Trump's Failed Missions

As the gentle reader is assuredly aware, Donald Trump dropped 59 Tomahawk missiles on an airfield in Syria.  To understand the full scope of Trump's madness and the full extent of his failure, one has to look at the big picture and full timeline of events.

It starts with Trump issuing his immigration bans v.1.0 and v.2.0.  This ban blocked Syrian refugees from being able to come to the United States to avoid being killed by Assad.  In other words, Trump condemned these innocent people to death, for no reason other than the color of their skin and the name of their religion.

Then Assad uses some nerve toxin on these refugees, killing many of them.  Trump, supposedly outraged by pictures of dead children from this attack, decides to launch the missile attack.

Too many people have seem to have lost sight of the fact that Trump could have and should have saved these people, but due to his and his supporters' xenophobia and bigotry, these people are now dead.

So back to the missile attack...

Before launching the attack, he called Big Daddy Putin to get permission and give them lots of time to clear out the Russian troops.

When the attack finally does happen on the airfield, it was supposedly meant to send a message to Assad and to take out the airfield.  Neither thing happened.

Within hours of Trump's attack, Assad dropped chlorine bombs on more innocent civilians, an attack which was launched at the same airfield Trump was supposed to have taken out.

It wasn't part of any type of larger strategy to deal with Assad, as admitted by his own administration.

That means it was just a publicity stunt.  But still, why even do it?

Well, it's because his poll numbers are already lower than any other president and dropping fast, just as he had accused President Barack Obama of doing.

Just as sad, if not more so, are all the Trumpkins out there cheering their heads off about this expensive, both in human cost and in money, and unnecessary show of bravado for nothing other than bolstering his anemic poll numbers.

RoJoWho Clarifies The Type Of War He Wants With ISIS

Ron Johnson has already said that he is not satisfied with just banning Syrian refugees but wants to invade Syria and Iraq to rid the world of ISIS because it has worked so well before.

On Sunday, RoJoWho appeared on "UpFront with Mike Gousha," a Wisconsin based talk show, and clarified that he wants his war to be a replication of the first Gulf War led by President George H.W. Bush:

In an interview broadcast Sunday on "UpFront with Mike Gousha," the host asked Johnson for a clearer definition of how many U.S. troops he envisions taking part in such a mission.

Johnson, a Republican from Oshkosh who chairs the Senate's Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee, initially hesitated, saying he wasn't a military expert. But he said his model for what the U.S. should do to fight ISIS is what President George H.W. Bush did in response to the 1990 Iraq invasion of Kuwait.

"He very clearly laid out the goal, and then he assembled a coalition," Johnson said. "The U.S. provided about two-thirds of the troop level. Our coalition partners provided a third. Our coalition partners paid for 85 percent of that effort. Now that's a full commitment by the world community toward a goal."

The 1990-91 Persian Gulf War included a coalition of 670,000 troops from 28 countries; 383 U.S. troops were killed.

Johnson said that because ISIS "is not that good militarily," the troop numbers would not need to be as high as they were for the early 1990s effort.

"They are sophisticated in terms of use of social media, of spreading this vile, this barbaric ideology of theirs," Johnson said of ISIS. "Recruiting people to join their jihad, they're sophisticated there, but militarily, it really would not be that difficult — it wouldn't take anywhere near the efforts that the first Gulf War did.

"I've been hearing 25,000 troops, a total coalition of maybe 100,000. I really don't know the exact numbers. But we have to be committed to the goal because every day that ISIS exists, they're going to continue to inspire the type of barbarity that we saw play out in Paris, in Beirut, the downing of the Russian jetliner. This threat isn't going away. It is growing, it is metastasizing. We have to take it seriously."

In addition, RoJoWho wanted to make sure that everyone knew that even after five years in the US Senate, he's still not ready for prime time. He did this by introducing a bill that would require an even more stringent vetting process for Syrian refugees, even though he admits that the current process is "pretty robust."

RoJoWho also said that he wants to "eliminate all threats to this nation," then admits it's impossible to do.

In other words, he has an election coming up that he is probably going to lose so he is throwing the red meat of fear and bigotry to his base in order to get them fired up.

Ron Johnson Wants To Go To War

Ron Johnson isn't satisfied with the standard Republican talking point of refusing to accept Syrian refugees in the aftermath of the Paris terrorist attacks. Oh no, he wants to invade Syria and invade Iraq for the third time:

Sen. Ron Johnson, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said Monday the United States should invade territory held by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Johnson said the Obama administration’s approach — attempting to contain the threat using airstrikes without ground troops — is naive given the threat ISIS poses to the rest of the world, including the United States.

“It’s high time that we make a commitment in the world that Islamic terrorists have got to be wiped off the face of the planet,” the Oshkosh Republican said in a telephone interview. “Because if we don’t, every day that ISIS survives, every day that they are not overtly losing, they are perceived as winners and perceived as winning and they’ll continue to inspire adherents to this barbarity.”

Johnson wants the United States to assemble a coalition, much like the one former president George H.W. Bush put together for the Gulf War in 1990 to push Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait.

“It’s not a perfect solution, but you have to start at the head: We’ve got to destroy the caliphate, which means we’ve got to take back the territory, because a caliphate does not exist without the territory,” he said.

There is no word when RoJo is planning on enlisting in the army to lead his invasion.

But rest assured, RoJo's intentions are pure. He wants to rescue all that oil, er, our freedom from the hands of terrorists. Nope, it has nothing at all to do with all of that BP stock he owns, because 'Murica!

It also has nothing to do with him pandering to the paranoia, the bigotry and the xenophobia of his base. After all, it's not like he is losing badly to Russ Feingold or anything.

Meanwhile, twenty years after the Oklahoma bombing, we are still waiting for RoJoWho, the chairman of the homeland security committee, to do something about the greatest terrorism threat facing America - extremist right wingers.

I would advise the gentle reader not to hold their breath for that to happen.

Goodbye Occupy

The progressive movement in this country brought major victories to American history - women's rights, Civil Rights, the end of slavery, labor rights and unionization, education reform and reproductive rights. There's nothing that makes me smile more than to see left-wing causes being discussed in our increasingly corporate and right-wing media. So when the Occupy movement started last year, I thought it was the PERFECT answer to the Tea Party and the right-wing paranoia engulfing our nation and our people. My super left-wing heart soared. I went to the protests, I got involved. I had hope in the movement. But sadly, I would be very disappointed.

In its beginnings, Occupy seemed like it had a future. It felt like we actually has a springboard for change. We could make this happen. The people were speaking with one voice. But all of a sudden, it hit its crescendo, and started to slowly spiral. It seems Occupy has since turned into a mess of people, unwilling to be organized or have any sort of centralized message. They never once reached out to field candidates to run for office so the changes we all hoped for could be enacted, which is where the process begins.

What really brings us here today is what I read on Facebook. This afternoon I noticed I was still a 'fan' of Occupy, and something they posted caught my attention. The article in question, titled, "Resisting Genocide: Syria, North Korea and Cuba" is a real hoot. It blames the US for all the worlds ills, and uses the Ron Paul libertarian argument of "leave all nations alone. Let them deal with their own problems." Yes, let's let countries run by dictators with a disregard of human rights, run rabid and do as they please. If Assad made good on his promise of using chemical weapons, the world is supposed to sit by and watch? The author essentially argues that US imperialism and intervention around the world is the sole basis for the reasons Syria, North Korea and Cuba are having the problems they are, yet gives examples that said country's are far better than we realize. To some degree, that's absolutely correct. Because of America's unnecessary embargo on Cuba, for example, it does not have access it needs to quality healthcare equipment (no matter what Castro says.) America has caused undo destruction in Iraq and Afghanistan, where we had no business being in the first place. However, the article seeks to deceive the reader by using flawed claims, dubious and inflammatory language and assumes the general reader is not going to actually do research, which, when distributing propaganda for the masses, isn't hard. It's easy to read that the former head of the World Health Organization thinks the "DPRK had a healthcare system that should be the envy of the entire developing world." Really? In what universe? In actuality, Amnesty International (which the author of the article, Gearóid Ó Colmáin, doesn't seem to care for. So much for prisoner's rights) has reported that North Korea's healthcare system is some of the worst in the world.

“North Korea has failed to provide for the most basic health and survival needs of its people.  This is especially true of those who are too poor to pay for medical care,” said Catherine Baber, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Asia-Pacific"

According to the World Health Organization’s last available figures, North Korea spent less on healthcare than any other country in the world – under US$1 per person per year in total. 

Well, there goes that glowing review of North Korea's failed healthcare system. Looking for an unbiased, unfiltered view into North Korea? check out the Vice Guide to North Korea. It's a terrific inside account at the truth of North Korea. No filters, no political blinders, no propaganda. After, watch the video Vice did about traveling to a North Korean "work camp" in the outskirts of Sibera. It's eerie but worth the watch.

In Syria, Bashar Al-Assad - the man who slaughters his own people, has cabinet members fleeing from Syria in droves (Ask Syria's former military police chief why he defected) and even went so far as to threaten to prepare chemical weapons to use on his own people, has given the Syrian military one order - kill those who do not comply. Genocide Watch has tallied at least 37,000 people have been killed since the start of the Syrian civil war. Something I found interesting was that the article makes note that bakeries in Syria are "open and ready for business." In actuality, these places are shells of their former selves. Bakers are barely able to make enough food to feed the tremendous lines of starving people who stand and wait all day, hoping they might be able to eat. Humanitarian groups, who do not idly by and watch people die, have been able to bring in small batches of rationed ingredients so people may be able to eat that day. Also, this happened. A few days ago, warplanes bombed one of those bakeries, killing scores of people. But you must suppress any outrage you have at that, because you know, Syria will just work it out.

This is not an endorsement of war with these nations, or violent interventions I don't believe there's use for war and that's because I truly believe with all I am, that there are peaceful, non-violent solutions to the worlds problems. We wouldn't sit and watch someone kick a dog, would we? Of course not. So why should we stand back and let dictators run the world? Occupy craves freedom and liberation here at home. It's the central core in their mess of messages. Doesn't that extend beyond the borders of America? If we are struggling to fight for freedom here, it's the height of hypocrisy to deny it elsewhere. Human Rights are universal. It's an issue everyone should hold near and dear.