Category: Politics

everything to do with the execution of politics

Just Who Is Dead?

Recently the Russians claimed to have killed the ISIS leader al-Baghdadi….I wrote about the news piece ……

Source: Death Of A Bad Man – In Saner Thought

I bring this up because the US has issued a report that says they have killed the “Grand Mufti” religious leader of ISIS…..

US Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed today that the Islamic State’s Turki al-Bin’ali was killed in a May 31 airstrike in Mayadin, Syria.

Mayadin, which is in the eastern Syrian province of Deir Ezzor, has become a hub for the so-called caliphate’s senior personnel. The US has targeted several high-profile figures in or near the city this year.

Source: CENTCOM Confirms Islamic State’s “Grand Mufti” Killed in Airstrike | RealClearDefense

Now this could be good news….but the US has killed “leaders” before…one guy in Afghanistan he was killed at least 3 separate times….

If true this could be good news…take out the radicalizing force of the group….but this does not eliminate the group….just one of the “soldiers”.

Since both were supposedly in Syria, around Raqqa, could one be mistaken for the other…..

Just who is dead at this point?

More news from the ISIS front…..

It seems that ISIS is admitting that they are doomed….one of their last acts of violence in the Iraqi city of Mosul was barbaric and unnecessary….

In what American commanders called a crime against the people of Iraq and the country’s prime minister called an admission of defeat, officials say ISIS fighters blew up Mosul’s most iconic mosque Wednesday night as government troops closed in. The Grand al-Nuri Mosque, more than 800 years old, was where ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate in 2014 during his only public appearance, the BBC reports. ISIS—whose fighters had been seen bringing explosives to the site, according to CNN—claimed the mosque in Mosul’s Old City had been destroyed by American aircraft, but US commanders swiftly denied the claim, saying there had been no strikes in the area.

Aerial photos showed little but rubble remaining at the mosque complex, where the black flag of ISIS had flown since 2014. The destruction of the mosque and its famous minaret “amounts to an official acknowledgement of defeat,” Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi said in a statement. The Old City is the only part of Mosul still held by ISIS and commanders say the “final chapter” of the offensive to retake the city has begun. The Iraqi military says elite counterterrorism units had fought their way to within 170 feet of the mosque when it was destroyed, Reuters reports.

Why?  What purpose did this serve?

More thoughts on the destruction of this magnificent mosque…..

Source: In Apocalyptic Vandalism, ISIL blows up 800-year-old Nuri Mosque in Mosul | Informed Comment

Relive The 2016 Election (One More Time)

News Flash!  Donald J. Trump won the Electoral College…thus he became president of the United States.

And ever since his win the Dems have been trying to explain how they lost the election…..the simple explanation that none in the Party wants to hear….you had a crappy candidate.

But you have tools like MSNBC’s Joy Reid and others that blame the progressives for the loss…they say that we were pissed about Bernie’s loss so we work against Hillary…yeah that was it (sarcasm)….you toads defeated yourself!

MSNBC’s Joy Reid all but confirmed as much in a widely shared tweet earlier this week in which she said, “Bernie and his followers are like that college friend who stays at your place for weeks, pays $0, eats your food & trashes your aesthetic.”

She, Reid, is NO better than the Right’s Rush Limbaugh……a tool for propaganda.

Why?

Let’s look at the Dem. Party shall we?

The Party ceased representing the worker class when they let Bubba Clinton and his DLC take over control of the Party.  When that occurred the Party went from labor and working class to big business and big money party.

That you jackasses is where your problems began.

The Democratic Party no longer stands for the principles that progressives embrace……The Democratic Party has shifted to the right. It’s not anti-war. It’s not strong on the environment. It’s not strong on civil and human rights. It’s not for universal health care. It’s not strong on cracking down on Wall Street and big banks or corporate fraud…in short a tool of the GOP.

That is right….I said….typical GOP stuff.

With each election the Party is driving more and more voters away…..the candidates are NO way progressive and seldom liberal….no matter what those mental midgets on the Right try to convince you….they are NO better than the slugs they (GOP) nominate.

The Dems lost these elections on their own….blaming others for their stupidity does little to change the trajectory they have programmed for themselves.

They elected a similar toad to run the DNC with promises they cannot deliver.

The latest election in Georgia has proved one thing…the Dems have NO message that the American voter wants to hear.  As per usual the Dems will spin this as a win and they will stay the course on a message that few want to hear.

The only thing that the DNC has accomplished…..is not to increase the number of Dems but rather giving the working people a chance to look for a new leader….a new message…..and possibly a new party.

Source: The American People’s Party

That is what they have accomplished……the search for REAL representation.

Juneteenth: Our Other Independence Day

I enjoy imparting a bit of history to my readers…..today is NO different….it will become known as America’s Other Independence Day…..19 June……

Two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation, American slavery came to an end and a celebration of freedom was born

America’s birthday is fast approaching. But let’s not wait for July 4 to light the fireworks. There is another Independence Day on the horizon.
For centuries, slavery was the dark stain on America’s soul, the deep contradiction to the nation’s founding ideals of “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” and “All men are created equal.” When Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, he took a huge step toward erasing that stain. But the full force of his proclamation would not be realized until June 19, 1865—Juneteenth, as it was called by slaves in Texas freed that day.
The westernmost of the Confederate states, Texas did not get news of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomatox that April until two months after the fact. But they heard once Union Gen. Gordon Granger, a New Yorker and West Point graduate with a distinguished wartime service record, arrived in Galveston Bay with more than 2,000 Union troops. It was on June 19 that he publicly read General Order No. 3, which began: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.”

Source: Juneteenth: Our Other Independence Day | History | Smithsonian

Always great day when you learn something…..congrats….you learned something today.

Then We Have “Executive Privilege”

WE heard the term many many times during Watergate and now with this hearing thing in full swing we are hearing it again……but what is “executive privilege”?  What do they mean?

Let’s go to the definition….

The Constitution does not specifically enumerate the president’s right to executive privilege; rather, the concept has evolved over the years as presidents have claimed it. As the courts have ruled on these claims, their decisions have refined the notion of executive privilege and have clarified the instances in which it can be invoked. The courts have ruled that it is implicit in the constitutional Separation of Powers, which assigns discrete powers and rights to the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government. In reality, however, the three branches enjoy not separate but shared powers, and thus are occasionally in conflict. When the president’s wish to keep certain information confidential causes such a conflict, the president might claim the right of executive privilege.

The term executive privilege emerged in the 1950s, but presidents since George Washington have claimed the right to withhold information from Congress and the courts. The issue first arose in 1792, when a congressional committee requested information from Washington regarding a disastrous expedition of General Arthur St. Clair against American Indian tribes along the Ohio River, which resulted in the loss of an entire division of the U.S. Army. Washington, concerned about how to respond to this request and about the legal precedent his actions would set, called a cabinet meeting. Although no official record was kept of the proceedings, Thomas Jefferson described the deliberations in his diary. The participants, Jefferson wrote, concluded that Congress had the right to request information from the president and that the president “ought to communicate such papers as the public good would permit & ought to refuse those the disclosure of which would injure the public.” In the case at hand, they agreed that “there was not a paper which might not be properly produced,” so Washington provided all the documents that Congress had requested. This event, though notable as the first recorded deliberation concerning executive privilege, did not carry precedential value until after 1957, when Jefferson’s notes were discovered. In 1958, Attorney General William P. Rogers cited Jefferson’s remarks as precedent for an absolute presidential privilege. Legal scholar Raoul Berger declaimed Rogers’s arguments as “at best self serving assertions by one of the claimants in a constitutional boundary dispute.” Instead, Berger argued, Washington’s willingness to turn over the requested documents shows his recognition of Congress’s right to such materials.

In subsequent incidents, however, Washington and his successors did choose to withhold requested information from Congress, citing various reasons. In 1794, for example, the Senate requested from Washington the correspondence of Gouverneur Morris, the U.S. ambassador to France, who was suspected of aiding the French aristocrats against the revolutionaries despite the United States’ official stance of neutrality. Washington provided the letters, but he censored them first, acting on the advice of officials such as Attorney General William Bradford, who said that the president should “communicate to the Senate such parts of the said correspondence as upon examination he shall deem safe and proper to disclose: withholding all such, as any circumstances, may render improper to be communicated.” The following year, Washington refused to provide the House with information relating to Ambassador John Jay’s negotiation of a treaty with Great Britain, arguing that the House had no constitutional right to participate in the treaty making process and so had no right to request materials associated with it.

A short history of the situation and its use and legality……

You now more than you did before you read this piece……you are welcome!

Believe me we will be hearing this term a lot in the coming months and now you can write on the phenom with a bit more knowledge….

Closing Thought–15Jun17

What’s Going On In Congress?

The “good old boys” seem to be making news these days…..their thoughts that women should be seen but not heard……male senators cannot move past their out of date sexism…..

First, during the Senate intel committee hearings make senators tried to silence a female senator…..

Senators were accused of sexism and possible racism Tuesday after the only minority woman on the Senate Intelligence Committee was shut down by male colleagues during the questioning of Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Sen. Kamala Harris, a California Democrat, was reprimanded by GOP Sens. John McCain and Richard Burr for interrupting Sessions’ answers while she was questioning him, NBC reports. Critics accused senators of having a double standard, noting that male senators before and after Harris interrupted Sessions without being told off for doing so. Less than a week ago, the same scene played out with McCain and Burr interrupting Harris’s questioning of deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, CNN reports.

Harris, the second black woman ever to serve in the Senate, is a former prosecutor who uses what the New York Times calls “a rapid-fire questioning pace more commonly seen in courtrooms.” During Tuesday’s questioning, Sessions complained that she was making him nervous. “I’m not able to be rushed this fast,” he said. When Harris asked what policy allowed him to refuse to discuss his conversations with President Trump, she interrupted him when he started describing the principle instead of the policy—and was cut off by McCain. After the hearing, Harris tweeted: “It was a simple question. Can Sessions point to the policy, in writing, that allows him to not answer a whole host of our questions today.” She added: “The women of the United States Senate will not be silenced when seeking the truth.”

During a senate committee hearing on health Sen. Murray was interrupted by her male counterpart…….

In a meeting of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) tried to demand a public hearing on the Senate health care repeal bill. She was summarily denied by Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN):

Alexander then proceeded to spend the next two minutes scolding Murray for supposedly going off topic, claiming he had no interest in a bipartisan hearing on Obamacare repeal because he already held one several months ago — before passage of the House bill — and Democrats “did very poorly” at that hearing.

Notably, Alexander did not at any point make an attempt to justify why nobody has a right to see the Republican health care bill. Nor did he address Murray’s point that the Democrats who passed Obamacare held months of bipartisan public meetings and let Republicans amend the bill. He simply silenced her and plowed on.

Then “good old boys” cannot stand the fact that they must treat the female Senators as equals……at least learn some simple respect…..advice for these tools…..”to get respect you must give respect”.

Time to replace this antiquated thinking and remove the Senate into the 21st century.

Time to smile and take a nap…..see you guys later….chuq

Crap! Someone Lied!

Yesterday was full of news…horrible news….the high rise fire in London, the shooting of a US Rep and others and then came the proverbial “other shoe”……

After many Tweets about the fact the he, Trump, was not the focus of any investigation…that damn “shoe” was thrown into the mechanism….

It’s not an entirely happy 71st birthday for President Trump as the Washington Post reports what it calls a “major turning point” in the FBI investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election: Special Counsel Robert Mueller is now investigating whether Trump tried to obstruct justice, officials say. Though former FBI Director James Comey repeatedly told Trump he was not personally being investigated, that changed days after Trump fired Comey, officials say. Until now, the nearly year-old investigation has focused on Russia’s meddling and whether the Trump campaign was involved with it. Now, as the probe widens to include the obstruction of justice question, five people who have been briefed on requests from Mueller say that he is interviewing senior intelligence officials as part of that examination.

Daniel Coats, the current director of national intelligence, Adm. Mike Rogers, head of the National Security Agency, and Rogers’ former deputy, Richard Ledgett, have all agreed to be interviewed, the officials say. The Post has details of exchanges with Coats and Rogers that are reportedly of interest to Mueller, including a March 22 conversation in which Trump allegedly asked Coats to intervene with Comey to get the FBI to back off on Michael Flynn. The response to the story from Trump’s personal lawyer: “The FBI leak of information regarding the President is outrageous, inexcusable and illegal.” As for what will happen if evidence of criminal activity is uncovered, the Post explains that it’s complicated. Congress would likely need to review the evidence and decide whether to start impeachment proceedings.

The people in the White House have chimed in…….

When the Washington Post reported its potential bombshell on Wednesday—that a special prosecutor is looking into whether President Trump obstructed justice—the newspaper noted that aides were urging the president not to comment about the development on Twitter. Those requests didn’t work: Trump fired off two tweets Thursday morning denouncing the “phony story,” reports Politico. “You are witnessing the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history – led by some very bad and conflicted people!” tweeted Trump, who didn’t specify the people he was talking about.

Trump also suggested that the obstruction development came about because his critics hit a dead end trying to prove his campaign worked with Moscow. “They made up a phony collusion with the Russians story, found zero proof, so now they go for obstruction of justice on the phony story. Nice,” he wrote. The Post, and later the New York Times, say that special prosecutor Robert Mueller wants to interview three key figures to try to figure out whether Trump improperly sought their help to get James Comey to drop the FBI’s investigation of Michael Flynn. They are Dan Coats, director of national intelligence; Michael Rogers, head of the National Security Agency; and Richard Ledgett, former NSA deputy director.

As I heard this news I imagined my Right wing brethren having stroke…..but look at this way…now you guys have something fresh……. some new material to put down in your journals and blogs.

Let the ranting begin…..I look forward to what new insults that can be leveled at those that do not agree with my Right wing brethren.