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FOCUS: Is This a Sick Joke? |
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Friday, 12 August 2016 11:32 |
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Warren writes: "The last Zika bill the House Republicans passed - jammed through at 3:00 am during the Democrats' all-night sit-in for gun violence - was a pathetic, dishonest, malicious bill loaded with poison pills that Speaker Ryan knew would never be passed into law."
Senator Elizabeth Warren. (photo: Elizabethwarren.com)
Is This a Sick Joke?
By Elizabeth Warren, Elizabeth Warren's Facebook Page
12 August 16
 ika is a public health emergency, but the Republicans who control Congress have no plans to pass a bill funding the Zika emergency response until after Labor Day. The last Zika bill the House Republicans passed – jammed through at 3:00 am during the Democrats' all-night sit-in for gun violence – was a pathetic, dishonest, malicious bill loaded with poison pills that Speaker Ryan knew would never be passed into law. I didn't think the Republicans could write one bill to hurt women, veterans, Obamacare, Planned Parenthood, and clean water all at once – while making it easier for racists to fly the Confederate flag – but they did it.
When a reporter asked Senator Mitch McConnell why he wouldn’t pass a clean Zika funding bill, he said that’s just the way things are done in Washington. Is that some sort of sick joke? Every day the GOP stalls funding the Zika response, more people get sick. More babies risk being born with heartbreaking head deformities.
Join me in calling on Speaker Ryan & Leader McConnell to bring back Congress now to pass a clean Zika funding bill.
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FOCUS: No Donald, It Was Cheney and W. Who Created ISIS |
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Friday, 12 August 2016 10:16 |
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Galindez writes: "George W. Bush and Dick Cheney broke Iraq and didn't rebuild it. Instead they helped the Shia crush the Sunni population."
President George W. Bush with Dick Cheney. (photo: Getty)
No Donald, It Was Cheney and W. Who Created ISIS
By Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News
12 August 16
 he year is 2003. Saddam Hussein is ruling Iraq with an iron fist. There is no ISIS, there isn’t even al Qaeda in Iraq. Osama bin Ladin calls on the Iraqi people to rise up against the infidel. Bin Laden was talking not only about the United States, but also about the secular Sunni leader of Iraq, Saddam Hussein. You see, Saddam only called for Jihad when it benefited his grip on power or a war effort that was anything but holy.
Then came the US invasion of Iraq. We removed one Islamic sect, the Sunnis, and replaced them with the Shia. Saddam wasn’t Bin Ladin’s type of Sunni, Saddam was a Baathist. When his regime fell and the Shia were installed by US forces, Sunni extremists formed groups like the Islamic State and Al Qaeda in Iraq.
For years they tried to hold regions in Iraq, like Anbar Province and Fallujah. Instead of providing the Sunnis with an autonomous region, we purged them from local governments and the military and drove them out of Iraq. They regrouped in Syria and formed what we now know as the Islamic State or ISIS. They are now radicalized and following radical clerics. Their goal is to create a Sunni Muslim state. Syria, Iran, and Iraq are now Shia. They view the secular Saudi leaders as infidels like Saddam. The reason they are at war with Assad in Syria is they want a religious Sunni homeland.
It is true that once the United States pulled out of Iraq, ISIS marched back across the border and retook land that had been their home before American forces drove them out of Iraq. ISIS wasn’t created by Obama pulling troops out of Iraq, it was created by the Bush/Cheney invasion of Iraq. ISIS formed during the invasion of Iraq and was radicalized by the way we, and the Iraq government we installed, treated the Sunnis.
Let me offer an example Americans might understand. Consider a Morman dictatorship in the United States ruling with an iron fist. Canada invades and installs a Catholic government that tortures and drives the Mormons into Mexico. The Canadians pull out and the Mormons return to the Southwestern United States, chopping off people’s heads.
Did the Canadian leader who pulled out of the US create the Mormon radicals, or did the Canadian leader who invaded the United States create the radical mormon sect? Of course that is an extreme example, but is exactly what happened in Iraq.
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney broke Iraq and didn’t rebuild it. Instead they helped the Shia crush the Sunni population. Many experts proposed dividing Iraq into three autonomous states. One Sunni, one Shia, and one Kurdish State. Of course not invading at all would have prevented the formation of ISIS, but post-invasion, giving the Sunnis a state would have prevented the radicalization.
From the moment we invaded Iraq our occupation only delayed the inevitable. Sure, we could have stayed there for decades and kept ISIS from returning to Iraq. They would still however be in Syria where they are trying to establish a Sunni state. We also delayed Iran’s influence over Iraq, but it was always a matter of time since Iraq is now the same sect of Islam as Iran.
So Donald, I have to ask, do you even know what ISIS is? Do you know what a Shia is? Do you know what a Sunni is? I’m willing to bet you don’t.
Scott Galindez attended Syracuse University, where he first became politically active. The writings of El Salvador's slain archbishop Oscar Romero and the on-campus South Africa divestment movement converted him from a Reagan supporter to an activist for Peace and Justice. Over the years he has been influenced by the likes of Philip Berrigan, William Thomas, Mitch Snyder, Don White, Lisa Fithian, and Paul Wellstone. Scott met Marc Ash while organizing counterinaugural events after George W. Bush's first stolen election. Scott will be spending a year covering the presidential election from Iowa.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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An Open Letter to Ivanka Trump: "Your Dad's Not Well" |
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Friday, 12 August 2016 08:39 |
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Moore writes: "Ivanka, your dad's comments and behavior have become more and more bizarre and detached from reality. He is in need of an intervention. And I believe only you can conduct it."
Filmmaker Michael Moore. (photo: Getty)
An Open Letter to Ivanka Trump: "Your Dad's Not Well"
By Michael Moore, Reader Supported News
12 August 16
 ear Ivanka:
I’m writing to you because your dad is not well.
Every day he continues his spiral downward – and after his call for gun owners to commit acts of violence against Mrs. Clinton, it is clear he needs help, serious help. His comments and behavior have become more and more bizarre and detached from reality. He is in need of an intervention. And I believe only you can conduct it.
He trusts you. He believes in you. Although I don’t know you personally, you seem to be a very smart and together woman. I think he will listen to you. He must because he is now not simply a danger to himself, he has put the next president of the United States in harms way. He has encouraged and given permission to the unhinged and the deranged to essentially assassinate Hillary Clinton. Her life is now in worse danger than it already was – and should anything happen, that will not only be on his head but also on those closest to him if they stand by and do nothing. I say this with the utmost kindness, care and concern for you, and I know you will do the right thing. Bring him in, off the road, away from the crowds. Now. Tonight.
And when you do, here is what a good friend of mine, a former counselor and social worker, Jeff Gibbs, suggests that you say to him:
Dad, we need to have a chat. Are you feeling okay? Do you have a minute? Please sit down. Because this isn’t going to be easy. No, I am not pregnant. No, what is going on is… is… I am really, really worried about my father. About you.
Dad, I owe everything to you. You’ve built an empire, a brand and a business for the ages. You have taken care of me, inspired me and, through your example, have made me who I am: a self-confident, honest-to-a-flaw, woman.
But Dad, I am deeply worried. You haven’t been yourself lately. The father I know is not a hater, not someone who encourages violence. Dad, you used to be A LIBERAL. You raised me as a liberal! The Clintons were your friends — Chelsea is one of my best friends! And now you’re joking that Hillary should be assassinated? Really?
Dad, I hate to say this, but you’re making me scared, you’re making my friends scared, and you’re scaring the whole country.
Dad… Dad, sit down! They’ll wait. I am not finished. Don’t get angry. Try to listen.
Yes, I know they love it, the crowd goes wild. But not for YOU. They don’t love YOU. They love the show that you put on. But people that hunger for red meat will turn on you in a minute. No, they don’t love you. I love you. I will always love you. And I see you hurting yourself — and you’re hurting ME, Dad.
Don’t get upset! You’re still the handsomest billionaire I know. I will always love you. Melania will always love you. Vladimir will always love you… OK, maybe that wasn’t funny. But you get my point. This running for President thing is destroying the dad I have known and loved. And honestly, you and I both know you didn’t really want this job to begin with! You just wanted to make a point. Ok, well, POINT MADE! You did it! Now, let’s stop and get some help.
I am asking you, right now, to give it up. To leave the race. Let that nice man from Indiana run things. Your place in history is secure. You need to withdraw. Move on, for your sake, for the country’s sake, for my sake.
The man who raised me was the man who, for no charge, built a huge ice rink in Central Park for all the people to use! You struck deals with some of the biggest assholes on the planet in finance and politics and yet remained friends, mostly. You built a family that loves you. I want that dad back! And I worry that, if you don’t stop now, neither you nor the country will ever recover.
There, there, Dad, it’s okay, let it out. Let it out because I know beneath that gruff, tough, handsome exterior is a little boy who just never got enough love. And that little boy needs some time to find himself again.
Let’s you and I walk out there now right now. The cameras are all set up and waiting. You can make up whatever excuse you want. You can blame whomever you want. You’re good at that! I just know this can’t go on, and you know it, too.
Take my hand, let’s end this. And by tomorrow you and I will be sipping Martinis on our yacht in the Hamptons with Chelsea and the friends we still have left. I love you, Dad. Let’s do this. That’s right, take my hand, here we go…
Ivanka, I have faith in you that you can do this. I know I’ve called your dad “crazy” before, but I was speaking politically, not clinically. This has gone beyond “crazy”. The entire nation — in fact, the entire world — needs you to step forward and do the courageous thing history will praise you for: the loving act of a brilliant daughter who also loved her beleaguered country enough to say her father wasn’t well and needed help.
Thank you, Ivanka.
Yours,
Michael Moore
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No, Obama Did Not Found ISIL, Mr. Trump: That Was the GOP |
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Thursday, 11 August 2016 12:42 |
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Cole writes: "Trump in his daily free association exercise accused President Obama of creating Daesh (ISIL, ISIS) in Iraq by withdrawing troops from that country in 2011. It is an accusation he has in past made against Sec. Clinton, but now he is shifting blame to Obama."
Trump said at a campaign event this week that Obama is the founder of ISIS. (photo: Getty)
No, Obama Did Not Found ISIL, Mr. Trump: That Was the GOP
By Juan Cole, Informed Comment
11 August 16
rump in his daily free association exercise accused President Obama of creating Daesh (ISIL, ISIS) in Iraq by withdrawing troops from that country in 2011. It is an accusation he has in past made against Sec. Clinton, but now he is shifting blame to Obama.
Obama did not withdraw troops from Iraq in 2011 all on his own. The timetable for withdrawal was set by the Bush administration.
The US government determined that they could not put US troops in Iraq in the position of possibly being prosecuted by Iraqi courts for war crimes if they fought in the country without a Status of Forces Agreement.
The Iraqi parliament declined to pass a SOFA that would let war-fighting Us troops stay in the country and would hold them harmless from legal action. I mean, you were asking representatives from Amara, from the Ahrar party of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr vote to keep US troops in the country.
The Sadrists, e.g., were all about anti-imperialism, and they really minded the civilian casualties caused by the US invasion and occupation. They weren’t going to vote to keep the US in the country.
So Obama was not asked to stay in Iraq by the sovereign Iraqi government, and international law made it impossible for him to keep troops there in a war-fighting capacity without an extra territoriality provision.
He simply abided by the agreement worked out by the Bush administration.
In 2011 when the civil war broke out in Syria, the elements of the ‘Islamic State of Iraq’ that had evolved out of al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia went to fight in Syria. Obama had nothing to do with that development.
There had been no al-Qaeda in Iraq before Bush invaded. Operatives flocked there to fight the US troops, and gathered under the rubric first of al-Tawhid of the Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. But al-Zarqawi initially had bad relations with Usama Bin Laden. In order to fight the US presence, he made up and joined al-Qaeda and formed al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia. AFter he was killed by the US in 2006, the new, Iraqi leadership declared itself the Islamic State of Iraq and deepened their al-Qaeda affiliation.
So, the Republican, George W. Bush created Daesh / ISIL.
It wasn’t the US withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 that allowed it ultimately to take over western and northern Iraq. It was its success in Syria, where it preyed on other radical Muslim factions.
And it was the marginalization of the Iraqi Sunnis by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, whose Shiite majority came to power under Bush, that promoted Daesh.
It is rich for Trump to now come and blame Obama for the actions and reactions of the Republicans who invaded and occupied Iraq.
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larifying his position on a key national-security issue, Donald Trump said on Friday that as President he would be willing to use nuclear weapons, “but only in a sarcastic way.”
