Bits & Pieces #105

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared on international media last week in a broadcast given significantly in English. I say significantly because he would normally have been speaking in Hebrew but the message was aimed directly at Donald Trump who is only fluent in half a language. In the speech Netanyahu attacked Iran by revealing information that has seemingly been uncovered by Israeli spies, which according to him proves that Iran entered the Nuclear Treaty already having plans to develop nuclear weapons. This is pretty stunning stuff – if you were born yesterday or until you give it a serious glance.

It is important to understand that this trove of information, almost a half ton of paperwork, deals with Iran’s past plans for nuclear development pre 2004, long before the treaty. One should also know it deals with information with which both U.S. and Israeli intelligence were very familiar. According to experts, the past work in nuclear planning has a lot to do with what is happening now and what can be expected in the future. Iran never gave the IAFA, the agency charged with inspecting its compliance, a full accounting of what they had done in the past. The rest of the signatories ignored this in order to get the deal passed. In hindsight that was not a good thing but in more detailed hindsight it has turned out to be insignificant. Netanyahu’s great revelation, puffed up far out of proportion by the likes of John Bolton is really much-a-do about nothing, propped up and repainted to appeal to the worst instincts of our, as always, uninformed President who took the hook like a starving trout.

Trump has always made noise about abandoning the Iran deal. Warmongers like Bolton and Netanyahu have gotten busy shaking these papers to try and influence Trump to do what he did, break the treaty. But why were these two so infused with a desire to break a treaty that seems, at least temporarily, to be contributing to peace in the Middle East?

In Bolton’s case, it’s an example of a guy who everybody thinks is very smart but is stuck on the concept that our foreign policy should be based on killing anyone who disagrees with us. That’s why he encouraged a dim witted George Bush to follow Dick Cheney’s bad advice to start wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has had it in for Iran since the Bush years and though he may be smart, he isn’t smart enough to realize that peace is better than war. Of course, like many hawks that love to send your kids off to die in strange places, Bolton didn’t see himself bleeding out on a foreign battlefield. He full out backed the Vietnam War while in college but when it came to fighting it, he joined the National Guard, which in those days was a sure fire way to stay out of the fight

With Netanyahu it’s simply another warlike mut who hasn’t found the right solution to his own country’s problems with the Arabs and figures that if we are put into a position where war with Iran is threatened we will give Israel all the money they ask to help in a fight with the Iranians.  He is also in a situation at home where anything he can muster up to take attention away from his own criminal activities helps his political position. He keeps babbling about hidden Iranian nuclear supplies, but until he can point to where they are he has as much credibility as Bolton did when he swore to the reality of “yellowcake,” and then sold out CIA agent Valerie Plame because her husband blew the whistle on his lies.

A recent interview by Fareed Zacharia of former head of Mousad, General Dani Yatom was very revealing, especially to those who feel that Netanyahu no longer represents true Israeli sentiment. Yatom, who heads up a 300-member organization made up of former generals and other intelligence leaders, was vehement about keeping the Iran Treaty in place. He correctly pointed out that since this information is now public, it can be used to pressure Iran to make certain concessions that they haven’t, as yet, agreed to. Trump just wasn’t smart enough to take advantage of this. Instead he closed everything down.

A sidelight to Yatom’s organization’s backing of the Iran Treaty is that they are fully supportive of a two state solution because as Yatom pouts it, the failure of a two state solution will mean the end of Israel as a Jewish democracy.

The big problem for Netanyahu and the likes of Boltan is that the Iran treaty will run out in ten or so years.  Okay. That means that for ten years we wouldn’t have had to worry about them developing nuclear weapons and that we had those ten years to extend the treaty. The alternative, which is the position of Bolton and Netanyahu, is to end the treaty now and face either Iran developing a nuclear weapon or going to war to stop them. Which plan makes sense to you?

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I know that I have spent a lot of time of late attacking Republicans and their policies. This is even depressing to me, having once been a Republican, but the conduct of these GOP functionaries has certainly done nothing to stop or even slow my disgust with their disingenuous behavior.

The latest example of this behavior is the GOP’s refusal to participate in what should be a bi-partisan attempt to protect our elections from Russian interference.  Many members of our government, including Dan Coats, Mike Pompeo and John Bolton had stated before congress that we have a serious problem with the Russians attacking our electoral process and yet the Republican Party, when approached, refuses to join in with the Democrats in a bi-partisan proposal to report and refuse to use all tainted communication from Russian sources.

Natasha Bertrand of The Atlanticreports that attempts to enlist support from the Republican National Committee to stop GOP candidates from using hacked materials in their campaigns were brushed off with a “no comment.” The claim by the GOP spokesman was that they couldn’t comment on a hypothetical situation. What the hell is hypothetical about he Russians hacking into our elections? All our intelligence has proven that they did this in 2016 and plan t do it again in 2018 and 2020. Can’t the Republicans read or do they think that it’s okay to use this foreign created material to tilt facts presented to voters?

Are the Republicans so panicked about losing the House in 2018 that they are willing to enlist the help of a nation that works each day to prove they are our mortal enemy? The Democrats have committed to not using hacked material in the next election but the GOP will not.  The only reason the GOP can possibly have to avoid this commitment is that Donald Trump used just such material to get elected n 2016 and then turned around and lied about the Democrats rigging the election. Maybe they don’t want to hang their President out to dry?  Maybe they should, but they never will because they are more interested in winning an election than they are in running an honest government. Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan and their pathetic cronies have now proven over and over that none of the Republicans in congress are willing to stand up and do the right thing when a seat in the House or Senate is at stake. That’s why I have spent so much time of late attacking such feckless scum.

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Rudy Guiliani spent Sunday morning on TV getting eviscerated, first by George Stephanopoulos and after that, everybody who was smart enough to ask a question.  The time has come for “America’s Mayor,” how the hell did that stick, to pull in is head and crawl back into his shell. He babbles, he stumbles; he makes statements without knowing what he already said. Rudy has had it. He is absolutely detrimental to anyone who is forced to depend on him. He should retire to a farm somewhere he can’t do any more damage.

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For those of you who wonder how the hell Donald Trump manages to hold onto his 35% of the base, I give you West Virginia. This once beautiful state is currently nurturing a degenerate beast, a criminal responsible for the degradation of the physical state and the murder of 29 men, even as he ran for the Senate.  Don Blankenship, criminal, bigot, racist actually got 20% of the vote in West Virginia as he bludgeoned his way into the Republican primary.  Polls were at odds with each other but this is a piece of human offal that makes one wonder how even one person can support him. As a greedy coal mogul he ignored safety regulations to save a couple of bucks and caused 29 men to lose their lives. He was convicted, served time and just got out of the can a couple of months ago. The perfect candidate! His company Massey Energy is infamous for destroying the West Virginia landscape and poisoning its rivers. Then as a candidate he attacked others on racial grounds, identifying himself as a racist and bigot. What can there possibly be to vote for? And yet people in West Virginia did vote for him.

Once you get that fact, you will understand how West Virginia went overboard for Trump. But even Trump has spoken out against Blankenship, not because he opposes him on moral grounds; Donald doesn’t have any morals; but because he is afraid he will lose to Democrat Joe Manchin. Of course these voters are people who refuse to believe that the industry that’s killing them, poisoning their children and tearing up the landscape of their state, as well as the nations air, needs to be eliminated. You can’t fix stupid!

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If you are a Trump fan you’re probably still drooling all over your bib about his tax plan, the only significant bill passed by a government that since the last election, a year and a half ago is completely controlled by Republicans. You may think the plan is hot stuff but there are many, even many Republicans who would like to see it disappear because this wonderful bill that immensely enriched corporations and the already filthy rich is blowing our deficit all to hell.

So Donald the Dumb, responding to the whines of his GOP supporters has sent a bill to congress to lessen the hit the deficit will take from the tax bill. And how do you think the disaster in the White House proposes we do this? How does taking $15 billion out of the Children’s Health Program strike you? What, you’re surprised? You thought maybe he’d take it from the military or maybe reduce corporate deductions? Yeah, in what non-existent universe? And who is this going to hurt, the children of the rich?  Sure, you just keep drinking that stuff. It’s really good for you. Aren’t you folks in Kentucky, West Virginia, Georgia, Alabama and Arkansas glad you voted for Uncle Don? Again, you can’t fix stupid!

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In its latest attack on the American people, The NRA, the sleazy lobby of the American weapons industry proved once again that they are more interested in profits for gun manufacturers than they are the safety of your children. The news this morning was that they had appointed the disgraced Major Ollie North as President of their culpable slush pit. A little background is in order.

During the second term of the Reagan administration senior officials of Reagan’s team facilitated the sale of arms to Iran. This action had specifically been prohibited by Congress, as had any funding of a right wing revolutionary group billeted in Nicaragua called the Contras. This group was waging war on the left wing government of Honduras led by the Sandinistas. This was all dealt with in the Boland Amendment, which resulted in an arms embargo of Iran.

Because of the embargo, the deal was set up to send the guns to Israel, who would then slip them into Iran, get paid in oil dollars from Iran and pay the Americans.  This is the same Israel that since it was founded, has been at war with Iran, but who can resist a good profit? The idea was for the Americans, led by the NSA and CIA to use that money to fund the Contras in their invasion of Honduras.  The money from Iran turned out to be short so Ollie North set up a deal whereby the Contras could organize a drug pipeline into the US to raise the rest of the money they needed for their fight. This was the beginning of the great drug highway that, in the ensuing thirty years, would flood American cities with drugs. Ollie North couldn’t raise enough money selling illegal guns to Iran so he brought illegal drugs into this country to fund his war against the socialist government of a sovereign nation. That’s right Ollie North is the guy who set up the drug pipeline from Central and South America that for the last thirty years has fed death to America’s youth. This criminal drug dealer is now the President of the NRA another organization that makes its profits by killing our kids. How long is it going to be before America drops a dime on this criminal organization whose only products are money and death?