While President Trump’s position on Iran tends to change with little notice, he backed away from his insistence that he doesn’t want war with Iran on Monday, saying now of the war “it could go either way, and I’m OK either way it goes.”
Trump added that it’s “getting harder for me to want to make a deal with Iran” in the first place, because he views them as “behaving very badly,” and are “the number one state of terror in the world.”
Trump followed this up by announcing new sanctions against China, saying they were intended to punish them for “accepting crude oil.” This is likely to be a bigger problem for US-China ties than Iran, as Iran is already heavily sanctioned.
If Trump’s new bellicose stance sticks, this could be a major shift in US hostility toward Iran. President Trump has been one of the few top officials insisting he didn’t want a war as administration hawks continued to talk of a conflict as all but inevitable. If Trump is indeed “OK either way” on the war, it’s not going to be any secret that his top aides will be pushing him to choose war over peace.
All politics is bribery, blackmail and bulling. Trump is being attacked on all sides. I don’t see how he keeps going. Fire Bolton!
CAN Trump fire Bolton?
Only if he check with Aipac-Javanka first.
Whenever the Donald feels the walls closing in on him he can always rely on having one of his KKK type rallies when all of his faithful clansmen get together and have a Nazifest.
What a pile of BS! The people who are dividing this country by race are the Democrats. Their whole existence for 200 years has been race baiting. Obama was and is the biggest race baiter of them all. He had a chance to unite this country. He has done nothing to brig this country together, only divide.
So Trump tells four women of color to “go back to where you came from”, holds a rally where the fine “patriots”(his words)chant “send her back” while he does nothing and then demands these woman apologize to America. Now, which part of that is BS? And I really don’t know what Obama has to do with any of that but at least you didn’t bring up Hillary.
Four nasty ugly racist women who hate white people. They are ignorant of history, economics and any sane common sense. They now define the Democrat party.
“Four women of colour who hate being labeled racists by a bitter and angry ignoramus and also by Trump. I am ignorant of history, economics and lack common decency.” Fixed that for you.
None of that, if true, is relevant. Trumps rallies were the subject of my post. You jumped immediately to strawman arguments.
Those four do seem to hate white Christians especially. It is what it is. And it wouldn’t be news if a Democrat told a European-American to “go back to Europe”, for example.
Trump was basically saying that the policies supported by those four come from their home polities, which are disasters. If America adopts such ideas, then America would become a similar disaster. Trump was arguing that the four should adopt American (especially Republican/Trumpian) political values instead. Trump was arguing that they should melt into the pot, not melt the pot itself.
It’s standard pro-mass-immigration “America is an ideological nation” GOP talking points. They tend to believe the whole world wants to be American, to join America’s wonderful system, wonderful political ideas, and wonderful warring.
It’s similar to Neocons arguing that if I don’t like the warring, then I ought to leave. They often tell people like me to move to Somalia, which never made sense to me.
–
It’s noteworthy that some Americans are not only wanting to preserve American political traditions but are also fearful of how race-obsessed the Democrats have become. Instead of pulling up the poor like, say, Yang talks about doing; many Democrats talk about the need for reparations. And even Yang doesn’t reject reparations currently.
If truly wanting to unite America, then the first step would be to make no policy with regard to race. Instead, treat everyone identically. Help the poor, the disadvantaged, etc. Do not single out a single group of people. Grouping people leads to division.
What did any of them say that would make you come to the conclusion they hate white Christians? They’ve taken the most flack from their comments on the little parasite, Israel, and for saying terror attacks are blowback. Both true.
“Trump was basically saying that the policies supported by those four come from their home polities, which are disasters.”
Three of the four were born here so you are right about their home polities being a disaster. Trump made a racist comment and tried futilely to backtrack. Is there anything he can do or say that you Trump supporters won’t try to rationalize in some way?
Home and parents’ home polities. And it’s significant, because they continue to bash the US, as Trump noted. To paraphrase, if they hate the US, then go back. It is a very kind thing to be allowed into the US. Why not then join the US constructively? That is the argument.
And if some enlightened Democrat says I ought to return to Europe, no one bats an eye. Also, if some enlightened Democrat says I’m still to blame for slavery, no one bats an eye. Either everyone is an individual, or no one is. The double standard is wrong.
“if some enlightened Democrat says I ought to return to Europe, no one bats an eye. Also, if some enlightened Democrat says I’m still to blame for slavery, no one bats an eye.”
Pardon my French, but bullshit. Plenty of eyes get batted in both directions.
Their home is here and I don’t know what their parents polities have to do with anything. You and I continue to bash the US also and mostly about the same things these four were bashing THEIR country for, our foreign policy and our loyalty to a foreign country. Is our bashing different? Do we hate America too?
Do you honestly believe that if someone told you to return to Europe it would have the same meaning as telling four women of color to “go back to where you came from?” You seem to be grasping. There is no other way of interpreting what Trump said other than it being racist. Now whether Trump meant it in a racist way, only he knows that for certain. But to try and downplay the actual term is just being disingenuous on your part.
If Trump were an employee at a factory, he’d had been fired.
From the website of the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission:
“Ethnic slurs and other verbal or physical conduct because of nationality are illegal if they are severe or pervasive and create an intimidating, hostile or offensive working environment, interfere with work performance, or negatively affect job opportunities. Examples of potentially unlawful conduct include insults, taunting, or ethnic epithets, such as making fun of a person’s foreign accent or comments like, ‘Go back to where you came from,’ whether made by supervisors or by co-workers.”
To quote Pressley:
“If you’re going to come to [the political] table, all of you who have
aspirations of running for office: If you’re not prepared to come to
that table and represent that voice, don’t come, because we don’t need
any more brown faces that don’t want to be a brown voice. We don’t need
black faces that don’t want to be a black voice. We don’t need Muslims
that don’t want to be a Muslim voice. We don’t need queers that don’t
want to be a queer voice. If you’re worried about being marginalized and
stereotyped, please don’t even show up because we need you to represent
that voice.”
She’s not calling for individuals to act as individuals within the US. She’s calling for ethnic groups to unite, as if they were Nazis, to work together as ethnic groups. And she’s calling for other identity groups to similarly work together.
And whom is she wanting to unite against? Pressley = David Duke. She’s just from a different group. And the rest of the squad was just fine with her statement.
Omar sounds like she sympathizes with al Qaeda…
It’s pretty clear, those who stand with the squad are pro-war Nazis. They want war in the US. I obviously do not. As I’ve said repeatedly, the US is a pleasant place. It makes no sense for the Squad to turn the US into Yemen (civil war), Libya, Syria (civil war), etc. If a significant percentage of Americans are so miserable that they want civil war, then the US really needs better job opportunities and perhaps really universal basic income.
“She’s not calling for individuals to act as individuals within the US. She’s calling for ethnic groups to unite, as if they were Nazis, to work together as ethnic groups.”
Geez, I wonder why. I take it you are not a minority. And that’s a strange take on defining Nazi’s.
“It’s pretty clear, those who stand with the squad are pro-war Nazis.”
That’s just utter bullshit.
It is not bs. And that is what is angering millions of Americans.
It is identical to David Duke calling for whites to vote as a bloc or to pursue the interests of white Americans.
Of course it’s bs. So if I “stand with the squad” on their views of AIPAC, am I a “pro-war Nazi”? If anyone stands with them on any issue are they Nazi’s? That’s just a crazy statement.
And in my lifetime blacks weren’t allowed to use the same bathrooms or sit at the same counter of a restaurant. There would seem to be a reason why they have, and still do, feel the need to unite as blocs.
I didn’t say standing with them on every issue is bad.
That’s one of the most frustrating things: “Conservatives” take up stupid positions at times which give crazy Dems the chance to take up a few reasonable positions.
Bad “conservatives”, fake “conservative” mass media, and related mass appeals are why good candidates never seem to win. There’s so much money floating around brainwashing the masses.
People like Trump seem to actually support a police state, to “keep us safe”. I’ve heard some of the most radical right-wing folks actually defend police state policies, arguing that only wackos think the government is spying on anyone other than Muslims.
Recently Bernie and AOC argued against usery, high credit card interest rates. That’s a good argument! Too many conservatives seem to believe any and every exploitation of the weak is good. They might actually believe usury is “freedom”, but they’ve allowed themselves to become an easy stereotype.
–
How is socialism defeated, truly? Or perhaps I should say, how is the “managerial state” defeated? A large middle class, smaller businesses, decentralisation of wealth and power. Conservatives don’t understand this.
All Marxism is is an attempt at power, at overthrowing the current system to replace with a tiny, angry elite that wants revenge. And conservatives enable this revolution. Such a revolution is easily stopped by just ensuring there is not an angry underclass in the US. Conservatives don’t get that. Without an underclass, there can be no Marxist revolution.
“Trump was basically saying that the policies supported by those four come from their home polities”
Those four polities would be Massachusetts, Minnesota, Michigan, and New York.
epic maga-rant John…..”ugly” ? You must be trolling for a seat next to trumps paid maga-blondes behind his rally podium . Good luck
“They now define the Democrat party in my imagination.”
Fixed, no charge.
You do know that until the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964, the Democratic party was party of the racist South, right? And Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” in ’68 to pick up all the bruised reactionaries left behind by the new Democratic party?
I also don’t remember Obama telling people he disagreed with to leave America. Or openly calling members of the opposition party “the enemy.” Not exactly a call for unity, rather it’s “my way or the highway.”
I do remember Donald Trump’s birtherism, declaring the President needed to*prove* he was a citizen. Because he’s brown, i guess. That was very uniting.
Nixon integrated the South peacefully. Obama never put out his birth certificate. Trump made him after several years. How many trips to Chicago has Obama made to quell all the violence there? All the Democrats is totally phony racism and dividing people by groups. Jussie Smollet is their poster boy.
“Obama never put out his birth certificate. Trump made him”. And the reason for this was?
How many trips to Miami has Trump made over the course of his life to quell the violence there? “What’s it got to do with him?” You say. Ah….
“All the Democrats is totally phony racism and dividing people by groups.” Lessee… Trump calls out 4 women of colour, but it’s the Dems “dividing people by groups”, by… um, doing what? Having not just white men as candidates?
Let me guess. You’ve never won a single debate in your life, don’t really understand why your English and history teachers failed you in 8th grade, and, I’m gonna say, “thrice divorced”, just to make you look up a word in a dictionary.
Trump agreed to releasing criminals, which is supposedly (according to the powers-that-be) what “people of color” want. As Jeff Sessions noted, releasing criminals especially harms those they live among. Keeping criminals imprisoned works to reduce crime, keeps everyone safe.
When those 4 special people call out others who happen to be white, is that OK? It is highly annoying to hear so many events mislabeled racist.
What we’ve learned since Trump’s election is that the majority of people will come to believe racism is happening if the accusation is repeated enough. And similarly, the majority will come to support wars, support most anything likely. Trump has gone out of his way to praise the improvement of black wages, reduction in black unemployment. He’s talked during his entire campaign about helping poor Americans.
–
What harms the poor the most? Mass immigration and guest workers, which Trump has been weak on. But if Trump were to truly help the poor by reducing those things, you’d say he’s racist, even if it’s poor
minorities who’d benefit the most.
Because if minorities were actually wealthy and happy, they wouldn’t vote as Democrats want.
What’s sad is that Trump sold out, didn’t keep to his populist positions. If guest workers were banned for 10 years, illegals deported, and immigration ended for 10 years; market wages would sky rocket as a result.
“What harms the poor the most?”
Probably people trying to fool them into believing that mass immigration and guest workers are what keeps them poor. At least if the con succeeds, anyway.
Oh, right: Global competition with the rest of the world’s workforce would really help America’s poor… The US citizenry should act as a large union, promoting its interests.
The US has but to preserve its advantages, removing the ladder so-to-speak, and America’s citizenry can remain wealthy and spoiled.
“Cons” like the Koch brothers and the US Chamber of Commerce want the maximal number of immigrants and guest workers, because they don’t want to hire expensive Americans.
My reply to the cons is there’s need for a 100% wealth tax for those above some level of wealth. The wealthy seem to be at war with the rest of the US, aiming to flood us with foreign workers who’ll lower our market value. So, the American citizenry should take that war back to the wealthy: Take their wealth.
“Oh, right: Global competition with the rest of the world’s workforce would really help America’s poor.”
There’s no “would” about it — it does, at least when idiots like Smoot, Hawley, Trump et al. aren’t allowed to prevent it from doing so.
Free markets (including in labor) make everyone more prosperous than coercive government manipulation of markets does. Coercive government manipulation of markets only makes the cronies of the manipulators more prosperous.
“Trump agreed to releasing criminals, which is supposedly (according to
the powers-that-be) what “people of color” want. As Jeff Sessions noted,
releasing criminals especially harms those they live among. Keeping
criminals imprisoned works to reduce crime, keeps everyone safe.”
How is this in any way, shape, or form, related to the topic at hand, and what evidence do you have that POCs want “criminals” released? What are you even talking about? Do you mean asylum seekers? They are NOT criminals. “It is highly annoying to hear so many people mislabeled criminals.” Fixed that one for you. And you don’t need to take my word for it. Go look it up. In US law.
If you’re going to argue, do so honestly. I don’t care if Donald is racist (he’s so many things); what matters is that he dog whistles to those who are, and it’s dangerous. Ditto demonizing asylum seekers. Your statements about ending all immigration for ten years being some sort of economic boon tell me you know nothing about the actual demographics of your own country or what its economy is based on.
As for your defense of the bigot above, I’ve got an idea: go back to whatever shithole country you came from. Oh,what, you say, you were born in the USA? So were 3 out of 4 of the Squad. Why’s it OK to say it to them? Never mind whether you think the label “racist” is somehow inaccurate: the statement itself is stupid (they were born in the USA), offensive, and dangerous as, yes, I will repeat it, it’s a dog whistle appealing to the worst elements of society: those who hate the Other, whether for reasons of race, religion, creed, or whatever. Those who judge a person by their affiliation to entire groups by the actions of a few, and not by their character or actions. People calling out Trump are not attacking white people, and for you to suggest it is disingenuous (that means deceptive to the degree people might think you’re stupid). One last thing, “what harms the poor the most” isn’t other poor people. It’s the super-rich and the system that keeps the super-rich super rich and keeps the poor poor. Get your head ’round that and there might actually be hope for you.
I have a degree in history with minors in political science and geography. I was a huge public works contractor for many years. I respect Trump because of his vast business experience. You have no idea how tough it is to do the huge number of tough projects he has done. I have been reading and commenting here for many years. I highly respected the late Justin Raimondo for his vast knowledge of history. Which is more then I can say for some of the commenters here. The Democrats have often used race and social division to get votes. The Republicans are not saints, but compared to the freak show the Democrats are putting out. The late Justin and I both had a lot of hope for Trump as the most antiwar President in many years. I still do..
Obama was extraordinarily divisive. He stuck by race hoaxes to intentionally inflame racial divisions.
He’s the one who hired Bolton, so he can only blame himself.
As far as bribery, blackmail, etc, Trump declared that he loved buying politicians, right on the campaign trail. The audience cheered, of course. He described favored treatment for political donations as a positive aspect of the system, for him. Because “for him,” is all that matters. None of this should be a surprise, he’s made his gross lack of character abundantly clear over the past few decades.
He hasn’t listened to Bolton on much except to make fun of him. See the story on this page about Trump and Bolton. Trump hasn’t started any wars yet. Certainly much better then Obama and Clinton. But it is hard to resist the Israeli, Saudi, lobby’s and the military industrial complex.
Oh, so actually, wrecking the Iran deal for no reason at all was all his own idea? As for his record, that remains to be seen: there is no predicting where this guy is headed: he claims to have held off on attacking Iran with minutes to spare. How’s that “better”? let’s see where we are by the end of his term(s).
Just having Bolton anywhere near the levers of power is sin enough, as Gareth Porter demonstrates: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/did-john-bolton-light-the-fuse-of-the-uk-iranian-tanker-crisis/
“But it is hard to resist the Israeli, Saudi, lobby’s and the military industrial complex.” (The sound of a would-be lapdog whining at another dog barking at his master.) Don’t you think defenders of Obama say the exact same thing about their guy? Excuses. Either each prez is a willing participant or they’re just weak when it really matters. Wake up. Or grow up. Has he even said he wants to close Gitmo? No, he wants more prisoners there for some reason. Basically Dems and Repubs all do roughly the same thing when in the White House, they just give different reasons and with different tones of voice.
Fire Bolton. Pompeo. And. Trump.
Instead they fire missiles
Replace with someone who wants even more war?
Then you wind up with Pence.
Cooler heads must prevail. Trump had best check with Lindsay Graham, Joe Liebernan, and Sheldon Adelson, before acting rashly and ensuring the election of Kamala Harris.
For some strange reason I find Kamala really hot :–)
& people wonder why feminism is still a thing?
Would any of them be opposed to Harris? Is she supposed to be different?
US is ruled by a corrupt and criminal Maffia
Tom,,Seems to be that way,,called the “deep state”.
“I’ll tell you it could go either way, very easily,” Trump added. “And I’m OK either way it goes.” What did you expect, the Gettysburg Address?
Bibi the Trump Whisperer must have put in a call and told him not to sweat it, war with Iran is a done deal and Sheldon Adelson’s check is in the mail.
Pastor John Hagee is having a hard-on for Armageddon and his Christian Zionist nut jobs are all packed and ready to be raptured up to Heaven. In the meantime they’ll be the cheering section at Trump’s next rally.
All in all, just a normal day in the Trump White House. He’ll be out on the links when it all comes down and will find out about it on Fox news that evening.
Trump’s children will join our volunteer military and ask for combat duty.
bolton is a madman
pompeo is a psychopath
trump is a moron and a puppet
they are going to attack Iran soon, after playing this bad cop good cop thing for months. and the Gulf area will be largely destroyed, very sorry to say…….perhaps even Israel as well – they are all sociopaths
It seems China would stay out, but I wonder what Russia and Turkey would do.
“the number one state of terror in the world”
Did he mean state “sponsor” of terror? Or did he mean they were in a state of terror because the lone superpower keeps threatening war while simultaneously trying to destroy them with sanctions? Hard to believe this moron has higher than single digit approval ratings.
No problem understanding his approval ratings given the high IQ of the American people.
The standard Binet IQ Test is now needless – just realize that America is now inhabited mostly by morons. Why measure stupidity.
That stuck out for me too. Too effing lazy to even get that right. His base is so high on opoids it really doesn’t matter.
Mork,,ButtAGig would do a far better job, so qualified and filled with great ideas and solutions to all problems, just like all demoncrats, except Tulsi,,and she is getting the stiif arm treatment,,so sad.
Yang agreed to no new wars. He might be the one to back. And I realize Yang is just promising free stuff basically, but why not at this point? The US already spends too much; eventually it falls off a cliff and cuts spending either way.
Yang is for give away’s and open borders and violating the laws of this USA., and the Constitution, Luch, you must be joking….
What doesn’t matter is what anyone in his base thinks or what anyone thinks who wasn’t in attendance at the last Bilderberger conference, or their employers or cohorts. The simple fact is that we are living in a much less democratic time since 2004 and the unaccountable computer-voting-machine eruption. I would’ve thought it was bad enough with the state of public education in the U.S., and with the astonishing level of control and censorship in the mass media, but no, we now have computer voting machines stateside and the propaganda has coincidentally (or not!) become less sophisticated, much lazier, the emperor has no clothes. It’s no real ‘coincidence’ (in the sense that we use that term) that Bush’s wars of choice and regime change (anything significantly worse than briefly evicting Saddam from Kuwait or the weapons-testing operations in Panama or Grenada) came with the computer voting machines. Do you remember how indignant the Republicans were when the possibility of a paper trail accompaniment was suggested? ‘How dare you entertain the possibility that we or anyone might cheat’. Well Harpers did a piece after Bush’s election, ‘None dare call it stolen’ re how the electoral process played out in Ohio in 2004, and it was well-annotated as I expect the author knew he’d be attacked. The go-to quote has since been removed from the on-line version (see the PDF), that in a brief review up-front of the election nation-wide, that 26 states had exit-polls all wrong in one direction, and in 5 Kerry was predicted to win, [New Mexico’s disparity between the results and the polls was ridiculous btw], the odds of which according to the National election data archive project was 16.5 million to 1. (This sentence or 2 has been removed as some misinterpreted it to say that the odds of Bush’s election were such, but I think it was clear enough, and we can all guess as to why that information might have really been removed from the article). Lo. and. behold. 20 years of nonsense since and just getting worse, Modi elected in India with such machines and behaves as you’d expect. Bolsonnaro was elected in Brazil with those machines and could never have been otherwise. It’s getting obvious world-wide, and certainly in Brazil where a population which is more than half black voted in a openly anti-black fascist and who looks as bad or worse than Prince Philip does now at 96. A Supreme court case was held in Brazil recently at which computer engineers and professors testified as to the vulnerability of the voting system there to hacking, and the court (in a 7-2 decision) simply mocked these witnesses as ‘conspiracy theorists’. The election and the fate of the planet now goes to the highest bidder at the national computer-voting auction or whatever we can call it. Antiwar’s one of my favourite sites, I’m a fan of J. Ditz, but this issue is so rarely touched on it’s like a 3rd rail. I think it’s the elephant in the room. I can only hope that those who would profit from this next war (now we have a Raytheon lobbyist as Sec. of Def.?) would pause out of some concern for any real blowback after it gets under way, or at least the cheerleaders would like Tom Cotton and Bolton. But they’re there to take the fall, and the attention and the money, and their further future, and ours, be damned. This computer voting machine manipulation theory IS a conspiracy theory and a great one with abundant evidence. You’d have to be naive not to know that elections are increasingly rigged internationally because of them. Which is why I think you’re incorrect when you blame the IQ of the voters and non-voters. Everything computerized is hackable, we have to get back to paper ballots. That said, again I can only hope that the blow-back will give pause, but I’m afraid it looks bad and looks to be getting scarier by the day.
I wonder if we took a poll from the entire world If Iran would win 1st place as the number one terrorist country in the world . Where do you suppose the USDA would be rated ?
what terror does iran do?usa probably terrorizes its own people at 40% and thats also dems oppressing blacks in chicago..im still leaning republican i guess
What?
This terror does Iran do:
Hamas
Hisbollah
Houthi
“Popular forces” in Iraq
(Taliban – not sure / some)
That’s at least five conflicts in which Iran plays an ugly role as supplier of weapons, rockets, men – and ideology.
Thanks for your attention
Taliban is Pakistan, not Iran…
Shia Arabs in Iraq obviously side more with Shia Persians. Iraq is majority Shi’ite. Absolutely everyone knew Iraq would move into Iran’s political sphere if Saddam were removed.
Iran is less involved in the foreign matters you mention than are the Saudis and America.
Iran’s greatest crime seems to be that it prevented (via support of Assad) the genocide of Christians in Syria. Do you also hate Christians?
POTUS, Dr. Strangelove.
Let’s turn him into Major T. J. “King” Kong and tie him to the first bomb dropped on Iran, or anywhere else.
with Bolton as Slim Pickens 🙂
yup 🙂
The only way the US is going to stop China from buying Iran’s oil is to blow up Iran. It’s sounding less and less like cooler heads will prevail.
Isn’t starting an unnecessary war illegal (as well as being immoral, of course)? Wasn’t this the primary reason Germans and Japanese warmongers were tried after the last great war? How have Americans become so casual about starting wars?
“We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they started it. And we must not allow ourselves to be drawn into a trial of the causes of the war, for our position is that no grievances or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy. Let me make clear that while this law is first applied against German aggressors, the law, if it is to serve a useful purpose, must condemn aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment. We are able to do away with domestic tyranny and violence and aggression by those in power against the rights of their own people only when we make all men answerable to the law.”
Justice Robert Jackson, Nuremberg Trials
True. But, terrorism.
“How have Americans become so casual about starting wars?”
By believing either that the US will win or that even if it loses the loss won’t result in its soil being occupied and its leaders hanged.
Of course, Germans believed that too, until they found out different.
Germany was supposedly shocked at discovering how incredibly powerful Soviet Russia was under Stalin.
Sadly, it doesn’t matter nearly as much anymore what anyone who casts a ballot in the U.S. thinks or whether or not they’re “casual about starting wars” (and I don’t believe that they are personally), except for those in attendance at the last Bilderberger conference, or their employers or cohorts. The simple fact is that we are living in a much less democratic time since 2004 and the unaccountable computer-voting-machine eruption. I would’ve thought it was bad enough with the state of public education in the U.S., and with the astonishing level of control and censorship in the mass media, but no, we now have computer voting machines stateside and the propaganda has coincidentally (or not!) become less sophisticated, much lazier, the emperor has no clothes. Citizens United was the scapegoat, or the icing on the cake. It’s no real ‘coincidence’ (in the sense that we use that term) that Bush’s wars of choice and regime change (anything significantly worse than briefly evicting Saddam from Kuwait or the weapons-testing operations in Panama or Grenada) came with the computer voting machines. Do you remember how indignant the Republicans were when the possibility of a paper trail accompaniment was suggested? ‘How dare you entertain the possibility that we or anyone might cheat’. Well, Harper’s had the balls (when Lapham was the editor) to publish a piece shortly after Bush’s election, ‘None dare call it stolen’ re how the electoral process played out in Ohio in 2004, and it was well-annotated as I expect the author knew he’d be attacked. The go-to quote has since been removed from the on-line version (see the PDF) in the brief review up-front of the election nation-wide on the 1st page, that 26 states had exit-polls all wrong in one direction in that “election”, and in 5 of which Kerry was predicted to win, [the disparity in New Mexico between the results and the polls was ridiculous btw], the odds of which according to the ‘National election data archive project’ was 16.5 million to 1. (This sentence or 2 has been removed in the online version as some misinterpreted it to say that the odds of Bush’s election were such, but I think it was clear enough, and we can all guess as to the real reason why that information was removed). Lo. and. behold. 15 years of nonsense since and just getting worse, Modi elected in India with such machines and behaves as you’d expect. Bolsonaro was elected in Brazil with those machines and could NEVER have been otherwise. It’s getting obvious world-wide, and certainly in Brazil where a population which is more than half black allegedly voted in a openly anti-black fascist, one who looks as bad or worse than Prince Philip does now at 96. (I don’t condone looksism, but studies of election results have shown … ) A Supreme court case was held in Brazil recently at which computer engineers and professors testified as to the vulnerability of the voting system there to hacking, and the court (in a 7-2 decision) simply mocked the said witnesses as ‘conspiracy theorists’. The election and the fate of the planet now goes to the highest bidder at the national computer-voting auction or whatever we can call it. Antiwar’s one of my very favourite sites, I’m a fan of J. Ditz, but this issue is so rarely touched on at any site online it’s like a 3rd rail. I think it’s really the elephant in the room. I can only hope that those who would profit from this next war (now we have a Raytheon lobbyist as Sec. of Def.?) would pause out of some concern for any real blowback after it gets under way, or at least the cheerleaders would, like Tom Cotton and Bolton. But they’re there to take the fall, and the attention and the money, and their further future and ours be damned. This computer voting machine manipulation theory IS a conspiracy theory and a great one with abundant evidence. You’d have to be naive not to know that elections are increasingly rigged internationally because of them. Which is why I think you’re incorrect to place much emphasis on what the vast majority of the 99% thinks. Everything computerized is hackable, we have to get back to paper ballots. That said, again I can only hope that the blow-back will give pause, but I’m afraid it looks bad and looks to be getting scarier by the day. I would love to be told why it won’t happen if it won’t.
The same should be done to US warmongers in the cases of aggressive wars against Afghanistan and Iraq started by G. W. Bush and extended by Obama.
The worst warmongers today are Bonkers Bolton and Pompous Pompeo, who take their orders, not from the President, but by a maniacal foreign leader in a tiny state in the Middle East – Bibzy Nutty&Yahoo in Israel. This has to stop now, before the entire planet’s destroyed and all life – except for cockroaches and radiation-immune microorganisms – by a thermonuclear 3rd World War.
Eileen,,Except there is an Elephant in the room that no one has the ballz to recognize. That Elephant has the capability to end everything at any second, and that shows just how little respect the Gov. truly has for us outside their tight loop of Ghouls.
He is full of bull, the US can`t go to war with Iran….and he knows it.
Read this article, it gives the reason.
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/07/23/601662/Iran-UK-Tanker-Mazaheri
israel is evil
i cant stand OAC or Omar either
anyone like weld2020.org ?
pretty sick times were in but if trump doesnt bomb Iran he may win and if Obama had bombed Libya 50 times dems would reelect him for 70 years..dems are totally oblivious as to what went on in libya in 2011
And i bet Hillary could bomb Iran like, two thousand times and those LIBTARDS would still elect her to King of the SUPREME COURT!!!!
sorry but how did the US get the authority to tell every other country with whom they can do business with? I can find no such authority in the constitution, and therefore NO SUCH AUTHORITY EXISTS!
This appears to be fairly clear proof that he doesn’t care about winning in 2020.
Any way he can not, will not win despite what the manufactured opinion polls say. he knows it. So let it be “Deluge After Me”. No one can prevent what is going to happen. America is already transformed,made into an “ARGO CITY” in the “R DOCUMENT”. Not in fiction but in reality.All the characters in that novel are there visibly or invisbly individually or collectively
Another freaking war – no chance of re-election then.
It’s amazing how few people even notice the decline in the quality of US Presidents in the 20th Century, let alone the 21st Century. We used to have Presidents who at least tried not to be obviously corrupt and obviously stupid.
Now we have Trump who is embarrassing to the entire world, let alone the US population. Idi Amin behaved better than this guy. Saddam Hussein was more Presidential than this guy. Comparing this guy to Putin is an insult to all of Russia. He should be compared to a circus act instead of any other national leader.
All that said, as I’ve said before, none of this matters because Trump really isn’t President. He’s just some guy acting out being President – and acting badly at that. Other people are running the country and letting Trump think he’s President. So he gets to fire some people like he’s on one of his TV shows, so what? They let him do that. They just convince him to slot in some other guy who will do what they want.
Meanwhile he’s so out of the loop on what’s really going on he only partially wakes up when he has to decide whether to attack some country. He might launch the attack, he might not.
He didn’t attack North Korea because someone evidently told him there would be fifty thousand US casualties in the first ninety days, and even he could figure out that would be bad for him. But Iran? Or Syria? No problem. The Pentagon probably told him there might be a little problem with the Russians in Syria – or maybe they didn’t bother to tell him, they just made sure his cruise missiles didn’t hit anything important.
But Iran? The Pentagon isn’t that worried about Iran. Larry Johnson over at Colonel Pat Lang’s blog says he’s being told by his contacts that the Pentagon isn’t pushing back against a war with Iran. They are apparently over-confident that they can handle Iran. Colonel Lang has this fantasy that the US Navy can reopen the Straits if Iran closes them. He’s delusional on that because like most high-ranking US military men he’s convinced the US can never lose even a battle, let alone a war, despite recent seventy-year history going back to Korea.
And no one around him cares whether he’ll get re-elected or not, because they’ll control the next President as well. So the argument that he won’t start it because it will cost him the election is bogus. As I’ve said repeatedly, they can force him to start it by simply fomenting an incident – which is what the tanker seizures are all about, a prelude to a blockade which he’s too stupid to understand will lead directly to war.
Finally, he reverses himself every day because, like most recent Presidents going back to Kennedy, he doesn’t care what he says to people because he knows they can’t do anything about it whether he lies or not or whether he gets caught in a lie or not. The US electorate has no power any more to control its government – if it ever did. As long as he doesn’t do something which *he* thinks will cost him the election, he will do and say whatever he wants (that’s actually allowed by the people controlling him in reality.)
And he’s so out of it he probably really believes that Iran wants nuclear weapons and is the biggest sponsor of terror in the world. That’s what the people controlling him have told him and he’s incapable of taking any action to examine those propositions – because he doesn’t care to know whether any of that is true. Either that or he’s lying because he doesn’t actually care one way or the other if he actually believes any of that or wants people to think he does.
Like I’ve said, war with Iran is inevitable – if not under Trump, then under the next guy. But there probably will be no better President under which to start it than Trump.
Trump has not shifted. He left the deal because he has for ages wanted to create a mess which he will then try to “solve”.
Trump has another opportunity to “show restraint” by not throwing the first punch in a fight he’s been picking for years.
In other words, the AIPAC check went through.
Trump may be O.K. with a war with Iran . But I don’t believe the American voters will be O K with another war .. I believe Iran knows this ? So Iran might even start the war just to get rid of Trump . If Trump bites he is gone
A couple of days ago he didn’t want to have to kill multiple millions in a war and now he’s ok with it? He is ready for a straight jacket.