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Philadelphia Regional Anti-War Network
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Upcoming Events Opposition to war on Iran
Jan 25th Demonstration against Iran War Jan 11th Demonstration against Iran War Jan 4th Demonstration against Iran War Pro-Impeach
and Remove from office
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Info, articles, etc.
A reporter asked about why the President was being impeached, suggested that Democrats are overreacting and are making too much of their case for impeachment. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff delivers a very good answer to that. He begins: Well, if you think about what the
framers were concerned about at the time of the drafting of the
Constitution, they were paramountly concerned about foreign
interference in American affairs. They wanted to ensure that the
president of the United States was defending the interest and national
security of the United States and not corruptly, secretly advancing
some private agenda with a foreign power.... Secretary of State Pompeo has confessed that yes, he was on the call that's the subject of the impeachment inquiry. In an amazingly relevant and on-point book, Rachel Maddow writes about oil, gas and politics. "Blowout" also tells quite a bit about Russian President Putin. September
"Russia Says Trump Needs Its Permission To Release Call Transcripts With Putin" Of course! Calls between an asset and his handler should be treated with respect!
Story about a former, truly awful and abusive head of ICE. A truly
horrifying anecdote from the story: ICE agents arrested a victim of domestic violence at a courthouse where she had sought a protective order, allegedly acting on a tip from her abuser. The agents then appear to have lied about the incident on an affidavit, claiming they approached her after she exited when surveillance footage showed them accosting her inside the courthouse. Damn!
This poor woman got slammed coming and going! She was abused,
reported that to the authorities and then another arm of the
authorities arrests her for immigration violations! Around the beginning of August this year, the President nominated someone for the position of DNI who was completely and utterly unqualified. The President felt it was fine for the press to do all of his vetting for him after candidates were nominated for and perhaps working in positions. Problem in this particular case is that an Army Staff Sergeant was actually working at Mar-a-Lago while downloading child porn. He was what agents call "compromised" as there was about a 100% likelihood that foreign agents were aware of this. A buddy suggested I read a piece that calls impeachment of the President a mistake. I put out a few thoughts on that. Nah, full speed ahead! WTF NY Times!?!?!!?!?!? No, it isn't necessary for anyone to "understand" who the whistleblwer is! What is absolutely necessary is for people like this to be protected when they come forward with information that citizens critically need!!! Shame! Executive Editor Dean Baquet should resign immediately!!! Do whistleblowers need protection? Erm, uh, YEAH!!! There's a reason for the whistleblwer law!!! As usual, the Young Turks put the President's words into context. This is not the first time he's made comments like this! These are the words of a fascist! This whole aspect of the story absolutely screams of guilty knowledge. "The transcript was loaded into a
separate electronic system that is otherwise used to store and handle
classified information of an especially sensitive nature."
How many other crimes/goof-ups have been hidden? House of Representatives decides to go ahead with an impeachment. Details come out as President releases a call summary (not a transcript) of the call to the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which President Trump describes as "perfect" and a "beautiful conversation." Also: Shortly after Trump's press conference, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) emerged on Capitol Hill after reading the official whistleblower complaint that sparked the still unfolding controversy and said he found the document "deeply disturbing" and the complaint itself "very credible." Like the novelist Émile Zola publishing J'Accuse about the Alfred Dreyfus affair, Greta Thunberg is changing the terms of the human-caused climate change debate. What's very sad here is that at the 3:30 mark, when Michael McFaul, a former US Ambassador to Russia, points out that he told Edward Snowden to use the whistleblower procedures and laws instead of breaking the law and having to escape to Russia. The Ambassador ends up getting the rug pulled out from under him by the President's current actions. The essential
facts of the case
against the President come out. Trump sought to hold up military aid to
a US ally, Ukraine, in order to get their cooperation in a scheme to
aid the President's re-election in 2020. Is it appropriate for Ukraine to investigate someone who's operating in their territory? Of course it is. Where Santorum messes up is in suggesting that it's okay for the US President to place himself into a long-since investigated and concluded story.
"Biden
Calls For Release Of Trump Call Transcript, Whistleblower Testimony" The President says: "...me and a perfectly fine and
routine conversation I had
with the new President of the Ukraine. Nothing was said that was in
any way wrong,"
IF the President's actions in this case are so proper and above reproach, then he should stop interfering with the whistleblower and permit the complaint that was made to proceed as the law says it should! This is one of the reasons people don't trust the intelligence agencies when they say Iran is responsible for the attack on Saudi oil facilities. If the Trump Administration told the DNI to not tell Congress about a whistleblower and if the DNI is obeying orders, that means the independence of the agencies is compromised and the President is telling them all sorts of things, one of which is probably to lie about the attack on Saudi Arabia. Presidential interference with whistleblower investigation detailed.
D-a-a-yummm!!! Some of the women of Outnumbered are *gulp* making sense!!! One of the women even pointed out that the President is not an absolute dictator (much to his annoyance) and he cannot just send US troops into harm's way on a whim. More of this, please! Problem with Iran policy is that it's largely
self-created problem. The whistleblower reporting process appears to have worked fine until it was time to inform Congress what the whistleblower's assertions were. Looks like direct interference by the President prevented the appropriate action. On 9-11 in 2001, Donald Trump was a famous, instantly recognizable person and there were reporters all over the wreckage. If he had been in the immediate vicinty of the destroyed buildings, reporters would have taken dozens of photos and would have dicussed his presence. Seriously, the comment that "He repeated an exaggerated account of how he had assisted the recovery effort after the World Trade Center..." is just ridiculous. He didn't "exaggerate," he lied!!! "Kellyanne
Conway suggests Trump is better because he doesn't 'study'
situations before making decisions" Good! The number of people in the US who were concerned about climate change five years ago was 25%. That's climbed to 38%. Needs to be higher, but that's an excellent trend! Treasury Secretary Steven "Mnuchin added that the [Iran] policy is 'absolutely working.'” No. No, it most certainly is not working! The Trump Administration's policy towards Iran is a complete cluster$%# and always has been because the President has always described his problem with Iran in extremely broad, vague terms.
An MSNBC newsperson returns after maternity leave and points out that raising children is a bit more complicated then just "Have more babies." Looking at you, anti-choicers! The departure of NSC Adviser John Bolton might mean a bit less craziness on the part of this administration's Iran policy. Hopefully, anyway. We'll see. Trump Administration makes the very highly questionable claim that 1k Talban had just been killed and that they were ready to start peace talks at Camp David. None of the necessary diplomatic groundwork has been laid for the Taliban to come to the US, let alone Camp David. This kind of agreement doesn't just happen overnight. Both sides need confidence-building measures and mutual understandings. On a lighter note, John Oliver shows us why the filibuster really should be abolished. Sarah Sanders: "I am only the third woman and the first mom
to ever be the White House press secretary," she continued. "And
yet women attack me relentlessly, instead of being proud that we have
more women doing those types of jobs." Former Congressman Jason Chaffetz claims at about the one-minute mark that for presidents to spend money without Congressional authorization is very routine and happens all the time. He never gives specific examples. I did a search and found examples of President Obama attempting to spend money without specific authorization from Congress and found that these examples always involved considerable pushback from Congress. Nah, I call BS on that claim. "Federal
Judge Slams FBI Terror Watch List As Unconstitutional"
Former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath points to how shabbily Senate Majority Leader "Moscow" Mitch McConnell treats his constituents and gives us her heartfelt promise to do better.
Very cool! Walmart is limiting sales of guns and ammunition! Saw a piece a few minutes ago on how right-wingers are screaming about how Walmart is giving in to liberals. Yee-hah to that!
Good! A Palestinian student had been accepted into Harvard, but was denied entry for no clear reason. He's now here in the US and is free to start classes. Meghan McCain is upset that people have their hair on fire about gun violence in this country and that they've turned into "gun grabbers." It is reasonable to expect the other side to remain calm and reasonable when there is progress occurring. Since Sandy Hook, when 20 children died, absolutely nothing has been done and there's absolutely zero prospect of anything getting done as long as Republicans have a majority in the Senate. So yeah, liberals are running around with their hair on fire for a reason! "Trump
Suddenly Decides NOT To Kill Sick Immigrant Children
"
Some
lunatic said: “If antifa gets to the point where they start killing
us, I’m
going to kill them next,” Kohfield, 32, said.
"Joshua
Dubois: What the President secretly did at Sandy Hook Elementary
School" Bret Stephens is the fellow who's gotten all bent out of shape over bedbugs. But his main claim to fame is his denial of global warming. It's all very fine and well to present "the other side," but not if the other side is complete and utter horse%$#@. Shame on the NY Times for publishing his shoddy work!
At the end of lengthy description of the latest shooting and a summary of the latest insane loosening of gun laws (Texas), %$#@ing Chuck Todd blames "gridlock!" No, Todd!!! Gridlock is when both sides are to blame!!! That's not the case here!!!
August Neil Cavuto is definitely what in the English Parliament would
be
called a "back-bencher." He's certainly far from a star on
Fox News. But
he does some good pushback on the President's
accusation of Fox News being disloyal.
"Sick
Migrants Undergoing Lifesaving Care Can Now Be Deported" The NY Times didn't
exactly do a single-sourced story. Peters clearly did only a cursory
review of old stories. He
didn't interview a single rank-and-file member of the Tea Party,
though he did interview several political insiders who were linked to
the Tea Party's upper echelons.
It was quickly clear to
people on the left that the Tea Party was an "astroturf"
movement as opposed to a grass-roots movement. A well-funded,
top-down movement with a clear chain of command. The NY Times reporter
comes up with "Misty Watercolor Memories Of The Tea Party Movement."
The President claims that China called him.. China denies it. It's a sign of the times that people (including myself) assume the authoritarian regime that relentlessly controls information and is currently threatening Hong Kong is probably the side that's telling the truth.
President's really shows at the G7 summit he's just an absolutely awful negotiator. In order to be successful in international negotiations, you have to know what both you and the other guy want. That requires detailed knowledge, study, conversations and thought.
"Stephen
Miller: Migrant Kids Already Had 'Psychological Damage' Before They Got
Here"
Those who oppose pregnancy choice like to pretend their case
is simple and just. Babies are good and should live. So
when a blck woman tries to point out how racist anti-choicers are,
her mic is quickly cut off. CNN hires Andrew McCabe. Fox News tries to act as though they're morally superior after just having hired former White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders.
Governor Jay Inslee drops out of the presidential race. He won pretty much universal respect from Democratic candidates, ensuring a good appointed position, probably as head of the EPA.
Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan made it very clear that
his heart was in Wisconsin and
went home as much as possible. He just didn't like Washington DC at
all. So
now that he's retired, he's moving his whole family to
Washington DC!
Seems the President really,
truly, was serious
about purchasing Geenland from Denmark! This is what minions are for.
You send a minion over to Denmark, make a discreet inquiry, they say
"Oh, hell no!," you withdraw
the offcer. It's all done in private and nobody knows. The real problem with the President's attitude, and the reason we know he's a racist, is that he thinks that all of the Jewish-American people should think and vote in lock-step unanimity. They should all have the same opinions of Palestinians and of Benjamin Netanyahu and his policies towards Palestinians.
Took five years for the killer of Eric Garner to be fired, but it's finally been done!
The President keeps repeating the claim that he was robbed of
the
electoral votes of New Hampshire in 2016 by in-person voter fraud.
The Chair of the FEC calls him out yet again to
either provide proof or to
stop making wild, baseless charges. Clearly, the President is
trying to excuse losing the 2020 election in advance.
Good! The war-hawks of the Trump Administration get slammed and ignored! Britain joins the rest of Europe in refusing to join the US against Iran.
The "1619 Project," a really good magazine-sized supplement
from the NY Times, is available outside the paywall! Link
in the piece that reviews it. And of
course there was a right-wing backlash.
It's California vs the Trump Administration. Good news is that CA appears to be winning!
Good! The 9th Circuit Court has absolutely smacked down the Trump Administration's bizarre assertion that detainees don't need basic necessities like soap and toothpaste.
Not that calling her by the name of a famous Native American did her any political harm, but the President is thinking of reviving the slur anyway because he has no imagination. In the meantime, Senator Warren has a plan for that! She's worked out how to mend our broken promises to Native peoples.
Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) wants to visit her
grandmother, who is a Palestiian and lives in the West Bank. But
Tlaib's proposed visit became, in Tlaib's view, a political football, so
she's dropped it. The
President got very upset
when he learned tha she had been offered the chance to see her
grandmother, but had turned it down. Funny how, in his telling, people
always seem to want something
from him and they're always desperate
to get it! Oh, good grief! Some
idiot convinced the President that Greenland is for sale!!! He
seems pretty serious about buying it! Our local paper reprinted
a WaPo columnist
who agrees with the State Department's assertion that disagreeing with
Israel's policy towards Palestinians equals anti-Semitism. This is a
deeply misguided viewpoint that equate the foreign policy of a state
with how a group of people is viewed. "How
The El Paso Killer Echoed The Incendiary Words Of Conservative Media"
Wealthy guy holds a fund-raiser for the President's re-election in the Hamptons. Hell, YES, we have the right to protest that!!! Wealthy guy who supports the President appears to think that supporting politicians is like a buffet dinner where you're not ordering the racism, just the tax cuts. Nuh-uh. Doesn't work that way. A company the rich guy was associated with, Equinox, tried
to reassure employees by using jargon and management-speak: "What we have always done and will
do in this instance is look out for our employees, and that means
understanding the impact, discussing the impact, and then doing the
right thing," Problem is, they had just
violated this understanding!!! Emplyees werer upset that their
company was now asociated with the President. This is a wholly
predicatble and entirely expected result. "NYC's $15 minimum wage
hasn't brought the restaurant apocalypse — it's helped them thrive" Woo hoo! The Rachel Maddow Show interviewed House Judiciary
Chairman Jerry Nadler tonight and the
good ship Impeachment has weighed anchor,
the engines are fully steamed up and it's underway!!! With the
documents mentioned in this piece below, Congress is getting the
evidence it's called for. Nadler expects to vote on articles of
impeachment by roughly, approximately the end of this year! Representative Veronica Escobar was invited to stand with the
President as he visited El Paso. She said fine, but she wanted to speak
with him first. His response made it clear that she
was wanted only as a prop for his visit. What she wanted to say was
that when it comes to mass shootings the President is part of the problem! Maggie Haberman of the NY Times feigns innocence/indignation over blatant hypocrisy by the Times, documented by MSNBC's Joy Reid and others. The President maintains that his
rhetoric
"brings people together." I guess that's true, if one reads that in the
same way that der Fuhrer did. He also brought people together against the Jews and other
"undesirables. Whoa! Tardigrades, "'water bears' that can survive pretty much any environment — including space" were spilled out on the Moon! Who needs Sci-Fi? Important to keep in mind that mass shooters are often
misogynistic. Fox News host Sean Hannity proposes "surrounding" schools and shopping malls to protect them from mass shooters. Doing that would require a force far larger than invaded Iraq back in 2003 as there are about 100k public and 35k private schools, along with 116k shopping malls. And remember, many places that have been attacked had armed guards! Yeah, I'd rather just reduce the number of military-style guns in the hands of the public. I've always regarded Congress' demand for the President's financial information to be such a simple, straightforward, open-and-shut case, the DOJ just disgraced itself by arguing otherwise. As expected, the whole "Presidential" and "Above the fray" image the Trump Administration was trying to project didn't last very long. Kellyanne Conway is "hopping mad" that apparent liberal sympathies on the part of the Dayton shooter weren't reported on. The
former president tweets that Americans should: “soundly
reject language coming out of the mouths of any of our leaders that
feeds a climate of fear and hatred or normalizes racist
sentiments.” The Senate Majority Leader's campaign team says these
young men
wearing "Team Mitch" t-shirts
and molesting a cardboard imgae of AOC are not affiliated with the
Senator's re-election campaign. The piece notes that the same young men
showed up at a rally with large cardboard heads of Supreme Court
Justice Kavanaugh. NY Times publishes a stupendously, amazing tone-deaf piece: It remained unclear
whether Mr. Trump’s 10-minute remarks, coming after one of the most
violent weekends in recent American history, could position him to
unify the nation...
The MSNBC show tonight, that replacing both Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell, is making it very clear that the President shares a good deal of the blame for the killings of this last weekend. No, his 10-minute speech, read off of a teleprompter, will NOT "position him to unify the nation." More
on the NY Times piece. "Philly’s
Archbishop Chaput: ‘Only a fool’ can believe gun control will solve
mass violence"
President's statement
on Twitter: The Media has a big
responsibility to life and safety in our Country. Fake News has
contributed greatly to the anger and rage that has built up over many
years.
Hmm, so if media coverage of the President is making people
angry, what kind of coverage is he asking for?!?!?! Yeah, I'm trying to
think of my best over-the-top comickal-book style prose that would do
justice to North Korean announcers. Thinkpiece on the latest shootings: "Trump
Claims Deadly El Paso, Dayton Shootings Were Caused By 'Mental
Illness'" "The
House’s top Republican blames video games for mass shootings" "Local
Politicians Call for Action Following 2 Mass Shootings" "While we do not know that any one
law or series of laws will eliminate the possibility of a mass
shooting, we know that passing commonsense gun reform can reduce the
likelihood of mass shootings."
Yeah, I spoke with someone in the anti-war movement who wanted
to
get Trump into office in order to "heighten the contradictions."
Under questioning, he admitted that was a stupid idea. The President's rhetoric on Baltimore is no slip of the
toungue. The
"invasion" charge is one that he's run in commercials since May of
2018. Democratic congresswoman
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez retweeted Martinez's post on Sunday evening
and declared that by repeatedly using the words "infestation" and
"invasion" to address a "specific, targeted group of people," Trump is
implying that they are "vermin."
"This is the language of white supremacy & it goes all the way to
the top," the freshman lawmaker tweeted. "It's not a matter of
political stances. This is stoking hatred + endangering the country."
Ronna McDaniel, Chair of the Republican National Committee,
says "No
thanks to Democrats..."
a tax credit of an annual $1k per child was raised to $2k.
The tax credit she's
talking about was passed during 2017, a time when Democrats were
effectively shut out of any
control of the government. She also makes a
pretty stupendous claim for the credit "lifting...Americans out of
poverty." The credit would, at best, lift a child out of food
insecurity to where a child could count on regular, nutritious food.
Not trivial, but nowhere near as significant as claimed. "Beto
Says Trump Is 'Encouraging' White Supremacist Violence With His
Racism" Actually, it can be. The term is "Stochastic Violence." The person who incites the violence is not directing a specific person to commit a specific action, the person committing the violence is not receiving a military-style order. Rather, the person who incites the violence speaks in general terms and the person who commits the violece understands what to do. It's kind of difficult for the US to make the case in Afghanistan that "We're here to save you" from the Taliban, ISIS, whatever, when the US is actually responsible for more civilian casualties than the "rebel" forces are. Progress
in Saudi Arabia! "Saudi
Arabia will allow women over 21 to travel without permission of male
guardianship" 12
billion tons of ice melt in Greenland in a single day. Post
includes pictures of seawater coming up through the sewers in Miami
Beach. Lengthy, thoughtful piece on the now-discarded INF Treaty.
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