Libertarian Republican Senator Rand Paul is in the news again, not because he said something and then decided he didn’t say it – that was last month’s news when he said that he would have voted for the Civil Rights Act, despite many recordings of him saying that he opposed the act. Sidenote – Those recordings do exist!
No, today, Rand Paul is in the news again because he has apparently forgotten the most basic principle of being a Libertarian – minding your own darn business even when it comes to foreign policies.
And Paul has often stated just that – that America should indeed mind our own business and not be the police of the world, that we should let the other nations take care of their own issues. But today in an op-ed, Rand Paul is now demanding military action to take care of ISIS.
“The military means to achieve these goals include airstrikes against ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria,” the Kentucky Republican and likely 2016 presidential hopeful wrote in an op-ed in TIME. “Such airstrikes are the best way to suppress ISIS’s operational strength and allow allies such as the Kurds to regain a military advantage.”
Paul’s hawkish turn comes after months of hedging and skeptical comments regarding U.S. involvement in Iraq and Syria. Yet Paul boasted on Thursday that as president he would have committed to a grand plan to eliminate ISIS earlier and more effectively than President Obama.
“If I had been in President Obama’s shoes, I would have acted more decisively and strongly against ISIS,” Paul said. “I would have called Congress back into session—even during recess.”
Another Sidenote: Rand Paul is not only trying to be president in 2016, he is also trying to unseat Mitt Romney as the official Flip-Flopper-In-Chief!
Former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnall is now officially a Republican. The man was found guilty today of 11 of 13 corruption counts, and his wife was found guilty of 9 of 13 counts.
A federal jury in Richmond convicted Bob McDonnell of 11 of the 13 counts he faced; Maureen McDonnell was convicted of nine of the 13 counts she had faced. Sentencing was scheduled for Jan. 6, and the couple could face decades in prison. Both bowed their heads and wept as a chorus of “guilty” kept coming from the court clerk.
The couple left the courtroom separately and remained apart. Bob McDonnell left first and walked into a witness waiting room; Maureen McDonnell came out later, hugging one of her daughters while weeping loudly. She went into a separate waiting room.
The couple was charged with doing favors for a wealthy vitamin executive in exchange for more than $165,000 in gifts and loans.
“This is a difficult and disappointing day for the commonwealth and its citizens. Public service frequently requires sacrifice and almost always requires financial sacrifice,” said Dana Boente, the U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Virginia.
The jurors all declined to speak to reporters as they left the courthouse through a back door.
Just a short while ago, Joan Rivers passed away in a New York hospital. She was 81 years old.
Joan’s daughter Melissa Rivers took her mom off life support so she could pass comfortably in a private room.
The death has been reported to the NYC Medical Examiner’s Office — and officials tell TMZ the office will open an investigation to determine cause of death.
Melissa just issued a statement saying, “It is with great sadness that I announce the death of my mother, Joan Rivers.” “She passed peacefully at 1:17 PM surrounded by family and close friends. My son and I would like to thank the doctors, nurses and staff of Mount Sinai hospital for the amazing care they provided for my mother.”
“Cooper and I have found ourselves humbled by the outpouring of love, support and prayers we have received from around the world.They have been heard and appreciated.”
NBC news is reporting that three senior members of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) – including an aide to its leader – were killed in a U.S. airstrike in Iraq, a senior Iraqi security official told NBC News Thursday. The strike on the ISIS stronghold of Mosul killed Abu Hajar Al-Sufi, an aide to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as well as an explosives operative and the military leader of nearby Tel Afar, the source said on condition of anonymity. Al Arabiya cited the Iraqi Defense Ministry saying Baghdadi’s aide had been killed.
Pentagon Spokesman Col. Steve Warren could not confirm the deaths and said ISIS leaders had not been targeted. But he added that if ISIS leaders were embedded “inside troop formations they are likely to be killed.” The U.S. has been carrying out airstrikes across the country’s north after the brutal terror group gained ground in a murderous sweep in June. The U.S. and the West have stepped up their rhetoric against the group after what Obama’s opponents said was a slow start in articulating a solution to the crisis.
While the president considers the best strategy to combat the ISIS threat in Syria, Congress is preparing to give the Commander in Chief any authorization needed for an all out war if necessary.
Rep. Frank R. Wolf, R-Va., said in a statement Wednesday he will introduce legislation when Congress reconvenes next week that would authorize the use of military force against ISIS and other terror groups around the world, including al Nusra, Ansar al Sharia, al Shabaab and Boko Haram.
Separately, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Wednesday in Virginia that Congress should not leave town in September without considering an authorization to use force against ISIS.
Wolf’s proposal comes one day after Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., announced a similar bill for the Senate as lawmakers from both chambers and both parties expressed anger and frustration over Tuesday’s release of another video showing the beheading of an American journalist by the jihadi insurgents.
“This will ensure there’s no question that the president has the legal authority he needs to use airstrikes in Syria,” Nelson said in a release.
ISIS has released two videos showing the executions of Americans — and threatened more — since U.S. forces interceded last month in northern Iraq, bombing insurgent positions in support of Kurdish fights and Iraqi government forces
Remove the ISIS flag from this picture and leave the baby surrounded by guns and grenades, and what you end up with is still a sickening image that the gun nuts here in America would gladly endorse.
The chilling image is the latest photo believed to have been posted by militants fighting in Syria and Iraq as part of their online propaganda campaign.
It shows the child – who appears to be less than six months old – lying on its back on the black flag now associated with the group terrorising the Middle East.
Where other babies its age might have soft toys scattered around them, the child has been cynically positioned next to a Kalashnikov rifle, a pistol and hand grenades.
If there was anything that brings out the dumb American low brow crowd it’s a crisis involving terrorists and Americans in danger. I will get this out of the way early so some of you don’t stroke out before getting to the end of this column…the beheadings of the journalists in Syria/Iraq are disgusting, awful, horrific, and any other horrible word you can come up with…there ya go!..horrible as well. Of course the reaction to these two grotesque (another word!) videos from the American right wing has been all out hysteria. “Do something Obamaaaaaaa!!!” is what I see from these people on Facebook and Twitter. The right wing pols like dementia ridden John McCain claim Obama is “too cautious” and “not showing leadership skills.” Since this comes from the SAME people who were 110 percent behind George W. Bush I can only say one thing, GO FUCK YOURSELVES. Let’s not forget why there is an ISIS to begin with.
There is an ISIS because of one person and only one person, George W. Bush. This is why instead of dumping ice water on his head it should have been a bucket of Iraqi blood. In a normal country with intelligent people this would be on the news every hour of every day. The story line would be a President who once again has to clean up the mess of his predecessor. He had to do it with the economy, wall street, Bin Laden, Iraq and so on and so forth. Now he has to do it with ISIS.
You see Iraq was a sovereign nation before Bush destroyed it. Perfect? No. But the United States is far far far from perfect. But groups like ISIS didn’t exist and wouldn’t exist if the USA didn’t turn Iraq into something out of a Mad Max film. This is the fault of the guy before Obama,but right on cue the mainstream media starts beating the war drums and questioning Obama’s strategy. Not a word about why we are in the mess to begin with, not a hard question posed to any Republican politician about how wrong they were in the first place and how they are more to blame for this than the President who was against the Iraq invasion. That old case of short term amnesia that the media and American public get when something that Bush did comes back to haunt the country…again.
I’m consistently stunned by how dumb the American public are and how the media just plays into that dumbness. We just had a President who rushed into a quagmire that cost so many lives, foreign and domestic. That cost us billions of dollars that we didn’t have, that caused nation after nation to either hate us or not want to do any kind of militaristic business with us anymore. That is why Obama will now have trouble getting other countries on board with just about anything he wants to do. Bush fucked that up too. They don’t trust us anymore and who can blame them?
Yet there are the old Neo-Cons coming back out of the closet whenever there is a place they want to bomb. The moron Americans who need another ‘Shock and Awe’ moment to satisfy their cravings for revenge. A normal, sane person, like the President, views those horrible videos, feels anger and sorrow, maybe a slight inclination for revenge, then thinks…yes thinks about the best possible way to stop the group that committed those atrocities from advancing and doing even more harm. The BEST way, not the quickest or the way that FEELS the best, that satisfies some blood lust or need to just strike back for PR purposes.
So Obama comes out and says that he really isn’t sure of a strategy at this point and of course this becomes a clarion call for every hard-on right winger who wants to blame him and call him indecisive. Because he didn’t stride to the podium like a cowboy with shit in his pants, arms to the side, head cocked out and talking about smoking things out of holes. Whatever that means. There were actually some people who were begging for some tough talk. As though that changes anything!
There is no easy answer. You see there WAS an easy answer, it was not going into Iraq in the first place. It was not duping Americans into believing Saddam Hussein had anything to do with 9/11 or that he had weapons of mass destruction that were going to be used against us in the next ten minutes. That was the easy answer but it’s gone baby gone. Now we are really in a world of shit. Now we have ISIS, the new boogeyman that we want gone from our nightmares.
ISIS is a problem and a threat. Yet not a threat to the USA homeland. They aren’t invading us anytime soon, nor will they ever be able to. They are a bunch of really fucked up bad guys who have no morals. They kill innocent civilians and U.S. journalists and yes it’s just terrible. Add them to the list of terrible things we have in this world now. We certainly don’t need them because the list is already too long to mention.
What we do need is a President that actually thinks before he acts. Even though his options are so limited because of the damage the monkey from Texas did. Yet he will think and he will find a way to try and contain ISIS. Forget about destroying them, ain’t gonna happen. There will be no prolonged war, no large contingent of “boots on the ground” (the new favorite term for newsies who want to sound like they know shit about the military). Not happening. As Obama has told us many times, we could not leave troops in Iraq as the Iraqi government did not want them there and would not give any protections to those troops. They could have been arrested or worse if they did something the government didn’t like. So he did what was promised and gave the Iraqi’s the freedom they wanted and at the same time he protected our troops.
Who knows though, if we never went into Iraq, if we had kept other nations on our side, if we had the money and the backing of the American people, then maybe, just maybe if ISIS or a group like it had somehow popped up, we would be able to do things differently. But that’s neither here nor there now. Because Bush ruined everything, destroyed everything, depleted everything.
So Obama once again has to clean up Bush’s shit.
Luckily we have the right guy in the White House to do it.
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