David Ferguson — There are four ways Donald Trump may be guilty of treason, says law expert

The attack on Donald Trump intensifies.

I should say "bogus attack."

While there has been no disclosure thus far of evidence….

Expect "treason" to be the new meme.

If that doesn’t work, I suppose they will try cannibalism.

Someone tell them they already jumped the shark some time ago.

Raw Story
There are four ways Donald Trump may be guilty of treason, says law expert

David Ferguson

Also at Raw Story

Intelligence expert: 10 years ago Trump would have faced a treason trial after being ‘co-opted’ by Putin
Tom Boggioni

Sectoral Balances In Culture, Not Just Currency. Cheney on Torture, Shame, Disgrace & National Ruin: "I Would Do It Again in a Minute"

(Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)

Cheney channels his inner Nero, and Ariel Sharon.

Dick Cheney Promotes Torture As An American Principle (video)

Text version here.

How did we get to this point? Are NeoLiberals the ONLY humans that think that Sectoral Balances apply only to currency - and even then, only when they want them to, for personal gain?
My own son asked me a question about the culture that we want for the USA. As answer, I have to tell him that I am ashamed of Dick Cheney, not proud.

Jerrit: "The short version is that he was questioned about the innocent victims of the CIA rendition program, some of whom died, and said he was more concerned with the guilty ones who we mistakenly let free. 

I was stunned. Isn't there an opposite quote from either Jefferson or Franklin? I was thinking it's one thing to have such a thought if you're a bitter, spiteful person, but another level of brazen, insensitive sociopathy to say it on national TV."

An honest answer isn't long in coming, if we actually are honest.

"Yup."

People that knew Cheney personally have said that he was always that way.

There's an immediate, follow-up question. What has gone horribly wrong with our policy-staff selection process, that sociopaths like Cheney even get into politics, let alone promoted to the highest levels of our government?

Yes, we do have a few countering quotes. Quotes that previously led our destiny in an adaptive direction which we could always build upon, and be proud of.

“It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished. 

But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, 'whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection,' and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.”
― John Adams, The Portable John Adams

...

“Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner]. . . I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause… for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country.” - George Washington, charge to the Northern Expeditionary Force, Sept. 14, 1775

Wasn't security what Dick Cheney SAID he wanted all along?

You have to wonder whose security he was really looking out for. Certainly not our security, in aggregate.

If we can't select people guiding us to a better/faster/leaner cultural Adaptive Rate than our recent policy actions, then there are some pieces missing from our culture's current adaptive processes. George Washington had it right.

Dick Cheney can't procure security by practicing treason.

People like Cheney showing up in our history are a sure sign of cultural decline and cultural death. He'll be linked in our history the same way Nero & the fall of Rome were.

When it comes to an argument between Dick Cheney, versus George Washington AND John Adams, I'll go with the Founders, every time.

While Cheney pontificates on his personal, faux morality, his own immorality is plain to see.

Would YOU elect Cheney again, in a minute?

Laurence Kotlikoff Tries To Screw His Country Again ... On Behalf Of Whomever's Paying Him. The NY Times Jumps Onboard As Willing Accomplice

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)




Add Laurence Kotlikoff to that list of identified traitors to the USA.

"HOUSEHOLDS can’t spend, on a continuing basis, more than they earn. Countries can’t either, at least not over the long run."

Kotlikoff is spewing words that fail the most fundamental rule of discourse: Define your terms - or accept nonsensical semantics masquerading as discourse. Was Kotlikoff raised on Erble Logic?

Just restate his statements accurately, in the following way.

"CURRENCY USERS can’t spend, on a continuing basis, more than the currency they earn.

CURRENCY ISSUERS can, obviously, since they create, on-demand, the currency that their users need, to denominate existing transactions - no matter how fast they increase."

See? That wasn't so hard.

Kotlikoff is inventing a fiat mountain out of fiat nonsense, by misusing the semantics. Why? He should go into the magicians business, where it actually pays to distract and fool audiences. That strategy does NOT benefit a democracy.

How do YOU spell "Benedict Arnold?"

Few, if any, perform this kind of treason without a willing sponsor. Does anyone know who is paying Kotlikoff to spew such nonsense? Neither Marriner Eccles nor Beardsley Ruml would approve. Not even Benjamin Franklin. 

Who ya gonna believe? People that SERVED their country? Or those who undermine it, for personal gain?

Variance in Capitalism

Commentary by Roger Erickson

"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it." – Mark Twain

The same is true of what we too-loosely define as capitalism. What is capitalism? There isn't just one form, but a spectrum of methods, with both necessary variance and constant selection. Like sexual, cultural and option recombination, capitalism is also a highly recombinant process. It has to be, or else.  Here's my personal definition.

"Personal-to-group capitalism is about forcing accelerated adoption of a 'better' way, in all it's distributed ramifications." RGE

There are very few good capitalists, or capitalist groups. Maybe if the Dalai Llama ran a business? :)  Actually, most of our vaunted "capitalists" are outright idiot savants with incredibly narrow cognitive abilities. Their views are so obtuse they're not even wrong, they're just irrelevant, and they're preventing us from exploring our national options - which are growing exponentially. Yet here we sit, with "capitalists" insisting that we're "running out of fiat."

For capitalism, what does "better" mean, in practice? It means a better way to reduce the national Output Gap. Anything less gets boring very quickly, and is also maladaptive. 

For members of any Social Species, the return on tribal or group ties always apply. Local actions are either patriotic, or they're treason, with a constantly varying grey area in between. That's true for the actions of any component in any system, of course, but Social Species make an art of accelerating distributed calculation of shared outcomes. Every physical or living ecosystem is effectively an analog computing system. Social species are simply the state of the art in analog computing achievement. Human cultures claim to be state of the state-of-the-art. We'll see.

What does this mean for notions of "capitalism?" Over time, local outcomes that are personally better ALWAYS track what's better for group, nation or species. The two metrics either converge, or the species or nation isn't Adapting and evolving, just dissociating and dying.

Selecting what's "better" ... that's difficult. Especially in rapidly growing groups, because the calculation becomes more distributed, at a rate that increases even faster than population growth does. So never lose sight of return-on-coordination as the highest return, by far. None of us will be better off if our neighborhood, state or nation collapses.

Adequate titration of what is "better" is a simple, mathematical function of inter-connectivity and feedback. An analog computing system is only as good as the range, tempo and agility of it's interconnections. That's especially true of every human culture and sub-culture, whether a family, neighborhood, business or nation.

We have fiat. "We" must figure out how to optimally use it. That means all of us.

Lorraine Devon Wilke — Buddhist Scholar Robert Thurman Says Norquist Pledge Is Treason, Video Goes Viral

...Professor Thurman thinks the Grover Norquist pledge is a “seditious oath, a treasonous oath,” and he wants to “start a meme” that stirs up the people of this country to give serious thought to what that means....

Thurman’s main thesis is that a person cannot hold allegiance to two masters, particularly conflicting masters, and properly serve either. He makes the point by, first, reiterating the oath of office that all Senators and Congressman and women take:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

A noble, historical oath; one that comes, surely, with the expectation of loyalty and a willingness to do what comes with the job. Instead, Thurman points out:

“95% of the congressmen and Republican senators have sworn a written oath to someone called Grover Norquist and an organization called American For Tax Reform; that they will under no circumstances, and for no reason, raise taxes of any kind on anyone. And therefore they have taken an oath to an outside organization which is not supported by the U.S. Constitution – which gives Congress the right to levy taxes, to do the work of the people through the government –but this is a non governmental organization, not elected by anybody and supported by big money people who are making money by not having to pay taxes.

“And these people have signed a sworn oath that contradicts their oath of office. And therefore, in fact, they do have mental reservations, and they do have purpose of evasion and they are not sincerely taking their oath of office. And if they persist in that, and if they are held to that by this outside person who is not a member of the government, then they are, in fact, breaking their oath of office and they are not serving what they swore to serve the American people.”

Most would find this a compelling enough argument against the Pledge, but also consider the mission statement of Americans for Tax Reform, who, like many conservatives, see their mission as “starving the beast,” in reference to the government.

Norquist himself has stated:

“I’m not in favor of abolishing the government. I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”

Thurman takes issue with that verbiage, the implication of destroying the government. He suggests that people expressing fealty to Norquist are, in essence, agreeing to a kind of “anarchist” proposition; agreeing, by virtue of loyalty to Norquist, that the government is essentially useless and should be starved, destroyed. And that, he believes, is where the line is crossed:

"It’s actually a kind of seditious oath, a treasonous oath. People who take that oath cannot actually serve in the government with good conscience, because their real role is to act as a mole to destroy the government; they are 'starving the beast.'"

Addicting Info
Buddhist Scholar Says Norquist Pledge Is Treason, Goes Viral (VIDEO)
Lorraine Devon Wilke
(h/t Naked Capitalism)

Only Immaculate Fraud Could Explain This BS

What other Innocent Fraud could attain this degree of ignorance?

Bankers & bureaucrats on both sides of the Atlantic are spiraling around the same flame. Proof that they really can't comprehend anything different?

Jamie Dimon: “If we had done something remotely like Simpson-Bowles, you would have increased confidence in America. You would have shown a real fix of the long-term fiscal problem. I think you would have had . . . a more effective tax system that is conducive to economic growth.”

For Pete’s sake! Just charge Jamie Dimon with treason? Decades ago, we used to have better businesspeople & statesmen. At least in this country.

Meanwhile, there are growing signs that the EU is also doing things backwards, and for the wrong reasons too!

EU President, Jose Manuel Barroso: "We advocate further integration within the Euro area. It is now evident that this is indispensable for the sustainability of our common currency,"

So it's official?  Back to destroying Aggregate Demand, employment, and net capabilities ... in order to sustain a fiat currency?

What part of "fiat" don't these people understand?

We're everywhere constraining the will of the people in order to make the people's arbitrary numbers look "nice" ... ?   What the heck does that even mean?

Let's turn to California for a breath of fresh air.  Out there they're pinning their hopes on much more audacious goals.  Doh!

Are we drowning in fools of our own making?  It makes one reluctant to even read any more news.

  Either stop churning out citizens this mis-educated,

   or just wake me when the stupid is over.

If there really are gods, SHE must be laughing to tears after pulling fig leaves over all possible permutations of our senses & brains.

Honk if you love Immaculate Output Crap.  Otherwise, let's go for a purge, by inducing massive "dia-reason".  We started the Age of Reason 500 years ago, but there appear to be some major blockages, and way too much reason backing up, unused.

Please, please, please America & Europe - dump these scheisselings!   And flush 'em too.