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berniesrevolution · 6 years ago

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THE INTERCEPT

Israel has once again conducted a premeditated, full-scale massacre in broad daylight, in front of the cameras of the world. Once again, it took place in Gaza.

On May 14, Israeli snipers and other forces gunned down more than 60 Palestinians, and wounded thousands of others, including civilians, journalists, and paramedics. “You try nonlethal means and they don’t work,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “So you’re left with bad choices. It’s a bad deal. You know, you try and you go for below the knee, and sometimes it doesn’t work, and unfortunately these things are avoidable.”

It appears that the only way not to be killed, according to Netanyahu, is to meekly accept imprisonment inside the prison of Gaza. Among those killed by Israeli forces was an 8-month-old infant. Her name was Laila al-Ghandour. They also killed at least seven other children and a man in a wheelchair, and that man had lost his legs after they had to be amputated following an earlier Israeli attack.

Israel has made it clear that it believes that it has the right to systematically murder Palestinians for the crime of continuing to exist. There is no defense for what Israel has done. None. On Tuesday, I spoke to Yousef Mema, a young Palestinian nursing student in Gaza. Yousef is not a member of Hamas. He’s a Palestinian civilian studying to become a nurse. I spoke to him soon after he left the Shifa hospital in Gaza. That is where many of the dead and wounded from Monday’s mass killings were brought.

“I’m really shocked by what I saw there. There were tens of ambulances arriving to us at the hospital and transferring injuries. There was a large number of injuries. They were shot directly by Israeli forces,” Mema said. “Most of them were shot in the chest and the back and the neck, and I saw tens of injuries on the ground inside the Al-Shifa Hospital because [there were] not enough beds. All the beds was full of injuries. I see, in my eyes, tens to hundreds of injuries on the ground, waiting the doctor to come and give them medical treatment. The hospital was in a horrible situation. The people here in Gaza Strip, they are living in a very hard situation. They are living in open-air prison. There’s no life in Gaza Strip.”

Mema said that the citizens of Gaza are choosing “peaceful resistance to show the world that the Israeli Army is really [a] war criminal. They [are] killing peaceful protestors at Gaza’s border. Those people who were killed, they have families. Some of them [are] married and have wife and have kids. My dream is to live free from the suffering that we have here in Gaza Strip.”

On Tuesday, U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley brought plenty of blame to pass around at the Security Council for the deaths of unarmed Palestinians. She blamed Iran. She blamed Hamas. She blamed the Palestinians who protested. But Nikki Haley placed no blame on Israel. “This is what is endangering the people of Gaza. Make no mistake — Hamas is pleased with the results,” she said. “No country in this chamber would act with more restraint than Israel has.”

After Nikki Haley blamed the Palestinians for murdering themselves with Israeli snipers, she wouldn’t even listen to the Palestinian delegation at the U.N. She walked out when they began speaking.

It was fitting that this latest Israeli massacre in Gaza took place as the United States celebrated its official opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem. It was fitting that President Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, were celebrating and enjoying fine dining and partying with Israeli war criminals and religious American zealots while Palestinians were being murdered.

(Continue Reading)

#politics #the left #the intercept #Israeli Occupation #foreign policy #freepalestine #gaza strip #protest

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sinrau · 4 years ago

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“So I ask you to do me a favor. Suburban women: will you please like me? Please. Please. I saved your damn neighborhood, OK? The other thing: I don’t have that much time to be that nice. You know, I can do it, but I gotta go quickly.” — President Donald J. Trump

Welcome to the Countdown Journal. There are 20 days until Election Day and then 78 until the Inauguration.

Let’s start with this: The president retweeted a story suggesting that Barack Obama had Seal Team 6 murdered. And it hardly made a ripple in the news cycle, three weeks before the election.

As Bill Kristol notes in this morning’s Bulwark, “Deviancy has been defined so far down that President Donald Trump’s retweet at mid-day Tuesday was barely noticed.”

After all, what’s new? And who cares?

So what if the president of the United States brought to prominence an insane conspiracy theory that his predecessor, Barack Obama, arranged for four Americans to be killed at Benghazi to cover up an even bigger intentional blood-sacrifice of Navy SEALs—which in turn covered up the fact that Osama Bin Laden was still alive. Since it was a body-double who was in fact killed in 2011.

Or at least I think that’s the story Trump was amplifying. You’ll forgive me if I got some twists in the plot wrong.

Anyway, what’s the big deal? It’s just Trump being Trump. The important things were happening elsewhere, in the back and forth between Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett and various senators on Capitol Hill. That’s what serious conservatives were focused on. That’s what’s going to make a difference. If crazy tweets are the price we pay for an originalist justice, these people tell us, then it’s well worth it.

Speaking of crazy. Olivia Nuzzi reports that America’s Mayor “was in Philadelphia sounding like Livia Soprano.”

After claiming that Democrats used the pandemic to take away gun rights, which did not happen, he mentioned the McCloskeys, the couple who wielded guns on the porch of their St. Louis mansion in front of Black Lives Matter demonstrators who were passing by. Giuliani claimed, falsely, that the protesters had yelled, “ ’We want to rape your wife! We want to rape your wife! We want this for reparations! This is number one for reparations! Biggest house here! Reparations!’” He added, “Nobody knows this, but at the time, their daughter was upstairs under the bed because she was afraid they’re going to come in and they’re talking about rape and they’re going to rape the wife and they’re going to find the daughter.”

None of that was true.

And now we learn that Trump has chosen Rudy and Jay Sekulow to run his post-election operation. What could possibly go wrong?

How is Trump’s final act playing with women? Not well, apparently.

A reporter from the Economist who watched the focus group:

Easy questions. On balance, Amy Coney Barrett is doing as well as could be expected in the kabuki-theater hearings over her nomination. Senators bloviate and ask questions she won’t answer. She doesn’t use notes. We know how it ends.

But the thing about easy questions is that they are easy.

Questions like: Can the president unilaterally move the date of the election? The easy answer is no, he can’t. That requires an act of congress. It’s the law.

ACB’s answer:

“Well, Senator, if that question ever came before me, I’d need to hear arguments from the litigants and read briefs and consult with my law clerks and talk to my colleagues and go through the opinion-writing process,” she said. “So, you know, if I give off the cuff answers, then I would be basically a legal pundit, and I don’t think we want judges to be legal pundits. I think we want judges to approach cases thoughtfully and with an open mind.”

Here’s another one.

I’m not not a lawyer, but shouldn’t a constitutional “originalist” believe that the constitution requires a peaceful transfer of power? And that the founders kind of thought it was important? When did that become “political controversy”?

And, then there was this question about voter intimidation. “Sen. Amy Klobuchar brought up efforts by President Trump to get his supporters to the polls to observe voting activity and asked Judge Amy Coney Barrett if under federal law it is illegal to intimidate voters at the polls. “

“I can’t characterize the facts in a hypothetical situation, and I can’t apply the law to a hypothetical set of facts.”

She continued: “I can only decide cases as they come to me litigated by parties on a full record after fully engaging precedent, talking to colleagues, writing an opinion, and so I can’t answer questions like that.”

Easy answer: it is against the law to intimidate voters, and as a judge I believe in upholding the law.

Why is this so hard? (And, yes, that is a rhetorical question.)

Well, how about that. Biden says that he is “not a fan of court packing.”

“I’ve already spoken on — I’m not a fan of court packing, but I don’t want to get off on that whole issue. I want to keep focused,” the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee said in an interview with Cincinnati’s WKRC.

We are now free to get back to Hillary’s emails.

Not with a bang or even a whimper. “‘Unmasking’ probe commissioned by Barr concludes without charges or any public report.”

Or, as Tim Miller puts it in today’s Bulwark, “Another ‘Deep State’ non-scandal goes down the memory hole.”

Guess we can close the file on that one.

William Barr has quietly ended the probe into the supposed “unmasking” scandal which was only opened as fan service for Republican elected officials and conservative media in the first place. (Trump had suggested to Maria Bartiromo that the perpetrators be given 50 year sentences on Fox.)

I suspect that Barr had hoped that maybe, with a little luck, his investigation might snare somebody in some tangential wrongdoing. Or be able to do some strategic leaking. Or at least keep the issue open until after the election.

Alas, the president’s lawyer daddy struck out. Again. Thus bringing to a close a matter that—in a saner world—would have been the stupidest fake scandal in decade.

Romney sort of goes there. I blame myself a bit for this, because the other day I highlighted Keith Olbermann’s deranged rant. But I was just taking a cheap shot, not attempting to weigh the comparative insanity of the two sides of our political divide.

Which brings me to Romney, who put this out yesterday:

My thoughts on the current state of our politics:

This is good, sort of. This is the strongest denunciation of Trump’s toxic crackpottery from any Republican. (It may be the only one?) But what caught the most attention was Romney’s suggestions that there was some rough moral equivalency between comments by the president of the United States and a washed up sports guy on a YouTube video.

Both were bad. One has the nuclear codes.

So, unfortunately, this falls into the category of:Meant Well, But Actually Missed the Point.

Mitt Romney doesn’t want that to be his epitaph.

A final off-ramp for the GOP establishment?

As I mentioned on yesterday’s podcast, Politico’s Tim Alberta suggests that the GOP might still break with Trump… after the election. If the election is a blowout, he writes, “and Trump is flinging wild accusations about wide-scale fraud and deep-state conspiracies to take him down, Republicans will be forced to choose a side.

“They will either stand with a battered soon-to-be-former president whose days in office are numbered whether he likes it or not, or they will stand with the democratic norms that have guided the nation for 244 years.”

I suspect that he’s at least partly right. Some members of the GOP Old Guard might be willing to tell Trump to go. But Ted Cruz? Josh Hawley? Marco Rubio? Nikki Haley? Lindsey Graham? Forget about it.

Instead, backing Trump is more likely to become the new litmus test of tribal loyalty.

Foxconn turns out to be a massive boondoggle. Who knew?

Oh wait.

Something for the bedwetters. We’ve seen way too much hope and optimism lately, so I wanted to pass on this piece from Thomas Edsall, who warns that Biden is not yet out of the woods.

Here are some of the things causing anxiety among Democratic partisans, particularly political professionals.

One way to measure voter enthusiasm is to compare voter registration trends for each party. A Democratic strategist who closely follows the data on a day-to-day basis wrote in a privately circulated newsletter:

Since last week, the share of white non-college over 30 registrations in the battleground states has increased by 10 points compared to September 2016, and the Democratic margin dropped 10 points to just 6 points. And there are serious signs of political engagement by white non-college voters who had not cast ballots in previous elections.

But, but, but… Biden is now leading in Florida, Pennsylvania, and Arizona and the Economist Forecast gives him a 91 percent chance of winning the election. The FiveThirty Forecast has Biden at 87 percent.

The RealClearPolitics average now puts Biden’s lead at 10 points.

There are 20 days to go.

Quick Hits

Ok, sorry about the downer item above. As an antidote, make sure you read this piece by Mona Charen in today’s Bulwark.

We devote a lot of mental energy to things that are going wrong or could go wrong. It’s human nature. As the sociobiologists teach us, our ancestors were not the ones who heard a rustling in the grass and figured, “Eh, it’s probably nothing.” We are descended from the ones who said “ What the hell was that? Could be a cobra. Better run the other way.” Vigilance is our default mode.

But seven months after the start of this plague, we shouldn’t lose sight of the things that went more right than we expected for two reasons: 1) gratitude is good for the spirit and the soul, and 2) we must guard against catastrophizing.

Nicholas Grossman in today’s Bulwark:

Leaders, especially in law enforcement positions, can counter the president’s effort to stir up voter intimidation by making it clear they’ll prosecute election-related crimes, as Nevada Attorney General Aaron D. Ford did after the debate.

Police should prepare for the possibility of armed intimidation at polling places. And concerned citizens should prepare for the unlikely, but not impossible, scenario in which some police are overwhelmed — or choose to look the other way — by being ready to calmly, peacefully escort any intimidated voters into polling places.

Georgetown Law’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection recommends documenting what you see—if uniformed militia show up, photograph or take note of any insignias—and offers fact sheets on the relevant laws in 50 states, which you can find here.

Cheap Shots

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Deep Thoughts

Josh Kraushaar in the National Journal:

Republicans are now bracing for a punishing Election Night, resigned to losing the presidency, alarmed that Democrats will pad their House majority, and growing increasingly concerned that Chuck Schumer will be the next Senate majority leader. Most are hoping for a mere blue-wave election, rather than a potential tsunami that would wipe out some GOP members of Congress in reliably red states and districts. “He’s losing older Republicans over COVID,” said one alarmed senior Republican strategist. “They take their health seriously, and they see the nonsense out of the White House and it’s off-putting.”

So today’s column is something of a scorecard that will indicate just how bad the Election Night environment will be for Republicans. These are all races that, in normal times, should be fairly safe seats for the Republican Party. But they’re shaping up to be uncomfortably close. If Democrats win even one of these four races, it’s a sign of a big blue political wipeout.

A Tsunami of Trumpian Crazy

#IFTTT #WordPress

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news-ase · 4 years ago

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go-redgirl · 5 years ago

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Trump: 'I Am Not Siding With Anybody' in Syria Troop Decision

President Donald Trump denied he is siding with anyone when deciding to pull U.S. troops out of Syria as Turkey enters the country, but added he has warned Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan there will be “big trouble” if U.S. troops are hit or if his country’s forces act in a way that is inhumane.

“I said to Erdogan, I said don’t hit any of our people,” Trump said during a press conference held while signing the U.S.-Japan trade agreement in Washington. “I am not siding with anybody. We have been in Syria for many years. Syria was supposed to be a short-term hit. That was many, many years ago.”

The U.S. has just 50 people in the area being entered by Turkey, Trump said, and he does not want them “hurt or killed or anything.”

Later Monday evening, Trump reiterated his position to top military officials gathered at the White House’s Cabinet Room. “We want to bring our soldiers back home,” Trump said at that point. “We are not fighting. we are policing for a large extent.

"There’s big pressure on Turkey. They have been fighting with P.K.K. for many years, they’re natural enemies,” Trump added, pointing out former President Barack Obama started the U.S. involvement in Syria.

“They are still hating each other beyond anybody’s belief, but I’ve told Turkey that if they do anything outside of what we would think is humane, to use a word a second time, they could suffer the wrath of an extremely decimated economy,” said Trump, adding the U.S. has a “very good relationship” with Erdogan.

“I will tell you this though; we defeated ISIS,” Trump added, but when he came into office the situation in Syria “was a real mess.”

However, ISIS is also the sworn enemy of countries such as Turkey, Iraq, and Syria, and “those countries hate them at the same level as we do; they’re terrible, terrible savage killers,” Trump said.

“These countries are rich,” Trump said. “They are powerful. They have armies. They can do the work … let them take care of it. We want to bring our troops back home. It has been many, many decades. I got elected on that.”

Even Trump’s staunchest Republican congressional allies expressed outrage at the prospect of abandoning Syrian Kurds who had fought the Islamic State group with American arms and advice. It was the latest example of Trump’s approach to foreign policy that critics condemn as impulsive, that he sometimes reverses and that frequently is untethered to the advice of his national security aides.

“A catastrophic mistake,” said Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 House Republican leader. “Shot in the arm to the bad guys,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

Trump said he understood criticism from fellow GOP leaders but disagreed. He said he could also name supporters, but he didn’t.

Pentagon and State Department officials held out the possibility of persuading Turkey to abandon its expected invasion. U.S. officials said they had seen no indication that Turkey had begun a military operation by late Monday.

Trump, in late afternoon remarks to reporters, appeared largely unconcerned at the prospect of Turkish forces attacking the Kurds, who include a faction he described as “natural enemies” of the Turks.

“But I have told Turkey that if they do anything outside of what we would think is humane … they could suffer the wrath of an extremely decimated economy,” Trump said.

In recent weeks, the U.S. and Turkey had reached an apparent accommodation of Turkish concerns about the presence of Kurdish fighters, seen in Turkey as a threat. American and Turkish soldiers had been conducting joint patrols in a zone along the border. As part of that work, barriers designed to protect the Kurds were dismantled amid assurances that Turkey would not invade.

“I held off this fight for almost 3 years, but it is time for us to get out of these ridiculous Endless Wars, many of them tribal, and bring our soldiers home,” he wrote.

In his later remarks, Trump asserted that American troops in Syria are not performing useful work. They are, he said, “not fighting.” They are “just there,” he said.

Among the first to move were about 30 U.S. troops from two outposts who would be in the immediate area of a Turkish invasion. It’s unclear whether others among the roughly 1,000 U.S. forces in northeastern Syria would be moved, but officials said there was no plan for any to leave Syria entirely.

Bulent Aliriza, director of the Turkey Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that a U.S. withdrawal from Syria would be a major boost to Russia’s position there.

He added that other allies in the region, including the Kurds, will “look at this withdrawal as U.S. unwillingness to stand up for its rights and maintain its alliances in the region.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., another strong Trump supporter, said in an appearance on “Fox & Friends” that he had concerns.

“I want to make sure we keep our word for those who fight with us and help us,” he said, adding that, “If you make a commitment and somebody is fighting with you, America should keep their word.”

Former Trump administration officials also expressed concern.

Nikki Haley, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the U.S. “must always have the backs of our allies, if we expect them to have our back. … Leaving them to die is a big mistake.”

Turkey considers the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged an insurgency against Turkey for 35 years.

With contributions from Associated Press writers Zeynep Bilginsoy in Istanbul; Zeina Karam and Sarah El Deeb in Beirut; and Lori Hinnant in Paris.

The Associated Presss contributed to this report.

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OPINION: Well, its easy for those who are sitting on the side-lines to disagree with pulling our troops our Syria because you haven’t had to face what our troops have gone through.

From time to time a ‘Great General’ always revises his strategy because if you don’t the enemies will get comfortable with your strategy and always know your next move.

A surprise move is just as effective as a surprise attach.

And sometimes, you have to test your allies to see how strong they are in handling a situation. Because if not, and they show that they are more dependent on you, they become ‘dead’ weights and end up not being effective allies for the combat operation.

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trand-politics · 7 years ago

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Trump, 2a, and other small rants

Full disclosure, guys: I’m a gun owner. I currently own 4 long guns, with two more in the process of being acquired from the wife of a deceased relative.

I like being able to shoot. I do so as a hobby. Most days it’s just in the woods. A friend and I fill some gallon jugs with water and food coloring, and grab a couple empty cans of house paint, and go out on my great-uncle’s 40 acres. He has a straight ~90 yard path that we can do some mild distance shooting as well. Those jugs make a nice poof when you hit them. It’s like an explosive target without the explosives.

I tell you this because I want to provide some context when I talk about not wanting more gun control in the US. It is a fun hobby and an excellent vent for safe owners.

Safe, legal gun ownership is hard. It involves massive safes, trigger locks, combination locks, a multitude of keys, and hard cases. It involves solvents capable of dissolving lead and brushes strong enough to clean brittle steel yet delicate enough to not damage its engravings. It’s time consuming and money intensive.

So when I’m putting in all that work to be safe- for every 5 hours of shooting it’s about 2-3 hours of cleaning and manipulation of safe for storage- and someone tells me, at the end of all that, that he wants to take away my ability to pursue this hobby?

How about fuck that.

It’s tradition for me to say “both sides are wrong” and I see no reason to break from tradition here. Let’s talk about each side.

The left wants to either restrict guns, restrict features, or price ammo and firearms out of reach of the typical person.

The first is just unrealistic on a cultural level. Cars kill more people than guns every year. The ability to own one of those things is in the Constitution.

On the second point, it’s weird to gun owners that there are “assault features” that our friends consider scary. My 10-22 is a simple semi-automatic .22 rifle. I got mine with a wood stock and traditional rifle silhouette. Many states do not restrict these at all, though I know that in New Jersey I’d need to leave my 25 round magazine back in MI (more on that later). But take the 10/22 and put on a black polymer stock with a pistol grip and suddenly it’s an “assault weapon” per Massachusetts and some politicians. And those 25 round mags? A practiced shooter can reload in under a second. You figure 2-3 shoots per second for a lot of shooters, and having to reload saved ~2.5 seconds for 25 rounds. It’s not significant.

Pricing ammo out of reach defeats the purpose of the 2a, which is to allow individuals to defend against tyranny. As the wealthy have more disposable income with which to buy firearms, this pricing scheme simply means that only the wealthiest people will have guns. That seems entirely unfair.

Mrs. Clinton ran on a campaign of holding firearm manufacturers liable for gun violence, a position which even Sen. Sanders said was off. An auto manufacturer is only held liable for a vehicle fatality when it’s proven that there was some flaw in the design that the manufacturer knew of or could reasonably have known of. Mrs. Clinton’s position implies that guns are inherently faulty simply by nature of their existence.

Now let’s talk about Republicans’ plans to put a gun in every person’s hands, often without restriction. That seems pretty silly to me, as well. There are people legitimately unfit to own firearms. I’m a user of the r/guns subreddit and every day I’ll look at a post and think “you probably should not own a gun.” Further, the insistence that more guns = less crime is objectively false, as proven by comparison to nations with more restrictions.

So what’s the solution to that mess? I think it’s stronger enforcement plus a rearrangement of the law to allow for more efficient enforcement. Suppressors are covered by the National Firearms Act, and require a $200 fee, plus a lengthy application process, to purchase. The current wait on an application’s processing is eight months. That tells me that the department of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) does not have the resources it needs to comply with existing law. Give them those resources. Further, reduce restrictions on suppressors. Contrary to a rather crass claim by Mrs. Clinton, a suppressor (she used the term silencer) does not completely muffle the sound of a gunshot. It lowers the report by a few decibels. A jet engine is as loud as a gunshot. Picture the difference between standing five feet from a jet and standing thirty feet away. That’s roughly the difference between a suppressed firearm and a standard one. Those shots still echo; they can still be heard from a great distance. Eliminate restrictions on them, and allow the ATF to use its freed-up resources to investigate cases of fraud and illegal firearm sales.

The list of things that can disqualify you from buying a gun is pretty extensive, and includes: any involuntary mental health hold in your life; felony conviction of any type; any domestic abuse conviction whatsoever; being deemed mentally unfit by a mental care professional; using illegal drugs (marijuana is still illegal at the federal level and the background checks are done at the federal level); a restraining order being filed against you if the judge determines that it is in the best interests of the victim for you to be barred from owning a firearm; and attempting to buy a firearm for anyone prohibited for any of these reasons (a straw purchase). That list is inclusive of everyone that I would prefer not own a firearm.

___

I don’t get the NRA. Every time a major shooting happens, they have to get into the mix and make an ad that shines a highly negative light on gun owners and gun ownership. They don’t even support gun owners’ interests, but rather, the interests of gun manufacturers. Most recently, they offered to trade banning of bump-fire stocks for more protections for manufacturers. This organization is ridiculous, and I consistently refuse to buy any product which will give a portion of that money to the NRA.

___

Is the GOP’s current platform simply “Take whatever a reasonable person would do, then do the opposite?!” They’re cutting taxes while increasing spending. They’re eliminating access to healthcare. They’re still increasing the size of the goddamn military even while one of the wars we started is about to end. They keep trying to break net neutrality. The EPA’s authority is getting weakened, and federal land is being sold off. They’re trying to pull us out of the UN, isolating us from the world in an age of globalism and friendship among nations. With Nikki Haley’s most recent comments to the UN, it seems this administration is trying to start a war with Russia, the nation that put them in power! And the president wants to strengthen libel laws to squelch any speech that dares criticize him.

Then there’s NAFTA. That agreement has been disastrous for Mexico. It allowed us to dump our subsidized corn on them, while our auto manufacturers filled the country with low-paying, no-skill jobs that Americans would never do for any wage. It’s ridiculous how much we benefit from it. Yet our current president keeps talking about how harmful it is and how much it needs to be renegotiated.

I’m so sick of the GOP talking about health care. They had seven years to come up with a new plan and they didn’t even have a plan that worked for their own membership. I get it. Healthcare is hard. That’s why it took so much negotiation to get the Affordable Care Act passed. And now that repeal has failed, the president has banked on an interesting strategy: Break ACA, then blame Democrats for it being broken. I don’t think he realizes that the executive orders he signs are public. You can’t snap your driveshaft in half then claim it’s your friend’s fault your car doesn’t work any more than you can strip out the means by which a bill works then blame someone else when it doesn’t.

Health care is so hard, guys. Both parties have an end goal and neither seems to recognize that it will take a lot of incremental steps to make progress toward those goals either way. Democrats’ goal of universal care probably goes through small steps like expanding MediCare, increasing what it covers, adding more incentives for states to buy into it, raising the maximum wage one can make to qualify for it, increasing the minimum coverage requirements of health care plans, then making medicare universal. Republicans will want to do the opposite- lowering the maximum wage to qualify for MediCare, adding additional requirements like drug testing and community service, expanding Health Savings Accounts and providing incentives for their use, and reducing the requirements of what must be covered. As far as this goes, I stand with the left. I consider good health to not only be a right, but a national security issue. There’s no point in protecting citizens from outside threats if they get killed by a bacteria that could easily be cured if one didn’t need to pay $100 to see a doctor and $100 for the medication. I’m sick of friends being bankrupted over a hospital stay.

I’m

sick

it.

#tranderas #politics #2nd amendment #nra #aca #democrats #republicans #gop #firearms #health #health care #rant

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phroyd · 8 years ago

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This week’s theme was undoubtedly the continued taint of the Trump regime for their ties to Russia. For the first time since Election Day, Trump seems unable to drive the media storylines.

Trump announced he would not attend the White House Correspondent’s Association dinner, amid growing tension with the media.

Further to the stories on Priebus in Week 15 reaching out to the FBI, reports cited that Spicer made calls to the CIA, and Republican leaders Nunes and Burr, asking they discredit the NYT story about Russian ties.

Before the investigation even begins, Nunes, the House Intelligence Committee chair, said he hasn’t found evidence of the Trump team’s ties to Russia.

CREW filed under the FOIA to see communications between Priebus and the FBI.

Trump accused Obama of being behind the town hall protests: “I think [Obama] is behind it. I also think it’s politics.”

Early in the week, Trump pronounced, “I haven’t called Russia in 10 years,” a statement then thoroughly discredited by video clips of his numerous statements otherwise.

In a NBC interview, former President George W. Bush said “we need answers” on Trump ties to Russia.

Another Trump cabinet pick, Wilbur Ross, has deep ties to Russia, including investing more than $1 billion in the Bank of Cyprus, and becoming a vice chairman of the bank. Putin appointed the other vice chairman.

Rachel Maddow reported the Bank of Cyprus also has ties to a Russian oligarch who helped Trump make a $60 million profit flipping a home in Florida he owned for just two years.

As Trump continued his attacks on Sweden, O’Reilly booked a supposed Swedish ‘national security advisor’ for his Fox News show. After Swedish officials indicated this expert was not known, O’Reilly was forced to issue a watered-down apology. Since, Trump has stopped attacking Sweden.

A massive wave of anti-Semitism continued, including two more cemeteries desecrated, and 31 threats against JCC’s in one day alone. The ADL has said anti-Semitism in the US is the worst since the 1930s.

Seeming to follow David Duke’s lead, Trump said it could be Jews behind the rash of anti-Semitic attacks.

Another mosque was burned down — the fourth in seven weeks.

WAPO reported the FBI had once planned to pay the British spy behind the dossier, lending credibility to the contents.

The Senate Intelligence Committee may call the British spy who gathered the information for the infamous dossier, to testify. If they can find him (he’s in hiding).

The father of the SEAL killed in the failed Yemen raid told the Miami Herald he wants answers.

Trump sought to blame the generals for the SEAL’s death.

Trump also tried to blame Obama, saying he finished what Obama had started. This was refuted by a former aid, who said Obama had never approved the raid.

NBC reported that despite Trump claims to the contrary, senior US officials said there was no significant intel yielded from the Yemen raid.

Feinstein and other Dem senators demanded more information from the State Dept on China’s sudden decision to grant a trademark to the Trump organization. As noted in Week 14’s list, this occurred shortly after Trump declared his support of “One China” policy.

Trump WH let Conway off the hook on an ethics investigation, saying she acted “inadvertently” in promoting Ivanka’s brand — despite recommendations by the OCE for discipline.

Amid protests and ethics concerns, Donald Jr and Eric Trump cut the ribbon on a new hotel in Vancouver, built and financed by one of Malaysia’s richest families.

A businesswoman who touts access to China, purchased a $16 million penthouse at Trump Park Avenue. Trump retains an economic interest in the property.

Although an order to stay Trump’s Muslim Ban is in place, problems continued including Muhammad Ali Jr. being detained in a Florida airport, and French historian and expert on the Holocaust, Henry Russo, who was threatened with deportation while traveling to a discussion at Texas A&M.

Stories continue to describe the State Department’s diminishing role. State Dept staff are being excluded from meeting with foreign leaders, leadership posts are going unfilled, and many employees are quitting. Trump also had threatened to slash the budget by one-third.

The State Department has not held a single daily briefing under Tillerson. Daily briefings had been the norm since the 1950s. Limited daily briefings are set to begin next week.

The State Department tweeted, then deleted, a congratulatory message to an Iranian director for winning an Oscar.

Trump escalated his war on the media, telling Breitbart the NYT’s “intent is so evil and bad,” and that “they write lies.”

Trump delivered a de facto SOTU speech, read from a teleprompter. Although his manner was mild, the content continued to be nationalistic and negative. The Center for American Progress said that of Trump 61 statements, 51 were false.

Also refuting Trump’s SOTU, The Brennan Center for Justice noted, “Nationally, crime remains at the bottom of a 25-year downtrend, half of what it was at its peak in 1991. Last year, rates of overall crime fell for the 14th year in a row.”

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg did not attend Trump’s SOTU, nor did Maxine Waters.

The Democratic women of the House wore the white of the Suffragists at Trump’s SOTU to show support of women’s rights.

Trump officials fed news outlets misinformation on a shift in Trump’s immigration plans — hinting the time might be right for an immigration bill — ahead of the SOTU. CNN reported Trump misled reporters to get positive coverage.

The NYT reported that the Obama administration had rushed to preserve information on the Trump team’s ties to Russia, spreading it to government agencies.

Also reported by the NYT: American allies, including the British and the Dutch, provided the Obama administration with information on meetings between Russian officials and the Trump regime in European cities.

A bombshell story by WAPO reported that Sessions met with Russian ambassador twice, but did not disclose those meetings when asked during this Senate confirmation hearing.

Sessions first spoke with Kislyak in Cleveland on July 18 — the same day the Trump campaign gutted the GOP’s platform of its anti-Russia stance on Ukraine. On July 23, WikiLeaks released stolen emails from the DNC.

The WSJ reported that Sessions used campaign funds to pay for his trip to the RNC Convention, where he met the Russian ambassador.

At a next day press conference, Sessions recused himself from Trump investigations, but during the campaign only.

As the controversy continued, Sessions said he would submit an amended testimony to address Democratic senators’ questions.

POLITICO reported that Trump adviser Carter Page also met with Kislyak at the RNC Convention. While in office, Harry Reid had asked Comey to investigate Carter, saying he was also meeting with “high ranking sanctioned individuals” in Moscow.

Carter told MSNBC he had met with Kislyak, then seemed to backtrack on CNN to say he never spoke with him for more than 10 seconds.

Kushner and Flynn also met with Kislyak at the Trump Tower in December. Of note, given the venue and people involved, this points to Trump having direct knowledge of the meeting.

CNN reported that US Intelligence considers Kislyak to be one of Russia’s top spies and spy-recruiters in Washington.

Kislyak did not attend the DNC Convention.

Trump team forced Nikki Haley to fire career staffers who she had asked for advice on how to talk tough with Russia.

A front page story in USA Today reported that emails released under a FOIA request to The Indianapolis Star, show Pence used personal email for state business while governor, including for sensitive matters and homeland security issues, and that his personal AOL account was hacked.

The next day, Pence turned over 13 boxes of state-related emails to the Indiana statehouse — a step required by law.

Trump’s transition team canceled planned training on ethics for his staff, appointees and Cabinet members.

Rachel Maddow reported on a leaked DHS assessment document which indicates most US-based extremists radicalized years after entry into the US. These findings negate the main argument made by the Trump regime for their Muslim Ban, and may explain why they have yet to release the new version frequently promised to be coming soon.

Inhumane round-ups by ICE continued, including a father of four US-born children who has lived here for 20 years, while dropping his kids off at school.

A 22 year-old immigrant was detained by ICE moments after a press conference. She was 7 when her family moved to the US from Argentina, placing her under DACA immigration policy.

Spicer was reported to be checking his staff phones for leaks.

Reuters reported on stepped up efforts by the Trump regime to plug leaks, including Mnuchin using his first senior staff meeting to inform his aides that he would not tolerate leaks.

Top talent continues to leave the already thinly staffed executive branch over poor morale and fear of Trump.

FP reported that the Trump WH is considering using high-end security software for WH networks in an effort to stop leaks.

Schwarzenegger quit The Celebrity Apprentice, citing too much “baggage” — a clear shot at Trump. Trump continues his role as Executive Producer of the show (which we’ve normalized!).

Trump fired back via Twitter this next day claiming Schwarzenegger was fired because of low ratings. Schwarzenegger told him to hire a fact checker.

As stories continued all week about Trump and his team’s ties to Russia, offering no proof, Trump accused Obama of wiretapping phones in Trump Tower, tweeting, “This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”

As the week closed out, Trump yet again headed to Mar-a-Lago for the weekend, after leaving the WH at 3 p.m. on Friday. Trump has yet to visit Camp David.

Some Things We’ve Already Normalized:

Trump’s sons are continuing to conduct business from which Trump has a direct economic benefit.

Our executive branch is vastly understaffed, and Trump and his regime seem to make little effort at hiring (consolidation of power).

Our media (some) continue to push the notion of a Trump “reset,” and seek to normalize Trump and his regime.

Comey continues to NOT cooperate with Congress in hearings. We also do not know the status of the DOJ inquiry into Comey and the FBI, and whether this has been allowed to continue under Sessions.

Click Here to see all of the past week’s changes which point to a more authoritarian path in The Administrative Arm of our government.

Phroyd

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dylan-stableford-blog · 8 years ago

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Trump: ‘We’re not going into Syria’

The cover of Wednesday’s New York Post. (NYP/Yahoo News)

President Trump has a simple message about military action in Syria: The United States is not going in.

“We’re not going into Syria,” Trump told New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin in one of two new interviews published Wednesday.

“Our policy is the same,” Trump said. “It hasn’t changed. We’re not going into Syria.”

In an interview with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, Trump’s message was the same.

“We’re not going into Syria,” Trump said.

The United States already has hundreds of troops in Syria working to support the coalition against the so-called Islamic State, also known as ISIS. The Syrian government is locked in a multifaceted civil war against both ISIS and rebel forces. The Unoted States accused Syrian President Bashar Assad of using chemical weapons against civilian targets in his broader campaign against rebel-controlled areas.

“When you see these beautiful kids that are dead in their father’s arms, or you see kids gasping for life, and you know it’s over, it’s over for them — they’re hosing them down,” Trump told Bartiromo. “Hundreds of them. When you see that, I immediately called Gen. Mattis. I said, ‘What can we do?’ And they came back with a number of different alternatives. And we hit them very hard.”

“Now, are we going to get involved with Syria? No,” the president continued. “But if I see them using gas and using things that — I mean even some of the worst tyrants in the world didn’t use the kind of gases that they used. And some of the gases are unbelievably potent.”

After seeing those images of the Syrian government’s alleged deadly chemical attacks on its civilians, Trump ordered airstrikes against Syria — something he now says former President Barack Obama should have done after the 2013 chemical attacks carried out by Assad.

“What I did should have been done by the Obama administration a long time before I did it,” said Trump. “I think Syria would be a lot better off right now than it has been.”

At the time, however. Trump had a different message for Obama. In 2013, he repeatedly warned Obama — using forceful language — to not attack Syria.

We should stay the hell out of Syria, the "rebels" are just as bad as the current regime. WHAT WILL WE GET FOR OUR LIVES AND $ BILLIONS?ZERO

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 16, 2013

If the U.S. attacks Syria and hits the wrong targets, killing civilians, there will be worldwide hell to pay. Stay away and fix broken U.S.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 3, 2013

What I am saying is stay out of Syria.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 4, 2013

AGAIN, TO OUR VERY FOOLISH LEADER, DO NOT ATTACK SYRIA – IF YOU DO MANY VERY BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN & FROM THAT FIGHT THE U.S. GETS NOTHING!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2013

Trump’s comments in the Wednesday interviews were the first he’s made publicly since last Thursday’s airstrikes, which targeted an air field used by the Syrian military.

According to a CBS News poll published Monday, most Americans approved of the decision — but few would support U.S. military action beyond them.

The survey showed 57 percent approved of Thursday’s airstrikes, including an overwhelming percentage of Republicans (84 percent). But 69 percent believe the president needs to get authorization from Congress before taking further action, according to the CBS poll — and just 18 percent would favor full U.S. military involvement, including ground troops, in Syria. Nearly the same percentage (15 percent) said they want no U.S. involvement in Syria whatsoever.

Despite launching those strikes, Trump says the U.S. mission in Syria remains the same.

“Our big mission is getting rid of ISIS,” Trump told the Post. “That’s where it’s always been. But when you see kids choking to death, you watch their lungs burning out, we had to hit [Assad] and hit him hard.”

Still, Trump said it wasn’t an easy decision.

“It’s very tough to give that final go-ahead when you know you’re talking about human life,” he said. “We went back and forth, and also back and forth about severity. We could have gone bigger in terms of targets and more of them, but we thought this would be the appropriate first shot.”

Trump added: “We hope he won’t do any more gassing.”

The president’s comments come following several days of Trump administration officials sending mixed messages on Syria.

On Friday, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told the U.N. Security Council that Trump was “prepared to do more in Syria.”

“I was trying to give warning and notice to the members of the Security Council and the international community that he won’t stop here,” Haley later explained CNN. “If he needs to do more, he will do more.”

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, though, said the strike against Syria was a one-off.

“I think the president was very clear in his message to the American people that this strike was related solely to the most recent horrific use of chemical weapons against women, children, and as the president said, even small babies,” Tillerson said. “Other than that, there is no change to our military posture.”

yahoo

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thelahorepost-blog · 7 years ago

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American brand of democracy: Quelle démocratie?

Bashar enjoys the support of 80% of his people. What biz it is of the US to impose its brand of democracy on others? This is a ploy to commit genocide and plunder the resources of these countries. Watch youtube where that idiot GWB offers Putin help for introducing democracy in Russia by sending reformers to Moscow. Putin says, "Thank you. I've seen your democracy in Iraq," and brings the whole house down. That idiot didn't quite know what to do and if the earth below him had rent asunder and swallowed him, he would have thought himself bloody lucky. TRUMP didn’t ask Congress before raining missiles on Syria! MAY didn’t consult parliament before committing aggression against a sovereign state. MACRON was ridiculed in European Parliament for bombing Syria. This is a band of rascals acting without the consent of their people. Their democracy is a joke! SYRIAN ATTACK = A POLITICAL STUNT THE ATTACK WAS OVER BEFORE IT BEGAN. OUT OF HUNDRED, 70 MISSILES WERE INTERCEPTED. 3 SYRIANS DEAD IN THE ONE SHOT OPS! THE EVIL TRIO DIDN’T WANT ESCALATION! RUSSIA DID THE RIGHT THING TO CALL A U.N.S.C SESSION! IMHO: Trump sought Putin’s approval to improve his ratings. When in 2017 Trump launched 59 missiles into a Syrian desert, Fareed Zakaria of the CNN said: “Today Trump became President of the United States.” This brief attack has taken care of ‘Golden Showers,’ ‘butt-naked-spanking by a whore’ and a blackmail payout of $130,000/- to a prostitute. SYRIA IN PERSPECTIVE: MACRON LIKE NAPOLEON WOULD RATHER JOIN THE WAR AND LOSE IT THAN KEEP OUT OF IT. LIKE SNOTS SARKOZY IN LIBYA, AND TONY BLAIR IN IRAQ, HE SO ITCHES TO BE USED IN SYRIA. THE RESPECT THE U.S. DISPLAYED FOR HUMAN LIVES! IT USED UNNECESSARILY THE DEPLETED URANIUM ON IRAQIS RESULTING IN CANCERS AND MALFORMED BABIES FOR GENERATIONS TO COME! AS FOR GASSING IN SYRIA OF A DOZEN OR SO CIVILIANS THE PROOF OF WHICH IS INCONCLUSIVE, WHAT ABOUT SADDAM WHEN HE GASSED THOUSANDS OF IRANIAN TROOPS? THAT AMERICAN CHEMICAL WAS OF COURSE SHIPPED TO IRAQ AS AN ‘AGRICULTURAL PESTICIDE.’ SYRIAN UPDATE: 'We have solid evidence that that chemical attack in Syria's Douma was staged. Hopefully there will be no "risky" action, like in Libya and Iraq.' Sergy Lavrov, Russian formin. "The war in Syria will go much higher than that." Russian Ambassador in the UN. Germany, Italy, Canada, UK (in spite of cabinet approval) are not jumping into American mess in Syria as readily as they did in Iraq. The Coalition is falling apart. Trump is sounding a little less enthusiastic on Syria. His squinty White House spokesperson is a bit keyed down. Non-News: Macron is the lapdog of Orangutan as Tony was the poodle of that Idiot. "Syrians circulate the meme 'We love you Trump." Fox News. Iraqi loved their liberator, the bloody idiot who when he came to the freed Iraq an Iraqi shot both his shoes at him but unluckily missed! Americans will never learn; they don't want to as wars thrill them; their own fathers mothers children and sons never suffer the horrible deaths they so happily shower on others. Then they wonder, 'Why they hate us so?' BRITS CALL TONY BLAIR A WAR CRIMINAL AS HE CLAIMED SADDAM HAD WMD AND WAS AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT TO THE BRITAIN. LATER HE PUBLICLY APOLOGIZED FOR HAVING LIED AND MISINFORMED THE PUBLIC. THIS CLOT AGAIN CLAIMS BRITAIN MUST JOIN THE WAR AGAINST SYRIA. ENGLISH MUST BE ASHAMED OF THIS FOUL-MOUTHED ROTTEN APOLOGY OF A MAN. BEWARE THE WORLD! WHEN SADDAM WAS GASSING IRANIANS (’80-’88) SENILE REAGAN BLAMED IT ON IRANIANS. IN TWO IRAQ WARS, AT LEAST 4 MILLIONS IRAQIS WERE KILLED BY AMERICA; RUSSIA DID NOT DO IT. NIKKI HALEY IS SO MUCH CONCERNED FOR A DOZEN OR SO SYRIAN CHILDREN WITHOUT A PROOF WHILE THAT BITCH MADELEINE ALBRIGHT JUSTIFIED KILLING OF OVER 500,000 IRAQI CHILDREN. A BLACK DOG WAS USED TO RAISE THE FALSE FLAG OF WMD IN IRAQ. A BROWN BITCH IS BEING USED IN SYRIA TO YET BEFOOL THE WORLD ON WMD AGAIN. Read the full article

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deniscollins · 7 years ago

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Trump Scraps New Sanctions Against Russia, Overruling Advisers

The Syrian government used chemical weapons in a gas attack that killed more than 40 people outside Damascus. Should the U.S. impose sanctions against Russian companies found to be assisting Syria’s chemical weapons program: (1) Yes, (2) No. If yes, what type of sanctions? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

President Trump rejected, for now at least, a fresh round of sanctions set to be imposed against Russia on Monday, a course change that underscored the schism between the president and his national security team.

The president’s ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki R. Haley, had announced on Sunday that the administration would place sanctions on Russian companies found to be assisting Syria’s chemical weapons program. The sanctions were listed on a menu of further government options after an American-led airstrike on Syria, retaliating against a suspected gas attack that killed dozens a week earlier.

But the White House contradicted her on Monday, saying that Mr. Trump had not approved additional measures.

“We are considering additional sanctions on Russia and a decision will be made in the near future,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said in a statement.

Speaking later with reporters aboard Air Force One as Mr. Trump headed to Florida, Ms. Sanders added that “the president has been clear that he’s going to be tough on Russia, but at the same time he’d still like to have a good relationship with them.”

Another White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations, said Mr. Trump had decided not to go forward with the sanctions. Mr. Trump concluded that they were unnecessary because Moscow’s response to the airstrike was mainly bluster, the official said.

Russia analysts said the whipsaw policy shift once again highlighted an administration struggling to find a coherent and consistent voice in dealing with Russia, which in the past four years has annexed Crimea, intervened in eastern Ukraine, sought to influence the American election in 2016, allegedly poisoned a former Russian spy living in Britain and propped up the murderous government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

Mr. Trump has mostly spoken hopefully of his efforts to forge a friendship with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, including congratulating him on a re-election widely denounced as a sham and even suggesting a White House meeting. At the same time, the Trump administration has imposed two rounds of sanctions against Russia in the last month, expelled 60 of Moscow’s diplomats and closed a consulate in retaliation for the poisoning attack in Britain.

“Trump seems to think that if he accepts what his advisers recommend on even days of the month and rejects their recommendations on odd days, the result will be a strategy,” said Stephen Sestanovich, a scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations and Columbia University who served as ambassador to former Soviet states in the 1990s.

“By and large, other governments don’t know whether to laugh or cry at all this,” Mr. Sestanovich said. “But in Russia, laughter is getting the upper hand.”

Mr. Trump was annoyed with Ms. Haley for getting out in front of the policy, the administration official said, and the president’s decision to reject sanctions left her hanging in public with her credibility on the line.

Ms. Haley has been one of the strongest critics in the administration of Russia’s behavior around the world, often speaking far more harshly than Mr. Trump would, but she has rarely been reined in publicly this way. She made no comment on Monday.

Administration officials said new sanctions could still be imposed at some point if Russia takes further action justifying them.

But absent such a scenario, the officials could not explain how Mr. Trump would make Russia pay a “big price” for enabling Syria’s use of chemical weapons, as he promised to do last week after a suspected gas attack killed more than 40 people and sickened scores more outside Damascus on April 7.

The strike against Syria that Mr. Trump announced late Friday in Washington was limited to a single night and to three targets linked to chemical weapons facilities. It sought to punish President Bashar al-Assad of Syria for the suspected gas attack but avoid provoking Russia into a response.

Russian forces stationed in Syria have helped Mr. Assad gain the upper hand in the country’s seven-year civil war.

Russia responded harshly to the news of sanctions before learning that Mr. Trump had canceled them. “The sanctions drive against Russia is becoming an obsession,” Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, told reporters at his daily briefing in Moscow. “We’re convinced that any economist can see open attempts to squeeze Russian companies out of global markets.”

Critics said the president’s decision not to follow through on Ms. Haley’s announcement would sap American authority around the world.

“I am outraged that President Trump pulled back sanctions on Russia for its support of the Assad regime,” said Representative Eliot L. Engel of New York, the senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “This sends a message to governments around the world that they can support brutal, criminal behavior without serious consequences.

“President Trump is out of step with the American people, American values — and as this situation has made clear, his own administration,” Mr. Engel said.

The about-face on sanctions came a day after ABC News broadcast an interview with James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director fired by Mr. Trump last year, in which he said he thought “it’s possible” that the president had been compromised by Russia. A protester waiting for Mr. Trump in Florida on Monday held a large banner that read, “Russian stooge.”

Mr. Trump has heatedly and repeatedly denied any collusion with Russia during his 2016 campaign, calling such suggestions a “hoax” perpetrated by Democratic sore losers desperate to explain an election defeat.

Russia did not respond militarily to the Friday strike, but American officials noted a sharp spike in Russian online activity around the time it was launched.

A snapshot on Friday night recorded a 2,000 percent increase in Russian troll activity overall, according to Tyler Q. Houlton, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security. One known Russian bot, #SyriaStrikes, had a 4,443 percent increase in activity while another, #Damsucs, saw a 2,800 percent jump, Mr. Houlton said.

In hitting the Barzah Research and Development Center, a chemical weapons research lab in greater Damascus, and two storage facilities and bunkers near Homs, Pentagon officials insisted that they dealt a critical blow to Mr. Assad’s weapons program. But Friday night’s strike, delivered via 105 missiles, was not quite double the 59 missiles used last year when Mr. Trump ordered the military to strike a Syrian airfield from which planes engaged in another chemical weapons attack took off.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis pushed hard to limit the strikes to proven weapons facilities in the hopes that a more limited strike would not prompt retaliation from Russia.

The lab at Barzah, in Damascus, was on the receiving end of the biggest barrage — some 76 missiles, a combination of Tomahawk cruise missiles and Joint air-to-surface missiles. The rest of the bombs — 29, fired by American, French and British warplanes — struck and destroyed the Him Shinshar chemical weapons storage facility near Homs, and the Him Shinshar chemical weapons bunker facility around five miles away.

Syria tried to hit back, but by the time its air defense system was deployed, the American warplanes were on their way home and the war ships had completed their mission, military officials said. They disputed Syrian claims to have shot down dozens of American missiles.

“We assess that over 40 surface-to-air missiles were employed by the Syrian regime,” Lt. Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie, director of the Joint Staff at the Pentagon, told reporters on Saturday. “Most of these launches occurred after the last impact of our strike was over.”

He called the Syrian retaliatory missiles “largely ineffective” and said they “clearly increased risk to their own people based on their indiscriminate response — when you shoot iron into the sky without guidance, it will inevitably fall to earth.”

#Russia

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freepib · 7 years ago

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Syria air strikes: US still ‘locked and loaded’ for new chemical attacks

http://emp.bbc.com/emp/SMPj/2.18.15/iframe.html

Media captionWatch the key moments over 12 hours – in two minutes

President Donald Trump has warned Syria’s government the US is “locked and loaded” to strike again if it carries out new chemical attacks.

The warning came after the US, UK and France struck three Syrian sites in response to a suspected deadly chemical attack in the town of Douma a week ago.

Syria denies any chemical use and says that attack was fabricated by rebels.

A UN Security Council vote brought by Syria’s ally, Russia, and condemning the US-led strikes was rejected.

The wave of strikes represents the most significant attack against President Bashar al-Assad’s government by Western powers in seven years of Syria’s civil war.

What has been the reaction to the strikes?

There was a bitter exchange at a UN Security Council emergency meeting on Saturday as Russia sought to secure a condemnation of the early morning air strikes by Western powers.

Russia’s UN envoy, Vassily Nebenzia, read out a quote from President Vladimir Putin accusing the allies of “cynical disdain” in acting without waiting for the results of a chemical watchdog investigation into the Douma incident.

Inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) are currently in Damascus and are expected to visit Douma this weekend.

Mr Nebenzia accused the US, UK and France of “hooliganism” and of “demonstrating a blatant disregard for international law”.

http://emp.bbc.com/emp/SMPj/2.18.15/iframe.html

Media captionAmateur footage shows strikes on a military research facility in Damascus, while state TV shows the damage

US envoy Nikki Haley said the strikes were “justified, legitimate and proportionate”.

She said: “I spoke to the president this morning and he said, ‘if the Syrian regime uses this poisonous gas again, the United States is locked and loaded’.”

She added: “When our president draws a red line, our president enforces the red line.”

Ms Haley said the US and its allies had given diplomacy “chance after chance” but Russia had continued to veto UN resolutions.

She said: “We cannot stand by and let Russia trash every international norm and allow use of chemical weapons to go unanswered.”

Bashar Jaafari, Syria’s envoy to the UN, said the US, UK and France were “liars, spoilers and hypocrites” who exploited the UN “to pursue your policy of interference and colonialism”.

On the 15-member council only China and Bolivia voted in favour of Russia’s resolution.

Other reaction included:

UK PM Theresa May said there was “no practicable alternative to the use of force” but also added the strikes were not about “regime change”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the strikes were “appropriate” in retaliation for “inhumane” Syrian attacks

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his “total support” for the air strikes

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the US was trying “to justify their presence in the region”

China said it opposed the use of force and that there could only be a political solution to the Syrian conflict

What did President Trump say?

He tweeted early on Saturday, hailing the strikes as “perfectly executed”. He also thanked the UK and France.

Skip Twitter post by @realDonaldTrump

Report

End of Twitter post by @realDonaldTrump

His use of the phrase “Mission Accomplished” drew a warning from President George W Bush’s ex-press secretary Ari Fleischer:

Skip Twitter post by @AriFleischer

Report

End of Twitter post by @AriFleischer

The phrase had been on a banner as Mr Bush declared the end of “major combat operations” in Iraq in May 2003, six weeks after the US-led invasion of the country. The following Iraqi insurgency questioned the validity of the statement.

Mr Trump had announced the strikes on TV on Friday night, saying the three allies had “marshalled their righteous power against barbarism and brutality”.

He spoke to Mrs May and French President Emmanuel Macron by telephone on Saturday, agreeing the operation had been a success.

Where was hit?

At a Pentagon briefing on Saturday, Lt Gen Kenneth McKenzie listed the three targets that had been struck, saying the attacks had “set the Syrian chemical weapons programme back years”:

The Barzah chemical weapons research and development centre near Damascus was hit by 76 missiles, 57 of them Tomahawk cruise missiles, and “destroyed”

The Him Shinshar chemical weapons storage facility near Homs was hit by 22 missiles – nine US Tomahawks, eight British Storm Shadows and five naval cruise missiles and two Scalp cruise missiles launched by France

The Him Shinshar chemical weapons bunker facility near Homs was targeted with seven Scalp missiles and was “successfully hit”

Gen McKenzie said the “initial indications are that we accomplished the military objectives without interference from Syria”.

http://emp.bbc.com/emp/SMPj/2.18.15/iframe.html

Media captionGen Kenneth McKenzie: “We deployed 105 weapons”

He said “none of the aircraft or missiles were successfully engaged” by defence systems and all aircraft had returned.

Gen McKenzie said about 40 Syrian defence missiles were fired, mostly after the targets were hit.

The Pentagon briefing conflicted with information given at a Russian defence ministry briefing, which said 103 cruise missiles had been launched and 71 were shot down by Syrian systems.

Both the Russians and the US said there were no reported casualties. Syria says three people were hurt near Homs.

http://emp.bbc.com/emp/SMPj/2.18.15/iframe.html

Media caption“Rumbling like thunder”: A CBS reporter in Damascus witnessed the start of the strikes

The US said it had communicated with Russia ahead of the strikes through the normal procedures of their “deconfliction” hotline but no details of the attacks were given.

There had been concerns that if the allied strikes had hit Russian military personnel, it would have further escalated tension.

The US says the scale of the strikes was about “double” what was launched in April 2017 after a chemical attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun that killed more than 80 people.

Will Trump now walk away?

Analysis by PJ Crowley, former US Assistant Secretary of State

This military action was designed to thread a pretty narrow needle – place boundaries around the war that Syria, Russia and Iran are waging – without becoming a direct combatant in it.

The US and its European partners have a narrower military interest in Syria – the defeat of the Islamic State caliphate, a task that is nearing completion.

Just two weeks ago, Mr Trump stated his intention to bring home the roughly 2,000 US personnel deployed to Syria as quickly as possible, only to confront the chemical attack on Douma.

Even with the new red line – Trump did declare the deterrence of the use of chemical weapons to be a “vital national security interest of the United States” – he all but admitted that the broader Syrian civil war was not.

He described the Middle East as a “troubled place” and reiterated it was not the role of the US to fix it.

What happens next?

The focus will be in Douma, and the visit by the OPCW inspectors. Syria said they were meeting officials in Damascus on Saturday evening and that a visit to the site of the alleged chemical attack was being facilitated.

The Syrian army also announced on Saturday that the Eastern Ghouta region, where Douma is situated, had been cleared of the last rebel fighters and was fully retaken.

There were also unconfirmed reports of a large blast south of Aleppo on Saturday evening and other attacks on Syrian forces near Deir al-Zour, suggesting areas of the Syrian conflict are far from over.

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opedguy · 7 years ago

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Russia Embarrassed by Syria Air Strikes

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), April 14, 2018.--Hitting Syrian chemical weapons facilities with 105 GPS-guided missiles from the air and sea, the U.S., Great Britain and France claim to have successfully degraded Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s ability to use chemical weapons. While denied by Syria and Russia, last week’s April 7 Sarin-laced chlorine barrel bomb attack on the Damascus suburb of Douma proved the last straw for U.S. allies. Exactly one year earlier April 7, 2017 President Donald Trump hit Syria’s Shayrat Airbase with 59 Tomahawk Cruise missiles for the April 4, 2017 chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun, killing 74, injuring 557. Trump left al-Assad a clear message: Violate the 1997 Chemical Weapons Ban again and you’ll pay a heavy price.. Hitting chemical weapons facilities today delivered on that promise, warning al-Assad one more breach would face far more draconic circumstances.

Russian’s S-400 missile defense system did little or nothing to stop the U.S., U.K. and French bombardment of Syria’s chemical weapons sites. Refuting the damage, Russian Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi insisted that Russia shot down 71 of the 105 missiles launched by allied powers. Rudskoi’s statements are meant for Russia’s domestic consumption, reassuring Russians that the Kremlin has the defenses and firepower to compete with the U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO]. If word really got out that Russia’s S-400 missile defense was an abysmal failure, it would embarrass the Kremlin. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan must have buyer’s remorse after putting a deposit on the $2.5 billion S-400 system. Yesterday’s strike “will significantly impact the Syrian regime’s ability to develop, deploy and use chemical weapons in the future,” said Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie.

Pentagon officials warned yesterday about Kremlin propaganda, now flowing like a broken water main. “The high effectiveness of the weaponry in Syria and the excellent training of Syrian servicemen prepared by our specialists,” succeeded in shooting down 71 of the 105 missiles said Gen. Rudskoi. Whether last night’s missile strikes prevent another Syrian chemical attack is anyone’s guess. What’s known fore sure is that the Kremlin was thoroughly embarrassed by the effectiveness of U.S., U.K., and French military actions. “I suspect, however, that they’ll think long and hard about it based on the activities of last night,” said McKenzie, saying that one more chemical attack could bring down al-Assad’s regime. Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to respond but has limited options. If he shoots down an allied plane or warship, it would trigger a wider military involvement.

Declaring the mission a “total success,” Trump gave credit to the U.S., U.K. and French militaries for hitting all their targets. Trump admonished Putin for promising, after al-Assad’s 2013 chemical attack on Eastern Ghouta, to dismantle Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal. Holding Putin in part responsible for the Douma chemical attacks, U.N. Amb. Nikki Haley warned al-Assad that the allies were “locked-and-loaded,” ready to respond if he launches more chemical attacks. “All the options looked at ways to balance minimizing collateral damage against maximum effect. These three targets seemed to hit the sweet spot and do that,” said McKenzie, refuting the Kremlin’s assertion that Russian missile defense worked. All indications point to a complete failure of the S-400 missile defense to protect any targets in Syria. Syrian officials were already minimizing any damage to Syria’s military.

Putin lost a vote of condemnation for allied strikes in the U.N. Security Council today, claiming the strikes violated the U.N. Charter. Neither Putin nor al-Assad see the use of chemical weapons as a violation of international law. Putin and al-Assad see their denials as proof that chemical weapons were not used. But the U.S., U.K. and France had all the proof they needed to confirm the April 7 chemical attack. “The Russian response was remarkably ineffective in all domains,” said McKenzie, suggesting that allied forces operated with little or no resistance. Russia’s problem now is explaining how allied force hit their targets without any resistance. Telling the Russian public that it shot down 70% of U.S., U.K. and French missiles makes zero sense. Pentagon’s Bomb Damage Assessment shows that all targets in Syria were hit with precision and overwhelming effectiveness.

Looking out for possible Russian retaliation, the U.S. must be ready in case Putin orders strikes on U.S., U.K. or French targets. Putin’s confused about the difference between the role of an ally vs. Syria’s role to defend its sovereignty. Russia has its Mediterranean Tartus naval base plus its Khmeimim Air base in Syria. Allied attacks threaten Russian’s long-term national security, calling for the Kremlin to respond at some point soon. “We do not seek conflict in Syria, but we cannot allow such grievous violations of international law,” said Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White. If Putin responds too forcefully, he’ll jeopardize his energy contracts with the European Union, which backed attacks on Syria’s chemical weapons’ facilities. Putin isn’t likely to heed Trump’s call to stop backing al-Assad’s rogue regime, instead continuing to deny that al-Assad used chemical weapons.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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roguenewsdao · 7 years ago

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Syraq SITREP 31: SecState Tillerson Commits Trump Admin to U.S. Occupation of Eastern Syria

The ISIS 'USUS' GCC Game and the Turn of Turkey

As experienced Mideast correspondent Elijah J. Magnier observes, in a piece picked up by Zerohedge, Daesh would have never been puffed up into a terrorist super army, if it were not for the not so covert support of the Gulf States and NATO governments. Together with Israel, which overtly aided Al-Qaeda on its borders and whose commanders confessed they preferred the Takfirists presence to that of Iranian advisers, these nations 'deep states' cynically sought to funnel the terrorists into the war against Assad and Iran.

By design, the vacuum left behind by Daesh defeat has been filled by American boots on the ground, a classified but estimated 4,000 soldiers and contractors, spread across at least nine bases large and small in the Kurdish areas of Syria. This development and the deliberately provocative announcement of an American proxy army composed of Kurds has antagonized Turkey, a former abettor of ISIS, to move against the YPG Kurds armed and trained by U.S. special forces. Despite the U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson affirming a commitment to a long term (and illegal under international law) occupation east of the Euphrates for the nominal purpose of checking Iran and pressuring Assad, it isn't clear to date whether both Moscow and Washington will again tacitly cooperate to limit Ankara's incursions into Syrian Kurdish areas.

You Occupy (Part of It), You Own It: Trump, Tillerson Can No Longer Blame Neocons if Things Go South Fast in Syria

The Russian Analyst is disgusted, but not surprised by the casual acceptance by American mainstream media and population of a Secretary of State announcing a (totally illegal under international law) occupation on the sovereign territory of a country whose internationally recognized government rejects the U.S. military presence. Certainly the hypocrisy of Washington openly dismembering the territorial integrity of a smaller state while accusing Moscow of doing the same through the much smaller Russian footprint of GRU 'polite people' in the formerly Ukrainian controlled Donbass republics is rich.

Nor is it surprising that prominent alt-media figures who would have rightly condemned such moves under Presidents Dubya or Obama like Infowars' Alex Jones go easy on the President or attribute the policy to the malign influence of neocons nominally under his command, like UN Ambassador Nikki Haley or the aggressively anti-Iranian/Russian generals National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Nonetheless, given Tillerson's reputation for having cut deals with the Russian government while running Exxon and a more pragmatic, non-neocon profile emerging from the global energy industry, his announcement of such an inherently contradictory and thus doomed policy is doubly disappointing.

No longer can Trump blame the policy on aides he inexplicably fails for the 4d chess crowd to sack (most likely due to the influence of pro-Israel megadonors like Sheldon Adelson conveyed through the derisively dubbed by the banished Steve Bannon 'Javanka', the daughter and son in law duo who convinced the CINC to strike a Syrian air field after last April's chemical false flag). If American soldiers start coming back in flag-draped coffins from Syria due to either ISIS or Damascus aligned Hezbollah attacks, Trump will own the political backlash, both from those who already hated him, and among his America First base, to whom he promised (unlike that warmonger Hillary) not to fight Assad.

With that said, as patriotic Americans we certainly want U.S. troops not to be targeted, even as we intellectually understand, by aligning their positions so closely with those of regional heavyweights Israel and Saudi Arabia, this stupid policy is putting targets on the backs of our troops. The fact that Hezbollah and the Iranian backed militias have thus far abstained from hitting U.S. troops is owed more to their alliance with Russia imposing restraints and desire to avoid a larger conflagration then to an imagined invulnerability of the Americans both military and 'civilian' (read: CIA and contractors) in predominantly Kurdish areas. Furthermore, though Daesh remnants have concentrated their suicide bombing attacks on the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and YPG Kurds, it isn't clear that they will abstain from going off their steady script of attacking Saudi/Israeli enemies and target the U.S. infidels soon, as the original Bin Laden 'led' Al-Qaeda did following their successful 1980s collaboration with CIA against the Soviets.

While Turkey Threatens Afrin, Moscow Invites Washington's Representatives to Sochi While 'containing' Iran, not Russia, is the stated objective of the policy Tillerson outlined in this week's Stanford University speech (with Iraq War proponent and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice looking on), from Moscow's perspective the Americans are creating a Cold War-style occupation zone standoff in the Levant. The fact that the U.S. presence in Iraq remains small and has not achieved much leverage over the Iranian-friendly Shia-majority government in Baghdad isn't going to preclude the Americans from trying the same type of leverage against Damascus. Yet as Elijah J. Magnier points out, the U.S. troops are useless for stopping the flow of arms and fighters overland from Iran via SAA-controlled Abu Kamal at the Syraqi border all the way to Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon. No matter how many times the Israelis bomb weapons transfers with Russian air defenses looking on, they cannot stop them all. Thus policies intended to convey American-Israeli resolve end up highlighting Washington and Tel Aviv's weaknesses instead.

"Jan. 18, 2018 (EIRNS)—In an interview with Sputnik International, Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Antonov said that Moscow had decided to send an invitation to the U.S. and UN Security Council members to participate as observers in the Syrian National Dialogue Congress being held in Sochi Jan. 29-30." -- http://larouchepub.com/pr/2018/180118_russia_invite_us.html

Even if the gap between what a few thousand troops operating in the Kurdish held territories east of the Euphrates can actually accomplish and what Tillerson says they can in terms of forcing Assad to step down weren't enough to doom the policy before it starts, there's another contradiction confounding the Americans: Turkey. The wavering NATO member state is engaged in a war of nerves against the Kurds in the enclave of Afrin, but rumors that Russian troops had pulled out to green light a full on assault by the Turkish Army have not panned out.

While Turkish and Russian defense ministers and their generals met face to face, Moscow's client in Damascus warned the Turks that any fighter jets bombing Kurds in what it still considers sovereign Syrian territory would be shot down. Those snickering at such warnings on Twitter, citing the apparent impunity Israeli Air Force jets have enjoyed while attacking targets inside Syria for years, overlook the fact that the IAF invariably uses standoff missiles fired from Lebanese air space not controlled by the Russians to strike. And that the IAF may have covered up damage if not actual confirmed kills of its aircraft as the Syrians quietly upgrade their outdated S200 and other anti-air missiles. If the Syrian Air Force's newer MiG-29s challenge the Turks, even with the Russian Air Force avoiding engagement, the Turks' F-16s will likely beat a hasty retreat back across their border.

Erdogan is mostly bluffing, expressing for domestic political consumption deep Turkish anger at the U.S. for rubbing their noses in American support for the 'terrorist' YPG, while not going too far in alienating his frenemies in the Kremlin. The Russians of course, know that Syria cannot avoid partition without Kurdish autonomy and Kurds being included in a peace settlement. In return for remaining in a united but more autonomous Syria, Damascus can offer the Kurds air defense from Turkish bombing and Russian engineering expertise for the oil and gas fields under their control (if the Kurds will agree to pay the Assad government some taxes on that energy output).

"The Turkish military fired some 40 rounds of artillery rounds into Afrin from border posts near the towns of Reyhanli, Kirikhan and Hassa in Hatay province, the private Dogan news agency reported on Friday. The state-run Anadolu Agency said buses carried Turkish commandos to Hatay on Friday while Syrian opposition fighters were also taken to the province from a Turkish-controlled zone in Syria. Canikli would not say when the operation would take place, saying authorities were working out the best timing for the assault. They were also working to minimize possible losses for Turkish troops, he said, without providing details. Canikli said the operation would be conducted by Turkish-backed Syrian opposition fighters with Turkish troop support. Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency reported that Russian military police stationed in Afrin had begun leaving the region ahead of the possible Turkish operation, but the report could not be independently verified. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and a YPG spokesman denied that Russian troops were leaving the area. The report came a day after Turkey's military and intelligence chiefs traveled to Moscow to discuss Turkey's planned intervention." -- http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/turkey-determined-carry-offensive-syrian-enclave-52458122

What's clear this weekend is that the Turkish Army has massed armor and artillery for the Afrin shelling, but the Turks have not mobilized a sufficient number of men to storm the city. The 'Free Syrian Army' 'moderate rebels' also lack either the manpower or military competence to seize Afrin from its Kurdish defenders. On Friday pro-government network TRT World showed YPG shells having allegedly hit a Turkish hospital in Hatay province on the border:

Notwithstanding the Secretary of State's denials that DoD is creating a 'border security force' along the de facto borders of a separatist Syrian Kurdistan, the Pentagon announced that's precisely what it was doing just a few days ago. Once again, the policy is either inherently contradictory, the most likely explanation, or someone is lying. The Turks led by Erdogan have repeatedly stated that Washington has sought to deceive them about the nature of its support for the YPG and the continuance of the arms and training flow after the justification of crushing ISIS was removed -- though remnants of the Daeshbags continue to carry out largely exaggerated attacks in the Euphrates Valley, with the Americans noticeably sluggish in hot pursuit of these small ISIS units (while accusing the Russians and their Syrian hosts of failing to do enough to mop up Daesh).

Mixed Messages and the Attempt to Set Up U.S. Troops for Clashes with SAA/Hezbollah

The Russian Analyst shares W the Intelligence Insider's longstanding concern, even with a large scale Second Israel-Hezbollah War postponed, that the stage is being set for a broader confrontation with Iran, and indirectly Russia and China. Stepping back from the three way standoff between the Turks, Russians and Americans in Syria, the position of U.S. ally Saudi Arabia continues to deteriorate in Yemen. Modest territorial gains inside Yemen by the Kingdom's tribal allies have been offset by the Houthis use of increasingly numerous and sophisticated missile attacks and cross border raids on Saudi territory.

While neocons gloated about the drone bombing attack against Russia's Kheimmim air base in Syria on New Year's Eve and Russian Orthodox Christmas day, the fact remains such 'do it yourself' technology is very likely to appear in the Houthis hands soon to attack Saudi bases where American and especially British contractors work. Israel has repeatedly baited Hezbollah into direct combat through assassinations and bombing missions but so far the Iranian-backed super militia has not taken the bait, keeping its vast arsenal of missiles at ready for the war with the Zionist Entity its leadership has proclaimed as inevitable. Palestinian protests over the Jerusalem capitol move announced by the Trump Administration have been contained but increased European sympathy for the divest from Israel movement.

Now that long-serving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finds a recording of his son outside a strip club at the center of corruption investigations into his premiership, there may be more pressure in Tel Aviv for diversionary military adventures against Hezbollah or Assad's forces in Syria. The Saudi effort with Israel's support to destabilize the Hezbollah-including Lebanese government backfired. And a Trump Administration on the cusp of exposing much of the RussiaGate scandal as a Democratic and deep state fabrication is unlikely to start a major military engagement either in North Korea or the Middle East just before this November's 2018 mid term elections. As Elijah J. Magnier writes, the path of incremental mission creep remains perilous politically and militarily for the Pentagon and the Trump White House:

"There is no doubt the US doesn’t want to leave Syria and let Russia extend its presence and control, as long as it there is a possibility of Washington disturbing and diminishing Moscow’s influence in the Levant. By declaring itself an occupation force and therefore its will to form a “proxy state”, the US position justifies (to itself only but not to the American people, nor to the world) its presence for as long as it sees fit until the time comes to abandon the Kurds and leave them to their destiny. The US is mainly using as an excuse,the Iranian presence on Syrian territory and the US obsession to limit the control of Tehran over Damascus. There is no doubt that the US forces can look after their interests in Syrian occupied territory and prevent any regular force from advancing. However, the safety of its soldiers depends on the milieu these are based in, in this case an environment which is totally hostile all around it and within it .Attacks against US forces and their Kurdish proxies are not at all excluded. This is when the US will have to re-think about the necessity of its presence in a newly occupied territory, so far from home and where American lives can be lost for little return and little benefit to US national security." -- https://elijahjm.wordpress.com/2018/01/17/can-a-new-us-proxy-state-in-syria-survive/

U.S. Troops in Syria Suffering a Major Attack is a Wild Card Up the Globalists' Sleeves

However, all of these rational evaluations of what ought to be rational actors leaves out many wild cards and the desperation of those determined to have their big war with Iran if not WWIII, no matter what. For that reason, the presence of several thousand Americans inside Syria remains dangerous in that a significant casualty attack on the vulnerable troops blamed on Hezbollah could be the (false flag?) spark to a conflict that drags Trump in regardless of domestic political and personal considerations.

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flauntpage · 7 years ago

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Your Thursday Morning Roundup

Since losing 10 straight games, the Flyers have won two straight. Is a huge turnaround on the horizon?

The Flyers completed the Alberta sweep with a 4-2 victory over the Edmonton Oilers. It’s only the second time the Flyers won two in a row. The other time it happened this year was the home opener against Washington and the following game against Florida.

That alone shows you how much the Flyers have struggled this season. Secondary scoring has been a major hassle this season, but the team managed to overcome that last night once again. Jordan Weal, Dale Weise (!), and the streaking Michael Raffl scored early on before Wayne Simmonds added an insurance goal late in regulation. Brian Elliott made 24 saves.

They’re back in action tonight in Vancouver to take on the Canucks at 10 PM on NBC Sports Philadelphia. Elliott may have gotten the night off if Michal Neuvirth was healthy. However, him and defenseman Brandon Manning were placed on IR yesterday. Defenseman T.J. Brennan and goaltender Alex Lyon were called up to replace them.

The Roundup:

The Eagles continue to practice in Los Angeles to prepare for Sunday’s game against the Rams. While the team is practicing at Angel Stadium, the Rams had to cancel practice due to the severe wildfires around the area.

Not the typical morning commute… http://pic.twitter.com/kJIOQeqsIK

— A. Mutzabaugh CMT (@WLV_investor) December 6, 2017

Meanwhile, every Eagles player got a Mike Trout bobblehead in their locker. Definitely coming to Philly now.

Mike Trout isn’t here but he made sure every Eagles player had his bobblehead at their locker, with a note of welcome http://pic.twitter.com/Ds8CG0qJg9

— Les Bowen (@LesBowen) December 7, 2017

Linebacker Nigel Bradham is the lucky player to be using his locker for the week.

Tight end Zach Ertz is in the second phase of the concussion protocol. He’s been attending team meetings.

Wide receiver Alshon Jeffery once provided an upgrade for Carson Wentz in his second year. Now, with a contract extension done, he’ll provide some stability for Wentz’s growth as well.

With a great season on defense, can Jim Schwartz be a head coach again?

“I’ll pass on that question,” Schwartz said at the Westin South Coast Plaza. “We have enough to get ready for the Rams, and I think it does nobody any good to mention that. There is really no right way to answer that. If you answer it and say, ‘Yes,’ then your eyes are on the wrong thing. You answer it and say, ‘No,’ then people …”

Schwartz didn’t finish his thought, but if he had, he would have likely said that a denial of any interest would signal to “people” [read: executives] around the league that he wasn’t serious enough about the possibility and he would thus be taken off their prospective lists.

Some Eagles beat writers are having…interesting…times out west.

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The Sixers return to action tonight as they host the Los Angeles Lakers at 8 PM on TNT. The statuses of Dario Saric and T.J. McConnell are up in the air for tonight’s game.

Joel Embiid hopes for a repeat of his first meeting with the Lakers from November:

“As long as they feed me, I have a pretty good chance,” Embiid said following Wednesday’s practice.

In the first meeting, Embiid had career highs of 46 points, seven assists and seven blocked shots. He also finished with 15 rebounds. Embiid shot 14 for 20 for the field, 2 of 3 from three-point range and 16 for 19 from the foul line.

“It was a weird game, it was a pretty close game,” Embiid recalled. “I scored the ball the way I did, but I guess we have to do a better job defensively. They got too many offensive rebounds and we have to do a better job of boxing out and limiting turnovers.”

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In college hoops, Shizz Alston, Jr. scored 22 points in Temple’s 59-55 win over Wisconsin at the Liacouras Center. Alston also set a program record for making 52 straight free throws, dating back to last December.

Ryan Betley’s 16 points helped Penn hold off Lafayette 73-68 in Easton.

Could Villanova be the best team in college basketball? Sure looks like it.

Tonight, La Salle hosts Drexel in a City 6 showdown at Tom Gola Arena at 7 PM.

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The Don Tollefson redemption tour has begun, and Coggin is already tired of it.

William Penn isn’t at the top of the new Comcast tower, so no championships until further notice.

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In other sports news, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has signed a five-year, $200 million contract extension.

The Tennessee football head coach search may be coming to an end! The Vols and Alabama defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt are finalizing a deal for Pruitt to become their next head coach.

Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said it’s an “open question” if U.S. athletes will be able to attend the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea.

Steelers linebacker Ryan Shazier has been transferred from a Cincinnati hospital to a Pittsburgh medical facility.

Shazier’s teammate, safety Mike Mitchell, had some thoughts about the recent hits and their punishments:

Mike Mitchell absolutely killing it. Must watch. @TheAthleticPIT http://pic.twitter.com/SwcvJMJyHy

— Mark Kaboly (@MarkKaboly) December 6, 2017

Hall of fame quarterback Warren Moon has been accused of grabbing and drugging one of his former assistants, according to a lawsuit filed on Monday.

53-year-old Rafael Palmeiro thinks he can make a comeback to Major League Baseball:

“There’s no doubt in my mind I can do it,” says Palmeiro, who ended his career as one of four players to reach both 500 home runs and 3,000 hits. “I’ve taken care of myself really well. I’ve been working out for years. Everything feels better than when I played.”

Legalized sports gambling took a step forward this week with the Supreme Court hearing the case. Kyle wrote all about it.

A #MACtion buzzer-beater:

.@ToledoMBB’s Tre'Shaun Fletcher just called game.#MACtion #SCTop10 http://pic.twitter.com/V5oRE0Nbty

— #MACtion (@MACSports) December 7, 2017

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In the news, how about some RADIO WARS. Sportsradio 94WIP rides to the top in terms of ratings, and Angelo Cataldi isn’t leaving WIP.

Police are searching for the gunmen who shot two teens in West Philadelphia last night.

President Trump officially recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Senator Al Franken will make a statement today, which will probably be his resignation.

Chipotle wants people to take their crap queso if they wear a Christmas sweater.

Bitcoin update: It’s now worth over $15,000.

Today is the 76th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor:

Your Thursday Morning Roundup published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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usnewsaggregator-blog · 7 years ago

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Catalonia, John Kelly, Donald Trump: Your Weekend Briefing

New Post has been published on http://usnewsaggregator.com/catalonia-john-kelly-donald-trump-your-weekend-briefing/

Catalonia, John Kelly, Donald Trump: Your Weekend Briefing

The undoing of Harvey Weinstein over less than three weeks underscored the increasing gravity of women’s accusations. Big-name actresses like the Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o, above, have come forward with long-held accounts of his behavior. “Now that we are speaking, let us never shut up about this kind of thing,” she writes in an Op-Ed.

Continue reading the main story

Actresses like Jennifer Lawrence and Reese Witherspoon discussed other perpetrators, and hundreds of thousands of women posted #MeToo messages.

In California’s capital, more than 140 women — including legislators and lobbyists — denounced pervasive sexual misconduct in the legislature. France, after a #MeToo-style outburst, is considering fines for catcalls.

And The Times reported a previously undisclosed sixth settlement over sexual harassment allegations against Bill O’Reilly, the former Fox News host. A month after the $32 million deal in January, Fox extended his contract.

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Credit Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Associated Press

3. Meanwhile, the wheels of government are turning, if slowly. Republicans, still striving for a single marquee legislative achievement in the Trump presidency, narrowly secured Senate approval for a budget blueprint paving the way for a $1.5 trillion tax cut.

The House takes it up this week, shadowed by news from the Treasury Department: the largest annual budget deficit in four years.

Republicans aim to pass the tax bill by Christmas, but few on or off Capitol Hill have seen even a draft. Here are the mechanics of the effort.

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Credit Al Drago for The New York Times

4. Senator Mitch McConnell and President Trump made a show of togetherness, moving to fill scores of federal court vacancies with conservatives. Above, Mr. McConnell, center left, with Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado.

On health care, Mr. Trump walked back his endorsement of a bipartisan effort to save insurance subsidies. Conversely, the I.R.S. announced a move that would bolster Obamacare: It will enforce the individual mandate, declining 2017 tax returns that do not disclose the filer’s health insurance status.

Continue reading the main story

At the same time, the E.P.A. has been moving to ease restrictions on toxic chemicals, under the direction of a former industry lobbyist.

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Credit Seth Wenig/Associated Press

5. Without speaking President Trump’s name, two former presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, in separate speeches implicitly condemned the president and the powers that thrust him into office. “Bullying and prejudice in our public life sets a national tone, provides permission for cruelty and bigotry and compromises the moral education of children,” Mr. Bush said.

And George Soros, the billionaire hedge fund manager and a major Democratic donor, revealed that he had transferred $18 billion to his Open Society Foundations. A lightning rod for conservative critics, he is now squarely in the middle of the social and political debates convulsing the country.

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Video

10 Minutes. 12 Gunfire Bursts. 30 Videos. Mapping the Las Vegas Massacre.

The shots began at 10:05. Twelve bursts of gunfire later, the police broke down Stephen Paddock’s door at the Mandalay Bay. The Times mapped 30 videos to draw perhaps the most complete picture to date of what happened.

By MALACHY BROWNE, DREW JORDAN, NICOLE FINEMAN and CHRIS CIRILLO on Publish Date October 21, 2017. . Watch in Times Video »

6. Disaster recovery continues: A month after Hurricane Maria, 80 percent of Puerto Rico remains without electricity. “We need trucks, we need poles, we need crews, we need lines, we need more people,” said a local utility employee.

In Northern California, some businesses are reopening as investigators dig through debris to determine what set off the region’s staggering outbreak of wildfires, whose toll includes 40 lives and almost 8,000 structures. The findings will help decide who pays for damages that are estimated to have surpassed $1 billion.

The mass shooting in Las Vegas continues to mystify the public and investigators. Using forensic analysis, we mapped 30 videos on a timeline to reconstruct the attack minute by minute, above, drawing perhaps the most complete picture to date of what happened when Stephen Paddock rained an estimated 900 rounds onto concertgoers.

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Credit Jack Taylor/Getty Images

7. Abroad, Spain’s prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, in an unexpectedly forceful move, said he would seek the removal of Catalonia’s leader, Carles Puigdemont, to halt the region’s secessionist movement. It’s the first time a Spanish leader has invoked a constitutional article intended to protect the nation’s “general interests” — thrusting it into uncharted territory while escalating the crisis.

The question of independence is particularly complex in Barcelona, which is divided between its identity as a global city and as Catalonia’s capital.

Continue reading the main story

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Credit Ivor Prickett for The New York Times

8. In the Middle East, our photographer accompanied some of the U.S.-backed forces that drove the Islamic State from its de facto capital, Raqqa, Syria. That capped the group’s ouster from most of Syria and Iraq, but at the cost of unfathomable destruction. Above, fighters in Raqqa.

And counterterrorism officials say ISIS could morph into a new, lethal incarnation.

To the west, the Iraqi military vanquished Kurdish forces to reclaim Kirkuk, checking the Kurds’ move toward independence. The U.S., despite its long reliance on the Kurds in the fight against ISIS, sat by, lining up with Iran’s priorities.

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Credit Ed Jones/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

9. While world attention has been on North Korea’s nuclear program, it has nurtured a secretive hard-currency trade that nets $1 billion annually, and built a cyberwar program capable of stealing millions and unleashing global havoc.

Elsewhere on the world stage, Nikki Haley, President Trump’s U.N. ambassador, made strident denunciations of Iran and urged tougher action by the Security Council against its “outlaw behavior.”

(She also received something of a tutorial on statecraft at a panel discussion with the former secretaries of state Condoleezza Rice and Madeleine Albright.)

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Credit Jane Hahn for The New York Times

10. In Africa, some are referring to the twin truck bombings in Mogadishu that killed more than 270 people as Somalia’s 9/11.

Kenyans are on edge as the redo of their presidential election approaches on Thursday. The warring between parties led an official to say that the repeat might not be credible, either.

In West Africa, a health implication resulting from the 2013-16 Ebola outbreak is shocking doctors: Many survivors have cataracts, even children as young as 5. Above, a child preparing to undergo eye surgery in Sierra Leone.

Continue reading the main story

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Photo

Credit Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

11. President Xi Jinping’s dominance in China has been on display at the Communist Party congress, which culminates this week with a reshuffle of the powerful Politburo.

Here are the five takeaways from Mr. Xi’s marathon, 205-minute opening speech, which projected military and economic power.

And the extraordinary security clampdown on Beijing for the congress further emphasized his message: Nothing can stand in my way.

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Credit Carrie Mae Weems. Styled by Malina Joseph Gilchrist

12. Finally, ready for a bit of escapism? For those who stream, here are 11 underappreciated TV shows now on Hulu. For those who’d rather scream, “The Walking Dead” returns tonight for Season 8. Here’s a look back at where the horror series left off.

“S.N.L.” is on a break. The next new episode will air Nov. 4, with Larry David and Miley Cyrus.

For a more erudite diversion, curl up with George Saunders’s experimental first novel, “Lincoln in the Bardo,” which just won the Man Booker Prize, or this year’s T Magazine Greats issue. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, above, a defining voice on race and gender for the digital age, is featured.

Have a great week.

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