"I thought you should know"

      This is a pretty old story.  It is also a true story.  The final remarks made by Hillary Rodham Clinton demonstrate exactly what she means when she speaks of "fighting for women's and children's issues".

      We remember during the Obama - Romney election, when Romney was accused of displacing a worker and causing him to lose his insurance.   That led to the man's wife being thrown out of the hospital and left to die, which she did.  It was intimated that Romney conspired to do this, simply to save money for his own financial interest.   It was a classic, Queen-for-a-day story that, of course, turned out to be totally false.

     The Democrats also pointed out that when the Romneys went on some kind of a vacation, they put their dog, in a pet carrier, on top of the roof of their station wagon. This was revealed as though it were some kind of capital crime.   Of course, one can note how dogs slobberingly hang their faces out of the window of a vehicle and revel in the smells and sights as they travel.  I really suspect that the Romneys were not dedicated to the neglect or mistreatment of their vacationing dog.

     But, one can listen to Hillary's sneeringly contemptuous account of how she "beat the charges" for her "client" (....she was working as a public defender at the time, but that is another tawdry story of corruption) and realise exactly what kind of a slug this woman is.  When she speaks about  fighting for women, we must remember that this is the woman who carpet-bombed any and all women who suggested, charged, said anything, about Billy Jeff's interlopings and violent, unwanted episodes.

     She never can find documents that are being called for by investigative authority, but it took her only 36 hours to find Kathleen Willy's letter requesting to be converted from volunteer to paid White Staff, after Willy let it be known that Billy Jeff had essentially sexually assaulted her.   Documents in other cases....many other cases....were readily available when it suited her, and non-existent when she had something to hide.   She was even able to find falsified papers and documentation, such as in the framing of the White House Travel Office employees.

Hideous woman....hideous black cavern of poison where other people have souls. 

El Gringo Viejo

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Apatzingan - Belly of the Beast

The area of Apatzingan, and the zone of heavily jungled mountains to the south and west of that city in western Michoacan State of Mexico, continues to be a problematic stretch of territory for the counter-trafficking forces in Mexico.   Several tiers of police and military organisations are operating there at any given time.  The Army, Naval Infantry, the Federal Civil Police, the State Police, and the famous rural militia that was legalised by the Mexican Defense Secretariat about two years ago, are all involved in the counter-drug and human trafficking efforts.

     As is typical, Mexican and International rights and protection groups almost continuously harass and defame the efforts of these military and police entities.  At times they are correct about authority overstepping its correct prerogatives and responsibilities.....remember that it is Latin America and Italian and Spanish rules of process still are followed.

     But.....Mexican processes have also taken on various and sundry common law procedure characteristics.....right to counsel, right to avoid self-incrimination, right to certain knowledge of the charges and dates of the accused offense(s).  It is similar in many ways to the American / Canadian / British, mixed with French and Japanese process.

     This evolution of the Mexican legal system has led to an increasingly compliance by the Mexican legal system in the service of extradition requests and warrants from the United States.   It is as different as daylight from dark, now.  But along with this has come an amplified, re-fortified, and shrill yellow press, at times accurate, and at other times absolutely lunatic and mendacious.   It is very similar now to the United States in many ways.

     We have posted a picture which depicts a crashed Mexican Army or Federal Police forward observation helicopter that was being used to help elements of the Guardia Rural.   Approximately 100 members of this (essentially) national  guard unit had tracked down and (essentially) trapped about 20 members of a gang affiliated with the now almost totally debilitated "Caballeros Templares" (Knights Templar).   There are about 20 pandillas (gangs) roughly coalesced into another "cartel" named "Generacion Joven".   The State and central government all agree that the helicopter was shot down and all causes were being considered, the take down was probably from from a 50 calibre Barrett rifle.   There have been reports that the weapon was a shoulder-fired missile.   That is an area of dispute.

     Later that day, several of the "pandilla" were finally flushed from their hideout, and captured, leaving a total of 9 "Generacion Joven" members dead,  9 wounded,  and two or three "missing".  It is the nature of the fight against the extortionists, traffickers, and generally criminally anti-social elements with which Mexico is afflicted during these times.  The cartels have been substantially gutted and crippled.  Lower level "officers" now conduct affairs, and normally they do not perform with the efficiency nor effectiveness of the leaders from four or five years ago.

     Russian arms and Eastern European ammunition shipped through Cuba, then Venezuela, then Nicaragua, and finally into Mexico is becoming scarcer and of even lower quality than before.   Much of that is due to the fraying ability and/or willingness of the Cuban mafia / military to participate in the chain of Death.  Then the situation in Venezuela during these days and hours is essentially one of anarchy, and the organised criminal element has taken to fratricidal warfare so as to determine who will be "last man standing" when and if order is every restored.  In other words, their attention is diverted to more important stuff...at home.
    Nicaragua also has its problems, with its military shipping guns to different criminal and nutcase groups even as far away as the Indonesia - Malaysia - Philippines theatre of low-level, but continual, Muslim and criminal violence.   Then a fellow has to deal with the American Coast Guard, patrolling in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, the Mexican Navy, the Mexican Naval Infantry, the Mexican Army, and then various civilian authority.
      The Mexican Military continues to serve and serve well.  We should have continued our inter-laced co-ordination with them that existed during the Bush administration, but it was one of the first things that Obama / Jarrett administration snipped.   Hence, Fast and Furious, which was nothing more nor less than an attempt to do a frame job on American firearms sales businesses.  It also managed to get a lot of Mexican civilians killed and wounded, along with several people in the United States.  Even though the intellectual authors and the actors who implemented and oversaw the operation are known, none have ever been prosecuted by the Obama administration.   Most were promoted and transferred to duty closer to the promised land, Washington, D. C.

    We place this simple article here for the attention of the OROG who just might have failed to hear or see about this event from the Obsolete Media or FOX & Trump Network.
El Gringo Viejo

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Our Daughter-in-Law.....Never ceases to amaze

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THIS IS SOMETHING THAT COMES OUT OF THE MIND OF OUR DAUGHTER-IN-LAW.  SHE MADE IT TO CELEBRATE THE FIRST BIRTHDAY OF OUR GRANDDAUGHTER, SCARLETT -

Interestingly enough the mother and the daughter are within four days

on the calendar in terms of sharing birthdays.

The next morning, after a well-attended birthday party the day before, we

met our children and Scarlett at a preferred Mexican restaurant in the South

part of the People's Republik of Austin.

A couple came in and sat adjacent to us.  They were bedecked with Notre Dame paraphernalia,

obviously prepared for the big game against the University of Texas playing something 

known as Plantation Football.

They had a girl-child a little bigger than Scarlett, and the two little ones made eye contact

and gestured that they wanted to "get together"....and all the parents agreed without

much if any hesitation.  They looked very similar....enough to be mistaken for sisters.

They did well, touching hands and smiling...laughing a little.  The restaurant, crowded and

noisy, did not distract them.  The other mother indicated that her baby had "....just turned

two, yesterday."   And of course we advised  them that our baby had had a birthday

celebration yesterday as well.  We all laughed and celebrated that coincidence.  

You all can only imagine how stunned we all were when it was also divined during further

conversation that both of the mothers were born on the same day...about four days

earlier than their babies.

Figure the Odds.

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Reprint from the Texas Nationalist Movement

The following is an appeal from the Texas Nationalist Movement.  Please consider what is being presented.  It is not insanity or whatifity.  Over 60 per cent of Texians at this point are in favour of withdrawal from the American Union.  If either Trump or (sir edmund) Hillary win the coming general American election, it will affect the Republic of Texas in a negative way.  Please consider our plight and our solution.

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What does it take to make it as an independent nation?

Besides the passion and commitment of a free people committed to self-determination, a lot of things certainly help – a diverse, high-tech economy, proven and immense energy reserves, a well-educated and politically engaged population, sturdy and reliable links to other countries such as road and railways, seaports, and airports, strong independent institutions such as respected and impartial courts, and of course, having the best possible credit rating.

As the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts notes, Texas currently has AAA credit ratings from Moody’s, Fitch, Standard & Poor’s, and Kroll, making Texas the first and only state with AAA credit ratings from all four ratings agencies. Kroll’s AAA rating is defined as “Determined to have almost no risk of loss due to credit-related events. Assigned only to the very highest quality obligors and obligations able to survive extremely challenging economic events.”

So what does an excellent credit rating mean for Texas?

Generally speaking, a higher credit rating indicates lower interest costs on the general obligation bonds states sometimes sell to investors in order to finance large-scale undertakings (e.g., road construction and other public works projects). This, in turn, results in lower interest costs, thereby lowering the cost to taxpayers. If a state receives a lower ranking, or its credit rating is downgraded, the cost of borrowing money goes up, which can negatively affect a state’s budget and economic growth.

Thus Texas is able to take on “good debt” to cheaply finance massive infrastructure and educational projects that keep our state at the very cutting edge. Responsibly taking care of our finances at the state level like we do at the household level has reduced our taxes and increased the efficiency of our spending to be in the best possible spot in this regard.

Why does Texas have such an excellent credit rating?

While every state except Vermont has a ‘balanced budget’ requirement, clearly Texas is taking that more seriously than others – A case in point is the Texas “rainy day fund”, basically a savings account of over $8 billion, stashed away for the most severe of emergencies. Add to this a long record of sustained and timely bond repayments, excellent economic outlook, reasonable and broad taxation policies, and a dash of not relying on oil & gas proceeds nearly as much as you’d expect Texas to do, and that’s the recipe for a great credit rating.

Kroll doesn’t have credit ratings for all fifty states yet, so this reality may change in the near future as they complete additional state credit rating audits. So how rare is a AAA rating from other agencies? Under Standard & Poor’s, Texas is one of only fifteen states with a AAA rating, and this is similar for the other ratings agencies – all other states with AAA ratings are significantly smaller in terms of population and GDP than Texas, with the notable exception of Florida. In fact, other states with comparable population and GDP, such as California and Illinois, have among the very worst of state credit ratings, while even the Empire State and the home of Wall Street, New York, has an average credit rating at just AA.

No doubt Texas will sustain and strengthen our financial responsibility as an independent nation, and keeping our taxes lower and government outcomes better because of it.

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WE COMMENT FURTHER:

     El Gringo Viejo chimes in with the fact that the Texas State Employees' and Texas State Teachers' Retirement System, etc. have State and self-funded pensions that are kept as accounts per client, with each client having a numbered account and registering the contributions taken and deposited IN THE NAME AND ACCOUNT OF THAT EMPLOYEE.  It is not a Social Security Ponzi scheme.  Further, these accounts gain interest, and they are hovered over by very conservative (but willing to take small risks) board of governors.

     While we shan't divulge the amounts involved, at the risk of having my boss carried away for domestic violence, we assure the OROG community that the system of the Republic of Texas for guarding their geezers who have served the Republic is precisely 437 times better than Uncle Sam's Social Security Ponzi Scheme or the Lottery.  This is, however, an indication of how public money is handled by the Republic of Texas as opposed to how it is handled by Abraham Lincoln's and Franklin Delano Roosevelt's spawn. 

     Considering that we are watching the developments of a political process in which the candidates of the two main parties are each worse than the other, we once again point to the need of the establishment of a separate Republic.   We can handle our arguments with the Mexicans much better than Obama, Hillary, or Trump.  It is better that we argue, and disagree, and agree with the Mexicans "entre familia".   Washington, D.C. is truly not relevant to our conditions or situation.

     The Republic of Texas sends one Yankee dollar to Washington and receives 83 coppers in return.  The Republic of Texas has a provincial University System that is far superior to any thing the Central Government envisions....,plus, we have a community college system that is in all respects,  all but perfect.   We have an array of private universities and colleges that take no back or side seat to any other in the North or England.

     We have a body of people who know that it is none of the business of the Central Government 2000 miles away which rest rooms are used by whom.

We stand by the cannons, waiting for the orders to reload and fire for effect.

El Gringo Viejo

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Pena Nieto and Trump - Allow me to make the complex even more complex

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    Americans and Mexicans were treated to one of the best Mr. Dogge and Mr. Phoney shows in the history of North American political activity recently.  It began when, for some unknown reason, President of Mexico Citizen Ernesto Pena Nieto invited the two major party candidates to come to Mexico City and have conversation and contact with the President and his inner circle of Secretaries of This and That.

     It is almost impossible for Trump to avoid any spotlight, and (Sir Edmund) Hillary, being the closest somewhat-humanoid relative to a vampire cockroach, must avoid any light, artificial or natural, it was clear that one would go to the meeting in Mexico City, and another would not. 

     One thing restrains (Sir Edmund) Hillary from going to Mexico that is not absolutely official in nature is that she could not permit herself to be surrounded by funny-looking, little brown people who cannot speak anything but jibber-jabber....and who look kinda dirty.

     Trump, on the other hand, knows how to hone his uncomplimentary Jew-jokes to a fine edge before his lecture at the biggest synagogue in Paducah.  But, by the Great Jehovah, he reassures all, "I will build a wall and the I'll make the Mexicans pay for it."   Good lead-in.

Angelica Rivera
First Lady of
Mexico

    What happened in Mexico City ended with a quiet that actually was the result of a stunned Mexican populace.   Each man came out of the meetings and declared his position, recognised the position of the other side as worthy of consideration, declared his own boundaries, and agreed to continue the discussion.  It was a classic win, win.  El Gringo Viejo was somewhat stunned that Trump could actually act like an adult and not a repetitious, posturing, thuggish  bully.  Pena Nieto, for his part, spoke firmly and even without the idiotic Partido Revolucionario Institutional (PRI) arcane and bifurcated-meaning laden rhetoric as he laid out the perimeters of the discussion and the understandings that had begun during those discussions.

      Sr. Pres. Pena Nieto was doing fine until  he let it slip later that he had laid down the law that Mexico was not going to be paying for any wall.  Earliest statements had suggested that there were no significant talks concerning The Wall.  Trump learned, third hand, what Pena Nieto had said, and suddenly turned into his customary childish-bully, strutting and repeating and uselessly flourishing all nature of peculiar threats.  He again became the genuine combination of low-class and childishness.....and moldy, stale ego.

     It was all that was needed to re-charge the anti-Mexican Bubbas and Daisy Maes who peopled the Phoenix Trump "Rally".  And, of course, that "Rally" and the extreme-left, upper and intellectual class of Mexico was all that was  needed to re-charge the Che Guevara Campus Proletariat Unity Campaign (ChGCPUC) people who hate Pena Nieto and his Telenovela-Trollop wife and his PRI, and who hate America, first, last, and always.

     The wild-eyed, irrationalalist, pro-communist community (aka: WEIPCC) in Mexico has presided over the complete melt-down of one-half of the professorial and teacher class of public Mexican education.  The central government, and the teachers' union that is most prevalent in the south and southwest of Mexico, has been at loggerheads....almost at war....during the past two or three years.   The up-grading of expectations of teachers' and professors' attendance habits and forcing certain intellectual attainment standards for primary and secondary "students" are too "repressive" and "fascist inspired" for the Union.  At times the Secretariat even suggested that the teachers should avoid arriving at work inebriated or with marijuana on breathe, clothes, or person.
     There is also the issue of the "Iquala 43", an issue that El Gringo Viejo has reported upon in this blog.  We pointed out then that the pro-communist and drug-trafficking mayor of Iguala and his sister, who was postulating for Governor of the entire State of Guerrero (includes Acapulco) were the ones who had "eliminated" fellow, but troublesome, students of the local "Federal Normal College".
    (An OROG might say, "Gringo Viejo, don't go around slinging the Commie-word all the time.  It turns people off.  Say 'centre-left'.....it is much more becoming.  Try to grow-up.  It is not the Hour of McCarthy.  People who exaggerate lose credibility and become known as unthinking extremists worse than the people they are condemning.   After all, the socialists only want a better life for the poor.)
     Folks, the "Normal" wherein attend over 400 "students" has end-walls with frescoes on walls that are 50 feet wide and 15 feet high of Karl Marx, Ernesto (Che) Guevara, Fidel Castro, Sub-comandante Marcos, Hugo Chavez, Lenin, Ho Chi Minh,  and Mao Tse Tung, etc.  No other "world leaders" or political thinkers are pictured, and the hammer and sickle emblem is seen in every classroom.  There are no Mexican flags or deferences to Mexicanism of kind.  The "Normal" and others like it, are internationalist, marxist re-education centres.
     The woman who was to run for governor and whose brother was the president of the second biggest city in the State of Guerrero?   Well, she had two brothers who ran part of the ''Knights Templar" drug and prostitution and human slavery trafficking operation in neighbouring Michoacan State.   They were killed in confrontations with the Army - two years before this woman declared for the governorship of Guerrero.   Please...let us be serious.

     And the press?   Foreign and most of the Mexican domestic press?  They keep beating the drum about "What happened to the 43?" and pointing at Pena Nieto.

     And the American Press?   They muddle the issue because they can count on the fact that (1) the Americans know little or nothing about Mexico and could care less.  Most Americans know little or nothing about Canada.  And could care less.  Pokemon, Kardashians, Dancing with the Naked Women, Just Trying to Get By, and the Lottery....that is the issue for almost a majority of the American populace at this time.   And (2)....the Mexicans are very, very, very similar.
     So, with Forty-three dead and their bodies burned and raked into a river or whatever, it doesn't matter much, so blame it on Pena Nieto and go down and check the lottery....the Telenovela comes on at 20:30 and it begins the last chapter of "My Sister Was a Slut for The Cartels and Made One Million Pesos a Day and Drives a Maserati".
     The that, the equally unimaginative Mexican "mainstream" reporters dutifully report like the American, French, British, and even Japanese and you-name-it....the same story.   The story always ends with something like, ".....and Pena Nieto has done nothing about it."  Or in the case of the United States, ".....George Bush flew over it,  he knew it was going to happen, and since it was Democrat votes, he let it happen....and then he flew over it without ever touching down.'

     There have been literally over 1,000,000,000 pesos spent on this Iquala case.  That is over 50 million dollars.  There is only one explanation, foreign and domestic analysts have studied and agreed.   The leftist factions are guilty of fratricidal "cleansing".  But, the highway blockages continue, as do the demonstrations in Mexico City, tying up traffic for hours at times, and the international press purposefully misreporting the events to the "World" so that people can feel assuaged of their "guilt".....guilt they do not have, but that they are demanded to accept.

Pena Nieto (president) and his wife,
Hoochi-Coochi (actress)
actual name - Angelica Rivera

   So, that is the deal.  If Trump would just have smiled and shut up,  he would have had a total success. But he knows nothing of Iquala.....he knows nothing about which buttons to push in a Mexican situation so as to cultivate approbation without sacrificing Americanism.   (Truth helps)

     Trump thinks in Dancing with Naked Women and the Stars with One Leg terms.   Oddly, Pena-Nieto might even think the same with his soap-opera (telenovela) wife and her legal and corruption problems.    She was accused of taking an ultra-la-ti-da mansion in an exclusive Mexico City subdivision because  of some kind of a sweetheart deal from people who later gained a Central Government contract to build a rapid-rail connection with very limited stops between Mexico City and Guadalajara....and then later between Mexico City and Monterrey.....

Future first "lady" Melania?

     The deal continues.  So we shall see if someday soon we can go to those places on conveyances that are dependable and relatively comfortable.  If they were to have showers and sleeping facilities I might be willing to use the service.  We carried hundreds of clients on-tour during our days of operation of Excursions to Mexico.  The equipment was old, but pretty well maintained.
   My mission has always been to establish an Orient Express-type service for the Republic of Texas....a standard-speed train....with a world class restaurant car, and a world class saloon car....and a world class observation car....with five first-class special coaches and three Pullman cars and a baggage / express car carrying a complement of 400 passengers.  Breakfast and supper included for Pullman...special arrangements for business travelers....next connection....Monterrey, Nuevo Leon.
      But Pena-Nieto, the politicians, the press, the electorate....they play to the next crisis.  Trump is a daily crisis, like Pena-Nieto....

     For instance, he could have pictures of his wife that are almost as bad as the ones Pena-Nieto has to endure in the telenovelas.   How bad....not as bad as Laura Bush or Nancy Reagan or Pat Nixon....just 'girls just want to have fun pictures".....you know..... We have to be reasonable about these things.

   Bush, Reagan, Nixon, even Queen Elizabeth were seen cutting ribbons to hospitals and schools and such.   Can you imagine?  Horrid full-propaganda,  playing to charity pictures?  Or Ladies doing what ladies do?  Actually pushing millions of dollars and thousands of hours to useful eleemosynary activities that actually benefit others in lieu of the person doing the pushing? 
    
     Perhaps there is one thing for which we can be grateful.  There are no other such pictures of (Sir Edmund) Hillary that are available to the mainstream press.  We do recall the staged "dancing on the beach" scenes that were "surreptitiously stolen" by paparazzi about 300 years ago...with Billy Jeff and (Sir Edmund) Hillary dancing in swimming suits.   Things were halted suddenly when a whale rescue unit came up to see if they could help...but there was an embarrassed  withdrawal when they found out that everything was "normal".

     Perhaps all four of them...Pena-Nieto, his wife and Billy Jeff and (Sir Edmund) Hillary can just say...."It's all Trump's fault and the Rightwing Conspiracy.....and the Bimbo Eruption Complex of Special Area 51 Interests from Mars."

     We hope that some of this made a bit of sense for the OROG community.   We guess that this stuff plays well to the mass of television soap-opera addicted dumboes.  It is what is happening.   Please check out the issues of Oaxaca's, and Guerrero's, and Michoacan's educational problems.  The problems of the several candidates and their spouses is the problem of someone other than El Gringo Viejo.

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Dilma Rousseff is gone: We hardly knew ye' at all.....

Dilma Rousseff, unemployed ex-commandante affiliated with the Mao-Communist Sendero Luminous  and of late an erstwhile President of Brazil.   The leftist world press is, predictably, bemoaning her recent impeachment and conviction by the Brazilian Senate  (62 - 19).

As in the case with her now-deceased homologue, Hugo Chavez, and her still-alive homologue Cristina Fernandez Vd. de Kirchner, Poor Dilma is another of the "nuts-and-bolts, non-ideological  leftist democrats" who float up to the surface of seemingly every nation in the New World from time to time....or perhaps, all the time.

   The picture of poor Dilma, looking forlorn, makes one think that she is pondering how it was that George Bush managed to destroy her approach to establishing the  Brave New World.   She seems to be saying to herself, "Self, you had every detail planned, every single citizen's life mapped out, every method of soaking the wealthy and the established middle class sector of Brazilian life (2nd largest middle class by numbers in Latin America), all my friends paid off with Petrobras graft and shenanigans....it was all so perfect."   She seems to be waiting for the strains of the theme song from "Evita" to strike up.

     To put it mildly, the previous administration of Mr. Lula, her mentor, practiced tax-and-spend to perfection, setting poor Dilma up for a possible fall when the inevitable "Latin-American Inflation" would set in.  The solution, for leftists in Latin America (and elsewhere) to the problem of the poor people not having a lot of money is  to put more zeros on the bank notes that constitute a given leftist-rule country.   Of course, a month goes by and a person cannot purchase a box of matches for 50,000 pesos.  But, he has a ''lot'' of "money" (monopoly, anyone?). The system, similar to what we describe in our preceding  submission concerning the true cost of helping people become dependent on income-transfer payments, public assistance, subsidised or free housing and the like, never works.

Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva
President of Brazil, 2002 - 2010

  The Little Red Hens become exhausted and fewer in numbers and the rest of the barnyard animals become more sullen, less industrious, and more disposed to have babies that have no fathers.   

Michel Temer
President of Brazil

     People might point out that during Lula's two terms, things seemed to be gaining traction, finally, in Brazil.  Heck, more and more students were receiving essentially free money to attend the universities, where they could major in Vegetarian Perspectives through a Socially Democratic Lens.   Or, courses in "How to Combat Climate-Change Deniers".  Lula could afford to provide such lofty academic fare because the price of oil back then was running between 100 and 140 Yankee Dollars per barrel.  Or at least he thought he could provide such niceties and other vote buying schemes as well.

 Finally,  we leave the OROG community with this photograph of the ex-Vice President of  Brazil, who is decidedly more conservative, and who was just approved by the Brazilian Senate to serve the unexpired term of Madame Rousseff, by a vote of 61 to 20.   He faces high seas and strong counter winds, but he is an old and wily fox, relatively popular throughout the  Brazilian populace.   At the very least, a non-marxist at the helm might help stabilise the jittery nerves in the Brazilian economy.  The people look nervously at the Venezuelan situation and they must be praying to any god that might listen that such anarchy does not spill into Brazil.

El Gringo Viejo

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