Day: March 22, 2016

If You Vote Today

Another Tuesday and another set of primaries/caucuses.

If you live in these regions and are planning to let the country know your preference then there is stuff you may need to know……

The 2016 race moves westward Tuesday. Arizona and Utah will vote for their candidates of choice, while Idaho Democrats will caucus, reports the AP. (Ted Cruz previously took the latter state for Republicans.) It’ll be a late one, with Utah Republicans permitted to vote online until 1am EDT—and exact percentages really matter there. Here’s what to watch:

  • Donald Trump is expected to lose Utah, but the big question is by how much. If Cruz manages to secure at least 50% of the vote, he gets all 40 delegates. If he doesn’t, they’ll be handed out proportionally, which the New York Times sees as psychologically damaging to Cruz and yet another boost for Trump on his quest to secure 1,237 delegates.
  • But maybe Cruz can pull it off. Politico cites a survey released Saturday that gives Cruz 53% of the GOP vote.
  • The thorn in Cruz’s side: John Kasich, who the AP reports “hopes to play spoiler” and has been running an online ad that suggests Mitt Romney endorsed him. (Not so.) The aforementioned poll has Kasich at 29%, and Trump at 11%.
  • In fact, Politico reports Romney recorded a robocall Monday that puts it plainly to Utahans: “A vote for John Kasich is a vote for Donald Trump.”
  • Arizona, with its 58 delegates, is winner-take-all. The Hill notes it’s the biggest such state left.
  • Trump is expected to win it, though Politico notes polling has been light in the state. Interestingly, Marco Rubio, who dropped out March 15, could end up with a decent number of votes here: Arizona has a lengthy early-voting period, and it’s possible a majority of votes have already been cast.
  • On the Democratic side, the Hill notes that “Sanders has fared better in states with smaller percentages of minority voters—likely to be the case in Utah and Idaho.”
  • But all delegates are awarded proportionally, so a big win for Sanders in Arizona (75 delegates) would have more impact than Utah (33) or Idaho (23), notes the Hill. Still, “a string of sizable victories could blunt the pressure on him to withdraw from the race,” reports the Times.

If you live in the region then please go and exercise the right that you have left…..and let the people decide……

In closing……the Right or other mental midgets have gone batcrap crazy over the Obama Cuba trip and especially when he has been photographed standing in front of a COMMIE……..

What a posse of silly d/bags.

Septimia Zenobia, Queen Of Palmyra

Time for a IST history lesson…….

Keeping with the tradition of IST…..it is March and I try to post on women throughout history that have made a difference or have shown that they are as strong as any man……

This time it is the Queen of Palmyra, Septimia Zenobia…..of course you have heard of Palmyra….it is those ruins in Syria that those pigs in ISIS set about destroying for whatever wrapped reason….

Palmyra was the seat of power of a Roman woman……

Zenobia, in full Septimia Zenobia, Aramaic Znwbyā Bat Zabbai   (died after 274), queen of the Roman colony of Palmyra, in present-day Syria, from 267 or 268 to 272. She conquered several of Rome’s eastern provinces before she was subjugated by the emperor Aurelian (ruled 270–275).Zenobia’s husband, Odaenathus, Rome’s client ruler of Palmyra, had by 267 recovered the Roman East from Persian conquerors. After Odaenathus and his eldest son (by his former wife), Herodes (or Herodianus), were assassinated in 267 or 268, Zenobia became regent for her own young son Wahballat (called Vaballathus in Latin, Athenodorus in Greek). Styling herself queen of Palmyra, she had Vaballathus adopt his father’s titles of “king of kings” and corrector totius Orientis (“governor of all the East”).Nevertheless, unlike Odaenathus, Zenobia was not content to remain a Roman client. In 269 she seized Egypt, then conquered much of Asia Minor and declared her independence from Rome. Marching east, Aurelian defeated her armies at Antioch (now Antakya, Turkey) and at Emesa (now Ḥimṣ, Syria) and besieged Palmyra. Zenobia and Vaballathus tried to flee from the city, but they were captured before they could cross the Euphrates River, and the Palmyrenes soon surrendered. When they revolted again in 273, the Romans recaptured and destroyed the city. Sources differ about Zenobia’s fate after her capture. According to some, Zenobia and Vaballathus graced the triumphal procession that Aurelian celebrated at Rome in 274. However, other historians claim that she starved herself to death during the trip to Rome.
She had had enough of Rome’s crap and set about building her own empire…..Another woman that most of the historians would like to forget or ignore……while they taunt the power of the Roman Empire….this woman crapped in their pasta to prove that women are more than capable of being a strong leader…… and controlling an empire.

How Propaganda Feeds War on Syria

I have been writing for many years that the government and the media have been using propaganda techniques to indoctrinate the American public…..both in the domestic field as well as the international.

I offer up a couple of my posts so that you can use them to establish if it is propaganda or not…..

Source: Propaganda 2.0 – In Saner Thought

And then there is one more……

Source: Propaganda Vs Propaganda – In Saner Thought

Both of those posts have good sources for my reader to use to see if they are being played…..hint….YOU ARE!

I bring all this up because I saw a good article about the propaganda being used to sell us, the American public, their paradigm on the war in Syria.

Western propaganda against countries targeted for “regime change” can be especially insidious because mainstream journalists abandon skepticism and go with the flow, such as the case of Syrian “torture” photos, writes Rick Sterling.

There has been a pattern of sensational but untrue reports that lead to public acceptance of U.S. and Western military intervention in countries around the world.

For instance, in Gulf War 1 (1990-91), there were reports of Iraqi troops stealing incubators from Kuwait, leaving babies to die on the cold floor. Relying on the testimony of a Red Crescent doctor, Amnesty Interenational ‘verified’ the false claims.

Source: How Propaganda Feeds War on Syria – Consortiumnews

Ever wonder why the press does not have the access they did back during the Vietnam War?

This is why…..they could not control the message getting out to the American public…..and we see how that played out in the 70’s…..now don’t we?

“Vichy” Republican?

Another silly turn of a phrase….all this is becoming really comedic.

Remember a few years back when the Term RINO, Repub In Name Only, became popular….I believe it was in 2010? RINO was used to insult anyone that was vaguely opposed to Tea Party BS.  It destroyed the very idea of a liberal Republican.

There seems to be name insulting term used by fellow GOPers, “Vichy” Republican, is making it’s way around the media circles.

“Vichy”…..WTF?

Old farts like myself or those that have a slight grasp of history will understand the term “Vichy”….but if the term has you scratching your head in wonder…….

The term came into being in 1940 after the Nazis invaded France…..the Nazis occupied the northern most part of the country and the unoccupied part was termed “Vichy France”…..they were collaborators with the Nazis.

So when Geo, Will uses the term “Vichy Republican” he is referring to those conservatives that are collaborating with the GOP “establishment”…..in other words….they are traitors to true conservatism.

With that short explanation out of the way……

Source: ‘Vichy Republicans’ Prove Trump Right About Gutless Establishment

Will that term catch on as did the insult of RINO?  The media is using it now and I expect it will be the word of the election.

Give ‘Em Cash

I have heard all the GOP candidates go on and on about all this cash, taxpayer money, that the US will be giving Iran now that we have a nuke deal.  Have you?

I have been silent on this because it is all so ridiculous that I thought, erroneously, that the American people would be a little smarter than to buy a handful of billsh*t.

As usual I give the public too much credit.

So let me break it down for those with lesser minds……

As the 2016 election season gets into full swing in the US, the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran is becoming a focus, and with it the oft-repeated myth of the US having “given Iran $150 billion” as part of the deal, a claim often repeated by hawks looking to see the deal killed.

The reality is that the money and other assets belonged to Iran in the first place, and all that really happened under the nuclear deal was their unfreezing, allowing Iran to transfer the money to different banks, and spend it on infrastructure upgrades.

In the wake of the deal’s implementation, Iran moved a portion of the assets back into Iranian banks, in an effort to shore up their foreign currency reserves and curb the country’s previously excessive inflation. Most of the money remains in Western banks, however, because it’s easier to pay Western companies for their goods and services that way.

The notion, repeated by many but championed by Donald Trump in particular in recent days, is that this was somehow American money to begin with. It never was, and was never going to be, and the current situation is the default, allowing a foreign country to spend its own money, with no US interference.

(antiwar.com)

Let me put it simply, in case that above explanation was too deep.

It is THEIR money that we froze in American banks in 1979.

One more time!  It is Their money NOT TAXPAYER MONEY!

Anyone telling you that is taxpayer money is…..LYING!

Any questions?

Toward A Grand New Bargain: How Donald Trump Can Clear The Field And Realign American Politics

There has been so much written about all the antics in this election….well the truth be told an aging hippie like myself is finding it just too damn humorous for words.

Humorous?  Yes humorous.

You see all the crap flying around this election is NOTHING new.  Most of was said and reported during the ’68 Dem convention….it is fun to see all those people that condemned the “Yippies” are the same people doing the same sorts of things in 2016….the Chicago riots.

There are story after story about the fracturing of the GOP…..just as the Dem Party was fractured in ’68…..there is very little new under the political sun.

The media is worried abut just how the GOP will heal itself before the election…..I read a good piece by Dave Stockman on this subject (article pressed below)…..if you are worried about nay of this then read the press somne excellent thoughts in there….

It’s actually pretty easy. At an apt moment very soon, Trump should offer Governor Kasich the VP slot and Senator Cruz the vacant Supreme Court seat. Such a grand bargain would not only clear…

Source: Toward A Grand New Bargain: How Donald Trump Can Clear The Field And Realign American Politics | David Stockman’s Contra Corner

Can the GOP save itself from itself?