- "The corporate press has now become, for vast segments of the population, a transparently deceitful congeries of second-rate pseudo-journalists who traffic in base fictions at the behest of elite capital." https://dissidentvoice.org/2019/06/the-neoliberal-rearguard/ …
No to war on Iran. We are being lied to as they try to sell us yet another war. Check out Third's "Editorial: No to War on Iran." Also check out Ava and C.I.'s "TV: Ellen Page, this is why we're hard on you" which really explains who the worst actress of all time is (no, it's not Ellen Page). And don't miss Stan's "SHAFT is a lousy film."
This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Monday, June 17, 2019. War Hawk Mayor Pete turns on Joe Biden, Marianne
Williamson gets some serious media attention, the Mosul dam is declared
safe and much more.
24 candidates are seeking the Democratic Party's presidential nomination -- six are women. 20 have qualified for the first debates (all six women qualified). Marianne Williamson spoke with Major Garrett this week on CBS' THE TAKEOUT.
Marianne also sat down with TO THE CONTRARY WITH BONNIE ERBE (PBS).
24 candidates are seeking the Democratic Party's presidential nomination -- six are women. 20 have qualified for the first debates (all six women qualified). Marianne Williamson spoke with Major Garrett this week on CBS' THE TAKEOUT.
Marianne also sat down with TO THE CONTRARY WITH BONNIE ERBE (PBS).
The principles in the Declaration of Independence are America’s mission statement, and our biggest problem is that we’ve lost our psychological & emotional connection to them. That makes us easy to distract, easy to play, easy to fool. ushistory.org/declaration/do…
Another candidate for the presidential nomination is Pete Buttigieg. Devan Cole (CNN) reports:
Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg on Sunday expressed concern about the Trump administration's Iran saber-rattling, drawing a comparison to the rising tensions during the Bush administration that led to the Iraq War.
"Well,
I think we need a measured assessment of information as it continues to
come in. There's no question that Iran has a pattern of malign
activities. There's also no question that there is a pattern that is
disturbingly reminiscent of the run up to the war in Iraq, in some cases
being driven by the same people," Buttigieg, who served in Afghanistan as an intelligence officer, told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union."
"I
mean, the fact that one of the architects of the Iraq war is the
President's national security adviser right now, when the President
himself has pretended that he was against the Iraq War all along. This
is shocking," he said, referring to John Bolton, the White House's
national security adviser who also served in security and diplomatic
positions under President George W. Bush.
Staying on Pete and Iraq, Rachel Frazin (THE HILL) notes:
Buttigieg discussed fellow candidates Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former Vice President Joe Biden in an interview with CBS' "Face the Nation". He particularly knocked Biden's vote for the Iraq War.
"I certainly think that vote was a mistake and I have a different view on that conflict," Buttigieg said, according to a transcript of his remarks.
Buttigieg, who served as a Naval intelligence offer, also noted that the war was something he "opposed as a student and continue[s] to think was a terrible idea."
Of the 24 candidates for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, only one voted for the Iraq War: Joe Biden.
The war in Iraq has roiled presidential politics in each election
since President George W. Bush launched the invasion of the country in
2003. It was central to the 2004 election, arguably the reason that Barack Obama defeated Hillary Clinton for the 2008 Democratic nomination, and no small factor in Donald Trump’s
victory in 2016, when he pitched himself as an alternative to elites in
both parties ― particularly his rivals in the GOP ― who had backed the
invasion.
As Joe Biden leads the Democratic field for 2020, the U.S.’s bloody
history with Iraq is set to again become a defining issue in the race,
and not simply because Trump has talked about an indefinite U.S. military presence there.
Biden wants to convince voters his resume on foreign policy is an asset. But they’ve got ground to think otherwise.
“He’s been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national
security issue over the past four decades,” former Defense Secretary
Robert Gates, who served with Biden in the Obama administration, wrote
in his 2014 book.
Just this month, Biden’s primary opponents have zeroed in on his support for Bush’s invasion.
“You’ve got to ask yourself where Joe Biden is on the issues that are
most important to you. Did he support the war in Iraq that forever
destabilized the Middle East?” former Rep. Beto O’Rourke asked on MSNBC this week. Days earlier, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) had called
for Biden to apologize. Almost 30 percent of Democrats are unhappy
about Biden’s vote and more than 40 percent of party supporters younger
than 30 say it makes them less likely to back him, a Politico/Morning
Consult poll recently found.
While Pete rightly calls out Joe, don't mistake Pete for anti-war. He's pro-war and repeats every pro-war lie as fact.
Mayor Pete today lamented that the Iraq War "very nearly made our party into isolationists." Hmm, really? When did "isolationism" ever become a dominant tendency in the Dem Party? Previous Dem administration was involved in military conflict all over the world. Bizarre strawman
Pete is a War Hawk. He tries to pretend otherwise but that's all he is and, apparently, all he will ever be.
A lot is being made of national polls. First, it really is too far out from the election to put so much faith in polling. Second, national polls mean nothing in the presidential election. If you're trying to predict the election, you go to state polls because the popular vote -- as we saw yet again in 2016 -- is not how a US president is elected. You go state by state to see who's winning what.
You'd look at, for example, Ross Ramsey (TEXAS TRIBUNE):
Only four have double-digit support among Democratic voters with almost nine months to go before the Texas primaries: former Vice President Joe Biden (23%), former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas (15%), and U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts (14%) and Bernie Sanders of Vermont (12%). And only four others have the support of more than 1% of the Democratic voters: South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg (8%); U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris of California (5%); former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro of Texas (3%); and U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii (3%).
Texas has 38 of the 538 votes in the electoral college. Texas is a winner takes all state (all votes go to one candidate) and the last time a Democrat won Texas in a presidential campaign was Jimmy Carter in 1976.
Turning to Iraq . . .
Matthew Tueller is the US Ambassador to Iraq. He was nominated in November of last year by US President Donald Trump but the Senate dragged its feet allowing Iraq to be without a US Ambassador after Douglas Silliman left at the end of January. Tueller was finally confirmed on May 16th. June 9th, he arrived in Baghdad. NRT reports:
Recently-arrived US Ambassador to Iraq Matthew Tueller said on Sunday (June 16) that Mosul Dam poses no danger to people and that they will benefit from the water of its reservoir.
Tueller said in a statement that the dam had been repaired by US Army Corps of Engineers and Italian company Trevi to shore up its foundation.
"In this summer, a team from the Iraqi ministry of water resources will be trained on the high-tech equipment at the dam, so as to continue to reconstruct the dam for coming years,” Tueller said during a visit to the dam.
Once the dam’s reservoir reaches sufficient capacity, it will be a resource for drinking water, agriculture and generating electricity, Matthew added.
So file that away for when the largest dam in Iraq is again an issue.
As we wind down, let's note this from SWAN:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 13, 2019
SWAN Supports Removing Commanders from Making Decisions in Felony Cases
Washington, DC –The Service Women’s Action Network strongly supports the
reintroduction of the Military Justice Improvement Act by Sen. Kirsten
Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) today. The MJIA would remove commanders from the
decision-making process in sexual assault cases.
“Removing Commander’s from the decision-making process sends a clear
signal that there are some crimes that are so severe that Commanders
have no place in deciding if, when or how they are prosecuted,” said
retired Army Col. Ellen Haring, SWAN CEO. “Too many commanders have
failed to properly investigate or prosecute subordinates charged with
sexual misconduct and this failure has led service members to refuse to
report sexual assaults because they do not trust their commanders to
make proper disposition of such charges or to protect them from
retaliation from superiors or peers,” Haring said. “This change protects
both the victim and the accused by putting investigations and
prosecutions in the hands of independent, trained experts.”
The Military Justice Improvement Act makes a revolutionary change to the
Uniform Code of Military Justice by removing from the accused’s
commander the authority to dispose of felony-level charges for
non-military-specific crimes. Commanders would retain the authority to
dispose of 67 military-specific crimes, such as desertion and AWOL and
they also retain the authority to dispose of misdemeanors (for which the
maximum penalty is less than a year in prison) using Non-Judicial
Punishment. The disposition of felony-level crimes would become the
providence of military JAG officers with substantial prosecutorial
training and experience—training and experience which few military
commanders have.
According to Defense Department officials reports of sexual assaults
have steadily increased since 2012 and two thirds of sexual assault
victims do not report their assault while 43% of individuals who
reported experienced retaliation. “When it came time to make the
decision to report my sexual assault my trust in my command was a
determining factor. The response that I received when I attempted to
initially report was, ‘He’s a good sailor. Do you want to ruin his
career?’ Knowing that my command did not care about my safety or health
deterred me from reporting and led to future assaults that also went
unreported,” said Sasha Georgiades, SWAN case manager and Navy veteran.
About the Service Women’s Action Network
SWAN is a national, nonpartisan organization and member-driven community network advocating for the individual and collective needs of service women and women veterans. To date, SWAN has played a major role in opening all military jobs to service women, holding sex offenders accountable in the military justice system, eliminating barriers to disability claims for those who have experienced military sexual trauma, and expanding access to a broad range of reproductive healthcare services for military women.
SWAN is a national, nonpartisan organization and member-driven community network advocating for the individual and collective needs of service women and women veterans. To date, SWAN has played a major role in opening all military jobs to service women, holding sex offenders accountable in the military justice system, eliminating barriers to disability claims for those who have experienced military sexual trauma, and expanding access to a broad range of reproductive healthcare services for military women.
###
Media Contact:SWAN | O: (202) 798-5570, Email: info@servicewomen.org
Media Contact:SWAN | O: (202) 798-5570, Email: info@servicewomen.org
New content at THIRD:
- Truest statement of the week
- Truest statement of the week II
- A note to our readers
- Editorial: No to War on Iran
- TV: Ellen Page, this is why we're hard on you
- Tweet of the week
- Greedy bastards
- Marianne Williamson on TO THE CONTRARY
- Amnesty International traffics in sexism
- Some good news for the Green Party
- Desperate to praise someone, they end up praising ...
- All six women running for the Dem presidential nom...
- Food for thought
- This edition's playlist
- Dario Hunter is vying for the Green Party's presid...
- Green Party: Arrest and Conviction of Green Party ...
- Highlights
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