Last Week ‘s lightning strike against Hezbollah in Lebanon has resulted in the death of Hassan Nasrallah, leader for the last thirty years of that terrorist organization. The strike effectively eliminated the entire leadership platform of the terrorist organization leaving it adrift in its war against Israel.
With the Hamas leader dead it begs the question, “Is Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei safe from the Israeli assassins?”
After all, Khamenei is the primary author of terrorist activity for the whole area. If anyone goes, he should have been the first. There is a significant element of Iranian society that wants no truck with the religious forces led by Khamenei, and would in fact, look kindly on his elimination.
Retired General H .R. McMaster was interviewed by Bob Costas this Sunday, and he opined that because the Muslim forces
worship death it is very difficult to come to any reasonable agreement with them.
He is for backing the Israeli forces all the way. He doesn’t feel that there is any chance of getting a workable peace treaty because nobody in either the Israeli or Muslim leadership wants one and that won’t change until someone figures out a workable solution on how to handle the Palestinian problem. Two state is what the functional people want, but that doesn’t include either the current Israeli government or Iran.
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Larry Hogan of Maryland is the kind of politician we need in government. He was the GOP governor of a very blue state for eight years and he got shit done. He is now running for the Senate as a Republican who is against Trump. Hogan understands bipartisanship and knows how important it is for our government to function. Without it we get nothing done. We need Larry Hogan in the Senate, but if you just can’t vote Republican, we have an excellent Democratic candidate very much available. Her name is Angela Alsobrooks, and she’ll do a great job, as well as vote Democratic.
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Fareed Zacharia interviewed Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian last week and if he is to be believed, he turns out to be surprisingly moderate. This would put him in direct opposition to Iran’s religious leader Ali Khamenei and his beliefs as to how Iran’s women and intellectuals should believe and behave.
Pezreshkian’s stated beliefs are mostly acceptable to Western thought, so where does this leave him with those in Iran who follow the Ayatollah? At his point the Ayatollah is the real power in Iran commanding the Palace Guard and the military. This was seen last year when demonstrators took to the streets in protest of the death of a young woman who was being held by the religious police . The demonstrators sustained over five hundred deaths as hey were swept aside by the armed true believers. Can Pezreshkian overcome this kind of powerful opposition and lead his country out of the religious swamp? That, of course will mean war with the Ayatollah, who at 88 still maintains a strong grip on Iran’s government.
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Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of Great Britian, speaking on GPS, gave a very clear explanation of the difference between Democracy and Autocracy.
He explained that the problem with Autocracy was that there was no one available to criticize the leaders because if they were to be so brash, they would be killed. This situation quickly eliminates all criticism and so there is only one existing POV, that of the leader.
Democracy has the problem that it must work efficiently and rarely does. It’s much easier to get shit done when all you need is one dictator to say, “Do it!” as opposed to needing the job to work itself through many levels of bureauocracy before a shovel goes into the ground. Efficiency and functionality are not the measuring sticks of Democracy. You know you have failed when someone points out that it only took a year to build the Empire State building.
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Donald Trump accused Kamala Harris of being mentally impaired this weekend. That’s a case of the “halt and the lame” calling the all-star athlete paralyzed. But that wasn’t the end of it. After that he called for her to be impeached and prosecuted. For what? For beating him almost to death during their debate? It’s obvious that Trump is the one who has lost touch with reality. Not that he ever had a firm grip on it. His failure to have any grip on the truth is legendary. His inability to grasp the significance of the Presidency as anything but a means for him to grift for his own benefit has been obvious. He is a greedy, sleazy con man who has used the Presidency as a platform from which he has attempted to scam anyone available for his own benefit.
But there are still those who will follow him, vote for him, give him money. Why? Because to quote P.T.Barnum, ”there’s a sucker born every minute,” and all of them seem determined to vote for Trump.
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Donald Trump was at it again on Tuesday, traveling across Georgia, telling whoever would listen to him that the White House had refused to speak to GOP Governor Kemp about helping the flood ravaged state.
We’re used to Trump lying and normally we would treat his lies as just another example of what a dishonest scumbag he really is.
But this one is different because when he lies to the people about the government not being available to help them and they believe him, they don’t bother to look for the help they need and is available for the asking. This actually hurts the voters more than it does the Democrats, but Trump just doesn’t give a damn. He doesn’t care who suffers because of his lies. He doesn’t care if your child dies for lack of available medication because you believed his bullshit and didn’t seek out help. What happens to these overwhelmed victims has no effect on him. All he cares about is that they believe his lies about Biden and Harris.
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The Vice-Presidential debate happened on Tuesday. Not bad. It seems you actually can have a real debate. All you have to do is get Trump off the set and things can progress semi-normally.
Vance was favored going in because of his Ivy League debate background. It turned out he was smooth as whale shit, but nothing saves you from the truth. Both men were well spoken and attacked questions with at least a modicum of logic, but Vance had Trump and his lies hanging over his head and he didn’t have enough intestinal fortitude to overcome that disadvantage.
For those who didn’t have the advantage of political knowledge, Vance might have looked a little better than he was but if you knew what the candidates were talking about you knew that Vance lied more than was acceptable.
Waltz waffled once and he was easily caught because he’s not practiced at it. Vance, on the other hand, is almost as experienced as Trump and any kind of fact check would have uncovered any number of lies, especially about the economy, military info, abortion, and immigration.
Credit to both, that they acted like grownups instead of kids in a schoolyard fight.
So, its over. Both men have shown that they can compete in a world where Donald Trump has driven truth from existence. Walz has demonstrated that he has a better grip on facts and a stronger position on most areas of discussion. Vance demonstrated he is smooth enough to survive Trump if he so chooses. But in last night’s debate the crash came from Vance when he refused to answer the question, “did Trump win in 2020?” His refusal to answer that question proves he is not qualified to lead our democratic country. When we turn into a dictatorship, he might be qualified, but right now he’s not.