President Donald Trump

[TranaGreg]

I really don't want to see Melania's parents in lingerie.

[Fresno Bob mode]

Uptight east coasters!!!

[/Fresno Bob mode]

[Hornsby]

B-Fly, I have no idea why this decision was made, though I'd agree that asbestos is not in the top ten of materials to be concerned about. The belief about the Twin Towers is bogus, though that asbestos is a superior fire protection material and heat insulator is true. Moreover, the US had not banned all asbestos products before this change; but did ban their use in schools and other buildings that EPA 40 CFR 763 and OSHA 29 CFR 1926 applied to.

Asbestos is dangerous as a dust, and not encapsulated in an insulating material. That said, in industrial settings, it's next to impossible for encapsulating materials not to fail over time, typically in the 15-25 year timeframe.

All that said, I believe it's highly unlikely that asbestos will become a material that's used anymore. It's not cost effective anymore, and I doubt any engineer would take the risk of a product liability lawsuit designing with asbestos at this point. They'd have a very hard time standing against a legal claim of "the hazard could have been designed away by some reasonably economical and available technology".

Just for shits and giggles, I had to google who the leading manufacturer of asbestos is...I won't make you guess, LOL.

This statistic shows the world mine production of asbestos from 2010 to 2017, by leading countries. In 2010, some 200,000 metric tons of asbestos were produced in Kazakhstan. Russia, however, is the world's largest producer, with an annual production of around 0.69 million metric tons in 2017. This mineral is found naturally in the environment and contains silicon and oxygen. It occurs in different colors such as blue, brown, and white, and is usually found as a fibrous material.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/264923/world-mine-production-of-asbestos/

Coincidence? YOU be the judge!

[Hornsby]

Brilliant response today by the Admiral who oversaw the raid that killed Osama bin Laden...Admiral William H, McRaven:

The retired Navy admiral writes to President Trump: Former CIA director John Brennan, whose security clearance you revoked on Wednesday, is one of the finest public servants I have ever known. Few Americans have done more to protect this country than John. He is a man of unparalleled integrity, whose honesty and character have never been in question, except by those who don’t know him.

Therefore, I would consider it an honor if you would revoke my security clearance as well, so I can add my name to the list of men and women who have spoken up against your presidency.

Courtesy WaPo alerts...

[Lurker765]

Just for shits and giggles, I had to google who the leading manufacturer of asbestos is...I won't make you guess, LOL.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/264923/world-mine-production-of-asbestos/

Coincidence? YOU be the judge!

asbestos is the best dust! as-BEST-os. It is right there in the name.

[The Feral Slasher]

Brilliant response today by the Admiral who oversaw the raid that killed Osama bin Laden...Admiral William H, McRaven:



Courtesy WaPo alerts...

I don't think there is anything brilliant about calling Brennan a man of integrity and honesty when anyone paying attention knows it isn't true.

[Hornsby]

I don't think there is anything brilliant about calling Brennan a man of integrity and honesty when anyone paying attention knows it isn't true.

Your opinion is duly noted...although giving reason why you have this opinion would certainly help.

[Teenwolf]

Your opinion is duly noted...although giving reason why you have this opinion would certainly help.

"Kill lists" comes up...

Hmm... do you suppose the US government is better off in a world where they incinerate busloads of innocent children? You think any of those kids' parents are more likely to become anti-US terrorists after they oversee killings like this with no remorse? I do.

Brennan oversaw a large part of the US drone murder spree that's killed upwards of 40 innocents for every 1 confirmed terrorist... yes he is absolutely a terrible human.

[Hornsby]

"Kill lists" comes up...

Hmm... do you suppose the US government is better off in a world where they incinerate busloads of innocent children? You think any of those kids' parents are more likely to become anti-US terrorists after they oversee killings like this with no remorse? I do.

Brennan oversaw a large part of the US drone murder spree that's killed upwards of 40 innocents for every 1 confirmed terrorist... yes he is absolutely a terrible human.

Again, not my job to make someone else's point for them...you say that you think that a person is a lousy human being, it's incumbent upon you to say why, IMO.

Many people would argue that what Brennan oversaw was integral to the security of the Western world, I'm not one of them, but it's not necessarily a total black and white issue either.

[revo]

The Pentagon cancels Dumb Donald's dopey military parade, which an Admin leaker said would cost $92m, up from their initial estimate of $12m. So what does Dumb Donald do? He shifts the "blame" to Washington DC politicians, of whom the Mayor responds back:

[The Feral Slasher]

"Kill lists" comes up...

Hmm... do you suppose the US government is better off in a world where they incinerate busloads of innocent children? You think any of those kids' parents are more likely to become anti-US terrorists after they oversee killings like this with no remorse? I do.

Brennan oversaw a large part of the US drone murder spree that's killed upwards of 40 innocents for every 1 confirmed terrorist... yes he is absolutely a terrible human.

You are wrong. On June 29th, 2011 John Brennan pointed out that there had not been a single collateral death in covert drone strikes because of the exceptional proficiency and precision of U.S. targeted killings. And John Brennan is the most honest man alive.

[Fresno Bob]

Cadet Bone Spurs can't even keep his Vietnam movies straight.....

https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/president-trump-talked-to-veterans-about-apocalypse-now-1828411979

[The Feral Slasher]

Your opinion is duly noted...although giving reason why you have this opinion would certainly help.

I don't think he "a man of unparalleled integrity, whose honesty and character have never been in question" because he has a documented history of lying and supporting torture among other things. I don't see the need for Democrats to embrace every single person who opposes Trump and make them into something they are not. I remember when Democrats hated George Bush, now he is a resistance hero. Anyway, it's not hard to find info on John Brennan that indicates he is something other than an honest man. Below is one excerpt:

Brennan, Obama’s homeland security advisor and (later) CIA director, has been vocal in his criticisms of Trump, starting with relatively subdued pushback over Trump’s comments on Obama’s body language and the president’s plan to scrap the Iran deal. This intensified following Trump’s incoherent address to the CIA shortly after his inauguration. Brennan has since begun heavily implying that he knows Trump has been compromised and, as of this year, has outright accused him of being blackmailed or in some way controlled by Putin. This June, he published an op-ed criticizing Trump for “lying routinely to the American people without compunction, intentionally fueling divisions in our country and actively working to degrade the imperfect but critical institutions that serve us.” Indeed, Trump’s dishonesty is a theme Brennan has returned to often.

All of this has conveniently helped wipe public memory of Brennan’s own misdeeds, which bear a striking resemblance to this same rap sheet.

Before Trump’s election provided an opportunity for Brennan to rebrand, he was perhaps best known for his role in the CIA’s covert spying operation against the Senate staffers who had compiled that body’s damning report on CIA torture. In 2014, months after discovering that CIA officers had breached and snooped through a secure computer network used by staffers compiling the report, Brennan — who initially refused to apologize for it — publicly lied about it. “As far as the allegations of, you know, CIA hacking into, you know, Senate computers, nothing could be further from the truth. I mean we wouldn’t do that,” he said, shaking his head and smiling in a show of exasperation. Then he did it again.

This casual, flagrant lying helped create a mini constitutional crisis. An investigation was launched, senators called for Brennan’s resignation, and then–Senate majority leader Harry Reid wrote the attorney general about “serious separation of powers implications.” Even Dianne Feinstein, one of the Senate’s most stalwart boosters of the CIA and the national security state more broadly, excoriated the agency over its actions. The Washington Post called on Obama to fire Brennan.

Brennan was, of course, personally tied up in the very torture that the Senate had been reporting on. He was deputy executive director of the CIA when it was “torturing folks” between 2001 and 2003, and he enthusiastically defended both torture and the Bush administration’s “extraordinary rendition” policy, claiming (falsely, as the report determined) that they were crucial to providing intelligence.

The CIA under Brennan continued to be supremely uncooperative with the Senate Intelligence Committee regarding the report, attempting to undermine it by misleadingly claiming it had “significant errors,” while Brennan fed information about its progress to former CIA director George Tenet, who was already crafting a counterattack. Feinstein said that Brennan was acting to protect the “brotherhood” of the CIA and that he “wanted to destroy the report.” An unnamed former intelligence official told the Sunday Times something similar: “He’s got to defend his building and rightfully sees [the report] as not just an attack on the so-called torture program but as an attack on the CIA as an institution.”

According to Connie Bruck, Brennan told different stories to different senators about his feelings on the report: that he was alternatively shocked at the report’s contents, or that it was merely a “prosecutor’s brief” trying to find problems. When it was finally released, he personally decried it as “flawed” and pointedly refused to refer to the abusive interrogation techniques outlined within as “torture.”

Besides his work torturing people and covering it up, there is perhaps no figure who bears more responsibility than Brennan for turning Obama’s drone program into what it is today: a secret, unaccountable assassination program across the Global South that visits death and destruction on poor, non-white communities, habitually targets US citizens, and fosters anti-Americanism by frequently killing innocent people. Brennan claimed in 2011 that “there hasn’t been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision” of the drone program, a claim that stretched credulity at the time, and was later proven to be a lie.

Other lies Brennan has fielded include claiming the CIA doesn’t “steal secrets” (prompting mockery from former CIA officers, though only because they were worried it would discourage CIA officers from further stealing) and claiming that Osama bin Laden had “engaged in a firefight” and used his wife as a “human shield” when he was killed, both of which turned out to be false.

Brennan’s testimony that he hadn’t been involved in setting “the parameters” of the torture program, and that he had expressed his “personal objections” about it clashed with the recollections of his colleagues. Despite reportedly being a prolific leaker himself, he attacked leaks by others and, according to a leaked email from geo-intelligence firm Stratfor, was “behind the witch hunts of investigative journalists learning information from inside the beltway sources.”

According to former CIA officer and torture whistleblower John Kiriakou, Brennan was “up to his neck in the torture program.” “How is it that one day he’s a George W. Bush neocon, and the next day he’s a Barack Obama neoliberal?” Kiriakou asked. “That is what a survivor John Brennan is. He’s a chameleon, and he can morph into anything.” Including, it seems, into a wise elder statesman standing between democracy and dictatorship.

https://jacobinmag.com/2018/08/john-brennan-trump-hayden-clapper

[revo]

Cadet Bone Spurs can't even keep his Vietnam movies straight.....

https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/pres...now-1828411979

Really, can you imagine this draft dodging buffoon belittling the experiences of a real Vietnam veteran? The representative there must have been horrified.

I can picture the aftermath:

"So, how did it go with the new President? Will he help us?"
"Ummm, he got into an argument with us about Apocalypse Now."

[DMT]

I don't see the need for Democrats to embrace every single person who opposes Trump and make them into something they are not. I remember when Democrats hated George Bush, now he is a resistance hero.

Excellent point.

[nots]

I don't think he "a man of unparalleled integrity, whose honesty and character have never been in question" because he has a documented history of lying and supporting torture among other things. I don't see the need for Democrats to embrace every single person who opposes Trump and make them into something they are not. I remember when Democrats hated George Bush, now he is a resistance hero. Anyway, it's not hard to find info on John Brennan that indicates he is something other than an honest man. Below is one excerpt:

Brennan, Obama’s homeland security advisor and (later) CIA director, has been vocal in his criticisms of Trump, starting with relatively subdued pushback over Trump’s comments on Obama’s body language and the president’s plan to scrap the Iran deal. This intensified following Trump’s incoherent address to the CIA shortly after his inauguration. Brennan has since begun heavily implying that he knows Trump has been compromised and, as of this year, has outright accused him of being blackmailed or in some way controlled by Putin. This June, he published an op-ed criticizing Trump for “lying routinely to the American people without compunction, intentionally fueling divisions in our country and actively working to degrade the imperfect but critical institutions that serve us.” Indeed, Trump’s dishonesty is a theme Brennan has returned to often.

All of this has conveniently helped wipe public memory of Brennan’s own misdeeds, which bear a striking resemblance to this same rap sheet.

Before Trump’s election provided an opportunity for Brennan to rebrand, he was perhaps best known for his role in the CIA’s covert spying operation against the Senate staffers who had compiled that body’s damning report on CIA torture. In 2014, months after discovering that CIA officers had breached and snooped through a secure computer network used by staffers compiling the report, Brennan — who initially refused to apologize for it — publicly lied about it. “As far as the allegations of, you know, CIA hacking into, you know, Senate computers, nothing could be further from the truth. I mean we wouldn’t do that,” he said, shaking his head and smiling in a show of exasperation. Then he did it again.

This casual, flagrant lying helped create a mini constitutional crisis. An investigation was launched, senators called for Brennan’s resignation, and then–Senate majority leader Harry Reid wrote the attorney general about “serious separation of powers implications.” Even Dianne Feinstein, one of the Senate’s most stalwart boosters of the CIA and the national security state more broadly, excoriated the agency over its actions. The Washington Post called on Obama to fire Brennan.

Brennan was, of course, personally tied up in the very torture that the Senate had been reporting on. He was deputy executive director of the CIA when it was “torturing folks” between 2001 and 2003, and he enthusiastically defended both torture and the Bush administration’s “extraordinary rendition” policy, claiming (falsely, as the report determined) that they were crucial to providing intelligence.

The CIA under Brennan continued to be supremely uncooperative with the Senate Intelligence Committee regarding the report, attempting to undermine it by misleadingly claiming it had “significant errors,” while Brennan fed information about its progress to former CIA director George Tenet, who was already crafting a counterattack. Feinstein said that Brennan was acting to protect the “brotherhood” of the CIA and that he “wanted to destroy the report.” An unnamed former intelligence official told the Sunday Times something similar: “He’s got to defend his building and rightfully sees [the report] as not just an attack on the so-called torture program but as an attack on the CIA as an institution.”

According to Connie Bruck, Brennan told different stories to different senators about his feelings on the report: that he was alternatively shocked at the report’s contents, or that it was merely a “prosecutor’s brief” trying to find problems. When it was finally released, he personally decried it as “flawed” and pointedly refused to refer to the abusive interrogation techniques outlined within as “torture.”

Besides his work torturing people and covering it up, there is perhaps no figure who bears more responsibility than Brennan for turning Obama’s drone program into what it is today: a secret, unaccountable assassination program across the Global South that visits death and destruction on poor, non-white communities, habitually targets US citizens, and fosters anti-Americanism by frequently killing innocent people. Brennan claimed in 2011 that “there hasn’t been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision” of the drone program, a claim that stretched credulity at the time, and was later proven to be a lie.

Other lies Brennan has fielded include claiming the CIA doesn’t “steal secrets” (prompting mockery from former CIA officers, though only because they were worried it would discourage CIA officers from further stealing) and claiming that Osama bin Laden had “engaged in a firefight” and used his wife as a “human shield” when he was killed, both of which turned out to be false.

Brennan’s testimony that he hadn’t been involved in setting “the parameters” of the torture program, and that he had expressed his “personal objections” about it clashed with the recollections of his colleagues. Despite reportedly being a prolific leaker himself, he attacked leaks by others and, according to a leaked email from geo-intelligence firm Stratfor, was “behind the witch hunts of investigative journalists learning information from inside the beltway sources.”

According to former CIA officer and torture whistleblower John Kiriakou, Brennan was “up to his neck in the torture program.” “How is it that one day he’s a George W. Bush neocon, and the next day he’s a Barack Obama neoliberal?” Kiriakou asked. “That is what a survivor John Brennan is. He’s a chameleon, and he can morph into anything.” Including, it seems, into a wise elder statesman standing between democracy and dictatorship.

https://jacobinmag.com/2018/08/john-...hayden-clapper

Great post, FS. Brennan is a bad actor and the Dems shouldn’t rush to elevate his opinion because he despises Trump. Lot of more reputable people critiquing the President than this clown.