They did it! Mary Trump is back in BARD.
Speaking of BARD, suddenly I am receiving notification of books I've
put on my Wish List, when the new titles become available.
I still wonder why BARD does not begin with the first book when doing
a series. An author may have written 20 books with a certain
character, but BARD may do books 5 through 14, then skip and do 19 and
20.
Another thing we can't get BARD to do is to set up a method of listing
a series by the date of publication, rather than Alphabetically.
Which only goes to prove that you can please some of the people some
of the time...
Carl Jarvis
On 8/20/20, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Do you mean that they put it back? No one said a word about it on the BARD
Talk list. I never got notification when they were pulled, as some people
did, nor did I see any indication that they were returned.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2020 4:41 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: JOHN KIRIAKOU: Trump's Choice for Germany
Miriam, did you notice that BARD does have Mary Trump's book, read by Mary
Trump. Also, John Bolton's book is there. All 20 some hours of it. Trumps
book is about 7 plus hours.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/20/20, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
JOHN KIRIAKOU: Trump's Choice for Germany August 20, 2020 High among
Douglas Macgregor's qualifications as U.S. ambassador to Germany is
his opposition to endless wars.
President Donald Trump addresses military personnel during a stop-over
at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany, Dec. 26, 2018. (White House,
Shealah
Craighead)
By John Kiriakou
Special to Consortium News
The adage that even a broken clock is right twice a day is true.
Donald Trump has made a positively inspired choice to be the next U.S.
ambassador to Germany. Col. Douglas Macgregor, U.S. Army, retired, is
the president's choice to downsize the U.S. military presence in
Germany. Doug Macgregor is the right person to do the job.
In the interest of transparency, I know Macgregor and I consider him
to be a friend, so I might be a little biased. With that said, Doug's
focus on the "big picture" and his obvious intellect are two of the
things that attracted my-and Trump's-attention. He is also
surprisingly, and consistently, non-partisan.
Doug earned a BS degree from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point,
and an MA and PhD from the University of Virginia. He's a recipient
of the bronze star with "V" for valor for his leadership in combat.
Doug went on to join Ambassador Richard Holbrooke's team in Dayton,
Ohio, which led to peace in Bosnia Herzegovina during the Clinton
Administration. He later worked closely with senior military and
political leaders in the U.K. and Germany as the chief of strategic
planning at NATO.
He then headed the Joint Operations Center at NATO headquarters during
the Kosovo campaign. (For the record, I was and remain opposed to the
US intervention in Kosovo. I thought it was a mistake that, decades
later, continues to hamper both regional stability and U.S. policy in
the region.)
Douglas Macgregor in August 2020. (BMG-2048, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia
Commons)
All of this may lead to the question of why Trump would name him
ambassador to Germany, especially when there are countless political
hacks who probably wanted the job. The reason is that Doug is truly
an expert in military planning. And he stands in firm opposition to
the U.S. policy of continuous war.
He is a regular commentator on Fox News, and he was able to convey his
message of military downsizing to the president little by little
through his television appearances.
Trump has spoken many times about ending the U.S. presence in
Afghanistan and Iraq. He also has spoken endlessly about pulling U.S.
troops out of Europe. He recently announced a reduction in forces in
Germany, moving some
12,000 troops out of the country.
Doug, too, has advocated for years for pulling U.S. troops out of Europe.
He has argued publicly that the U.S. should improve relations with
Russia, rather than to prepare for war with it. He believes the U.S.
should not have a military presence in the Middle East. He advocates
diplomacy with China, rather than military confrontation in the South
China Sea.
Doug has made a name for himself in Washington as an expert in
strategic military planning. He's currently a senior official in a
think tank that advises Pentagon policymakers on troop strength and other
strategic issues.
And lately, he's been a target of the mainstream media. Neocon
darling Max Boot lambasted Doug in The Washington Post, calling him
"racist,"
"pro-Putin," and "anti-Merkel."
I would laugh if Boot's comments weren't so offensive. Similarly, CNN
hit him for his support of a border wall. The outlet called him a
"xenophobe"
for having the audacity to have an opinion on the matter. (My own
opinion is that the border wall is a red herring. It's unnecessary,
foolhardy, overly expensive, and, were it to be built, would be the
cause of much human
misery.)
The media and the blogosphere would complain about literally anybody
named ambassador to Germany by Donald Trump. Trump hasn't made it
difficult with some of the morons he's named to important posts. But
Doug Macgregor is a winner. This is a good choice. He has the guts
to say that we can't afford endless war. We can't afford to have
bases in almost every country in the world. We can't afford to
continually provoke the Russians for no good reason. Somebody had to
be straight with the president on these issues.
Nobody was, until Doug Macgregor arrived.
