By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
During a conference held to award Journalist Glenn Greenwald the Siebenpfeiffer Prize for Journalism, Greenwald reported a conversation in which German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel. In this the Vice Chancellor commented to him that the United States threatened Germany with withholding vital intelligence of terrorist activity if the nation granted asylum to Edward Snowden or otherwise allowed him to travel to Germany.
The event shows the extreme measures the Administration is willing to take regarding whistleblowers and others labeled as threats.
The revelation began when Vice Chancellor Gabriel, speaking of the plight of Edward Snowden, was interrupted by an audience member who asked why Snowden was not offered asylum in Germany. Gabriel replied that Germany would be required to extradite Snowden to the United States.
Here is a video via Saarbrücker Zeitung containing excerpts of the Vice Chancellor’s and Mr. Greenwald’s speeches.
Later, when Greenwald had an opportunity to speak to the Vice Chancellor in person, he enquired about the asylum issue. Greenwald later revealed to the public this conversation via Greenwald’s news service.
In the article, Mr. Greenwald wrote of some truly troubling behavior on behalf of the Obama Administration:
Afterward [the ceremony], however, when I pressed the vice chancellor (who is also head of the Social Democratic Party, as well as the country’s economy and energy minister) as to why the German government could not and would not offer Snowden asylum — which, under international law, negates the asylee’s status as a fugitive — he told me that the U.S. government had aggressively threatened the Germans that if they did so, they would be “cut off” from all intelligence sharing. That would mean, if the threat were carried out, that the Americans would literally allow the German population to remain vulnerable to a brewing attack discovered by the Americans by withholding that information from their government.
This is not the first time the U.S. has purportedly threatened an allied government to withhold evidence of possible terror plots as punishment. In 2009, a British national, Binyam Mohamed, sued the U.K. government for complicity in his torture at Bagram and Guantánamo. The High Court ordered the U.K. government to provide Mohamed’s lawyers with notes and other documents reflecting what the CIA told British intelligence agents about Mohamed’s abuse.
In response, the U.K. government insisted that the High Court must reverse that ruling because the safety of British subjects would be endangered if the ruling stood. Their reasoning: the U.S. government had threatened the British that they would stop sharing intelligence, including evidence of terror plots, if they disclosed what the Americans had told them in confidence about Mohamed’s treatment — even if the disclosure were ordered by the High Court as part of a lawsuit brought by a torture victim. British government lawyers even produced a letter from an unnamed Obama official laying out that threat.
The full article may be read HERE.
Later, the Vice Chancellor’s office declined to comment to the German medium Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung about the asylum issue and declared there was no legal basis to offer Edward Snowden asylum.
Deutsche Welle reported the Obama administration has denied the accusation of threatening to withhold information from Berlin, according to Washington newspaper The Hill, which quotes a statement from a senior official calling the suggestion that the US threatened to withhold intelligence “baseless.”
But the question of how “baseless” Glenn Greenwald’s or Vice Chancellor Gabriel’s assertions are is not certainly arguable considering the actions of the Obama Administration in the Snowden matter. All one has to do is look at the past actions of The Administration for guidance.
We have an Administration that declares that the accusations are baseless, yet the same administration’s NSA tapped into Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone, ordered the grounding and search of the aircraft of a head of state on mere suspicion that Edward Snowden might be aboard, and made a similar threat to another NATO ally, the United Kingdom.
The row comes down to a matter of credibility of either side in the Edward Snowden controversy. Who is the more trustworthy, The Obama Administration or Glenn Greenwald?
Sources:
The Intercept
Deutsche Welle
Saarbrücker Zeitung via YouTube
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.
@Po
You are pulling a Trayvon (or a Mike Brown) on people here. Trayvon attacked somebody, and when the victim struck back, certain racebaiters and knuckleheads ignored what caused the problem (Trayvon’s attack) and concentrated on Zimmerman’s response.
That is what you are doing with the murderous, scummy Palestinians. If they are getting killed, it is because they attacked the Israelis first. They deserve it, and they are very lucky I am not the head honcho in Israel, because I would show those horrible, reprehensible Palestinians what carpet bombing looks like, so they could enjoy the sudden explosive blast of a bomb just like they expect Israelis on a bus, or at a restaurant, or a wedding.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Nick
Your hating Palestinians makes you a hater!
If the US decided not to share intelligence about terrorist threats on the basis of pique over one thing (Snowden asylum, say) what would happen when the Brits or the Germans had some information that something was going to go down in the US? The Brits or Germans would withhold that in turn. (and remember, lots of 911 stuff was cooked up in Germany). The US would be shooting itself in the foot with such childish antics.
I’m still in the Dixie barristers increasingly muddled head. I do indeed despise Hillary. But, calling her a fat lesbian is truth. And it is intriguing to me that saying a lesbian, is a lesbian, is hateful. I don’t hate lesbians. They are one of my favorite demographics. Well, the lesbians who love women lesbians. Not the man haters. Know, like and socialize w/ lesbians in the mecca of lesbianism, Madison. Camille Paglia is someone I have read and respected for decades. She hates Hillary as well. Hating a person does not make one a hater. Hating an entire group of people, makes one a hater.
There needs to be a two-state solution, but Netanyahu won’t have any part of that idea. Nothing will change until the present players change on all sides.
To Sam (lap dog Nickie and his alter ego Trooper)
Can you answer any of these points?
No?
Just easier to call people names? I understand, friends, not everyone is endowed with intellect.
—————————-
“Israel has killed almost 800 Palestinians in the past twenty-one days in the Gaza Strip alone; its onslaught continues. The UN estimates that more than 74 percent of those killed are civilians. That is to be expected in a population of 1.8 million where the number of Hamas members is approximately 15,000. Israel does not deny that it killed those Palestinians using modern aerial technology and precise weaponry courtesy of the world’s only superpower. In fact, it does not even deny that they are civilians.
Israel’s propaganda machine, however, insists that these Palestinians wanted to die (“culture of martyrdom”), staged their own death (“telegenically dead”) or were the tragic victims of Hamas’s use of civilian infrastructure for military purposes (“human shielding”). In all instances, the military power is blaming the victims for their own deaths, accusing them of devaluing life and attributing this disregard to cultural bankruptcy. In effect, Israel—along with uncritical mainstream media that unquestionably accept this discourse—dehumanizes Palestinians, deprives them even of their victimhood and legitimizes egregious human rights and legal violations.
This is not the first time. The gruesome images of decapitated children’s bodies and stolen innocence on Gaza’s shores are a dreadful repeat of Israel’s assault on Gaza in November 2012 and winter 2008–09. Not only are the military tactics the same but so too are the public relations efforts and the faulty legal arguments that underpin the attacks. Mainstream media news anchors are inexplicably accepting these arguments as fact.
Below I address five of Israel’s recurring talking points. I hope this proves useful to newsmakers.
1) Israel is exercising its right to self-defense.
As the occupying power of the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian Territories more broadly, Israel has an obligation and a duty to protect the civilians under its occupation. It governs by military and law enforcement authority to maintain order, protect itself and protect the civilian population under its occupation. It cannot simultaneously occupy the territory, thus usurping the self-governing powers that would otherwise belong to Palestinians, and declare war upon them. These contradictory policies (occupying a land and then declaring war on it) make the Palestinian population doubly vulnerable.
The precarious and unstable conditions in the Gaza Strip from which Palestinians suffer are Israel’s responsibility. Israel argues that it can invoke the right to self-defense under international law as defined in Article 51 of the UN Charter. The International Court of Justice, however, rejected this faulty legal interpretation in its 2004 Advisory Opinion. The ICJ explained that an armed attack that would trigger Article 51 must be attributable to a sovereign state, but the armed attacks by Palestinians emerge from within Israel’s jurisdictional control. Israel does have the right to defend itself against rocket attacks, but it must do so in accordance with occupation law and not other laws of war. Occupation law ensures greater protection for the civilian population. The other laws of war balance military advantage and civilian suffering. The statement that “no country would tolerate rocket fire from a neighboring country” is therefore both a diversion and baseless.
Israel denies Palestinians the right to govern and protect themselves, while simultaneously invoking the right to self-defense. This is a conundrum and a violation of international law, one that Israel deliberately created to evade accountability.
2) Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005.
Israel argues that its occupation of the Gaza Strip ended with the unilateral withdrawal of its settler population in 2005. It then declared the Gaza Strip to be “hostile territory” and declared war against its population. Neither the argument nor the statement is tenable. Despite removing 8,000 settlers and the military infrastructure that protected their illegal presence, Israel maintained effective control of the Gaza Strip and thus remains the occupying power as defined by Article 47 of the Hague Regulations. To date, Israel maintains control of the territory’s air space, territorial waters, electromagnetic sphere, population registry and the movement of all goods and people.
Israel argues that the withdrawal from Gaza demonstrates that ending the occupation will not bring peace. Some have gone so far as to say that Palestinians squandered their opportunity to build heaven in order to build a terrorist haven instead. These arguments aim to obfuscate Israel’s responsibilities in the Gaza Strip, as well as the West Bank. As Prime Minister Netanyahu once explained, Israel must ensure that it does not “get another Gaza in Judea and Samaria…. I think the Israeli people understand now what I always say: that there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan.”
Palestinians have yet to experience a day of self-governance. Israel immediately imposed a siege upon the Gaza Strip when Hamas won parliamentary elections in January 2006 and tightened it severely when Hamas routed Fatah in June 2007. The siege has created a “humanitarian catastrophe” in the Gaza Strip. Inhabitants will not be able to access clean water, electricity or tend to even the most urgent medical needs. The World Health Organization explains that the Gaza Strip will be unlivable by 2020. Not only did Israel not end its occupation, it has created a situation in which Palestinians cannot survive in the long-term.
3) This Israeli operation, among others, was caused by rocket fire from Gaza.
Israel claims that its current and past wars against the Palestinian population in Gaza have been in response to rocket fire. Empirical evidence from 2008, 2012 and 2014 refute that claim. First, according to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the greatest reduction of rocket fire came through diplomatic rather than military means. This chart demonstrates the correlation between Israel’s military attacks upon the Gaza Strip and Hamas militant activity. Hamas rocket fire increases in response to Israeli military attacks and decreases in direct correlation to them. Cease-fires have brought the greatest security to the region.
During the four months of the Egyptian-negotiated cease-fire in 2008, Palestinian militants reduced the number of rockets to zero or single digits from the Gaza Strip. Despite this relative security and calm, Israel broke the cease-fire to begin the notorious aerial and ground offensive that killed 1,400 Palestinians in twenty-two days. In November 2012, Israel’s extrajudicial assassination of Ahmad Jabari, the chief of Hamas’s military wing in Gaza, while he was reviewing terms for a diplomatic solution, again broke the cease-fire that precipitated the eight-day aerial offensive that killed 132 Palestinians.
Immediately preceding Israel’s most recent operation, Hamas rocket and mortar attacks did not threaten Israel. Israel deliberately provoked this war with Hamas. Without producing a shred of evidence, it accused the political faction of kidnapping and murdering three settlers near Hebron. Four weeks and almost 700 lives later, Israel has yet to produce any evidence demonstrating Hamas’s involvement. During ten days of Operation Brother’s Keeper in the West Bank, Israel arrested approximately 800 Palestinians without charge or trial, killed nine civilians and raided nearly 1,300 residential, commercial and public buildings. Its military operation targeted Hamas members released during the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange in 2011. It’s these Israeli provocations that precipitated the Hamas rocket fire to which Israel claims left it with no choice but a gruesome military operation.
4) Israel avoids civilian casualties, but Hamas aims to kill civilians.
Hamas has crude weapons technology that lacks any targeting capability. As such, Hamas rocket attacks ipso facto violate the principle of distinction because all of its attacks are indiscriminate. This is not contested. Israel, however, would not be any more tolerant of Hamas if it strictly targeted military objects, as we have witnessed of late. Israel considers Hamas and any form of its resistance, armed or otherwise, to be illegitimate.
In contrast, Israel has the eleventh most powerful military in the world, certainly the strongest by far in the Middle East, and is a nuclear power that has not ratified the non-proliferation agreement and has precise weapons technology. With the use of drones, F-16s and an arsenal of modern weapon technology, Israel has the ability to target single individuals and therefore to avoid civilian casualties. But rather than avoid them, Israel has repeatedly targeted civilians as part of its military operations.
The Dahiya Doctrine is central to these operations and refers to Israel’s indiscriminate attacks on Lebanon in 2006. Maj. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot said that this would be applied elsewhere:
What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on. […] We will apply disproportionate force on it and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases.
Israel has kept true to this promise. The 2009 UN Fact-Finding Mission to the Gaza Conflict, better known as the Goldstone Mission, concluded “from a review of the facts on the ground that it witnessed for itself that what was prescribed as the best strategy [Dahiya Doctrine] appears to have been precisely what was put into practice.”
According to the National Lawyers Guild, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, Israel directly targeted civilians or recklessly caused civilian deaths during Operation Cast Lead. Far from avoiding the deaths of civilians, Israel effectively considers them legitimate targets.
5) Hamas hides its weapons in homes, mosques and schools and uses human shields.
This is arguably one of Israel’s most insidious claims, because it blames Palestinians for their own death and deprives them of even their victimhood. Israel made the same argument in its war against Lebanon in 2006 and in its war against Palestinians in 2008. Notwithstanding its military cartoon sketches, Israel has yet to prove that Hamas has used civilian infrastructure to store military weapons. The two cases where Hamas indeed stored weapons in UNRWA schools, the schools were empty. UNRWA discovered the rockets and publicly condemned the violation of its sanctity.
International human rights organizations that have investigated these claims have determined that they are not true. It attributed the high death toll in Israel’s 2006 war on Lebanon to Israel’s indiscriminate attacks. Human Rights Watch notes:
The evidence Human Rights Watch uncovered in its on-the-ground investigations refutes [Israel’s] argument…we found strong evidence that Hezbollah stored most of its rockets in bunkers and weapon storage facilities located in uninhabited fields and valleys, that in the vast majority of cases Hezbollah fighters left populated civilian areas as soon as the fighting started, and that Hezbollah fired the vast majority of its rockets from pre-prepared positions outside villages.
In fact, only Israeli soldiers have systematically used Palestinians as human shields. Since Israel’s incursion into the West Bank in 2002, it has used Palestinians as human shields by tying young Palestinians onto the hoods of their cars or forcing them to go into a home where a potential militant may be hiding.
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Even assuming that Israel’s claims were plausible, humanitarian law obligates Israel to avoid civilian casualties that “would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.” A belligerent force must verify whether civilian or civilian infrastructure qualifies as a military objective. In the case of doubt, “whether an object which is normally dedicated to civilian purposes, such as a place of worship, a house or other dwelling or a school, is being used to make an effective contribution to military action, it shall be presumed not to be so used.”
In the over thee weeks of its military operation, Israel has demolished 3,175 homes, at least a dozen with families inside; destroyed five hospitals and six clinics; partially damaged sixty-four mosques and two churches; partially to completely destroyed eight government ministries; injured 4,620; and killed over 700 Palestinians. At plain sight, these numbers indicate Israel’s egregious violations of humanitarian law, ones that amount to war crimes.
Beyond the body count and reference to law, which is a product of power, the question to ask is, What is Israel’s end goal? What if Hamas and Islamic Jihad dug tunnels beneath the entirety of the Gaza Strip—they clearly did not, but let us assume they did for the sake of argument. According to Israel’s logic, all of Gaza’s 1.8 million Palestinians are therefore human shields for being born Palestinian in Gaza. The solution is to destroy the 360-kilometer square strip of land and to expect a watching world to accept this catastrophic loss as incidental. This is possible only by framing and accepting the dehumanization of Palestinian life. Despite the absurdity of this proposal, it is precisely what Israeli society is urging its military leadership to do. Israel cannot bomb Palestinians into submission, and it certainly cannot bomb them into peace.”
http://www.thenation.com/article/180783/five-israeli-talking-points-gaza-debunked#
Well Sam,escape from the faux news bubble and you’ll encounter facts”
—————————————–
“On June 17, Israel rearrested 50 Palestinian prisoners set free in 2011 as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner swap with Hamas — a bold provocation that violates its armistice with Hamas. Without cause, the IDF also rounded up a number of clerics, intellectuals and politicians affiliated with or known to be sympathetic toward Hamas. It also raided hundreds of Palestinian sites, including homes, businesses, universities and clinics — in the process pillaging more than $3 million in cash and property, in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Scores of Palestinian civilians were killed in these operations — again, before rockets were fired from Gaza. The misery of the civilian population was compounded by IDF checkpoints and curfews that severely restrict the movement of the Palestinian people, during Ramadan, no less.
In mid-June, in preparation for the reprisal attacks from Hamas that the IDF was attempting to provoke, it moved its Iron Dome batteries into southern Israeli cities. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu then called on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to dissolve the unity government with Hamas — reiterating previous threats of punitive measures unless the union is suspended. Meanwhile, the IDF began calling up reserve troops in anticipation of the ground assault.
All these provocations came weeks before Hamas fired the first rockets into Israel. As such, contrary to Obama’s claims and the widely held narrative in Western media, it was in fact Hamas that was acting in self-defense. Israel doggedly sought out this war, and Hamas gave it to them.”
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/7/israel-hamas-palestiniansconflictunitedstatesinternationallaw.html
———————————————-
Who is is the terrorist?
“One of the testimonies in the report describes the aftermath of an
attack. Muhammad Saad Abu Halima had lost two brothers and a young
sister; his wife and daughter were wounded. He told the delegation his
experience of evacuation:
“…We were going down the street Kamal
Adwan, and we had almost reached the school when the soldiers halted
us. A tank appeared on the street and stopped close to the school. The
soldiers were occupying the second floor of a building which was only
20 meters away from the street. They could see that we were all wounded
and dirty from the explosions, because the tractor was open at the
back. They shot at us, killing my cousins Matar Saad Abu Halima and
Muhammad Hikma Abu Halima, who were driving us to the hospital. The
soldiers ordered us to get out of the tractor, and they asked me to
take off my clothes. I did it and they checked all my body. I think
they were looking for explosives, but we were all injured and in
pitiful conditions. How could we think of carrying explosives when my
younger siblings and my own children were dying? Then, when I was
almost expecting death, they shouted at me: “you can get dressed and
go”. They did not allow us to use the tractor. I held my sister
Shahed in my arms … but the soldiers said that the baby was already
dead, so they forced me to leave her in the car. I tried to help my
wife Ghada, who was completely burned, and they forced us to walk to
the hospital. For about 300 meters the soldiers were shooting at our
feet as we walked, raising so much dust that the wounds of my wife
became full of dirt. After a while we saw a lorry on the road. It was
overcrowded with people going to the hospital after the heavy attacks,
but they made us room and we arrived at Shifa’ Hospital….”
Another
testimony in the report tells the story of the Abed Rabbo family. Souad
Abed Rabbo, 54, told the team that the soldiers called to the family to
exit their house. She, her daughter-in-law and her three granddaughters
exited the house holding white flags:
“Outside the house there
was an Israeli tank. It had come from the west towards the house that
was facing north. It was 11.30 – 12.00. The tank was in the garden
about ten meters from her, when she stopped to receive permission to
leave unharmed. On her right side were the three girls; behind her was
the daughter-in-law close to the door of the house. The soldier on the
tank never replied. They were looking into each others’ eyes for 7-10
minutes, when suddenly a soldier opened fire and shot the granddaughter
of the witness, Souad, in the neck and chest. She died immediately.
They also shot Amal. She was hit in the chest and abdomen, and the
interviewee saw her intestines come out. Amal died a little later. The
daughter in law ran immediately into the house and was not hurt. The
witness Souad Abed Rabbo was hit twice, as she turned around in a
clockwise movement. She was hit in the left arm and in the left
buttock. She did not see who shot. She assumed that the shots were
fired from gun(s) not from the tank, but she was not certain. She
saw three soldiers on top of the tanks holding weapons…Samar was hit in
the chest with the bullet coming out of the back…at the time of the
interview she was in a hospital in Belgium suffering paralysis.”
– See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2009/04/as-the-truth-about-the-gaza-war-continues-to-be-revealed-israels-standing-in-the-world-will-continue#sthash.iCP9V1hU.dpuf
@ po
Thanks for bringing these appalling details of this round of Israeli atrocities to our attention. May God have mercy on their benighted souls.
The Israelis are already in the dock of world opinion (and this is getting worse for them by the week), and I’ll be very surprised if many of their leaders don’t end up in the dock at The Hague. I know they’re very worried about that possibility, hence their frantic opposition to Palestine’s membership in the ICC.
“Why Palestine Should Take Israel to Court in The Hague
“LAST week, the Palestinian foreign minister, Riad Malki, declared that if Israel persisted in its plans to build settlements in the currently vacant area known as E-1, which lies between Palestinian East Jerusalem and the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim, ‘we will be going to the I.C.C.,’ referring to the International Criminal Court. ‘We have no choice,’ he added.
“The Palestinians’ first attempt to join the I.C.C. was thwarted last April when the court’s chief prosecutor at the time, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, declined the request on the grounds that Palestine was not a state. That ambiguity has since diminished with the United Nations’ conferral of non-member state status on Palestine in November. Israel’s frantic opposition to the elevation of Palestine’s status at the United Nations was motivated precisely by the fear that it would soon lead to I.C.C. jurisdiction over Palestinian claims of war crimes.
“Israeli leaders are unnerved for good reason. The I.C.C. could prosecute major international crimes committed on Palestinian soil anytime after the court’s founding on July 1, 2002.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/30/opinion/why-palestine-should-take-israel-to-court-in-the-hague.html?_r=0
But wait! This is the most transparent administration in history, a friend to all Whistleblowers! And Hillary Clinton is the Angel of Truth, Law, and Transparency, too.
Ross
Well said!
Chinggis let Mr. Rogers know that slacks are cut. Score is now 5.0. Chinggis hope Mr. Rogers happy. Chinggis come to new thread because old thread no good to make new slacks. Chinggis also want to see who gets public enema number one.
@Chinggis Khan
“Chinggis let Mr. Rogers know that slacks are cut. Score is now 5.0.”
Thank you Mr Kahn. I don’t care what your multitudes of detractors say, as far as I’m concerned you’re a real mensche, and I hope I can add you to my list of Mongolian friends, some of whom are my best.
If that’s asking too much too soon, will you at least consider being my (friendly) neighbor?
It’s in a spirit of neighborly friendliness that I’d like to suggest, as a means of mollifying at least a significant segment of your large body of detractors that you consider obtaining and applying some hair straightening lotion to your very striking mustache and beard. Please don’t misunderstand___ I think they’re both beautiful and the combo is one of your “branding” features.
It’s just that a lot of people find even residual kinkiness in human hair well, downright repulsive, and the sight of it boils right to the surface some pretty atavistic emotions in them.
I know how busy you are and how many PR suggestions you must receive, but I hope that whether or not you act on mine, you’ll accept it in the spirit in which it’s offered, of my not wanting you to be unnecessarily distracted in your work by
such manifestations of primordial, tribal aestheticism.
My best to Mrs. Kahn(s) and all the little Mongolians.
Your friendly neighbor in an increasingly small world,
Mr. Rogers
Actions speak louder than words when judging one’s character:
Snowden, Greenwald and Loretta Lynch “turned down” huge amounts of money to serve the American public. Even if you disagree with them, that is real integrity.
Many (not all) politicians of both parties, bureaucrats, press organizations, judges, etc. accepted huge amounts of money for the opposite pursuit – to serve themselves while selling out the American people.
Snowden turned down a 6-figure salary working in Hawaii, with great prospects for the future, to uphold his supreme loyalty oath to the U.S. Constitution instead of taking orders from his disloyal superiors. The real story here is abuse of the Espionage Act of 1917 by the federal government.
Loretta Lynch accepted a 75% pay cut from a fancy law firm job in order to serve the American people. Rudy Guliani is criticizing his own party for not confirming her as attorney general.
Greenwald had to move a different nation altogether due to the crackdown on press freedoms by both parties.
Their critics are getting rich going along to get along!
We are seeing the long slow decline of the United States as a great power. I would argue this started with Viet Nam and is accelerating today. In the interest of maintaining our “power” status, we are killing and torturing people all over the world. Killing and torturing is not the way to make friends. But we keep doing it because “we the people” have been convinced there are bad people out to get you all over the world. Well this is true, they are out to get us because of how terribly we treat them. Stop the madness now.
Edward Snowden is public enemy because he showed us how our tax money is spent?
Nick explains @ 1:20 a.m.: “And, that’s the best the fat, lesbian, Hillary has ever looked.”
Nick proclaims @ 1:33 a.m.: “Just ignore haters like him.”
Done and done. The best ironies are spoken by the ones who never realize them.
Steve:
“reread the history of congressional interference with presidential foreign policy.
Congress acts politically against presidents from both parties; be fair enough to recognize that it isn’t just an Obama or a Republican thing.”
**********************
Ok, Steve, we’ll just take your word for it since providing examples seems to mystify you. “Look it up,” you say as if that is argumentation. You are underwhelmed by my intellect? I am still trying to find yours to evaluate it.
raff:
“I am astonished the various false and disgusting posts and pictures by Trooper are not considered to be unacceptable on this site. Very sad.”
*****************
If you want true bewilderment try a stroll through patriot’s posts. I mentioned it to Darren and got radio silence.
“Nick Spinelli
Sam, po hates Jews. ”
Shame, that. Hate is very physically unhealthy not to mention what it can do to a person’s head.
Shucks, I don’t even hate 0. And that fraud is really bad for this country….
Hmm, hate is the flipside of love, not the opposite. The true opposite of love is ambivalence.
SamFox
“Ken Rogers
@TJustice
“Your point, in substance, is well taken about war being a main threat to freedom. However, I’m not sure Madison is your best quote.”
Please feel free to come up with a better one. I look forward to seeing it, and I mean that sincerely.”
So far I haven’t seen any better quotes from TJ.
They were good quotes, but not better. 🙂
Malcolm X wanted segregation. Not so good, but I can understand why. Racist idiots did him & his family very badly. Mr X also advocated violence, a stark contrast to Mr. MLK. He was correct in this quote though.
Shelly’s statement is very accurate, though no true New Covenant priest would delight in war & all the horrors & death war brings.
Noam Chomsky. I like his take on 0bama. “No change coming with 0bama.” & that 0 has no moral center. And that he said “Sarah Palin was right about 0bama.” I think calling himself a libertarian socialist is nearly an oxymoron. He does have some good things to say though.
SamFox
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_enforcement
Nick,
That picture you call satire is disgusting and it sounds like you are going to spread more filth and lies. So tasteful. I will say it again. I am amazed those posts have not been stricken from this site.