MikeLigalig.com

Given the alternatives, and even offering the benefit of the doubt, the confluence of events and disclosures strongly suggest treachery. The only one who can dispel this fateful conclusion is Donald Trump himself. Short of the transparency he has so far steadfastly avoided, he has built a case for his own undoing. In the words of Benjamin Franklin, himself deemed a traitor by his king, "Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don't have brains enough to be honest." The proof is in the practice, the truth lies in its transparency. Donald Trump is a traitor whether he realizes it or not.


https://medium.com/@vjr7121/is-donald-trump-a-traitor-3a53591c128d

The quid pro quo that the Russian's might require for their support of the Trump presidency is also patently clear. The promise of eliminating sanctions rightfully imposed by the Obama administration for prior Russian transgressions, including its actions against Ukraine, the annexation of Crimea, and the shooting down of the Malaysian jetliner in July, 2014 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, are undisputed. The Malaysia Airlines plane crashed after being hit by a Russian-made Buk missile over eastern Ukraine, that had been reason enough for a casus belli for Republicans at the time, is now forgotten, if not forgiven, in return for Russian favor. There are no simpler explanations for this behavior. Congressional republicans can no longer use the dissembling by the administration as a cover for their complicity. With the coming investigation of Robert Mueller and the FBI investigation, Senate republicans seem to be admitting the obvious and are also involved in an investigation of their own. The question is no longer can Trump endure his own public dismantling, it is rather can our nation endure the misadventures of a traitor-in-chief.

To get to the point, is Donald Trump a traitor? Can a person unknowingly be a party to treason through incompetence and naivete? Is the latter an excuse or cover for treasonous acts? An honest observer is hard-pressed to evaluate the administration's actions to date as benign. The Russian involvement in the Trump election victory, whether it caused the result or simply swelled its tide, is problematic. Being the candidate preferred by Vladimir Putin, the Russian "thugacrat," is not laudatory as our interests are hardly aligned with Russia's. If collusion is proved, as it has been strongly suggested, it would argue for encouraging an enemy to meddle further. The activities of those in and around the Trump campaign as early as March 2016 further suggest collusion. The secrecy and dissembling of the contacts made with Russian nationals by Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Jeff Sessions, Roger Stone, Carter Page, and Jared Kushner are well chronicled and, frankly, are too many to be coincidental. Yet, Trump and his associates plead just that. Placed in context, however, the intent of these meetings become more suspicious and troubling. Add to the suspicions the information that several of the Trump associates lied about payments made either directly or indirectly by the Russians, or, in the case of the president's son-in-law, dealings that promised business advantages at the expense of our nation's security, and you have opportunity and motive for treason. Without the clarity that the release of Trump's recent tax returns might provide, it can fairly be assumed that Trump's dalliance with Russia stems from his need for operating cash. Subsequent to his numerous bankruptcies in the past, his toxic status when seeking financing for his real estate ventures here at home are well known. Russian financing would be the weakness that could explain the Trump love and excusal of totalitarianism. Again, Occam's Razor would suggest that short of other evidence and because of the secrecy and deception being used by Trump to obfuscate what might be exculpatory explanations, the clearest and most obvious answer is that Russia owns Trump, and he is repaying his debt at our expense.

The first quarter of the first year of the Trump regime is oddly troubling for its lack of focus and fumbling. It argues more for incompetence than treason. Yet, the new wars on climate change, medicaid, tax policy, and health care augur well only for the plutocrats. To the average citizen the Trump and congressional republican agenda reverts to harshness and bootstrapping. For the rich and comfortable, the difference is between helping oneself through your own resources, and helping yourself through the resources and on the backs of others — a perfect unraveling of the social contract based on greed and diffidence.

Traitors require the aid of toadies and sycophants, enablers who allow themselves to be used out of fear or profit. Donald Trump has enlisted the support of those who would profit from or fear his rule. Like so-called "good Germans" of the third Reich who blindly followed the fuhrer, their loyalty is not a virtue. Down is up... Trump's administration is rife with toadies in charge of overthrowing the very departments they were appointed to lead. The "Breitbartian imperative' to deconstruct the administrative state is truly an unadorned attempt to overthrow our government. If this isn't treason it sure is a near relative. If one simply follows the course taken so far by the administration, its penchant for secrecy and lies, a propensity for bombast and intimidation, one is left with an impression that these tactics suggest authoritarianism. Mr. Trump himself has an odd affinity for autocrats and other dictators not named Putin who share an ability to help the Trump Organization and its friends. Taken together, the attributes of the Trump presidency so far display a mercenary disregard for democratic principles. The focus of the policy goals so far displayed by the president and his adopted party are, to be kind, a harsher demand for personal bootstrapping — a harshness that had been eased and softened by previous administrations and congresses who viewed the evolution as advances and the fruits of democratic governance. Domestic policies from Social Security, to the War on Poverty, to Civil and Voting Rights legislation, and.most recently health care, have all been heralded as precisely a function and advantage of living in a democracy.

The second part of that equation is what Donald Trump finds most difficult. He has spent the past few decades monetizing Russian interests and has gathered a team of advisors who have done the same. Using Occam's razor, the simplest assumption would be to find the answer to "whom the president believes (a favorite Trump word) he owes his fealty". Is it his country? His bottom line? His business partners? His answer should be a choice of only one of the above. The problem, at this point, is that his choice is not clear. Again using Occam, the simplest assumption is the most frightening. In all respects this president has openly, overtly, praised the leader of the United State's long identified enemy. He has even stated his preference for Putin's leadership over that of his predecessor in the White House. Trump has taken along with him the collective memory of the Republican Party, which has for the most part followed him down the rabbit hole of his own distorted revisionist history. After all, this is the party of Nixon's "Pink Lady" campaign (millennials google Helen Gehagan Douglas), McCarthy's "hearings", and the Red Scare. The latter day Republican Party has been associated with patriotism and avowed hatred of Soviet Russia and its deconstruction under Ronald Reagan. None of its past leaders and, pre Trump, few if any, of its congressional leadership, would fellow travel with Donald Trump into his bizarre wonderland in which up is down and down is up. And there's the rub.

With regard to Donald Trump the distinctions are similar. The dictionary definition of treason " the offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance..." differs from the Constitutional requirement, stated in Article III, section 110, "Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort...", but only in specifics. Whether a person is charged with "overt acts to overthrow..." or "levying war against..." is really a semantic difference. These are acts of agency and are generally most evident in the course of the treachery, but not, perhaps, at its start. Compare colonists sitting in a room and planning the rebellion, with a General Washington leading a military charge or a Ben Franklin negotiating for aid from the French. Providing the enemy with "aid and comfort" is a charge that can be easily determined and identified. One only has to determine what can be perceived as aid and comfort and whether the recipient is, indeed, an enemy.

The colonial view was quite different. In context most believed the Britons had overstepped their authority over their subjects and had, thus, justified their rebellion. In this case the loyalists to the crown, or Tories, provided cover for the crimes of the crown. The distinction is not without consequence. After all, if the colonists prevailed, the king would lose land and dominion over his rebellious subjects. If the king prevailed, the American leaders would be deemed traitors and lose their lives. Rebel sympathizers would be punished, Tories would profit and rule. Context matters, and perception is a short-lived luxury. After the fact, all that really matters is the result. And so, Georgetown is merely a toney neighborhood in Washington, the nation's capital.

by Vince Rizzo
May 31, 2017





The question is asked precisely to raise eyebrows, but is it true? Many Americans feel that, although Mr. Trump has been elected President, his actions to date are more indicative of a foreign agent having taken over the Office of Presidency shared previously by patriots like Washington, Lincoln and the Roosevelts. Migrating into this group of Trump detractors are some who actually voted for and supported his ascendancy. Treason and its instrument, the traitor, are best identified in context. To King George, for example, the colonial uprising leading to our nation's founding was an act of treason and its leaders, traitors.

Nyahaha...

He he...

Hard-core activist, he he...

Orange is the new black...

"Imelda talks about her friends who other people thought were monsters, but she thought were kind and generous like Saddam Hussein and Chairman Mao. It makes you think of Trump's bedfellows and who he's attracted to, like Putin and even Duterte," said Greenfield.

Imelda says Mao kissed her hand and congratulated her personally for ending the Cold War. She also claims to have given him the idea for the Cultural Revolution.

By joining forces with Duterte, the Marcos family is emphasizing the continuity with a new generation of strongmen. "Duterte was really the expression of the terror of dictatorship coming back, they were leaning in to what happened and trying to get back there again," said Greenfield.
"It's a cautionary tale for us about what happens when you don't remember history; about the fragility of democracy and the return to authoritarian regimes," the director said. "I didn't start the movie as just being about the Philippines and I am pleased that people are seeing it as a reflection also of what's going on in the U.S. and the rise of nationalism in Europe."

Thus the Marcos family have succeeded in ingratiating themselves back into polite society and into the hearts of millions of voters.

As the film begins, we are swept into Imelda's attractive and rarefied world. "At first I found her kind and generous, and captivating and funny, and able to laugh at herself in a way that was kind of endearing. And then as I learned of the terrible and tragic consequences of the regime that she was complicit in, my view of her and also her version of history really changed," Greenfield said.

Kingmaker shows us both sides. The film's brilliance lies in allowing us to see the autocrat's delusion in still believing they speak for the common man. It's a familiar theme.

That transformation was made possible by a change in the perception of the Marcos family, who were chased out of the country in disgrace 30 years ago. An aggressive use of social media as well as campaigning to have schools change the way the history of their reign was taught have helped to reinvent their reputation.

"Perceptions are real, the truth is not," says Imelda in the film.

"She's aware of the power of the media," explained Greenfield. "She says 'The gun can kill you only till the grave, and the media can kill you to infinity and beyond.' And they've been very adept at using social media to communicate their talking points about martial law and the Marcos era. That was a really big part of how they seeded a lot of the ideas. Bongbong really went after the younger generation which didn't really remember martial law."

Imelda describes herself as a "mother" to the Philippines and its clear that she genuinely believes her kleptocratic rule blessed the nation. On screen we see her tutting over buildings that have been left to decay in the subsequent decades, while she passes out cash to needy citizens who squabble over the handouts.

"I do think she believes her story," Greenfield told the Daily Beast in London. "And the people around her don't disabuse her of that. In a way she's got her own delusions."

Greenfield spent five years filming the documentary, a period that spanned Imelda's rise from a period as a lowly congresswoman to the rebirth of her power. "As we worked over the five years it became clear that they were coming back to power. And that this wasn't a story about the past; it was a story about the present," she said.

If Imelda lives to see her son's election as president, it would be an extraordinary return to power for a woman who was forced into exile as one of the world's most mocked and disdained leaders, famous for collecting more than a thousand pairs of designer shoes while the angry populace was restrained under martial law.

Her second rise has been expertly charted in Kingmaker by documentarian Lauren Greenfield, whose previous work includes the Sundance-feted The Queen of Versailles. Her new film offers a glimpse of the distorted inner monologue of a politician driven by autocratic tendencies.

Trump is one of the few world leaders to have spoken warmly of Duterte and reportedly congratulated him on his approach to the drug trade.

The great claim to fame of vaudevillian Joey Adams' may be his invention of the one-liner: "With friends like these, who needs enemies?"

With friends like his, that's no wonder.

Imelda Marcos, who is now 90, is currently trying to help her son, Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr., overturn defeat in the 2016 vice-presidential election (after three years, Duterte's judges are still refusing to reject his appeal). He is likely to run to succeed Duterte when his one-term limit comes to an end in 2022.

Fifteen years later, in 2016, Trump was elected President of the United States and Marcos' political clout was restored after a Filipino presidential election in which her son stood to be vice president and Rodrigo Duterte became the hardline president.

The Marcos family are believed to have stolen more than $10 billion from the Filipino people during their 21-year reign. Ferdinand died in 1989, but in recent years, the family secretly helped to fund the rise of Duterte, a notorious homophobe and rape apologist who has bragged of executing drug-dealers in thousands of extrajudicial street killings.

 



Imelda Marcos Is Here to Teach Us How Wannabe Autocrats Like Trump Really Think

Nico Hines,The Daily Beast 23 hours ago



Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty


LONDON—At the 80th birthday party of comedian Joey Adams in the ballroom of an upmarket hotel overlooking Central Park in 1991, Donald Trump and Imelda Marcos sat side by side; two vulgar icons of '80s greed and ambition.

Imelda and her husband Ferdinand Marcos had been ousted from power five years earlier by a popular uprising in the Philippines where people had grown sick of their corruption and brutality. Trump was a loud-mouthed but ultimately powerless New York real estate mogul.

Hmm, imnanan + motel ni. Mao ni ilang gi-serve nga ilimnon...

Quote from: MIKELIGALIG.com on November 11, 2019, 04:46:26 PM
Body art is an outward expression of self-love and body idolatry.

Tip 5. Ayg gamit og computer, cellphone, etc.

Quote from: MIKELIGALIG.com on November 04, 2019, 12:22:30 PM
One of the victims found out that his time deposit account had been emptied when he applied for a visa to travel to the United Kingdom.  Not knowing that funds from his time deposits had been fraudulently withdrawn, he submitted a bank certification which the UK embassy discovered to be spurious.  As a result, the UK government blacklisted the bank client from entering the country. 

Aguroy, Tor! 

"The past is the past," she keeps insisting, even as she uses it to secure a legacy and try to create an ongoing political dynasty. The Kingmaker reminds you that it never goes away, it's never done with you and a lot of it can never be forgotten, lest we all be doomed to repeat it. History is written by the victors, but it's constantly be rewritten by those who have no problem utilizing power, corruption and lies to serve their own needs. The film concludes with her plotting yet another phoenix-like rise, and stories of the family bankrolling President Rodrigo Duterte, the country's strongman dictator and Marcos ally. The notion that Imelda and and her clan will keep reaching for the shiniest brass ring by any means necessary feels inevitable. It's a documentary that starts as a nonfiction portrait and ends as a horror movie.

By the time The Kingmaker is cross-cutting between her son Bongbong Marcos campaigning for the Vice-President post in 2016 — a move that would have paved the way for the family's return to political power — and victims of Ferdinand Marcos' 1972 declaration of martial law discussing how they were systematically tortured, an entirely different picture of Imelda has emerged. You see a discipline in Greenfield's filmmaking and muckraking that you didn't before, as well a sense of rage. And you understand how, behind the grandmotherly smiles and displays of generosity, Imelda is the sort of woman who can say, "Perception is real, and truth is not" without a stitch of irony. Forget the Manolo Blahniks. Keep your eyes on the Machiavellian person who wore them.

The Fog of War this is not, and those expecting a Marcos mea culpa will find themselves having conniption fits. Folks familiar with Greenfield's past work, which can sometimes feel like it's a little too content to wade in the shallow side, couldn't be blamed for wondering if this is merely an excuse to photograph the intersection where wealth meets camp. And even casual viewers might wonder where, exactly, this is going.

At which part Greenfield slowly starts to throw some counterpoints into the narrative. It begins with a few old friends of Imelda, who contradict the life-was-peachy claim with reminders that Ferdinand was not particularly faithful to her. Then some residents of Calauit Island detail how they were kicked out of their homes so that Imelda could turn the whole thing into a personal zoo for a menagerie of animals she had imported from Kenya after a safari. Relatives of Benigno Aquino, the rival politician who was jailed by the President and was sent to the U.S. by Imelda for health reasons, get a chance to speak; "Ninoy" was assassinated at the airport upon his return to the Philippines, with many believing the Marcos were personally responsible for his still-unsolved killing. Andy Bautista, the ex-Chairman on the Commission of Elections, weighs in the estimated $5-10 billion the regime plundered, and about Imelda hiding Picasso paintings after he return to avoid them being seized.

Ask a citizen of the Philippines about her, however, and size 8 1/2 Ferragamos would be the last thing they'd mention in regards to the controversial figure. If The Kingmaker does nothing else, it reminds you of the rest of Ms. Marcos' story, the good and the bad and the very, very ugly aspects of all of it. No stranger to the rich and infamously gauche — see: her 2012 doc The Queen of Versailles — Lauren Greenfield starts off her portrait by following the matronly woman around Manila circa 2014, as she makes public appearances and tours a children's cancer ward. (She liberally hands out money to the underage patients "for candy.") Interviewing her in an apartment that might best be described as Upper West Side Disgraced Despot Chic, the filmmaker initially lets the subject verbally print the legend and play the victim. We did nothing wrong. I was the mother of my nation, and then the world. I ended the cold war in five minutes. Everyone loves me. They need me. Why do so many people hate me?

It always began and ended with the shoes. Specifically, the 1,220 pairs of pumps that were found in the closet of Imelda Marcos, when she and her husband Ferdinand Marcos were forced to flee the country in 1986. It made the Philippines' former First Lady the punchline of late-night talk show monologues and reduced her to a kitschy bit of '80s pop nostalgia, nestled between Dr. Ruth and Hands Across America. The now–90-year-old could recall the agony of losing her mother when she was eight and the ecstasy of being crowned Miss Manila in her early twenties. She might talk your ear off about Ferdinand, about how he proposed to her 20 minutes after they met (and married her 11 days later) and why the country was so great when her husband ruled. Or she might regale you with tales of her life as a political figurehead, someone who danced with Henry Kissinger, counted the Reagans as friends and had the ear of Chairman Mao, Colonel Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein.

Still, if you're an American, the name Imelda is synonymous with little else except, "My god, so many shoes!"

By DAVID FEAR
https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-reviews/the-kingmaker-movie-review-imelda-marcos-doc-899778/



Imelda Marcos, the subject of Lauren Greenfield's documentary 'The Kingmaker.'
Lauren Greenfield

Quote from: MIKELIGALIG.com on September 02, 2019, 01:32:59 PM
Sumala niini nga tunga-tunga sa ilang away, nakig bulag ang iyang asawa og gi-angkon nga aduna kini laing lalake og naghinigugmaay matud pa sila.

Quote from: islander on September 10, 2019, 01:41:56 PM
hoy, botoy, seryoso ang balita intawon.

Sorry...

NSWF link: https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/10/02/article-2440241-187589C500000578-496_636x409.jpg

Quote from: MIKELIGALIG.com on September 02, 2019, 01:32:59 PM
MISIS NANGABIT TUNGOD GAMAY OG SWELDO ANG BANA.

Aminado ang reklamante nga dili niini mahatag ang tanang panginahanglanong materyal sa kapikas tungod gamay lamang ang sweldo niini...

Kaluoy pood. Di ba kaha gawas sa sweldo, naa pay laing gamay ang bana...

A 'o ia!