Day: May 1, 2018

Closing Thought –01May18

Today is May Day…..the international day of the worker, right?

This piece of history is for my friends, followers and commenters from the UK……

On April 30, 1517, oddly enough the day before May Day, riots in London, England broke out known as Evil May Day (alternately, Ill May Day).  English apprentices and businessmen had grown afraid of losing their jobs or business to foreigners coming from Continental Europe and setting up shop in London, taking jobs and business away from English workers and owners.

Resentment against foreigners has reared its ugly head again and again over the years in England and recently in the United States and other European countries as well.  Xenophobia is apparently nothing new and is certainly alive and “well” in today’s world.

A certain Dr. Bell had delivered a fiery speech denouncing these foreign workers and businessmen at the behest of a broker, John Lincoln, on Easter Tuesday preceding the riots.  The people were properly whipped into a resentful frenzy, leading cautious authorities to announce a curfew for 9 pm on the evening of April 30, 1517.

Irate at being told to clear the streets, apprentices gathered by at least 1000 strong in the unfortunately named Cheapside area and confrontation quickly turned into riot, with foreign residences and businesses being vandalized and looted.  By around 3 am after 300 arrests things seemed to calm down, and those arrested were pardoned by King Henry at the urging of his wife, Catherine of Aragon.  Unfortunately for the unlucky number of 13 rioters convicted of treason that night, those 13 were executed on May 4, 1517 as apparently even a King’s patience and sympathy has limits.  Dr. Lincoln himself was also hanged on May 7, 1517 for instigating the unrest.

London was occupied by over 5000 troops after the riot, and once the pardoned prisoners had been released no further riots broke out.

Immigration seems to have a problem long before today.

Today is May Day….Happy May Day my friends…..chuq

Is It Religion Or Politics?

Last week the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, fired the sitting chaplain……possibly the first time ever that this has happened……

Did Paul Ryan think the House chaplain was a meddlesome priest? Father Pat Conroy says that two weeks ago, the House speaker asked for his resignation but did not provide a reason, Politico reports. Democrats believe the priest, who was nominated by John Boehner in 2011, was forced out over a November prayer in which he mentioned the GOP tax bill and said the efforts of lawmakers should result in “benefits balanced and shared by all Americans” instead of “winners and losers.” House Democratic Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley says Ryan’s move was “reprehensible.” That Conroy “be the first chaplain of the House of Representatives to be fired in the history of the United States is just outrageous,” he says.

Conroy is the 60th House chaplain in US history, but only the second Catholic. The priest, whose last day will be May 24, tells the New York Times that “Catholic members on both sides are furious.” The Jesuit declined to comment on whether politics was a factor in the actions of Ryan, a conservative Catholic, though he says the House is inherently political. “I don’t know if there is a religious divide; there certainly is a political one.” A bipartisan group of lawmakers is demanding more information on the firing. Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly blames “anti-Catholic sentiment” for the ouster, though Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong says the speaker is a proud Catholic and the charge is “false and outrageous.”

Soon to be gone Paul Ryan has just exercised his prerogative by ousted a man of the cloth because he thought he was too political…..seriously?  That is bullsh*t from a bullsh*t pro.

But we can avoid this sort of thing by doing what James Madison suggested…..keep religion out of government and that means chaplains.

“…Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom?

In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U. S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them; and these are to be paid out of the national taxes. Does not this involve the principle of a national establishment, applicable to a provision for a religious worship for the Constituent as well as of the representative Body, approved by the majority, and conducted by Ministers of religion paid by the entire nation.

The establishment of the chaplainship to Congs is a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as of Constitutional principles: The tenets of the chaplains elected [by the majority] shut the door of worship agst the members whose creeds & consciences forbid a participation in that of the majority.

…Better also to disarm in the same way, the precedent of Chaplainships for the army and navy, than erect them into a political authority in matters of religion.

My paraphrase of Madison’s thoughts…..”If politicians want prayer then let them adjourn to the offices, close the windows and pray their asses off.”
But that is just my take on it.

BiBi: Believe It Or Not

The Neocon world has awaited for the revelations that BiBi has promised about Iran and its nuke program…..and we finally have his assessment….and we foreign policy wonks were not disappointed….we got his time tried diatribe about Iran….

Benjamin Netanyahu went on Israeli TV Monday night and issued a blunt accusation against the nation he sees as an arch-nemesis: “Iran lied,” he declared. “Big time.” Netanyahu said Israel had obtained a “half ton” of documents proving that Iran had been trying to develop nuclear weapons, something it has long denied, reports the AP. Netanyahu further asserted that Iran sought to cover up the weapons program before signing a 2015 deal with the international community. “Iran is brazenly lying when it said it never had a nuclear weapons program,” said the Israeli prime minister. His office billed it as a bombshell development, though Tom DiChristopher of CNBC writes that Netanyahu’s presentation “largely rehashed what the world long ago accepted: That Iran sought to develop nuclear weapons.”

Still, the timing is significant, given that President Trump must decide by May 12 whether to continue to go along with the 2015 deal or reimpose sanctions, reports the Guardian. The newspaper notes that Netanyahu spoke to Trump by phone over the weekend and met in person with new Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday. “We’ve shared this material with the United States and the United States can vouch for its authenticity,” Netanyahu said on Monday. Iran did not immediately respond to the claims, but its foreign minister tweeted before the presentation that Netanyahu is “the boy who can’t stop crying wolf” in regard to accusations about Iran. Netanyahu said Israel had obtained 55,000 documents and 183 CDs from the “nuclear archives” of Iran.

This should sit well with the likes of Trump, Bolton and Pompeo…..but is his accusations true?

The same re-packaged lies for the last 20 years.

Well let’s see what Mossad and the CIA have to say about it……

Israel’s intelligence services agree with American intelligence assessments that there is not enough proof to determine whether Iran is building a nuclear bomb, according to a report published Sunday in the New York Times.

The report further quoted one former senior American intelligence official who states that the Mossad “does not disagree with the U.S. on the weapons program,” adding that there is “not a lot of dispute between the U.S. and Israeli intelligence communities on the facts.”

According to the New York Times, the extent of the evidence the spy agencies have collected is unclear since most of their findings are classified. However, intelligence officials say they have been throwing everything they have at the Iranian program

(Haaretz)

Intel comes from two sources……Kurds in Iraq that go between the two countries and the M.E.K. a groupm of Iranian dissidents…..

Tired old pics as proof….like I said BiBi does not disappoint when Iran is involved.

That aside the question is….can Pres. Trump abandon this agreement?

To answer this I give you an article on this point…..

President Donald Trump has repeatedly voiced his belief that the Iran nuclear deal is flawed and if it is not amended to cure those flaws, the United States should abandon it. On January 12th of this year, he informed the American public that his administration is working with “key European allies” to reach a “new supplemental agreement that would impose new multilateral sanctions if Iran develops or tests long-range missiles, thwarts inspections, or makes progress toward a nuclear weapon.”

As a political document, there is no legal prohibition on the president from withdrawing from the plan of action. The president has given his negotiators until May 12th to reach that agreement; the date upon which he is next required under Section 1245(d) of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, codified at 22 U.S.C. § 8513a, to decide whether to renew the waiver of certain sanctions targeting the financial sector of Iran.

Can Trump Legally Withdraw from the Iran Deal?

I hope that helped in the understanding……

This is more about an accord signed by Obama than an actual threat…..if the same had occurred with North Korea then that situation would be on a different tact altogether.

The Iran Nuke Deal

While we are on the Iran Nuke Deal……

As the deadline for renewal draws closer there is more and more BS flying around……there are many myths being perpetrated about this deal…..so if you want to know and are willing to look for the answers then I have a place for you…..

Claim 1: Iran will be allowed to inspect itself.

The Facts:

In August 2015 the Associated Press incorrectly reported that a leaked draft of an agreement between the IAEA and Iran indicated that “Iran will be allowed to use its own inspectors to investigate a site it has been accused of using to develop nuclear weapons.” Within hours, experts and the IAEA corrected the record.

IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano refuted this claim: “I am disturbed by statements suggesting that the IAEA has given responsibility for nuclear inspections to Iran. Such statements misrepresent the way in which we will undertake this important verification work.”

According to Cheryl Rofer, former program director at Los Alamos National Laboratory, “It doesn’t matter whose hands do the sampling. What matters is the verifiability of the sampling, laid out by the sampling and analysis plans as well as the chain of custody.  The IAEA’s practice is to prepare sampling kits containing the necessary equipment, oversee the sampling, and be responsible for the chain of custody.”

The authenticity of the document the AP article is based off of has also been called into question; however, according to Jim Walsh, MIT security expert and Council for a Livable World board member, whether the document is real or fake is irrelevant to the primary issue: Iran will not be conducting its own verification or inspections.

Now that I have your attention check out the rest of the popular MYTHS that have been resurrected as the deadline cometh…….

https://armscontrolcenter.org/the-real-facts-on-the-iran-nuclear-negotiations/

The deal is probably toast….it will not be renewed and they will use the “ify” info from Israel.  Then the toads like Pompeo and Bolton will go to work on the president to do something.

What Of Iran?

NK has been making news so the other side of the world is getting little press these days.  Iran is making news just not enough for the MSM to pay attention at least for right now….they will shortly…..

First we need to look at Iran’s priorities……

Iran is ascendant in the Middle East, spreading its influence in a contiguous geographic arc from Tehran to Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut. Its rise, which began with the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and accelerated when civil wars erupted in Syria and Yemen, has generated a perception that Iran aspires to be the region’s hegemonic power. To the U.S. and its allies – Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – such an ambition constitutes an intolerable threat. Iran, however, sees itself as breaking out of prolonged isolation and stifling sanctions – precipitated by the 1979 Islamic Revolution – that it perceives as historic injustice. It sees a region dominated by powers with superior military capabilities. After the 2011 Arab uprisings, Iran applied military force to protect a longstanding ally, the Syrian regime, viewing its loss as a possible prelude to its own encirclement. It is in part the gap in perceptions that has locked Iran and its rivals in an escalatory spiral of proxy fights that is destroying the region. A first step toward closing the gap is to better understand how Iran debates and fashions its regional policy.

https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/gulf-and-arabian-peninsula/iran/184-irans-priorities-turbulent-middle-east

Then there is the nuke deal that is in place that Trump and the war mongers do not like…..the chances are that this deal will possibly be terminated….if so what then?

With just weeks remaining before President Trump’s May 12 ultimatum to change the Iran nuclear deal, there is little sign major change is coming. This is raising concerns that the president may attempt to blow up the deal outright, as he has long threatened.

Iran is warning against such a move, saying that they are prepared to ‘vigorously‘ resume their enrichment of uranium if the pact collapses. Iran FM Javad Zarif noted that Iran was never seeking a nuclear bomb, but that enrichment to lower levels would probably be stepped up in the fact of the deal falling apart.

That’s unsurprising. Dramatic curbs to enrichment were a big concession made by Iran under the deal, along with giving the IAEA an unprecedented level of access to their nuclear sites. Without the deal, Iran would likely feel obliged to reverse those concessions.

(antiwar.com)

This is very worrying…..we could get a deal with NK and then have another nuke problem on our hands.

4 weeks and this could explode on more than one front.