A thought and then some.
Mike Bloomberg is not an option if we want to address the issues that matter -- including health care and including the environment.
That's before we even get started on war. Remember, Bloomberg praised Bully Boy Bush as the 2004 GOP presidential convention for starting the Iraq War.
Mike has no real friends, he only has people's he's bought. Do not let him buy your vote.
Monday, February 10, 2020. Moqtada al-Sadr is mocked in Iraq and we
look at Friday's Democratic Party debate where Tom Steyer argued he
can't win a general election and Joe Biden lied multiple times.
Starting in the US where the race for the Democratic Party's
presidential nomination continues. Last week, on Monday, Iowa held
their caucus. There is still no winner. AP won't declare one and,
yesterday, NBC NEWS noted that they wouldn't either: "
NBC
News is not calling a winner in the first-in-the-nation contest, and
the NBC News Decision Desk is not making any independent delegate
allocations at this time."
The Iowa caucus is a failure and an embarrassment for the Democratic
Party. There is no excuse for the results not being transparent and
clear seven days after the caucus. Their inability to get it together
should result in an immediate reshuffling for 2024. This is beyond
nonsense. They had one job to do and they failed. There should be
consequences.
As it stands, New Hampshire holds their primary -- the first of the
season -- tomorrow. Any real lift a candidate could have been provided
via the Iowa results is gone.
Friday night, seven of the candidates seeking the party's nomination
gathered for a debate in New Hampshire (ABC broadcast the debate):
Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar, Tom Steyer, Tiny Pete,
Joe Biden and Andrew Yang. We're using
this transcript for all quotes.
The big takeaway?
One person eliminated themselves during the debate.
Tom Steyer: So, I did start the Need to Impeach movement in October
of 2017. And my father was one of the people who prosecuted the Nazi war
criminals after World War II. And that’s part of the reason I started
it. Because when you see something really wrong in the United States,
you’re supposed to stand up against it, and fight against it.
Tom has every right to be proud of what his father did and he should
talk about it. However what he did above was politically stupid and,
yes, suicidal.
If the point is to bring in as many votes as possible in the general election, Tom just pushed away a ton of voters.
Let's say you're historically ignorant and/or crazy and you honestly
think Donald Trump is Hitler -- you still don't say it when you're
hoping to run for president. Donald Trump has lost some support since
2016. That portion of the electorate can be peeled off. But they're
not going to vote Democrat if the nominee is someone saying, "You voted
in Hitler!" That's beyond stupid and Tom's demonstrated yet again that
all the money in the world can't buy a single ounce of common sense.
Unlike Tom Steyer, Bernie Sanders is looking at the general election.
Bernie Sanders: Now, second of all, in terms of Republicans, let me
say that in my own great state of Vermont, if my memory is correct, Amy
[Klobuchar], I got 25% of the Republican vote. And in fact, there were
periods when I was in the House of Representatives, a number of years
where I passed more amendments on the floor of the House in a bipartisan
way than any other member of the House and that is when you bring
people together on an issue. There are many conservative Republicans,
for example, who are concerned about civil liberties, at least they used
to be concerned about civil liberties. There are Republicans, as you
know, who are concerned about the high cost of prescription drugs. There
are ways that we can work with Republicans on issues where we have a
common basis.
Donald Trump killed a terrorist with a drone strike. I don't have a
problem with the death of a terrorist, I do have a problem with drone
strikes. (They are not precise and we need to stop pretending that they
are.) The man in question not only killed Americans (which
co-moderator David Muir noted in the debate), he also killed Sunnis and
was part of the ethnic cleansing. In addition, he was part of the
targeting of Iraqi gays and those suspected of being gay.
When the strike was brought up by David, Joe Biden elected to grandstand. Anyone else have a problem with the below answer?
Joe Biden: And secondly, you saw what happened when that air raid,
when those missiles were fired from Iran into Iraq at Al-Assad Airbase,
64 of our heroes were wounded. I don’t know what I would’ve done if my
son were still there. I would have been so damn angry. I don’t know what
I would’ve done. But here’s what happened, they had received traumatic
brain injury. What did the president say? He said, “headaches,” “not
bad,” “Headaches, that’s all they are.” This guy doesn’t deserve to be
commander- in-chief for one more day.
He doesn't know what he would have done if his son was still there. Not
the crack head, Deadbeat Dad Hunter Biden. He's referring to his son
Beau. He doesn't know he would have done if his son was still in Iraq
and had suffered TBI last month?
I think for one thing, he'd be down on his knees thanking whomever his
personal savior is that his son was alive (Beau died in 2015).
More to the point, he's saying Donald Trump's actions resulted in 64 cases of TBI.
TBI is known as the signature wound of the Iraq War.
As many as 23% of Iraq War veterans may have TBI.
From the VA's Office of Research and Development:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines a
traumatic brain injury (TBI) as “a disruption in the normal function of
the brain that can be caused by a bump, blow, or jolt to the head, or
penetrating head injury." In addition, service members and Veterans
potentially have the additional exposures to blast, both from combat and
from training.
After a TBI and depending on the severity, the person may experience a
change in consciousness that can range from becoming dazed and confused
to loss of consciousness. The person may also have a loss of memory for
the time immediately before or after the event that caused the injury.
Due to improved diagnostics and increased vigilance, there are now
more accurate statistics on military TBI rates than in the past. The
Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center (DVBIC) reported more than
408,000 TBIs among U.S. service members worldwide between 2000 and early
2019. The majority of those TBIs were classified as mild. TBI and its
associated co-morbidities are also a significant cause of disability
outside of military settings, most often as the result of assaults,
falls, automobile accidents, or sports injuries.
TBI can include a range of comorbidities, from headaches,
irritability, and sleep disorders to memory problems, slower thinking,
and depression. These symptoms often lead to long-term mental and
physical health problems that impair Veterans' employment and family
relationships, and their reintegration into their communities.
The severity of the TBI is determined at the time of the injury and
is based on evidence of a positive computed tomography (CT) scan
(evidence of brain bleeding, bruising, or swelling), the length of the
loss or alteration of consciousness, the length of memory loss, and how
responsive the individual was after the injury.
Most TBI injuries are considered mild, but even mild cases can
involve serious long-term effects on areas such as thinking ability,
memory, mood, and focus. Other symptoms may include headaches,
endocrine, vision, and hearing problems.
Mild TBI (mTBI), also known as concussion, is usually more difficult
to identify than severe TBI, because there may be no observable head
injury, even on imaging, and because some of the symptoms are similar to
symptoms from other problems that also follow combat trauma, such as
posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
While most people with mTBI have symptoms that resolve within hours,
days, or weeks, a minority may experience persistent symptoms that last
for several months or longer.
Treatment typically includes a mix of cognitive, physical, speech,
and occupational therapy, along with medication to control specific
symptoms such as headaches or anxiety.
Another often overlooked factor is the lifetime accumulation of TBI
events. Having multiple mTBIs has been associated with greater risk of
psychological health conditions. The association with neurodegenerative
disease and repetitive mTBI has been a frequent topic in the news media,
and there is some evidence in epidemiological studies (studies that use
clinical diagnostic codes and/or health records) of a link between the
two.
Joe is whining about 64 having TBI when the Iraq War has already
produced over 200,000 cases of TBI. People should be mad, Joe argues,
at Donald Trump for the 64 but, apparently, not mad at Joe for the over
200,000? Remember, no matter who he blames for his vote, Joe Biden
voted for the Iraq War.
Joe Biden: (56:21)
I
made a mistake and I said it 14 years ago. I trusted George Bush to
keep his word. He said he was not going to go into Iraq. He said he was
only using this to unite the United Nations to insist we get inspectors
in to see what Saddam was doing. When we got elected, the president
turned to me with the entire security apparatus and said, “Joe, I want
you to organize getting 156,000 troops out of Iraq.” I did that. I did
that.
You made a mistake and thousands of Americans died as a result. You made a mistake and over a million Iraqis died as a result.
How dare you stand up onstage blaming someone else for your vote. And
to claim that the village idiot, Bully Boy Bush, tricked you doesn't
speak well for your mental capacities.
Joe can't stop lying.
Andrew Kaczynski (CNN) fact checks Joe:
"Let me tell you what I see with Iraq," Biden told the graduates.
"We had to go into Iraq, not because Saddam (Hussein) was part of Al
Qaeda, there was no evidence of that, not because he possessed nuclear
weapons or because he posed an imminent threat to the United States,
there was no evidence of that."
"The legitimate reason for going into Iraq, was he violated every
single commitment he made and warranted being taken down. And the
international community and us had a right to respond."
His speech more than a year after the war began reveals how Biden
continued to stand by the decision to invade Iraq and his vote to
authorize President George W. Bush to do so, even as some of his
Democratic colleagues began to turn against the war. The comment is one
several examples found during a CNN KFile review of Biden's speeches and
television appearances between 2003 and 2006 where he defended or
explained his vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq.
That vote has come under increased scrutiny in recent weeks as Biden's 2020 rivals
have sought to use it as an attack on the former vice president's
foreign policy judgment. Biden has sought to recast his 2002 vote, and,
at Tuesday's debate, Biden repeated his false claim that he opposed the war in Iraq immediately after it began.
Sami Husseini (COMMON DREAMS) adds:
But that is only the tip of the iceberg. His full remarks to Brookings—which you can view here—contain
numerous and brazen pro-war falsehoods, with Biden claiming that Saddam
Hussein "violated every commitment that he made. He played cat and
mouse with the weapons inspectors. He failed to account for the huge
gaps in weapons declarations that were documented by U.N. weapons
inspectors and submitted by them to the U.N. Security Council in 1998,
and every nation in that Council believed he possessed those weapons at
that time. He refused to abide by any conditions."
It's a pack of lies. The Iraqi government released a massive amount of information in 2002, it agreed to allow the UN weapons inspectors in well before the Congressional vote
that authorized war—a vote that Biden has claimed was justified in
order to give Bush a stronger hand in getting inspectors into Iraq.
Additionally, the prior weapons inspection regime, UNSCOM, was ended in
1998 not because Saddam Hussein kicked them out, but because Bill Clinton ordered them withdrawn on the eve of his scheduled impeachment vote to make way for the Desert Fox bombing campaign.
It's remarkably fitting that the Biden camp has put out Kerry on this
issue since Kerry's falsifications regarding Iraq are remarkably
similar to Biden's. Kerry might be the only Democratic senator whose
record helped the Iraq war as much as Biden's. This notably led to his contortions during the 2004 presidential campaign when he was the Democratic Party nominee ultimately defeated by Bush.
When I questioned Kerry in 2011 about his vote for the Iraq invasion,
he claimed that he "didn't vote for the Iraq war." Kerry said, "I voted
to give the president authority that he misused and abused. And from
the moment he used it, I opposed that." That's another lie.
Kerry actually attacked the notion of a withdrawal from Iraq at that
point, even saying in December of 2003: "I fear that in the run-up to
the 2004 election the administration is considering what is tantamount to a cut-and-run strategy"—effectively taking a position even more militaristic than Bush. Also see a CNN headline from August 2004 titled: "Kerry stands by 'yes' vote on Iraq war."
Also remarkable is just how little scrutiny Biden has gotten for his
role in the Iraq invasion. Sanders has mostly criticized Biden's vote,
but Biden was also chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and
has been criticized by leading analysts and weapons inspectors for the
hearings he presided over that led to war. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), viewed by many as an antiwar candidate, has outright let Biden off the hook.
At a debate last year, Gabbard said of Biden: "He was wrong—he said he was wrong."
Thus, Biden may be positioned to become the Democratic nominee—and face
Trump in the general election—with minimal scrutiny for his major role
in the worst policy decision of our lifetimes.
But let's be clear, he will likely be in a worse position to take on
Trump's phony "America First" isolationism than even Hillary Clinton was
in 2016.
Back to the debate, here's Bernie responding to Joe:
Bernie Sanders: (01:00:24)
Let
me say this if I might, like Joe and others, I also heard the arguments
in terms of the war in Iraq from Bush, from Cheney, from John Bolton,
from the whole administration. I listened very carefully and I concluded
that they were lying through their teeth. And I not only voted against
that war, but I help lead the opposition. And it saddens me so much. If
you hear what I said, it’s on YouTube, my fears about all the
destabilization that would take place by the US invading Iraq. It’s sad
to me that, that is what happened.
Bernie Sanders: (01:01:04)
But
let me just pick up on a point that Tom made, which is absolutely
right. Trump wants to build a wall around America. The problem is if we
are going to deal with issues like climate change, not only do we in
America have to take on the greed of the fossil fuel industry, we have
to lead the entire world. This is not an American issue. It’s a global
issue. We got to bring China and Russia and Brazil and Pakistan and
India and every major country on earth into the fight against climate
change.
Bernie Sanders: (01:01:38)
And
here is my dream, maybe it’s a radical dream, but maybe just may be
given the crisis of climate change, the world can understand that
instead of spending $1.8 trillion dollars a year collectively on weapons
of destruction designed to kill each other, maybe we pool our resources
and fight our common enemy, which is climate change.
War was also addressed elsewhere in the debate.
David Muir: (50:02)
We
were on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq in recent months and the
generals told us that the US needs some US presence on the ground, US
special forces some presence to go after ISIS and the terrorists. If
your commander-in-chief, would you listen to the generals or do they
fall into the category of the generals you’ve mentioned before?
Elizabeth Warren: (50:19)
No.
Look, I sit on the Senate Armed Services Committee, so I get the
briefings from the generals on a regular basis. I’ve been to
Afghanistan, to Iraq. I’ve been to Jordan. I’ve been throughout the
region. I’ve been there with John McCain. I’ve been there with Lindsey
Graham to ask the hard questions about what’s happening, to ask our
generals, to ask their generals to ask people who are on the ground. And
the bottom line is, nobody sees a solution to this war. Nobody can
describe what winning looks like. All they can describe is endless war.
Elizabeth Warren: (50:52)
And
I realized there are people on this debate stage who are willing to
say, yeah, we’ll leave our troops there for five more years, for 10 more
years. Lindsey Graham has said he’s willing to leave troops for 100
more years. And yet, what has all these years of war brought us? Right
now, the Afghan Government controls less than 60% of the land. People
don’t have faith in it. It’s a corrupt government. The opium trade is
higher than ever.
Elizabeth Warren: (51:20)
Look,
we sent our troops in and they did their best. They were there for us,
but we need to be there for them. And that means, not send our troops to
do work that cannot be solved militarily. It is time to bring our
combat troops home. It is time to stop this endless war in Afghanistan.
David Muir: (51:41)
Senator Warren, I want to press you on this. You just said, “combat troops.”
Elizabeth Warren: (51:45)
Yes.
David Muir: (51:45)
So
if the generals came to you and said, we need US Special Forces, some
footprint in Iraq and Afghanistan, would you listen? Would you leave
them?
Elizabeth Warren: (51:53)
So
I want to hear the plan, not just a, we need it now, we need it for the
next day, we need it for the six months. And I want to know where our
allies are. We all have an interest in dealing with terrorism and
controlling terrorism, but that means it can’t just be the United States
waging endless war. That does not make us safer. It does not make the
region safer. It does not make the world safer. We should work with our
allies in managing terrorism, but we need to end this war in
Afghanistan. We cannot wait five more years, or 10 more years, or until
we turn the corner 10 more times. We need to bring our combat troops
home.
If the press had paid attention, these remarks by Joe Biden would have been the big news out of the debate.
Joe Biden: [. . .] I was a single dad for five years. It’s not as
hard as being a single mom and I had help from my sisters in the
audience and others, but the fact is that I think we have to focus on
what is at stake here. These aren’t someone else’s children. They’re
all our children. They’re the kite strings that lift our national
ambitions, they really are. They lift our national ambitions aloft. We
have an overwhelming interest, overwhelming interest in seeing to it
they do well. You know, 24 out of every 100 students in school today,
from grade school to high school, are Latino. What are we going to do?
Walk away from that? Many of them come from homes that are poor, very
poor. That’s why I invest so much time and energy in preschool. That’s
why if I only have $1 to spend, I spend it equipping the child before
they get into school in the early day, than after and we talk about all
those kids out there that are going to be graduating.
Rather strange remarks, aren't they, coming from Joe Biden? This month,
his Deadbeat Dad son Hunter is finally paying court-ordered child
support for his 18-month-old child.
It's a very minor sum, even the judge admits that, because of the fact
that Hunter (a) insists he's bankrupt (as he rents a mini-mansion in Ben
Affleck's neighborhood and tools around in a rented Porsche) and (b)
refuses to turn financial documents over to the court.
The hypocrisy in Joe Biden's remarks would have provided enough copy for
a months worth of Jimmy Breslin columns back in the day. But today's
timid tabbies have been declawed and they rush to look the other way
even when a politician tells a blatant lie.
In Iraq, the people enjoy exposing liars.
Thug Moqtada has gone from a movement leader to mockery in one month.
He thought he could do Iran's bidding and have Iraqis applaud him. No.
No.
As much as the US government has destroyed Iraq, they cannot destroy
Iraqi national pride. It will always triumph. And they don't like a
cowardly stooge who betrays his own country to do the bidding of the
Iranian government.
Moqtada's lucky to be hiding in Iran currently. He probably thinks this
will blow over but self-inflicted wounds rarely go away.
We reiterate our call on the Government to ensure the safety of peaceful protesters at all times.
