Mikey Likes It!: Time to court-martial Tulsi

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Time to court-martial Tulsi

This BREITBART article made a chain through my friend Tony's work and he sent it on to me. Tony wrote, "Remember when C.I. warned that Tulis was in the National Guard and so she had to watch the way she talked about Donald Trump? She didn't watch it." No, she did not.

She's gone on to call Trump "Saudi Arabia's bitch" and now, as the article explains, she's posted this nasty little message to Trump saying he's not her pimp and the military is not his whore. As the BREITBART article notes at the end:

Finally, as Gabbard enjoys pointing out, she is an officer in the U.S. Army National Guard. Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) prohibits commissioned officers from using “contemptuous words” about the president — whether in uniform or out of uniform. Gabbard might enjoy some leeway from a military court due to the political nature of her job, but to say Trump has betrayed the military, and to call him a “pimp” and a “bitch,” is likely a violation of the UCMJ.
Gabbard may earn herself some attention, but she could also earn a court-martial.

That's what needs to happen. She needs to be court-martialed.

She can't be in the reserves and making these public statements.

Donald Trump?

He's not my commander in chief. I'm not in the military. She is. She's in the reserves. He is her commander in chief and she's supposed to show respect to the office.

She needs to be court-martialed.

Her conduct is unbecoming.

As a member of Congress? Not a thing wrong with it. As an active member of the reserves? She needs to be court-martialed.

Tulsi's become a loser. Joe Biden, her buddy, is a loser as well. David Stein (THE INTERCEPT) reports:

On Thursday night, he drew criticism when he was asked what Americans can do about the legacy of slavery, and answered by suggesting parents put on a record player for kids, and that social workers should visit parents’ homes to teach them how to care for their children. He followed that by recounting on Sunday his run-in in the 1960s with a young gang leader named “Corn Pop,” a story that involved “the only white guy” at a city pool cutting him a 6-foot piece of chain to defend himself against the razor-wielding teen and his friends.
The politics of race relations have been a central part of Biden’s career, from his high-profile opposition to busing to his authoring of the 1994 Biden Crime Bill. When he talks about his criminal justice record on the campaign trail, he argues today that the focus on the ’94 bill is unfair, because the real rise in mass incarceration happened at the state level and was long underway by then.
Biden is correct that the surge began in the 1970s and accelerated in the 1980s, but a closer look at his role reveals that it was Biden who was among the principal and earliest movers of the policy agenda that would become the war on drugs and mass incarceration, and he did so in the face of initial reluctance from none other than President Ronald Reagan. Indeed, Reagan even vetoed a signature piece of Biden legislation, which he drafted with arch segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, to create a federal “drug czar.”
At the time, many Republicans were hesitant about increasing federal spending, and in fact looking for ways to slash the budget. Domestically, Reagan wanted to focus on cutting taxes and reducing social welfare spending, and had little interest in an expansive federal spending program geared toward building new prisons and hiring new police. Biden, on the other hand, was a key policy leader among both parties on the issue of expanding funding to states and municipalities for policing and prisons.
As governor of California, Reagan had been an infamous proponent for law-and-order politics, but when he ran for president in 1980 against incumbent Jimmy Carter, crime was not a significant issue in the race. Rather, the 1980 election focused largely on the economy, inflation, and unemployment.
Biden, meanwhile, was criticizing Carter for not fighting the war on drugs forcefully enough.“I’m trying to alarm the policymakers,” he told the Washington Post months before the 1980 election. “I’m saying that business as usual won’t work.”
Although mass imprisonment is and was primarily driven by states, at the federal level Biden shaped the punitive political culture of the 1980s and 1990s by reviving a policy agenda that was briefly in decline at the end of the 1970s. In three years under Carter, the federal prison population fell by a quarter, even as it was rising at the state level. By the final days of the Carter administration, the federal program that provided resources to states for policing and imprisonment, the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, or LEAA, was being dismantled.
In the weeks after the election, Biden argued that the problem with LEAA was inadequate coordination and poor management, and that the federal government should take a more assertive stance in this area while continuing to provide funds to states to expand their police and prison systems. “The American people believe we have waged war on crime and failed,” Biden, who was the U.S. senator for Delaware at the time, said. “Therefore, they concluded that nothing can be done about it.” In his view, though, federal funding was an essential piece of the drug war. He saw the need for a program like LEAA, but it needed a stronger manager in charge: a drug czar.

That's the reality about Joe. He's a liar. He's done so much damage and he just lies and lies and lies some more.

And there was Tulsi, back in July, lying for him and defending him. Walk away, Tulsi, we're done.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Tuesday, September 17, 2019.

War? The US government can't get enough of it these days. You might argue they are addicted to it which is why no war appears to end anymore. In the thirst for more killing, the US government is currently angling for war with Iran. Bill Van Auken (WSWS) observes:

Casting itself once again as the world’s judge, jury and executioner, US imperialism is recklessly hurtling toward yet another war in the Middle East, with catastrophic implications. This time, Washington has seized upon Saturday’s attacks on Saudi installations as its pretext for war against Iran.
The reaction of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to these attacks, which have cut the kingdom’s oil production by almost half and slashed global daily output by 6 percent, was as noteworthy for its haste as for its peculiar wording.

“Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply,” Pompeo tweeted late Saturday, adding, “There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen.”
The indictment of Iran for attacks that set off a series of fires which devastated two oil facilities in eastern Saudi Arabia came without a shred of supporting evidence, outside of the bald assertion that there was “no evidence” that they were launched from Yemen.
Yemen had to be discounted, according to the secretary of state’s predatory logic, because the Houthi rebels, who control most of the country, had claimed responsibility for the attacks and had a clear motive—given the kingdom’s near-genocidal war against Yemen’s civilian population—for carrying them out. The US mass media has by and large echoed Pompeo’s allegations as absolute truth. On Monday night, television news broadcasts quoted unnamed intelligence sources, citing unspecified evidence, claiming Iranian responsibility for the attacks. No doubt this “evidence” will prove just as compelling as that of the Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam and “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq. These same media outlets have made virtually no mention of Saudi crimes in Yemen.

Our wonderful corporate media wouldn't do that, would they? They wouldn't again be infested with anonymice. Surely, they've learned their lessons, right? Wrong.

‏Verified account @jimsciutto

New: US and Saudi Arabia believe “very high probability” this weekend’s attack on Saudi oil facilities were low altitude cruise missiles -- assisted by drones -- launched from an Iranian base near the border with Iraq - @NicRobertsonCNN reporting

29 replies48 retweets49 likes

Nic Robertson is not reporting, Jim, he's echoing. As are you. For all your pious posturing and pretense, Jim, you will always be nothing more than a hack. Don't think anyone's going to remember you when Donald Trump leaves the Oval Office. Only the most deranged cheer you on now.

The government can't sell war without their hate merchants in the media, never forget that. Never forget that the entire media landscaped lied the country into war with Iraq but only Judith Miller was held accountable. Those who lied were not punished, they did not lose jobs. In fact, THE ATLANTIC, MOTHER JONES and many others went out of their way to hire the liars.

The wars never end. Which is how the Pentagon's DIVIDS notes Sgt Maynor Reyes is back in Iraq, 15 years after he first left. He's now stationed at the "Erbil Air Base in northern Iraq in support of the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve." Kyle Rempfer (ARMY TIMES) reports, "Fort Bragg’s XVIII Airborne Corps handed off the reigns of the counter-Islamic State mission to III Armored Corps out of Fort Hood at a ceremony in Baghdad, Iraq, on Saturday."

When does the US hand off that mission to Iraq and bring all the US troops home?

It's a real shame that, after all these years, that question still can't be asked by our 'brave' press in a White House or State Dept press briefing. Let alone in a 60 MINUTES interview with a sitting president.

President? In the United States, the race for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination continues. War Hawk Joe Biden desperately wants that nomination. Norman Solomon (COMMON DREAMS) notes:

Joe Biden’s recent efforts to deny his record of support for invading Iraq are marvels of evasion, with falsehoods that have been refuted by one well-documented appraisal after another after another. This month, Biden claimed that his vote for war on the Senate floor was somehow not a vote for war. Ironically, while he was spinning anew to deny the undeniable, theaters nationwide began screening a movie that exposes the deceptive approach to the Iraq war that Biden exemplifies.
Historically factual, “Official Secrets” is concerned with truth—and the human consequences of evading or telling it. Katharine Gun, portrayed by actress Keira Knightley, was a worker at the British intelligence agency GCHQ. Risking years in prison, she did everything she could to prevent the Iraq war, and took responsibility for doing so.
Biden did everything he could to enable the Iraq war, and—still—takes no responsibility for doing so.
More than 16 years ago, Biden and Gun were at cross purposes as the Iraq invasion neared. Subterfuge vs. candor. Misinformation vs. information. War vs. peace. Today, their public voices contrast just as sharply.
Gun recalls that both President George W. Bush and especially British Prime Minister Tony Blair were “desperate to get U.N. cover” for the impending invasion of Iraq in early 2003. On the last day of January of that year, Gun saw a memo from the U.S. National Security Agency that showed the two governments were working together to wiretap and otherwise surveil diplomats from countries on the U.N. Security Council—for purposes such as blackmail—to win a vote to authorize an invasion.
Gun became a whistleblower by providing the memo to the Observer newspaper in London. As she said in a recent interview with Salon, “My intention was to prevent the war. . . . I felt there was this information that was absolutely crucial, it had the potential to derail the rush to war, and I felt people had the right to know.”

Biden—who played a pivotal role in the rush to war as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—proceeded as though people had no right to know. He excluded critical voices and key information from the committee’s high-profile hearings in mid-summer 2002, deceptively serving as the most important lawmaker ushering the war resolution to the Senate floor, where he voted for it in mid-October. The war began five months later. It has never ended.

And Joe Biden has never taken accountability for his actions. Chief among them? The decision to overturn the 2010 vote of the Iraqi people and give thug Nouri a second term. The people spoke. They showed up to vote despite threats, despite violence, despite roads being closed. They showed up and they went with Iraqiya. When Nouri lost and refused to step down -- just as US Gen Ray Odierno had predicted months before -- the US could have sided with democracy. Instead, they created a work around, The Erbil Agreement, a legal contract that overturned the vote and gave Nouri a second term and Joe showed up in Baghdad to sell it and lecture Iraqi leaders about . . . Ireland. No one knew what crazy Joe was saying. No one cared. Democracy was struck down by the US government and Joe Biden needs to be asked why. That second term resulted in the rise of ISIS in Iraq. Overturning an election is not a minor thing.

Albert Burneko (DEADSPIN) offers:

Or more to the point: Do you want a president who has the full command of their cognitive faculties? One who knows what the f**k is going on during a debate, or a complex legislative effort, or a tricky foreign-policy negotiation? One who can think a coherent thing, and then express that coherent thought in a coherent fashion, without digressing into gibberish about the relative merits of the victrola and the cinematograph? Of course you do. That might even be the very most obvious and reasonable baseline elimination criteria for a president: That this person’s brain works. It’s the smallest thing for a sane voter of conscience to make an absolute requirement for the gig, particularly when there’s still a double-fistful of candidates and as many as nine—but not 10!—of them clear that bar easily.
In this context, “What I demand in a president is whoever happens to be leading in early, elderly-skewing Democratic primary polling, no matter what” is absurd. You are the will those polls are attempting to capture, you and you and you and me, and your meek, passive adoption of their results is the saddest of self-fulfilling prophecies. Up to a point it may make some sense to examine one’s own feces, but one mustn’t also devour it.
Do a majority of left-of-center Americans affirmatively want to vote for Joe Biden and what he is selling—for an out-of-touch 76-year-old centrist with a failing brain, whose public proclamations and debate answers only make sense if you rearrange their letters into generous anagrams, and whose only compelling campaign pitch so far is the cynical idea that nothing on earth can rouse one’s fellow voters to a more ambitious choice? Of course not. Nobody would call that candidate out of the ether if he did not already exist. That is not anyone’s ideal choice.
So, during the primaries at least, the job is to demand a better option. Even if you like Biden; especially if you like Biden. Demand a dynamic candidate, a nimble debater and public speaker, a compelling advocate of ambitious and unlikely and transformative ideas. See if Biden, or your favorite, can prove an ability to be that. And if that candidate can’t, f**king pick somebody else!

The press is excited this news cycle because Ken Salazar has endorsed Joe Biden and not Julian Castro. I'm sure Julian will get over it. Ken's last prominent endorsement was Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General.

At USA TODAY, Ruben Navarrette Jr. has an excellent column. Here's an excerpt:

A lot of people of color are fed up with the old school white liberalism that Biden represents. It’s not just his past opposition to forced busing in the 1970s because, as he said then, he didn’t feel “responsible for the sins” of past generations. It’s also recent gaffes. During last week's debate, Biden answered a question about atoning for slavery with a condescending stemwinder about “problems that come from home” and social workers showing parents how to parent by having “the record player on at night” so kids pick up vocabulary.
Harris and Booker got a pass for going after Biden, yet Castro is being walloped. White pundits know better than to scold African Americans about race, but they’re not afraid of Latinos, whom they often treat like their gardeners.

While discussing competing health care plans, the former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development mischievously poked at Biden by asking — repeatedly — whether the 76-year-old was forgetting what he said two minutes earlier.

Critics — including the news media and Biden supporters — are calling it “ageism” and a “cheap shot” by Castro. They say the 45-year-old should have shown more “respect” to his elder.

That’s a thing in politics? Since when?

It's an important column. Meanwhile, shouldn't this be a story the media pursues?

Polly Tickal‏ @PollyTickal 21 hours ago

Just a video of Joe Biden in more coherent times explaining the process of how to buy politicians like him...

"If you go out and bundle $250K for me and then you call me after I’m elected ... I’m gonna say come on in."