Jewish voices for peace and Ralph Nader (video)

Ashley Wells, Sheldon S., CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Ralph Nader, Mitch Jeserich (KPFA.org, Berkeley); Amy Goodman, Nermeen Shaikh (DemocracyNow.org, July 31, 2014)

Why do you steal our homes, take our land, and kill us, even our babies? - I'dunno, it's my job. I was only following orders. Hey, why do wear that towel? (Corey Gil-Schuster/Ask-Project)

• AUDIO: Ralph Nader on Israel's US-backed wars and war crime: Amazing new information on the American history of this endless "conflict"

A Venerable Jewish Voice for Peace

Amy Goodman with Denis Moynihan
The Israeli assault on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip has entered its fourth week. Henry Siegman, a venerable dean of American Jewish thought and president of the U.S./Middle East Project, sat down for an interview with Democracy Now! An ordained rabbi, Siegman is the former executive director of the American Jewish Congress and former executive head of the Synagogue Council of America, two of the [three] major, mainstream Jewish organizations in the U.S. [The other being the ADL.] He says the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories must end [now]. LISTEN

• U.S. Jewish leader to Israel: Stop killing Palestinians and end [your illegal] occupation

Death toll tops 1300. "Enough blood has been spilled": Israel CONDEMNED for striking U.N. shelter with precision bomb (then trying to blame war crime on Hamas' homemade rockets)

Iron Dome or Iron Sieve? Evidence questions effectiveness of US-funded Israeli missile shield

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has publicly condemned Israel for what he called its "outrageous" and "unjustifiable" shelling of a U.N. shelter in Gaza that killed 20 Palestinian civilians on Wednesday.

Many of the dead were children who were sleeping. The U.N. itself has not directly condemned Israel [how could it with the U.S. promoting and protecting Israel's war crimes?] But it admits that all available evidence points to Israel's responsibility for the terrorist act and crime against humanity.

It was the sixth time Israel had hit [targeted] a U.N. shelter since the Israeli offensive in Gaza began 24 days ago. The United Nations said it had given the coordinates of the shelter to the Israeli military 17 times prior to the attack. [They knew exactly where to aim or to definitively avoid aiming.] 

 

According to the United Nations, more than 240,000 Palestinians are now staying in U.N. shelters in Gaza. Another 200,000 Palestinians have been displaced and are staying with other overcrowded families without sufficient food or water. 

Democracy Now! is joined by Christopher Gunness, spokesperson for the the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. "UNRWA has reached a breaking point," Gunness says. "Eight of our staff have been killed. Our facilities are overwhelmed. Because of the continued displacement...we may soon find ourselves where there are tens of thousands of people in the streets of Gaza -- no food, no water, no shelter, no safety [suffering illegal collective punishment at the hands of Israel's military], frankly, after we’ve found that Israeli artillery is capable of hitting our shelters. And we’re saying: enough is enough."

Pres. Obama moves for WAR on Iraq (video)

Ashley Wells, Pat Macpherson, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly; DemocracyNow.org

I don't care about 4.5 thousand patriot GIs, what do I care about 1.4 million civilians? (DK)

OO-RAH, woo-hoo, yes! We get to go back to kill a new generation of kids and Hajjis!

Not so fast, NY Times, propagand of record. It's not over till it's over. And it ain't over.

.

We Meant Well in Iraq (look inside)

WASHINGTON DC (WQ/AP/FOX/LIP) President Barack S. Obama says the U.S. is prepared to take targeted military actions [more "smart" bombs, "precision" bombing runs, and "surgical" strikes?] in Iraq if they would help fight a growing threat from extremist militants. He also says the U.S. is ready to send as many as 300 military "advisers" [a euphemism for special forces soldier] to Iraq.

Obama is offering an update to U.S. operations in Iraq, where "al-Qaeda-inspired" militants have sparked instability. He says the United States is forming joint operations centers in Baghdad and northern Iraq.

But Obama emphasizes that American combat troops would not be returning to Iraq [unless they do, which will be decided later].

See how they love me in Orange County? I'm The Decider now. Forget Dick Cheney!

 

Obama says the U.S. has increased its intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance [spying and exploiting of assets, and war-as-usual] operations in Iraq to better understand the threats to Baghdad. [Having traded blood for oil, we have more blood to trade so we have to protect the refineries innocent people of Iraq.]


Extended: see Minute 1:40 when Megyn Kelly begins her surprise attack on the former VP

Megyn cannibalizes Right Dick

(Occupy Democrats) Dick Cheney was blamed for the CURRENT crisis in Iraq on the rightwing haven FOX News of all places. During an interview with mouthpiece Megyn "Reagan" Kelly (The Kelly File) where Dick attempted to pin the blame on his relative Pres. Obama.
 

Shoot me in the face, Meg?

Cheney attempted to absolve the previous three Bush administrations of any responsibility for Iraq's disarray saying that they went into the country for good reasons, which we turned out to be deliberate lies used as pretexts for imperial invasions and US war crimes. Dick claims the results were "positive." Lip News looks at Cheney's deflection in this Lip clip with Mark Sovel and Lissette Padilla. See Megyn Kelly's full interview with the Cheneys.

 .

A Buddhist in Congress tries to stop this War

Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez (DemocracyNow.org); Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

I will say anything to get elected and reelected. But I do what the MIC directs me to.

.

That was wishful thinking by the NYT

Buddhist Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (Democrat, Hawaii) on Thursday said that she will stop President Obama, who unilaterally announced the deployment of up to 300 military "advisers" [that's what we called boots on the ground in our war on Vietnam] to Iraq.
 
He is using expanded executive war powers applicable to Iraq and Afghanistan (AUMF) invented using the 9/11 pretext and Patriot Act, which means he can make initial moves without declaring war or asking Congress for permission before sinking the country in yet another war. (Of course, we never left Iraq, and we have no plans to leave Afghanistan; all we are going to do is change the name of "soldiers" to "advisors," "contractors," "experts," and "investors."
 

What Bush/Cheney started Obama intensifies.

The president, face, and mouthpiece for the MIC (military-industrial complex) left open the possibility of U.S. airstrikes against Sunni Muslim "militants" who are said to have taken back large parts of their country. Democracy Now! goes to Capitol Hill to speak to Democratic Buddhist Rep. Colleen Hanabusa of Hawaii, who successfully introduced an amendment that passed by UNANIMOUS consent this week to prevent the deployment of U.S. troops to Iraq without congressional approval. More

Thanks to whistleblower Pfc. Chelsea Bradley Manning we now have no doubt about the truth: The preemptive Iraq War, the illegal invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, the "Global War on Fear (Terror)," and the NSA's massive spying ring were all founded on lies.

Bigger, badder NDAA 2014 passed by gov't

Daisy Luther (DailySheeple); Pfc. Sandoval, Pat Macpherson, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

 

It doesn't keep me up at night; my family's fine.

A bigger, badder NDAA 2014 quietly passed the House and Senate, and it is on the way to Obama’s desk.

 

While everyone is distracted with the holiday festivities, Congress has been hard at work [selling out the citizenry] in the name of national "security."

Yesterday [Dec. 20, 2013], the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act was fast-tracked through the Senate, with no time for discussion or amendments. As it’s Christmastime and the end of the week, our representatives brought it up and passed it quietly so as to quickly recess for the holidays -- and, no doubt, to avoid protests from the public. The new version of the NDAA had already been quietly passed by the House of Representatives.

 

It authorizes massive spending, including $527 billion in basic defense spending for the current fiscal year (not including black operations not reported on the regular books), funding for the US/JSOC war on Afghanistan, and funding for nuclear weapons programs.

Under what authority? The new NDAA gives us all the authority we could want.

  

The indefinite detention allowed by the original NDAA is still here, and it’s actually worse now: There are new provisions that will make it easier for the government to target those who disagree, dissent, or demonstrate.

 

CIA's Susan Lindauer

Section 1071 outlines the creation of the “Conflict Records Research Center,” where the unconstitutionally obtained information the NSA has collected is compiled and shared with the Department of [War]. That information, called “captured records,” can be anything from our phone records, emails, browsing history, or posts on social media sites. The New American reports in detail on the expansion of powers: More

(RN) CIA asset Susan Lindauer blows the whistle (RevolutionNews.US)

"I Love Congress!" (comic)

Pat Mapcherson, CC Liu, Pfc. Sandoval, Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; PasadenaWeekly.com

Ruggedly handsome, Nazi appearing, cigarette smoking Republican Boehner (Reuters)

Thanks, Tea Party! "This Modern World" (Tom Tomorrow/thismodernworld.com)

V.P. Joe Biden, Pres. B.S. Obama, and John Boehner squirming at the state of the union

You, sir, are my inspiration!

Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner (rhymes with "owner," or is that "stainer"?) has good reason to love Congress. Why is the US government shut down? It is because Obama and Boehner, titular heads of the party (yes, just the ONE, with two nearly identical wings and occasionally different talking points), want it that way? What does it mean that it is shut down? It is the perfect opportunity to implement any plan except, perhaps, the single-payer option for universal healthcare coverage most Americans want, which is what other civilized post-industrial societies like Canada and England enjoy. But this has nothing to do with petty bickering, health insurance, or personalities. That is the distraction, the "spectacle" of our system of symbolic politics. There is no viable "third party" and the party in power (Powers That Be) makes sure of that. The wagons circle anytime any other party -- Green, Independent, Libertarian, and so on -- starts gaining the slightest bit of traction. Am I a republocrat? Are you a demolican? Tweedledee, Tweedledum, aren't we all just American'ts for our worldwide empire?

• TIME OUT: GOP holding country hostage over Obamacare (formerly "RomneyCare")?
• LOVE LOST: the many hard lessons of breaking up
• WICKED LIT: scary literature frightens real wits!
• LOOSE LIPS: take responsibility for hurtful gossip
• LAUGHTER: Stand up against putting down pets
• BOO HOO: battling depression with a kinder voice
• EMO BAG: transferring trauma of childhood baggage
• FREE ARTWALK: Pasadena Playhouse District 2013

Don't worry, Barry and I have a plan! It's as much his doing as mine. You'll see, you'll see.