John Bolton, a troglodyte retro-Republican former diplomat and operative, has compared Trump’s nominee for FBI director to Josef Stalin’s last secret police chief Lavrenty Beria. Many historians now believe that Beria killed Stalin by dosing him with the anti-coagulant warfarin, which prompted the Soviet strongman’s fatal stroke. One of the first moves in the Krushchev era’s destalinization was that Beria was taken away and summarily shot. Boton’s unflattering comparison points to the Republicans’ big problams with getting Trump’s nominees ratified and legislative agenda approved. Cropped from a Wikimedia photo by Gage Skidmore.
Joe pardons his son
One of the banes of Panamanian politics is that sort of “family values” in which public offices are used to benefit their holders’ families. Who gets charged with crimes and who doesn’t, who gets a well-paid sinecure with the government, who gets lucrative contracts steered his or her way — all these games and more have come to exasperate and deeply offend a large segment of the Panamanian people.
Is it “blowback” when banana republic ethics get a grip on US politic? Only partially. The USA had La Cosa Nostra, Latin America has its crime cartels. Pretenses of innate moral superiority offend, Even when thuggery actually is an import. npeople of all nations have feet of clay. Hunter Biden was a drug addict whose financial affairs were not kept tidy, and worse yet was a drug addict who had a gun.
The tax offenses were trivial and would not have been prosecuted were he some obscure guy with no political connections. The weapons charge was more serious, but he did eventually get off of the drugs without shooting anybody.
But meanwhile Trump’s crowds chant “Lock him up!” and his FBI director nominee actually has an extensive political enemies list of people he wants to pursue. It’s a conflict of interest, but it’s also quire reasonable for the president to want to protect his son from that. He ought to issue pre-emptive pardons to a lot of other people on Patel’s list, too.
This one happens to be fake. It’s hard to tell here, but look at there it says “República de Panamá” and if there is no accent over the “u” or the last “a” it’s counterfeit.
A crime has been committed and blame will attach to
some individuals but that still leaves a problem
In two batches under the Martinelli and Varela administrations 80 million of the “Martinelli” $1 coins were minted in Canada. Now there are an awful lot of counterfeits, many made in Chia, some apparently made here, in circulation. The plan seems to be to get rid of the fakes and put the genuine coins in a vault somewhere, retired from circulation.
It seems likely that some counterfeiters in China will be tried and executed. But Panama has no death penalty — certainly not for economic crimes — and it would be against our national sense of propriety and common sense for us to demand or applaud the shooting of a few criminals by anyone.
It would also offend Panamanian and universal norms to make a racial issue out of this. CHINA did not create this problem, nor did Panamanians of Chinese ancestry. Maybe a few Chinese citizens, or Chinese Panamanians, did it.
China is a great industrial and technological power with which Panama maintains economic and diplomatic ties. Perhaps they can lend us a hand in scanning and sorting out the false coins and replacing those. Instead of extreme posturing and broad assignments of blame, let’s have some friendly cooperation to address a problem that affects both of our countries.
Hellman in her New York apartment, 1977. Photo by Lynn Gilbert.
I like people who refuse to speak until they are ready to speak
Lillian Hellman
Bear in mind…
There is no stigma attached to recognizing a bad decision in time to install a better one.
Laurence J. Peter
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
Thomas Jefferson
Egotism — usually just a case of mistaken nonentity.
Barbara Stanwyck
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