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Philadelphia Regional Anti-War Network
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Info, articles, etc. Representative Peter King complains that Democrats are engaged in partisan politics. Kind of a problem with that is that no one ever accused Obama of allowing his own personal financial interests to interfere with national security. The current President is being accused of that because there's plenty of evidence he is doing so and because his personal finances are obscured by his refusal to release his taxes, as every president including and since Nixon has done. When black senior citizens in Georgia got taken off a bus because they were trying to vote, they said to themselves: "We've seen this movie before" and that cased them to redoube their efforts to vote. Problem with Martha McSally's statement (no, she doesn't come right out and call Fox News host Chris Wallace a liar, but she strongly suggests it) is that the earlier Republican attempt to replace Obamacare/the ACA was grossly inferior and covered far less than the ACA did. No, there is currently no Republican plan that's in any way an improvement on the ACA. Case study in hypocrisy: Back in 2013, Iran was accused of planning to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington, "92 US senators signed a letter calling on President Barack Obama to 'crush Iran’s central bank' in retaliation." With the Khashoggi case involving actual murder, we get crickets from those same senators. A study shows that, despite health care being a prominent issue in the 2018 Congressional midterm race, the "mainstream media" stations aren't discussing it at all. The reason isn't complicated. One side is telling the truth, the other side isn't, but to point that out would appear to be partisan, so many stations just avoid the issue entirely. This is an extremely serious problem with meda models and the business strategy of many media sources. "Ivanka
Trump Has To Clarify That She Won't Replace
Nikki Haley As Ambassador To UN"
"Greg
Palast Says He Hasn't Seen Voter Suppression Like This In 18 Years"
Early voting begins! On the one hand, it's truly awful that voting is so poorly run and organized that lines are three hours long. On the other hand, the fact that lines are three hours long demonstrates a very high level of voter interest! Yeah, just yesterday, Chief Justice John Roberts was trying to convince us that the Supreme Court was still on the case of protecting civil rights, despite Brett Kavanaugh being made a new Justice. From twitter: John Roberts said voting discrimination was no longer "flagrant, widespread or pervasive" when he gutted Voting Rights Act Now @vicenews finds areas once covered by VRA shut down 20% more polling places vs rest of the country since Shelby County decision Also, the Supreme Court let stand a ruling that disenfranchises nearly 20% of voters in North Dekota, thereby guraanteeing that thei curren senator will not be re-elected. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R), wants constituents to believe he's changed his mind on the ACA/Obamacare, but as he hasn't put forward any legislation to that effect and has been a big critic of the ACA, so it's difficult to take him seriously. "Pat
Robertson Shrugs Off Saudi Murder, Cites 'Billions' In Arms Sales" Yep, our blogger makes a very good point about Senator Warren and her DNA test "Never Let Your Opponent Set The Terms Of Debate" Ever since a massive unpaid-for tax cut was passed last December, we've been expecting Republicans to say that we have to cover the cost of the tax cut by making cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The Senate Majority Leader has now gone on record saying just that. "This is live voter suppression’: Black Voters Matter blocked from taking Georgia seniors to vote" Not an abstract issue at all. Let's look at the checklist: vote suppression ✅ black seniors with a living memory of Jim Crow ✅ a f***ing bus ✅ Here's another problem with blindly supporting Saudi Arabia. "If Saudis don't stop Bombing, Yemen could be Worst Famine in a Century" Candidate for Governor of Georgia “Kemp:
‘Ridiculous’ To Suggest I
Step Down For Stalling 53K Voter Registrations“ Good grief! Jamal Khashoggi was done in by "rogue killers" now?!?!?! Trump just now says Saudi Arabia “firmly denies” killing #Khashoggi & brings up idea of “rogue killers” being responsible. As with Putin, Trump taking denial of authoritarian & interested party at face value. "American
Bar Association drops review of Kavanaugh" "Trump
Says Sears Was Mismanaged. [Secretary of the Treasury] Mnuchin Was on
Its Board for Years" See, here's the problem with the "objective,"
above-the-fray, non-partisan media. There are stories they simply
don't feel comfortable covering. Georgia has a problem,
The Georgia
Secretary of State, who is in charge of overseeing how elections are
conducted, is also the Republican candidate for Governor. There are
over 50,000 voters being disqualified under a very unfair law that
the Georgia Secretary of State/Republican candidate is supporting.
It's great that this politician wants to insist that health insurance companies cover pre-existing conditions, but the structure of Obamacare/The ACA made that affordable. His plan does no such thing. Excerptes
from a CNN interview with the President: "I'm not going to
get into it, because we
won. It doesn't matter. We won."
So victory is all that
matters, eh? Reminds me of the Medieval "trial by combat."
If you defeated your accuser in a swordfight, you were declared
innocent. "I don't want to
lose
millions and millions of jobs." …
There's never been the
slightest evidence that the US economy would suffer if we were to
switch from fossil fuels to renewables. "You know, we're
talking about over a million ... years."
Actually, the climate change we're concerned about only goes back to 1750. "Democrats
didn't leak Dr. Ford's letter—it was most likely the White House" The Washington Post report also confirms that Feinstein gave the letter to the FBI, but notes that, rather than launching a new investigation, they instead placed it in Kavanaugh’s background file, which meant that it was immediately available to the White House. We then see that the "Democrat plot" to "smear Judge Kavanaugh" begins. People felt that the First Lady's jacket "I really don't care" was deliberate and was calculated to send a message. She confirms that today, but her meaning, the exact message she was trying to send, is still very muddled and unclear. I completely lost all sympathy for Ivanka Trump several months back. With this story on Melania Trump’s intentions, I’ve lost all sympathy for her as well. Hey, remember the Deepwater Horizon oil spill? Yeah, the lawyer who defended BP for that is the subject of this story here. The whole Republican Senate and two Democrats voted for this guy to become the nation's top environmental defense lawyer. Human Rights Watch demands information on the case of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi who was a US Permanent Resident when he disappeared. The US appears very wary of upsetting relations with Saudi Arabia. The President promises "severe punishments" for Khashoggi's murder, but is unclear about exactly what those punishments might be. Summary and careful parsing of information on the killing of Jamal Khasoggi. What we know so far. Iran weighs in on Khashoggi killing. Shorter candidate
for Governor Kemp: White House Chief of Staff "John
Kelly tried to gaslight
Elizabeth Warren, called her an 'arrogant woman' when she persisted" In both of these
stories, we have the common thread of conflict of
interest. More on Khashoggi: Does the President have a personal, financial conflict of interest in the Khashoggi case? We don't know. His personal finances are still a deep, dark secret, we American citizens have no confidence whatever that he doesn't have personal investments that cause him to make decisions that he otherwise wouldn't make. More on Geogria: How does Georgia's "Exact
Match" law work? "The protocol targets registrations that are
off even a
single letter, digit, or hyphen..." Which sounds harmless until
one realizes that it affects 50k voters. &%$@ing hilarious! The aging con man, trying desperately to impress the clearly-underwhelmed mark, knows the con is wearing thin and is clearly getting anxious that the American people will catch on and the jig will be up! The President was trying to impress the above reporters with a list of his administration's accomplishments. Actually, as it turns out, filling posts like, say, ambassadorships to Turkey and Saudi Arabia is something the Trump Administration hasn't yet done. In the case of the Khashoggi murder, that would have been a really good thing to have done. USAToday publishes a piece from the President that's a true stinker. It's reproduced here so you don't have to give USAT any clicks. WaPo fact-checker describes it as essentially, every sentence is a lie. After having read the first two paragraphs, it was clear that it's wildly and incredibly dishonest. At the 2:00 minute mark, Laura Ingraham quotes
the President as
saying that now that the Kavanaugh confirmation is over, he hopes we
can all get back to love, respect and understanding. Senator Harris' questioning of the FBI Director makes it very clear that the Kavanaugh-Ford investigation was very limited in scope and that it was the White House that limited it. "Melania
Trump Promotes Rape Culture: Women Need 'To Show The
Evidence' Of Sexual Assault" "Sunny
Hostin Blasts Melania Trump: 'We Finally Said A
Woman's Word Is Enough' On Sexual Assaultt" President demonstrates complete indifference to fate of the Saudi reporter Jamal Khashoggi. House Speaker Paul Ryan is terribly, terribly, deeply concerned [/snark] about excessive partisanship in political campaigns. “The incentive in politics is invective; it’s outrage; it’s hysteria.” Okay, but when he divides the American public into "makers and takers," that doesn't really encourage a "We're all in this together" feeling. Also, the Republican super PAC called the Congressional Leadership Fund, under Ryan's control, has been funding hysterically partisan attack ads. Update: The Republican Party as a whole, chose to run with anti-immigrant ads in the final days of the 2018 midterm electon. The public disapproved of these ads by around a 60% majority. Ryan is correct. Excessive partisanship is not appreciated, but GOP actions didn't match Ryan's words. Senator Heidi
Heitkamp (D-ND) was
well-advised to not vote for
Brett Kavanaugh as he voted along with his right-wing buddies on the
Supreme Court to uphold a Voter ID law that discriminates against
voters who are likely to vote for Democrats. From twitter: "Report:
Nikki Haley Resigning As
UN Ambassador" President made an
interesting claim: "before I took
office less than two years ago, our nation was experiencing a
historic surge in violent crime." If we don't get climate change under control soon, we might not be around much longer. Where the Republican
mistaken-identity idea with Dr. Ford came
from. The theory was that yes, Dr. Ford suffered real trauma, but she
can't remember where the trauma came from. Collins and her Republican colleagues settled on the one scenario which checks all the political boxes but at the cost of being ridiculously implausible. The reporter is 100% right and and the Majority Leader is 100% wrong. There is no actual precedent for holding back a Supreme Court nomination. For Republicans to have refused Merrick Garland a hearing was about power and jerry-rigged situational ethics, period! I've really gotta hand it to the Fox News guy. He
really
questioned Congressman Mike Kelly's (R-PA) assertion that the
economy
is the only thing that matters and that the President is not
divisive. At the Democratic campaign rally I attended a few weeks
ago, Barack Obama made the point that the current economic expansion
began on his watch in 2009. Liberal corporatocracy strikes again! The singer Taylor Swift pays attention to what her audience wants. She normally stays out of politics, but her audience hates the Republican Tennessee candidate and love the Democratic one. Heh! A lot of racists thought Swift was on their side, so they're having a sad! Patients in Gaza are being denied access to hospitals in the West Bank and Israel. A conservative cautions that occasonally, rape reports are false. Very true, but that's no reason to condemn Dr. Ford' ttestimony. Even Susan Brownmmiller, the author of Against Our Will, a book about rape, acknowledged in her first chapter that about 2% of all rape reports are false. This is consistent with reporting on other, similar crimes like assaults, muggings, etc. Yes, we should be aware that one out of every 50 reports will be made because someone is lying. That's why we don't simply break out the rope and hang someone whenever there's a rape report. But no, Dr. Ford's testimony was needed and necessary and called for. Ab FB buddy just wondered why Florida Governor Rick Scott is getting such grief over "Red Tide," something that's been documented to have been occurring in Florida waters since forever. Climate change has a lot to do with it. Warmer waters encourage algae blooms. Run-off of soil nutrients from farms contributes and some of Lake Okeechobee had to be drained into the ocean due to Hurricane Irma last September. Stronger hurricanes are a result of climate change as warmer waters put more moisture into the atmosphere. The FLOTUS really dislikes it when people pay attention to her clothing rather than to her words on policies, but she also "plays dress-up" at highly inappropriate moments. Here she's treating Africa like a theme park with costumes recalling colonial days. A quick search on "pith helmets in movies" shows that such helmets were mostly worn in films from the 1930s or before or where the time of the movie is supposed to be from that period. Essentially, pith helmets were fashionable until around 80 years ago. Photo here is from 1935. Biggest and saddest lesson over the past few years is that breaking the rules works if your goal is just to gain victory for today without any regard for the longer term. Excellent summary of Kavanaugh’s confirmation and the heavy damage our democracy has sustained from that. I took a quick look at the speech Senator Susan Collins gave for supporting Judge Kavanaugh’s application to become a Supreme Court Justice. I found this paragraph very troubling: Since that time we have seen special-interest groups whip their followers into a frenzy by spreading misrepresentations and outright falsehoods about Judge Kavanaugh's judicial record. Over-the-top rhetoric and distortions of his record and testimonies at his first hearing produced short-lived headlines, which although debunked hours later, continued to live on and be spread through social media. Problem is, this is all presented without any examples. It’s all just vague, fuzzy generalizations in a “Take my word for it” manner. It’s far from clear, for instance, what exactly was “debunked.” *Sigh* It's official. Judge Kavaugh is now Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh. The US is now a banana republic. For Senators Collins and Manchin to say Dr. Ford was traumatized, but she's not sure who caused her trauma is like saying that a World War I veteran suffering from PTSD (They called it shell-shock back then) isn't quite sure what caused him to be traumatized. $%#@!!! Of course someone suffering from trauma remembers what caused their trauma! Hmm. thinking of Judge Kavanaugh's saying that the angry fellow hollering at everyone wasn't the real him reminds me of a columnist (Think it was the sex columnist Anka Radakovich) who was asked by a woman if she should see a fellow who was very stressed out and upset at the time. The fellow wanted the woman to see him when he had solved the problem and had calmed down. Radakovich said no, the best time to see him was when he was unmasked and open. She could then see him as he really was and not just some carefully-arranged facade. Nah, Kavanaugh revealed his real self. We saw him as he really is. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley starts off by talking about Judge Kavanaugh's sterling, unimpeachable ABA rating. Well, the ABA is re-opening Kavanaugh's evaluation due to his displayed temperament. Judge Kavanaugh uses classic abuser language in an editorial. "I know that my tone was sharp, and I said a few things I should not have said." Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell gave a very righteous and aggrieved speech. Sounded really good if that was your only source of information about the investigation on Judge Kavanaugh. As another blogger put it, if you knew anything beyond McConnell's talking points, you know we're living in a banana republic now. US loses UN court case and is ordered to ease sanctions om Iran. US responds "$%#@ you!!!" A-a-a-and...the fix was in. The investigation into Judge Kavanaugh's behavior was hobbled and designed to fail. It failed to to find for the accusers on purpose. "The
FBI confidential Kavanaugh report: Who's allowed to read it and where" “Sanders
Refuses Q's On Trump's
Different Standards For Kavanaugh, Central Park Five” Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), spoke with Sean Hannity
of Fox News
about Judge Kavanaugh. We should recall in this case that the President can currently only pardon federal crimes as opposed to crimes prosecuted by a state or local jurisdiction. With the case of Gamble vs the US coming to the Supreme Court very soon, that could change and the President could pardon himself for all of this. Outside counsel during the Kavanaugh-Ford hearing Rachel Mitchell put out a report denying that "a reasonable prosecutor would bring this case based on the evidence before the Committee." Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) took strong exception to this conclusion and pointed out that Mitchell had far fewer facts then she should have had before reaching any conclusions. Judge Kavanaugh wasn't able to give much testimony before Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) started hollering and Mark Judge, the third person in the room, has not been interviewed at all. Part 47,635 on the Reverse Midas Touch of our President. How everything he touches turns to %$#@. Now that sex crimes prosecutor Rachel Mitchell has put out a highly dubious report that blames Dr. Ford for being attacked. How bad was the report? It'll be used as evidence against her in her own private practice. So the President just did the "old wine into new bottles" trick. He decided he really couldn't improve on NAFTA, so he just relabeled a set of Obama proposals, calling them his own. Boom. Done. Problem solved. Ehh, works for me. "NBC's
Ken Dilianian Reports White House Still Has 'Limits' On Kavanaugh Probe
-- After Sarah Sanders Denies It--UPDATED" September “Lindsey
Graham: I'll Vote For
Kavanaugh Even If FBI Corroborates Sexual Assault” What is the state of Israeli-Palestinian relations? 17-year old Ahed Tamimi received a sports jersey from the Spanish group Real Madrid and Israel is now denouncing Real Madrid. According to Israel, the gift "indirectly encourage aggression and not the dialogue and understanding that we need.” Oh, and as to the desire of Israel for "dialogue and understanding," Hundreds of Palestinians of the Gaza Strip marched, on Saturday afternoon, in the funerals of seven Palestinians killed by Israeli forces a day earlier during protests at the eastern borders of the besieged strip. Very interesting that the Supreme Court case of Dred Scott has been cited by anti-choicers as a shorthand for dreadful Supreme Court decisions. Who was the Chief Justice at the time? Roger B. Taney. Who was Taney appointed by? Why, the President's hero, Andrew Jackson! Was it a controversial appointment? Yes, as the piece here describes and as Judge Kavanaugh's is being. Details on the limits to the FBI's review of the record. Very interesting that several bloggers have cited 1 July 1982 as being the date of the alleged sexual assault based on Mark Judge's employment at Safeway and Judge Kavanaugh's calendar and the FBI is not permitted to follow up on Judge's summer job, "which was referenced as a possible corroboration of Blasey Ford’s testimony." Sounds to me as though Kim Jong Un put people onto the case of carefully studying the President, arrived in Singapore fully briefed and prepared and was like Br'er Rabbit to the President's Br'er Fox. Trump got taken to the cleaners by a wily and clever foe. The fact that Kavanaugh and the Judiciary Committee kept resisting an FBI investigation was highly suspicious. The fact that the President is placing any limits at all on that investigation is equally suspicious and for the same reason. It begs the question: "What do they trying to hide?!?!?!" Excellent discussion on Kavanaugh and credibility. Okay, the stuff he did as a teenager was stupid, but why is he lying about it? His credibility now is what's important! 15 years after the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the US has to keep a consulate closed there. The US consulate in Basra (Iraq's main port on the Persian Gulf) had to be closed when angry Iraqis attacked it. It wasn't just an anti-US attack, Iran also had theirs burned down, which means that no, Iran was not behind the attack as the US charged. In the case of the Kavanaugh-Ford hearing, the blogger carefully goes over the questioning just before the female prosecutor was fired and Senator Graham started ranting. Yep, sounds as though 1 July 1982 was the date that the described events happened. So Senator Flake's a "yes," even though he took some really sharp criticism from these constitents. Yeah, he's always struck me as a fellow who enjoys playing Hamlet. "Oh, me. Oh my. What shall I do?" But in the end, he's a loyal soldier for the GOP. According to Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, the
US wants to be
the "sole mediator in the Middle East conflict," and is
offering "a 'very fair' peace plan." And of course Republicans in the Senate want to drive the car over the cliff by votng in Judge Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court Justice.despite the horrified American reaction. The American Bar Association wants to put the brakes on a Kavanaugh appointment to the Supreme Court. Gritpost also says: America Magazine — the magazine of the Catholic Church’s Jesuit order — is no longer endorsing Brett Kavanaugh after Thursday’s testimony. “Do we really want a man consumed with rage, self-pity and hate on the Supreme Court?” The daughters of Chris Wallace, Fox News anchorman, feel inspire to tell him things that happened to them in high school that they never told him before. Also, the National Sexual Assault Hotline saw a 147% increase above normal volume on Thursday. Awww! This is heartbreaking! Skyping with a female Afghan lawyer in Kabul as we both watch Dr. Ford's testimony. "So women aren't believed in America either?" she asks. No words. America, 2018. For shame. After the female prosecutor is done with Dr. Ford, Republican senators take over the questioning of Judge Kavanaugh. Makes sense because the whole point of having the prosecutor was to avoid the bad optics of a bunch of old men attacking a woman. Once the questioning got to the judge, that was no longer a consideration. "In
A Truly Disrespectful Exchange, Kavanaugh Attacks Sen. Klobuchar" Good! The President's anti-Iran speech was
a complete and utter
flop. Not a single nation spoke up in support. The current world order and how the US treats Palestinians. Rundown on the "female assistant" who will be questioning Dr. Ford. Apparently, Senator Grassley's people will try to make the case that Dr. Ford was confused as to who her attacker was. This ignores the fact that she knew Judge Kavanaugh socially before the attack. Kavanaugh wasn't just some anonymous guy who jumped out from a dark alley at her. “Trump:
"Moving forward, we are
only going to give foreign aid to those who respect us and frankly
are our friends."” Nawww! Say it ain't so! You mean the Jerusalem Embassy, a diplomatic nightmare, is also a white elephant in cost overruns?!?!?! Tch, tch, tch! "At
the U.N., Trump finds the world literally laughing at him" “Nikki
Haley: United Nations Laughter
Not A Diss But A Sign Of Respect For Trump’s ‘Honesty’” Interesting that the President completely re-writes what he actually said. Especially amusing here is the statement by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell: The Democrats had already made up their minds and chosen their tactics: delay, obstruct, and resist. Whatever it took – whatever the truth really was – they were going to do whatever they could... Good capsule summary of GOP politics under McConnell during the entirety of the Obama Administration. "Brett
Kavanaugh Says He Was a Virgin Throughout High School, Never Sexually
Assaulted Anyone" Archive - sidebar items
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