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.
After finding Theodore Wafer guilty of killing Renisha McBride on his front porch when she knocked his door seeking help, the sentence for the crime was handed down today and 55-year-old Wafer will be locked away for a long time.
After an emotional trial in a city where racial tensions have been escalating during bankruptcy proceedings, Wafer was sentenced Wednesday to 17 to 32 years in prison as McBride’s family watched. Wafer is white and McBride was black.
“I do not believe that you are a coldblooded murderer or that this case had anything to do with race,” Judge Dana M. Hathaway told Wafer as she handed down the sentence. “I do believe that you acted out of fear, but an unjustified fear has never been an excuse for taking someone’s life.”
Wafer’s attorneys have already said that he plans to appeal. Wafer, an airport maintenance worker, read a short apology in court.
“To the parents, family and friends of Renisha McBride, I apologize from the bottom of my heart and I am truly sorry for your loss. I can only hope and pray,” he said, tearing up, “that somehow you can forgive me.”
Wafer will serve 17 years before he is up for parole
Victimizing the victim! Of course! Why not. This is how they make and deliver ‘news.’ It’s how they contaminate any potential jurors against Mike Brown. This is how they cultivate people’s opinion, planting doubts about the victim and raising questions like, was Brown really capable of being a good kid? This is how they attempt to soften the effects of this horrendous crime, where a police officer opened fire, almost emptying his clip as the unarmed teenager ran away for his life.
Requesting this information about Brown’s past served no real constructive purpose of course but Charles C. Johnson, a conservative blogger, and The Post-Dispatch filed a petition in St. Louis County Circuit Court to unseal and reveal something, anything to show that Brown may have had a ‘criminal’ past. Johnson and others have claimed that Brown was facing a murder charge at the time he was shot to death.
Cynthia Harcourt, a lawyer for St. Louis County Juvenile Officer Kip Seely, argued against releasing those records, but acknowledged there were no convictions for the most serious types of felonies. After the hearing, she told the Post-Dispatch Brown was not facing any serious felony charges when he died.
Class A felonies include second-degree murder and first-degree robbery; the penalties in adult court range from 10 years in prison to death. Class B felonies include voluntary manslaughter, second-degree robbery and first-degree burglary, with a maximum penalty of five to 15 years.
So, do you think they will stop victimizing the victim now that his records show no serious infractions? Do you think they will now look at the record of officer Darren Wilson – the actual killer – to see whst his past looks like?
The vice president expressed some of the same sentiments shared by many Americans who saw the brutal murders of American journalists, James Foley and Steven Sotloff. And in his statements today, Joe Biden promised that we will follow ISIL and bring them to justice, even if it means taking a trip “to the gates of hell.”
Speaking at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Biden said the Islamic State militant group responsible for beheading James Foley and Steven Sotloff won’t intimidate the United States.
“The American people are so much stronger, so much more resolved than any enemy can fully understand,” Biden said. “As a nation, we’re united. And when people harm Americans, we don’t retreat, we don’t forget.”
A videotape showing Sotloff’s murder was broadcast Tuesday, two weeks after the same group released a video showing Foley’s killing. Foley was from New Hampshire and Sotloff attended school there, bringing their killings close to home at the shipyard situated on an island in a river that runs between Maine and New Hampshire.
“We take care of those who are grieving and when that’s finished, they should know we will follow them to the gates of hell until they are brought to justice,” Biden said. “Because hell is where they’ll reside.”
I was going to name this post, “Laura Ingraham Thinks Black People Voting is Pointless,” but who am I fooling. Laura Ingraham does not think, so the title would have been absurd.
As she filled the seat of Fox’s Bill O’Reilly, who was missing in action, Ingraham focused on the voter registration efforts going on in Ferguson MO., after the murder of unarmed black teen Mike Brown. It is apparently Laura’s thinking (there I go again with the thinking thing) that black people going to the polls to have a say in who gets elected is a divisive act, spearheaded by Democrats to keep senate seats. Nothing else.
“The racists are coming, the racists are coming” Laura says, implying that those words are being used by Democrats to get Blacks to the polls. And she concluded by saying that having back people vote would not stop the next Mike Brown, would not keep black men out of jails or give black people jobs.
Now, besides the obvious racism in Laura’s commentary suggesting that black men are jobless convicts with no hope or future, her suggestion that blacks should not vote because their life will remain the same shows her obvious bias and racism. If voting is pointless for blacks and minorities, then shouldn’t we expect similar commentary telling whites to stay home on election day?
Of course that advice to whites will never come, for it is the hope of racists like Laura Ingraham, to keep minorities in the minority. To have them think that voting is silly and trivial, and a waste of their time. Laura Ingraham and all the other Republicans in government know, that the best way to keep minorities in the minority is to take away their right to vote.
The Secretary of State released a statement regarding ISIS and their second beheading of an American freelance journalist, calling the acts “unfathomable brutality” and an “act of medieval savagery by a coward hiding behind a mask.”
Yesterday, the world bore witness again to the unfathomable brutality of ISIL terrorist murderers when we saw Steven Sotloff, an American journalist who left home in Florida to tell the story of brave people in the Middle East, taken from us in an act of medieval savagery by a coward hiding behind a mask.
There are no words strong enough to express the sorrow we feel for his family, particularly his mother, whose heartbreaking video plea spoke to every single parent who has ever worried about a son or daughter who goes to dangerous places to do the work they love.
This young man was a driven and courageous journalist, reporting from places like Syria, Libya, and Egypt. Steven Sotloff’s reporting was as empathetic as his killers are evil. He focused on the stories of average people trapped in war, and documented their day-in and day-out struggle for dignity. Like Martha Gellhorn, he chronicled humanity in the face of inhumanity, and he told the story of enormous generational events as if they were happening to someone you knew from your own life.
For so many who worked so long to bring Steven and the other Americans home safely, this was not how the story should’ve ended. It’s a punch to the gut. The U.S. Government has used every military, diplomatic, and intelligence tool we have, and we always will. Our special operations forces bravely risked a military operation to save these lives, and we’ve reached out diplomatically to everyone and anyone who might be able to help. That effort continues, and our prayers remain – as they always are – with the families of all hostages who remain trapped in Syria today.
Barbarity, sadly, isn’t new to our world. Neither is evil. We’ve taken the fight to it before, and we’re taking the fight to it today. When terrorists anywhere around the world have murdered our citizens, the United States held them accountable, no matter how long it took. And those who have murdered James Foley and Steven Sotloff in Syria should know that the United States will hold them accountable too, no matter how long it takes.
I remember a time when democracy meant the best man won. When two candidates put forth their vision of how they would help their constituents and the people voted based on who they thought had a better plan to right the wrongs and make things better.
Those days are long gone as voters today would prefer to suffer the consequences of their vote and elect someone with a proven record of destruction, simply because that someone is of their political party.
This poll from the Republican state of Florida proves my point, as Republican governor Rick Scott – Mr. Destruction himself – has a better shot of winning in the midterm election for governor over his democratic challenge Charlie Crist.
Scott received support from 40.9 percent of those surveyed, Crist drew 35.7 percent and Libertarian Adrian Wyllie 6.3 percent. When asked to choose between only Scott and Crist, Scott’s lead grew to 6 points over Crist, 43.7 percent to 37.6 percent.
An overwhelming seven in 10 voters said the governor “can do a lot” about the state’s economy, while 48.7 percent said Florida’s economy is recovering and another 25.2 percent said it will recover soon.
You’ve always heard that cops and ticket agents have daily or monthly quotas they must meet. That they must generate a certain amount of cash from the people they’re supposedly “serving.” And you may have found this hard to believe. How can police intentionally go after ordinary citizens, sometimes setting up traffic-traps to force people into breaking the law in order to issue them a ticket?
The north Florida town of Waldo has long had a reputation as a speed trap, and it’s no wonder. A small segment of highway that runs through Waldo requires drivers to speed up and slow down six times: 65 mph becomes 55 mph; 55 becomes 45; then goes back to 55; then back down to 45; to 55 again and eventually, 35 mph.
AAA named the tiny town between Jacksonville and Gainesville one of only two “traffic traps” nationwide and even placed an attention-getting billboard outside the limits of the town to warn drivers to slow down before entering.
Now Waldo faces a scandal following allegations that the town victimizes motorists to turn a profit. Two police chiefs have been suspended, the police department has rebelled and the state is investigating possible wrongdoing.
The situation simmered for years until this month, when Police Chief Mike Szabo was suspended Aug. 12, apparently in response to an investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement into suspected improprieties in the way officers write tickets.
The issue then burst into the open two weeks later at a Waldo City Council meeting, when a group of police officers said they had been ordered by Szabo to write at least 12 tickets per 12-hour shift or face repercussions.
The officers also leveled allegations at the Aug. 26 meeting against Cpl. Kenneth Smith, who had been picked to fill in for Szabo. The officers complained that Smith had, among other things, mishandled evidence. The city council then suspended Smith.
Not surprisingly, things are tense at the tiny stucco storefront office that serves as Waldo City Hall. On Friday morning, Mayor Louie Davis and City Manager Kim Worley met in a small cluttered office to discuss the controversy, slamming a door shut with a “no comment” when a reporter walked in seeking information.
According to the sheriff, all the necessary precautions were followed. “Nothing done wrong,” the sheriff said, yet, a 7-year-old California boy was shot in his chest and nobody knows how it happened!
The boy, whose identity was not published, was shooting at a range set up on his parents’ property. He was shooting a single-shot .22-caliber bolt-action youth rifle on Saturday, while supervised by his father. The sheriff said that there was no one shooting in the boy’s direction, but still, the boy grabbed his chest and complained of pain. When his dad looked down and saw the bullet hole in his shirt, the boy was rushed to a local fire station and later air lifted to the hospital.
The sheriff and the boy’s family are baffled. The case in being investigated.
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