s fairly interesting here is the role the purchase of real estate plays in moving indivudals to where their money would like to go.

Sources:

Bloomberg, EU Passports for Sale in Sunny Cyprus Lure Rich Russians’ Cash

WaPo, PoliticsChina pitch by Kushner sister renews controversy over visa program

[ by Charles Cameron — covering all bases? — an astonishing display of symbols ]
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Lists of three — sex, drugs and rock’n’roll for example, or wine, women and song, as we used to say — sex, lies and videotape — can usefully itemize / totemize the whole of life as it is lived — a jug of wine, a loaf of bread and thou beside me — at the individual, general, universal or transcendent level — when two or three are gathered in my name —

But this image, from a Ukrainian law enforcement advisor’s Instagram account beats all!

Hat tip: Christopher Miller

Pistol, crucifix, condom — I was wondering whether one could play scissors, paper, rock with those symbols, but..

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Coleridge characterizes symbols thus:

A symbol is characterized… above all by the translucence of the Eternal through and in the Temporal. It always partakes of the Reality which it Renders Intelligible; and while it enunciates the whole, abides itself as a living part in that Unity of which it is representative.

At night, to be honest, a pistol, a condom an a crucifix might each be placed on the bedside table of someone in law enforcement as a matter of convenience, with no great symbolic import attached. But they are each nonetheless highly symbolic items. And the greater the degree to which these three items, when considered as symbols, are “translucent” to the individual resder here, the more astonishing their juztaposition in this image will appear.

[ by Charles Cameron — Sally Yates, Preet Bharara, James Comey ]
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I like it when other people do my work for me.

I made a venn diagram to help us understand the people Trump has fired and the people investigating Trump. pic.twitter.com/wF6JinCoXj

— Emily Farris (@emayfarris) May 10, 2017

This diagram is a splendid double (ppl imvestigating Trump; ppl Trump has fired) and triple (Sally Yates; Preet Bharara; James Comey) bead game, a Venn diagram with perfect and complete overlap. Bravo.

[ by Charles Cameron — as i tweeted, if you fire the guy who’s investigating you, that’s ouroboric – it creates & instantly breaks the circle, too ]
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Okay, the Comey firing.

Shortly after President Trump‘s firing of FBI Director Comey today, Jim Hanson of Frank Gaffney‘s Center for Security Policy commented on Fox:

You know, this may be the first bipartisan thing Trump has done that both sides can get behind.

It was an extraordinary comment. That’s not how the Wall Street Journal saw things. Their headline and sub-head read:

Comey Dismissal Upends Probes of Trump Campaign Ties to Russia
Move adds impetus to calls for a special counsel to handle the case

Quite the opposite: I’ll show you nonpartisan:

Nonpartisan, right now, means disturbed by the firing, by its timing, by its implication for ongoing investigation into Team Trump’s ties with Russia..

And as John Schindler notes:

The optics of firing the FBI director investigating your Russia ties then meeting the Russian FM on THE VERY NEXT DAY defy easy description.

Or Blogs of War:

When you fire the guy who is investigating you on Tuesday and meet with your case officer on Wednesday..

Ahem: case officer..

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From my analytic point of view, alert for pattern and archetype, what leaps out here is another damned ouroboros — this whole place is getting to be quite a snake-pit.

Trump has in fact bitten off the hand that was investigating him. Or to put that into Politico’s prose:

The extraordinary dismissal of the FBI director by a president whose own campaign is the focus of an ongoing FBI investigation is sure to produce a torrent of criticism that Trump is interfering with the independence of law enforcement.

There’s even a sub-ouroboros, given that Trump cited a letter from AG Sessions as contributing to his decision — as Sen. Schumer noted in his press conference:

Attorney General Sessions, who had recused himself from the Russian investigation, played a role in firing the man leading it.

Maybe we could call that “recusal of the recusal”?