Day: June 2, 2016

How Hillary Clinton Loses to Donald Trump

This election for some is all but over….they feel that Clinton will be anointed the prez and that there is little reason to feel optimistic…..

I have been reading, watching and listening to the people around my area….they are energized by the poll that put Trump ahead of Clinton by a couple of points…..

They are starting to ask…is it possible that a Trump could beat a Clinton in this contest?

Some have even ventured to write about such a possibility…..

Donald Trump can actually win if Clinton makes these four mistakes. Spoiler alert: She’s already making all of them.

It’s a terrifying moment for Democrats: Hillary Clinton’s double-digit lead in national polls has evaporated and panic is beginning to set in. Polls now show Donald Trump ahead of Clinton, or at worst only a few points behind. During the insanity of the Republican primary, it was easy for them to believe that Trump could never be president—that in a general election, mainstream voters would regard him as an absurdity. But Clinton remains a shaky candidate with historically high negatives, an email scandal that keeps getting worse and a stubborn primary opponent whose supporters may yet become a midsummer nightmare in Philadelphia. Meanwhile, the Republicans, seemingly in all-out civil war just weeks ago, have quickly fallen in line. Democrats are resigning themselves to a tough, ugly, painful and expensive street fight.

The numbers offer some reassurance for Democrats—but also some bad news.

Source: How Hillary Clinton Loses to Donald Trump – POLITICO Magazine

To my Trump supporters and readers…..take heart there is still a chance we will have a Pres. Trump…..(he said with a grimace)……

I could not in good faith go without giving the other side of the story…..

This from the website PoliticusUSA……

The average of polls contains a wake-up call for Republicans that shows why Donald Trump remains likely to lose in November.

The May national polls have no value when predicting the results of the likely head to head general election contest, but there is a statistic in the Real Clear Politics average of polls that should encourage Democrats while frightening Republicans.

What you will notice is that Donald Trump never climbs above 43%. Hillary Clinton has the potential to get into the 50s, but Trump has been stuck at 43% or below since July of 2015.

John McCain got 45.6% in the vote in 2008. Mitt Romney got 47.1% of the popular vote in 2012. Donald Trump is on pace to perform 3-4 points worse than Romney and McCain each did in 2008 and 2012. Trump is also currently enjoying a post presumptive nominee bump in the polls, which is likely to evaporate once the Democratic primary ends.

The average of polls shows that Trump has never led Clinton with a majority of the electorate. Donald Trump’s ceiling may be closer to 45% than 51%. Trump is a low upside nominee because of his high name recognition and the saturation media coverage that he has received. There is no way for Trump to introduce himself to voters or redefine himself with the electorate.

Hillary Clinton doesn’t have the whole Democratic Party behind her yet, and Trump still can’t break 43%. This one fact is the biggest reason why Donald Trump is likely to lose in November. Trump could be peaking now, and things may get much uglier for Republicans by the time voters are ready to go to the polls in November.

There you go…something for everybody…..

Iraq: On the Edge of Chaos

Iraq is far from the minds of most Americans….that is until some Terrorist group does something that shocks the piss out of them…..and then once that blows over they go back to worrying about that that has not happened yet…and may well never happen.

There is more going on Iraq than most Americans think……the Iraqi army is promising to free Fallujah….then there were the protests in the Green Zone about the poor government they have….and most MSM did not give it the coverage it deserved….

This were just a few of the more recent incidents……there is a bigger problem lurking in Iraq…..and in the long run will force the US to get more involved…..

There is an excellent analysis on the situation in Iraq…..I do not agree with some parts of the analysis but all in all it covers the events well…..

The recent storming of Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone by protesters led by Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr brought to the surface a long-standing dilemma: the system which has governed the country since 2003 is in need of radical reform, but because the ruling political class has in many ways come to embody the system, it is highly resistant to genuine change. Street protests and recalcitrant politicians have created a combustible formula, paralysing state institutions and threatening to bring them down. Meanwhile, the security situation is dire, as evidenced by a series of attacks in Baghdad this week claimed by the Islamic State.

Three dynamics are at play. The first is the dysfunction of the post-2003 political system. Ostensibly designed to ensure fair ethnic-sectarian representation in state institutions, in practice it allows political parties defined by ethnic-sectarian identities to control them. Second is the mounting loss of popular trust in these parties and anger over their poor performance. Third is the fracturing of the political leadership, especially among and within the largest Shiite political forces — the Daawa Islamic Party, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), and Sadr’s own al-Ahrar — which has been accelerated by the popular discontent and the system’s shortfalls.

Source: Iraq: On the Edge of Chaos | Crisis Group

The biggest problem in Iraq seems to be the ineffective government now in place……and there is more to that story nthan we get from the MSM……

The battle to free Fallujah from ISIL has already started. The Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) estimate the number of ISIL fighters in the city at 700 only. Civilians in Fallujah are estimated to be 60-70,000, and the combined forces for the operation are in the neighborhood of 25,000. But liberating Fallujah will not be easy or quick. ISIL booby-trapped all main accesses to the city and hundreds of buildings, and is determined to cause maximum damage to the ISF. It is important to work on opening safe paths for the civilians in Fallujah and to fully protect those paths to minimize civilian casualties.

Iran’s news-service Mehr agency wrote a story on May 25 about the role of Qasem Soleimani “in leading the battle of Fallujah”. Iraq’s Military Media Service circulated a picture of Soleimani meeting with military commanders in the operational HQ of the campaign to liberate Fallujah. On May 25, Iraq media described the role of Soleimani as follows: Soleimani Leading the Battle of Fallujah”. But Fallujah is in Iraq, isn’t it?

Source: The Dangerous Absence of State Authority in Iraq | Middle East Briefing

There is lots of optimism about the ability of the Iraqi army in its attempt to retake Fallujah from the clutches of the horrendous group, ISIS……but should there be any optimism?

Iraq is embroiled in a major battle against so-called Islamic State as it attempts to retake Falluja, the second largest city under Isis control, which has been a bastion of militant and insurgent groups for more than a decade. The operation follows the group’s loss of Ramadi and a series of other strategically important towns and cities. Since May 2015, Isis has been unable to launch a single successful operation.

The battle for Falluja will almost certainly bring the city back under the control of the government – but at what cost and towards what end? Falluja is a symbol of resistance against occupation for many sections of Iraqi society, particularly among the Sunni Arab population. Even the US, with its powerful armed forces, equipment and intelligence capabilities, struggled to control the city and, in the end, managed only to contain rather than actually eliminate the insurgency and other militant groups during its occupation.

Source: Iraq may retake Falluja – but to defeat Isis it must win back hearts and minds | Ranj Alaaldin | Opinion | The Guardian

I give my readers the heads up whenever I can…..I hope that someday they will not have to kiss their loved ones good-bye and pray that they return intact from their deployments…..

This is a lot of info to take in….but take the time to educate yourself….your family may have to deal with this in the future.

Keep in mind that the US has been f*cking with Iraq for 25 years….and we are NO closer to a solution than we were in 1991.

Just a thought.

The Sociology of War

My regulars know that I am an anti-war person…after seeing it first hand I firmly believe that few are inevitable but it would take rational thought to prevent….

I am NOT saying that ALL war is unnecessary just most wars……

This is where I insert my usual historic perspective…..(to the chagrin to some)…..but people need to think about the wars we have and the necessity for them at all….

The breakout of World War I upended many lives, including those of two great thinkers: the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises and the American journalist Randolph Bourne.

The young Mises had just revolutionized the economics of money and the business cycle. And he was on the verge still more breakthroughs when his career was interrupted by the Great War. Other economists in Austria were given cushy assignments in war planning offices. But Mises, who was radically out of step with prevailing politics, was sent to the front lines as an artillery officer.

Source: The Sociology of War – Antiwar.com Original by — Antiwar.com

I wish that the American people would wake up and show a little more concern for the endless wars that we are now fighting……when the dying starts it is then too late to care…..

Who Is Weaponizing Religious Liberty?

Nothing I like better than a bunch of babbling buffoons that want religion to be part of politics……makes sure that real problems are ignored.

Back in the days, many years ago, it was a joy to be part of the political process….but then we got all these semi-literate d/bags on the Right….let me be more specific….the Religious Right…..that turn the whole process into some sort of religious litmus test and started chipping away at the very rights that we all say we love…..

Now it is just a menage of BS after BS…..if it is not abortion then it is prayer or the whole Christian nation thing…..I would love to punch holes in this bullsh*t but I do not feel the urge to bad mouth otherwise spiritual people……

In more recent years these “people” have turned our religious liberty into some sort of weapon….aimed at the very heart of this republic…..

It takes a right-wing village to turn a cherished American principle into a destructive culture-war weapon.

In 2016, for the second year in a row, more than 100 anti-equality bills targeting LGBT people were introduced in state legislatures, many of them described as measures to protect religious liberty. This flood of anti-LGBT and “religious liberty” legislation is not the result of isolated local efforts. It is part of a larger campaign by Religious Right groups to resist and reverse advances toward equality for LGBT Americans by portraying equality as inherently incompatible with religious freedom. That effort began well before the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 marriage equality ruling, but it has kicked into overdrive since.

Religious Right organizations have long equated criticism with persecution, and portrayed legal and political defeats as attacks on Christianity and religious freedom. Efforts to frame opposition to reproductive choice and LGBT equality as religious liberty issues picked up steam with the issuing of the Manhattan Declaration in 2009. This manifesto, co-authored by right-wing Catholic intellectual Robert George, pledged that its signers would refuse to “bend” to “any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family.” Since then, Religious Right groups, their allies at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and allied politicians have increasingly framed their opposition to marriage equality, nondiscrimination laws, reproductive choice, and the contraception coverage requirement under the Affordable Care Act as questions of religious liberty.

Source: Who Is Weaponizing Religious Liberty? | People For the American Way

There are so many that are concerned about the appearance of Sharia law but do not see where there is little difference in Sharia and the extremism that they want us all to follow….

At what point do we return to the ideals of Jefferson, Adams and Paine?  The separation of church and state…..would be a good place to start.

Afghanistan: Deciding the Future of the Not Quite “Forgotten War”

There is a war that we all know of….but somehow is almost forgotten unless something happens and the media can use it as a propaganda piece…..

The American people have been told that the role of our troops would be lessened by the end of this year…..that was inaccurate…..it appears that US troops will be in country for many years to come……

The future of Afghanistan and the role of the US is being decided as I type…..

The Obama Administration is in the process of making one of the most important decisions it will make in its final year, one that will shape its legacy for the future: whether and how the United States should support the Afghan government in its continuing war against the Taliban, ISIS, the Haqqani Network, and other violent Islamist extremists.

The Obama Administration is making this decision very quietly. The fact that it launched a drone strike that killed Mullah Akhtar Mansour—the head of the Taliban—in Pakistan, shows that the Administration does not consider the War in Afghanistan to be the “forgotten war.” At the same time, the war has been dropped from the list of “top issues” on the Defense Department’s website, and has received virtually no attention from the candidates for the upcoming presidential election. The War in Afghanistan is now being treated more as a lingering afterthought than as an actual war.

Source: Afghanistan: Deciding the Future of the Not Quite “Forgotten War” | World Affairs Journal

One oif the major concerns that the DoD and State will have is the possiblity of the growth of the barbaric group known as ISIS will expand into Afghanistan giving them yet another region for concern….

The Islamic State’s Afghan wilayat, known as the Islamic State in Khorasan, initially grew with surprising strength and speed. However, recent losses, at the hands of both the Taliban and U.S.-backed Afghan forces, have imperilled the Islamic State’s future in Afghanistan. The radical group has struggled to establish a foothold in the country, and is largely seen by locals as a foreign force. While it continues to exploit Taliban factionalism to maintain a presence, it faces an uphill battle to become a permanent fixture in the complex Afghan tribal and militant landscape. Continued pressure brought by targeted U.S. airstrikes have further eroded the Islamic State’s capabilities in Afghanistan, and should continue to prevent the Islamic State from carving its own space in the war-torn country.

Source: Examining the Islamic State’s Threat to Afghanistan | Middle East Institute

US involvement in Afghanistan is endless……and the more we stay the more we are making it necessary that we NEVER leave this country to its fate….