Day: May 8, 2019

Closing Thought–08May19 #2

I hate that I need to write this post…..

It appears that some batcrap morons have decided to shoot up a school in Colorado……the initial report……

Authorities say at least seven people have been injured in a shooting at a suburban Denver school, the AP reports. Douglas County Undersheriff Holly Nicholson-Kluth said Tuesday that two suspects have been taken into custody in the shooting at STEM School Highlands Ranch. She says there’s a possible eighth injury and doesn’t believe there are any other shooters, but tactical teams are still searching room by room. Nicholson-Kluth didn’t know if there are fatalities or other details about the victims or the extent of their injuries. She said the shooting started in the middle school area and shots were being fired as officers arrived.

Then as more info is made available……

Two students are in custody after opening fire on their classmates at a Denver-area charter school Tuesday, police say. Sheriff Tony Spurlock says the suspects—one adult and one juvenile—were taken into custody within around two minutes of reports of shots being fired at the STEM School Highlands Ranch, the Denver Post reports. Authorities say an 18-year-old man was killed and eight other students were injured. “We know that two individuals walked into the STEM School, got deep inside the school and engaged students in two separate locations,” Spurlock says. “There were a number of students that were shot and injured.” The adult in custody has been named as Devon Erickson, 18. Spurlock says the injured students are all age 15 or older, the AP reports.

Authorities, who say the suspects had at least one handgun, have not commented on a motive. The Post reports that a Honda sedan with the words “(expletive) society” on the door and a pentagram with the numbers “666” on the hood was towed from the Erickson family home Tuesday night. Spurlock says the school, which has more than 1,850 students in kindergarten through 12th grade, doesn’t have a resource officer assigned to it, but uses private security. Brad Bialy tells the New York Times that his son Brendan and two friends tried to tackle a gunman who entered a classroom and pulled a gun out of a guitar case. He says one of the boys was shot in the chest during the attempt to stop the shooting. (The shooting comes just weeks after local schools marked the 20th anniversary of the Columbine massacre.)

This is just sad……this is a daily happening (almost)…..Americans are becoming numb to this situation…..it has become a regular occurrence that Americans only seen to shrug when they see the news of another shooting…..

Just sad that it happens and we do nothing but send our hopes and prayers to the victims……which is about as worthless as the attempts to change things….they are limp and toothless.

GOP Gets More Pathetic By The Day

Closing Thought–08May19

The GOP is doing what it does best…LIES!

They need to spend more time trying to govern than trying to belittle everyone that does not agree with them.

With that said the newest BS coming from the Senate’s leader is just a continuation of the comedy they call “leadership”.

Mitch McConnell summed up his view of the Mueller report in two words on Tuesday: “case closed.” The Senate majority leader criticized Democrats for wanting to continue related investigations and issued a plea to “finally end this Groundhog Day spectacle,” reports NBC News. “Remember, Russia set out to sow discord, to create chaos in American politics and undermine confidence in our democracy,” McConnell said. “But on that front, given the left’s total fixation on delegitimizing the president—the president Americans chose—and shooting any messenger who tells them inconvenient truths, I’m afraid the Russians hardly needed to lift a finger.”

This is pretty much total bullshit.

I have not heard one person in Congress say they want to overturn the 2016 election….they may believe the he is a criminal and a corrupting influence but they know he is the president…..especially the Dems…..So Mitch is just spreading manure the way he always does……

But Mitchy Boy did what all GOPers do….blame everything on Obama…..

On the Russian angle, McConnell also got in a dig at former President Obama. “Maybe stronger leadership would have left the Kremlin less emboldened,” he said. “Maybe tampering with our democracy wouldn’t have seemed so very tempting.”

My one question is…has Mitch read the report? The entire unredacted report? (My guess is he has not and will not for he is a COWARD)

Silly political theater…but then I expect that from politicians…ALL politicians

Was it over when the Benghazi investigation found nothing?  Was it nothing  about the Clinton emails?  These were the same were the same things they are accusing the Dems of doing…..but you see the GOP does stuff it is for the good of the country (read party) and not so when the Dems do something similar……that is as simple as I can break this stupidity down.

The GOP no longer has a soul…..not all it is the enabler of an imperialistic presidency….PERIOD!

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But We Cannot Afford It!

It is a new voting cycle and we will hear and see so much total BS that your head will spin. The Green New Deal, Medicare For All, etc etc……for now I shall let others handle those (I said for now!  There is always tomorrow!)…….the biggest lie is that we cannot afford these policies for there is not enough money…..

I want to talk about the Pentagon in this thought……Our defense budget just keeps growing and growing and our wars just keep expanding and expanding…….and we cannot afford any policies that help our citizenry or the country any good……..

Pentagon spending is on track to grow significantly for the fifth consecutive year, but “very few in Congress are questioning” how the U.S. can afford it.

That’s according to the Washington Post‘s Jeff Stein and Aaron Gregg, who reported Thursday that “the United States is expected to spend more on its military in 2020 than at any point since World War II, except for a handful of years at the height of the Iraq War.”

In his 2020 budget request, Trump called for $750 billion in Pentagon spending. Democrats countered with a $733 billion offer, which would still represent a substantial increase over the Pentagon’s 2019 budget.

Either number would bring U.S. military spending to “near-historic highs,” according to the Post.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/04/19/pentagon-spending-set-hit-near-record-levels-establishment-says-we-cant-afford
 
Time for someone, a candidate, to step up and demand that the Pentagon budget be reduced and more spend on the nation….wait!  We have one of these candidates, Tulsi Gabbard.  She does not get the coverage she deserves because media favorites like Biden and Mayor Pete are sucking all the air out of the early days of the campaigns.
 
If she is not elected then the cycle of endless, worthless wars will continu and Americans will continue to die and be maimed….and the tax dollars will be thrown away as they are today.
 
Use your vote to send a message…..choose a candidate and help them win…..
 
As they say…”it is your choice….choose wisely”……

Making America Great Again–Part 29

My continuing covering the series written by Maj. Danny Sjursen….a look at American history that few have ever seen…..an excellent look in the form of Howard Zinn……

But first my reader can get caught up on this excellent series here…….

Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7; Part 8; Part 9; Part 10;Part 11; Part 12; Part 13; Part 14; Part 15; Part 16; Part 17; Part 18; Part 19; Part 20; Part 21; Part 22; Part 23; Part 24; Part 25; Part 26; Part 27; Part 28.

Today’s part is about the war I fought…Vietnam……there are lessons i to be learned from this war and yet NO one learned a damn thing……

It is the war that never dies. Vietnam, the very word shrouded with extraordinary meaning in the American lexicon. For some it represents failure; for others guilt; for still more, anger that the war could have and should have been won. Americans are still arguing about this war, once the nation’s longest. For those who lived through it—the last war the U.S. fought partly with draftees—it was almost impossible not to take sides; to be pro-war or anti-war became a social and political identity unto itself. This tribal split even reached into the ranks of military veterans, as some joined antiwar movements and others remained vociferously sure that the war needed to be fought through to victory. Indeed, today, even the active-duty U.S. military officer corps is rent over assessment of the Vietnam legacy.

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/american-history-for-truthdiggers-vietnam-a-u-s-tragedy/
 
If I was still teaching then this series would be required reading….this is the history that Americans need to know and not some fanciful crap put out by reactionaries.
 
Maj. Danny is a great historian that tells it like it is/was……kudos and congrats to him….and anyone that reads his series……very informative.
 
 
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Class Dismissed!

Military Sexual Assault

This is a story that should not exist…..

There is a long history of sexual assault in our military and most of it has gone under-reported and in recent years this situation has come to the forefront of reporting (usually when there is little happening on the world stage and it is used as a filler)

Even a US Senator had been assaulted when she was in the military….

Sen. Martha McSally, the first female fighter pilot to fly in combat, said Wednesday that she was raped in the Air Force by a superior officer, the AP reports. The Arizona Republican, a 26-year military veteran, made the disclosure at a Senate hearing on the armed services’ efforts to prevent sexual assaults and improve the response when they occur. McSally said she did not report being sexually assaulted because she did not trust the system, and she said she was ashamed and confused. McSally did not name the officer who she says raped her. “I stayed silent for many years, but later in my career, as the military grappled with the scandals, and their wholly inadequate responses, I felt the need to let some people know I too was a survivor,” she said, choking up as she detailed what had happened to her.

“I was horrified at how my attempt to share generally my experiences was handled,” she continued. “I almost separated from the Air Force at 18 years of service over my despair. Like many victims, I felt like the system was raping me all over again.” McSally’s revelation comes not long after Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, detailed her own abuse and assault, and at a time of increased awareness over the problem of harassment and assault in the armed forces. Reports of sexual assaults across the military jumped nearly 10% in 2017—a year that also saw an online nude-photo sharing scandal rock the Defense Department. McSally said she shares in the disgust of the failures of the military system and many commanders who have failed to address the problems of sexual misconduct.

Even with special reports and testimony from those abused you would think that the military would clean up their act……you would think, right?

Figures show 20,500 instances of unwanted sexual contact occurred in 2018, up from 14,900 in 2016 which is the last time a survey was conducted.

Alcohol was involved in one third of cases, and female recruits ages 17 to 24 are at the highest risk of attack.

On Thursday, Acting Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan directed the military to “criminalise” sexual harassment.

Sexual harassment can fall within other legal violations of military behaviour, but is not yet a “stand-alone” criminal offence.

The directive from Mr Shanahan was among a series of other recommendations, released in a memo on Thursday.

“Sexual assault is illegal and immoral, is inconsistent with the military’s mission and will not be tolerated,” he wrote.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48125906

I am glad to see someone trying to make a difference….but sadly I am not so sure that it will help.

Sadly the regurgitation of AG Barr was more important that the fact that our female soldiers are NOT safe even in our own military…the same puke from Barr over and over and over…..

But Why Venezuela?

The war drums are a bit quieter right now and those for Iran are getting louder….is this what is call a “yo-yo foreign policy”?

Any way Venezuela…….I have heard many say that our stand on the South American country as a push for control of their oil reserves…..which is a logical but then I ask why……

The US is already a oil exporting country…do we need their, Venezuela’s, oil?

If our chest thumping is not about their oil….then what?

But first a few historical looks at our involvement in others ………

Let’s look at 1953 and Iran……

The 1953 Iranian coup d’état (known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup) saw the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh on 19 August 1953 and the installation of a military government. This coup was orchestrated by the intelligence agencies of the United Kingdom and the United States under the name TPAJAX Project. The result of this event was that under the direct orders of Mohammad-Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, the administration of the country got out of the hands of the parliament to find itself under the supervision of an illegitimate government. The establishment of this power was under major support of its foreign allies until its overthrow in 1979.

http://www.mossadegh.com/index.php/en/mohammad-mossadegh/coup-d-etat-of-1953

In this case of “regime change” it was the control of oil for American and English corporations…..you see the country was trying to take control of their resources and the US took exception.

Then we fast forward to 1954 Guatemala……

In 1954, a CIA-backed coup overthrew the elected government of Guatemala, which had nationalized property owned by the United Fruit Company. President Eisenhower’s Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, accused the Guatemalan president of installing “a communist-type reign of terror” and plotting to spread Communism throughout the region. As proof that the Guatemala had ties to the Soviet Union, CIA operatives planted Soviet weapons in Guatemala and CIA pilots bombed airfields in Honduras.

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm

This “regime change” was because a country was bucking an American corporation, United Fruit by trying to take control of the country’s resource.

Now we have come to Venezuela and the attempt at “regime change” once again by the US…..

At this point I ask why yet again?

Could this be because the US is once again siding with a corporation over a country’s elected government?

In this case it is the infamous corporation, Monsanto……

As the political crisis in Venezuela has unfolded, much has been said about the Trump administration’s clear interest in the privatization and exploitation of Venezuela’s oil reserves, the largest in the world, by American oil giants like Chevron and ExxonMobil.

Yet the influence of another notorious American company, Monsanto — now a subsidiary of Bayer — has gone largely unmentioned.

While numerous other Latin American nations have become a “free for all” for the biotech company and its affiliates, Venezuela has been one of the few countries to fight Monsanto and other international agrochemical giants and win. However, since that victory — which was won under Chavista rule — the U.S.-backed Venezuelan opposition has been working to undo it.

How GMO Seeds and Monsanto/Bayer’s “RoundUp” are Driving US Policy in Venezuela

So is it possible that yet another American corporation is behind another regime change?

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