What now Republicans? What great idea do you have now to fight ISIS. “Arm the rebels” you screamed every day on my television and although the president told you that was not a good idea, you screamed louder. Well the President listened, and now it has been confirmed that ISIS has our weapons!
What now Republicans? We are giving them weapons to fight us! Not Smart! Unless… wait a second… was this your plan all along?
The Pentagon confirmed Wednesday that Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighters took possession of a stray bundle of U.S.-airdropped weapons and other supplies in the Syrian border town of Kobani earlier this week.
The U.S. had dropped 28 bundles filled with grenades, mortar rounds and other supplies intended for Kurdish fighters in Kobani battling ISIS, but at least one had gone astray and was immediately destroyed.
However, Pentagon officials confirmed a second one had gone off course and ended up in enemy hands. A YouTube video uploaded on Tuesday appeared to show an ISIS militant going through an array of boxes, at least two of which contained grenades.
“We have determined a second bundle also went astray,” Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren acknowledged on Wednesday.”There’s always going to be some margin of error” when airdropping supplies, Warren added. “Wind can cause a parachute to move off its intended target.”
John Boehner, the Republican House Speaker and leader of the cowards in the House of Representatives, told The New York Times that the goal of this Congress has absolutely nothing to do with the Constitution. The leader of the congressional cowards explained their main goal is sitting back and waiting ’till next year when hopefully that congress will have a backbone and do what is required of them.
Are you aware that we are fighting a war? The United States is leading a the fight against ISIS, or ISIL as they are called by White House personnel. And according to the United States Constitution, it is the job of Congress to declare war. But this is an election year and the cowards in Congress are more concerned with appearing favorably in the eyes of their constituents.
These cowards want to be reelected, and holding a vote for or against war could have negative effects on their reelection chances. So they have decided to do nothing – like they have done since taking office – hoping that the next congress in 2015 will be brave enough to actually do what the Constitution demands.
In his interview with the New York Times, Boehner explained that a new congress would be the ones holding this vote on war! The war we have already began fighting.
Doing this with a whole group of members who are on their way out the door, I don’t think that is the right way to handle this.”
The amazing and ironic thing is that John Boehner and the Republicans in Congress are currently suing President Obama for following his constitutional authorities. They claim that the President is doing too much through Executive Privileges, and they are taking the president to court to essentially stop him from working. This war against ISIS, or ISIL as thery are called by White House personnel, is the work of the President. Knowing that congress would not act, the President is yet again, left holding the bag, doing it on his own.
But what about the Constitution, the document every member of Congress swore to uphold when they took office? What should happen when these members, these congressional cowards decide for whatever reason, to turn their back on the the very document they are supposed to follow? That Constitution, that document containing the rules, the regulations and what is expected of every member of Congress. That document they pledged to follow. What happens when they choose to rip that document to pieces?
Republicans say their are the protectors of the Constitution. They print it up into little booklets and it is required reading by all when it fits their politics. But when their leaders blatantly disregard the document, blatantly refuse to follow its requirements, these same “protectors of the Constitution” turn a blind eye and vote again, and again, to keep their so-called ‘leaders’ in office.
And somewhere along the way, our democracy suffers and the society that separates us from the rest of the world crumbles. These so-called leaders are ripping apart the very fabric of what makes us exceptional, but, whatever. No one cares!
Dozens of Turkish hostages abducted by Islamist militants in northern Iraq were freed Saturday after three months in captivity, CNN reports.
Militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria raided the Turkish consulate in June and seized 49 people, including Consul General Ozturk Yilmaz.
Others abducted included his family, children and other citizens who were at the consulate in Mosul at the time, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.
Of the total, three were local employees and 46 were Turkish citizens. All were freed and the latter are now in their home country, Turkish authorities said.
It’s unclear how they were freed, but Erdogan thanked Turkish intelligence officials in a statement on his website.
“I thank … every single member of the national intelligence agency from the director to the field operatives,” he said. “I congratulate them for their big success from the bottom of my heart.”
I’ve always found it interesting when the calendar changes to the day after Labor Day and the country gets serious. The rest of the world doesn’t know from this holiday and I’m sure there’s a great deal of literature on how the calendar affects world affairs. Thus, here we are.
The world continues to be on fire. ISIS, Syria, Israel, Palestine, West Africa, and English towns that breed terrorists are mainstays of the 24-hour news cycle. The president is excoriated for suggesting that we are at a loss over what to do about increasing threats overseas. Texas is on alert for possible infiltration across the Mexican border. But don’t worry about that too much because Chris Christie was just in Mexico and I’m sure he’ll scare off the militants. Of course, he hasn’t a clue about foreign policy, but at least he didn’t pull a Romney on his first foreign trip.
On the domestic political front, the big issue is that Congress is going to meet for a few days, adjourn, and go home to run for those all-important safe seats that 96% of the members occupy. Excepting, of course, those few Senate seats that are up for grabs. It’s interesting to note that except for 2010, a big exception, I know, the Republican moon-bayers have been unable to defeat Obama and the Democrats and scare the country into giving the conservatives the control they will never, ever have. Yes, the House has been able to wreak havoc on the country and, by the by, their own party, but they have not been successful at implementing their agenda. They’ve only stymied the Democrats but for the 2009-2011 Congressional session.
Oh, and that ACA law thing? It’s working fairly well. You know, millions of people now have health insurance, doctors are able to give elderly people more care, poor people can get Medicaid, except in states that don’t take free money but say they are fiscally responsible. But no worries on that because those states that deny the money are actually paying so that the states that did take free Medicaid money can cover their populations. I live in one of those states. My governor wants to be president. Scared yet?
But if the Senate goes to the GOP, then both houses of Congress will vote to repeal the ACA, right? Well, possibly, but right now the GOP isn’t taking the Senate. And chances are good that they won’t. You heard it here third.
After seeing the brutal killing of American journalist James Foley last week, Shirley Sotloff, mother of another captured American journalist Steven Sotloff, issued a video plea to the leader of the terrorist group asking for her son’s release.
“”Steven is a journalist who traveled to the Middle East to cover the suffering of Muslims at the hands of tyrants. Steven is a loyal and generous son, brother and grandson,” Shirley Sotloff says, adding that her son “is an honorable man and has always tried to help the weak.”
“I ask you to please release my child,” she says, “I plead with you to grant me this.”
U.S. special operations forces early this summer launched a secret, major rescue operation in Syria to save James Foley and a number of Americans held by the extremist group ISIS, but the mission failed because the hostages weren’t there, senior administration officials told ABC News today.
President Obama authorized the “substantial and complex” rescue operation after the officials said a “broad collection of intelligence” led the U.S. to believe the hostages were being held in a specific location in the embattled Middle Eastern nation.
When “several dozen” U.S. special operation members landed in Syria, however, they were met with gunfire and “while on site, it became apparent the hostages were not there,” one of the officials said. The special operators engaged in a firefight in which ISIS suffered “a good number” casualties, the official said, while the American forces suffered only a single minor injury.
The American forces were able to get back on helicopters and escape.
“Intelligence is not a perfect science,” the senior official said. As to how the intelligence failed and why the hostages were not there, the official said, “The truth is, we don’t know. And that’s the truth. When we got there, they weren’t there. We don’t know why that is.”
You would think, from all the talk about the midterm elections and the final two years of the Obama Administration, that the president doesn’t matter anymore or that absolutely nothing will get done in Washington between now and January 2017. While we may be fighting political gridlock, and the possibility that few if any consequential laws will be passed soon, the rest of the world is not stopping nor is our country’s need for attention to our very real problems. The Republicans in Congress have made it clear that they do not want to work with Barack Obama or give him any victories from which the Democrats can claim any advantage going into the 2016 election season. This is no way to run a country, and we will pay a price in the future for our inability to act now.
There is no shortage of media stories purporting to paint Obama as a lame duck before his time, abandoning his legislative agenda in favor of executive orders and agency rule-writing. The problem with this interpretation is that Obama’s actions, especially on the environment, will have a profound effect on business and industry. New rules that detail how much a company can pollute and whether they need to clean up their emissions is no small matter. If it was, then the various business groups that oppose these changes wouldn’t be making so much noise.
The same is true with the Affordable Care Act. Yes, two Circuit Courts did issue contradictory rulings last week about whether people who buy policies on the federal exchange are entitled to subsidies, but in the end I believe that the law will be upheld and the subsidies will remain in place. I base this not on my fine reading of the law, but on the fact that by the time the Supreme Court gets the case, upwards of 30 million people will be covered by federal subsidies and the cost of ending them will be too much of a disruption to the country. Just as the Supreme Court ruled that police can’t search cell phones without a warrant mainly because the justices understood first hand what that would entail, so they will understand what it means to take health care away from people or make it unaffordable. Either Roberts or Kennedy will provide the deciding vote in any future case; the former to maintain his legacy, the latter because he tends to see applicability more than the other conservatives. The result of any case will be the president having to issue orders or to order executive branch offices to maintain the law so that it continues to honor its promises.
The president is never a lame duck when it comes to foreign policy, and Obama will not be an exception. The world is on fire as we speak and the United States will play a role in unwinding many of the conflicts that engulf it. Critics have been unsparing in their denunciations of Obama’s seemingly uninspiring handling of foreign affairs, but many on the right are calling for actions that the United States will not, and should not, take, such as sending troops or issuing ultimatums. Economic sanctions will have an effect on Vladimir Putin, and I think he understands this which is why he continues to push for separatist actions in Ukraine. Obama’s continuing contact with Benjamin Netanyahu will result in a cease-fire and long-term cessation of hostilities because the American president still carries great weight in the region. Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya look hopeless, but a concerted American effort will yield some results. Ultimately, these countries will have to solve problems on their own, but each will look abroad for help. Obama will be there.
Labeling a president as a lame duck is dangerous business in today’s world technology has made everything faster and response time smaller. The economy is improving, but if the gains in the stock market prove to be a bubble, then the president will need to act quickly. Any number of natural disasters would require a response. And if the GOP ever gets the message that tax policy, infrastructure improvements and immigration really do need more attention than suing or impeaching Obama, then perhaps we could have a significant bill before the next election.
David Gregory is an asshole. So is EVERY mainstream media moron who does a “segment” with one of the Bush cronies who got us into the Iraq war to begin with over 10 years ago. We know the right-wing plan is to simply prey on the ignorance of Americans (always their plan) and pretend Bush and company never existed. That the Iraq war is Obama’s fault because hey Mr. and Mrs. Shit kicker..he’s President now ain’t he??
Yes the ignorant American public, the uneducated masses who allow the Republican party to exist since we know it couldn’t exist anywhere else. But OK, we expect it from the R’s. We don’t expect the media, the people who are supposedly intelligent to comply with the right wingers game plan (hey, what happened to the “liberal” media?) This is exactly what they do when people like Gregory or Anderson Cooper put guys like Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol, Dick Cheney, Ari Fleischer, John McCain, et al. on national television to ask their “advice” on what to do now in Iraq.
Let me ask these media folks a question. Would you put on a serial killer to talk about gun control? A rapist to talk about women’s rights?
We know the answer, it’s a simple one. So why the fuck do they continue to put these Iraq war architects on to get their advice on how to quell the fighting in Iraq? The same guys who claimed the war would be done with quickly. The same guys who thought it was the right time for Bush to dress like a dick and step off an aircraft carrier to proclaim “Mission Accomplished.” The same politicians who were one hundred percent behind the war to begin with.
Kristol, the arrogant know nothing killer of women and children, said back in 2003 that the war would be over “in two months.” Two fucking months! Yet there he is on “Meet the Press” being asked by that putz Gregory, “What should we do now Mr. Kristol?” It’s unbelievable! Tim Russert must be turning over in his grave knowing that he would have simply pulled the video of Kristol saying the war would end in two months back in 2003 and ask him why should anyone listen to him now?
THAT would be the question to ask if someone had the urge to put this bullshit artist on television. This is what Paul Wolfowitz said in 2003…“It’s hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam’s security forces and his army. Hard to imagine.” Hard to imagine yes, because it actually happened! Yet there he is, another mass murderer on national television shows being asked his “expert advice.” As though this son of a bitch actually walks on two legs.
Want more?
Dick Cheney is 2003..”My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.”
“I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.”
John McCain..“Make it a hundred…That would be fine with me.” -to a questioner who asked if he supported President Bush’s vision for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq for 50 years.
Paul Wolfowitz in 2003..“There’s a lot of money to pay for this. It doesn’t have to be U.S. taxpayer money. We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.”
I could go on and on and on…doesn’t matter. Aside from people like Ed Schultz and Lawrence O’Donnell, we see this pattern of putting people who are a total failure on television and asking their opinion and advice on major, life or death situations and policy. As though all of recent history has been erased. As if the thousands upon thousands of deaths, both U.S. military and Iraqi civilians never happened at all. It’s disgusting and unethical.
Yet they continue to get away with this lazy, intellect free journalism because the average citizen of this country doesn’t have a clue. They failed in school and they continue to fail in life. History doesn’t matter.
The President of the United States spoke today about the unfolding crisis in Iraq and America’s role, if any, in bringing some form of stability to the country.
This is Sergeant Major Charles Bunyan and his beautiful family. They are truly wonderful people who go above and beyond what it means to be a military family. They are people that go out of their way to help anyone in need and are happy to do it.
SGM Bunyan is an exemplary leader in the New York Army National Guard and has helped so many soldiers find their way. His wife, Joan Is always there with a helping hand, a listening ear or any support she can give. She gives love and support to so many people and asks nothing in return. Their eldest daughter Brianna, and youngest daughter Lilly are about as sweet as they come. Two incredibly pure-hearted girls raised in a home filled with love.
Tragically, on December 19th, this amazing family was dealt quite a serious blow. Brianna ( the eldest daughter, 18) died in a car accident. The pain this family is going through this Christmas season is an unbearable one no person deserves. Especially not such good, giving people. These people have brightened so many lives. All I ask is that you click the link below and give back to this incredible family in their time of need. ANY AMOUNT WILL DO. No donation is too small or too big.
This fund was set up by Master Sergeant Adam Tucciariello, one of the many soldiers who has experienced the love and support the Bunyan family has to offer.
Things were hairy there for a couple of months, what with the government shutdown (Republicans’ fault) and the still incomprehensible fail of the healthcare website (all you, Democrats), but slowly and surely, things seem to be turning around, just in time for the holidays.
The best part, though, is that thousands of people are effectively signing up for health insurance through state exchanges and Medicaid, and will soon have a much better experience on healthcare.gov. I went on the site and breezed through the process here in New Jersey. In late October, that didn’t happen.
Of course, this will be a long, messy process. The Saudis and Israelis are wary and nervous about a reinvigorated Iran, and for good reason. Iran threatens the Saudi near-monopoly on oil in the region and their Sunni government is a natural enemy for the Iranian Shiite mullahs who really run the country. Israel is, of course, afraid that Iran will ignore any limits placed on it by a treaty and once their economy improves, will go ahead and build nuclear weapons and use them on Jerusalem.
If you thought it was difficult to solve the Israeli-Palestinian issue, then this will be well-nigh impossible, but it has to work. Iran once had a vibrant economy and the people are committed to a free-market system. The religious leaders might have to make more concessions to the business sector, as the Chinese Communist Party has done in the name of capitalism, and my sense is that a rising middle class will not look kindly on a regime that would threaten that prosperity with a risky and suicidal strike on Israel. And really, do you think Iran would nuke the Old City, with its timeless Muslim shrines? I might be naive, but I don’t.
As for the Saudis, they have been fed on American weapons and support, while suppressing any free speech or political movements that could give women the right to drive, much less tolerate a free press or alternative political parties. Yet we see them as an ally and the somewhat more free Iranians as the third leg of the axis of evil. Never forget that 15 of the 19 September 11 conspirators were radicalized Saudis. That says something about the level of repression inside that country. I suspect that their bigger fear is what their society will need to undergo in order to compete in a world where Iran and Iraq have freer economies.
Clearly, we are at the beginning of the process and Obama and Kerry have to make sure that Israel is protected from any mischief, nuclear or otherwise. But Israel also has to solve its own problem with settlements and a two state solution to the Palestinian problem. Interesting times indeed.
The Republicans, and some influential Democrats such as Charles Schumer of New York, have lined up against the Iran agreement and the Republicans continue to hope and pray that people don’t sign up for health care. In addition, the House has said that they won’t be voting on the immigration bill this year (though most Americans support a path to citizenship), and this while Chris Christie is considering supporting a Dreamer bill in New Jersey (or at least the idea of one). As long as the GOP hard right continues to play hardball, the Democrats will begin to look better and better as we move towards November. Something to be thankful for?
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