Category Archives: political news

environmental news, national news, political news

Climate change produces terrorism … huh?

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climate-change

I thought maybe I misheard Sen. Bernie Sanders on Saturday night when he blamed climate change for the terrorism that’s plaguing the planet.

Then he said it again the next day, on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”

Here’s part of what the Democratic presidential candidate said: “The reason is pretty obvious: If we are going to see an increase in drought and flood and extreme weather disturbances as a result of climate change, what that means is that peoples all over the world are going to be fighting over limited natural resources.”

Then he said: “If there is not enough water, if there is not enough land to grow your crops, then you’re going to see migrants of people fighting over land that will sustain them, and that will lead to international conflict.”

You know, many of us have had plenty of laughs courtesy the Republicans running for president. Sen. Sanders is not going to be outdone, apparently.

I get that he believes that Earth’s changing climate is caused greatly by human activity. What I don’t get is his linking it directly to terrorism.

The cause of terrorism comes from lunatics who think nothing of killing innocent people, of terrorizing civilized society to further some crackpot philosophical or political cause.

There might some link to climate change on the fringes of the terrorism plague. However, the issues are unique and separate. They might not be mutually exclusive.

Direct linkage? Come on, Sen. Sanders.

One doesn’t cause the other.

 

national news, political news, Sports news

Ratings tank for Democratic debate … who knew?

debate stage

Why is anyone surprised that the TV ratings for the Democratic Party presidential debate headed for the tank?

Hillary Rodham Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley duked it out in Des Moines, Iowa. CBS carried it and by many accounts, the big winner of the event was John Dickerson, host of “Face the Nation” and the moderator of the debate.

I’ll offer a couple of theories on the ratings tumble.

First, the identity of the eventual Democratic nominee is pretty well known. It’s likely to be Clinton, the former first lady/U.S. senator/secretary of state. She stumbled a couple of times in Des Moines, but she did very little to harm her status as the prohibitive favorite to face whomever the Republicans nominate next summer.

Second, and this is probably the more telling reason, the debate was up against some late-night college football games.

I hate to acknowledge this, but a football game between two competitive teams is far more exciting than watching three politicians try to out-insult each other.

(A point of personal privilege here: I was in and out of the debate, tuning in finally to the final quarter of the Oregon-Stanford game that Fox was broadcasting. Oh yeah: the Ducks won it with a last-second defensive play in their own end zone. Go Ducks!)

Sure, the debate shed some light on important policy positions.

But there were no surprises. There was even less drama.

Hey, if it had been Republicans debating opposite those football games — even with their carnival atmosphere — I’m pretty sure football would have won those ratings, too.

 

 

 

 

International news, national news, political news, State news

Gov. Abbott slams door on Syrian refugees

Syrian children march in the refugee camp in Jordan. The number of Children in this camp exceeds 60% of the total number of refugees hence the name "Children's camp". Some of them lost their relatives, but others lost their parents.

Honestly, I have a measure of sympathy for what Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has declared with regard to refugees from Syria.

He has informed President Obama that Texas won’t accept any refugees from the nation they are fleeing. Why? One individual who entered France as a “refugee” reportedly was part of the attack force that terrorized Paris this past week, killing 129 people and injuring hundreds more.

Abbott doesn’t want to take any chances by allowing Syrians into this state. He joins the governors of Alabama and Michigan in banning Syrian refugees.

On the other hand, I believe it is fair to ask: Is this what the United States of America stands for?

An Austin immigration lawyer told the Texas Tribune that Abbott’s order is legal, but questions whether it is right.

“Given the tragic attacks in Paris and the threats we have already seen, Texas cannot participate in any program that will result in Syrian refugees — any one of whom could be connected to terrorism — being resettled in Texas,” Abbott wrote to President Obama.

I get that. But aren’t there intense security measures a state such as Texas can take screen all applicants coming here from Syria to ensure that they do not have any ties to the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah … or any sinister terrorist organization?

Here’s more from the Tribune: “House Speaker Joe Straus on Monday took a more nuanced position, saying he agreed with Abbott’s ‘concern’ and that refugees needed “thorough background reviews” in order to be placed in Texas. ‘I share Gov. Abbott’s concern that relocating refugees to Texas without thorough background reviews compromises our security,’ Straus said in an emailed statement. ‘Our highest priority as a state has been and should continue to be the safety of all Texans.’”

Virtually all the refugees coming here are fleeing terror, murder, warfare, mayhem, bloodshed. You name it, they’re seeking to escape that misery. What is to become of them? Do we send them to other states? Do we — as Donald Trump suggests — send them back to the chaos they are fleeing?

We proclaim ourselves to live in the Land of Opportunity. We profess our nation to be a bastion for the dispossessed.

Of course no one wants to create a safe haven for terrorist monsters. What, though, does the world do with those who deserve protection from those who would kill them?

 

International news, military news, national news, political news

‘A test for commander in chief’?

obama_whblog_1203

We’re hearing some chatter about how the Paris terrorist attacks may have transformed the 2016 Republican Party presidential primary campaign.

It might be now a “test for commander in chief,” says Politico’s Shane Goldmacher.

Good. We need something to bring us back to what’s really at stake.

To this point in the GOP campaign, it’s been a battle of sound bites, insults (and the occasional name-calling) and wonderment over how Donald Trump has stayed at or near the top of a slowly shrinking Republican Party field.

The issue now may be turning toward deciding which of these individuals is best suited to handling the serious threat that the Islamic State potentially poses against the United States.

As Politico reported: “It’s one thing to have a protest vote,” New York Republican Rep. Pete King, a member of the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee and chairman of the subcommittee on counterterrorism and intelligence, told POLITICO. “If anything good can come of this tragedy, I would hope it would steer the debate toward who can handle Al Qaeda and ISIS and away from sound bites.”

Trump has won the sound bite battle to this point.

But if ISIS is the threat that many observers now say it is — in the wake of the highly coordinated attacks in Paris — then we need to separate the experts from the entertainers.

I hope that with quite a few serious-minded individuals still seeking the GOP nomination that primary voters are going to assess the value of actual experience in the political arena against individuals who — time and again — demonstrate their inability to navigate across a complicated global landscape.

As U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida — one of the serious individuals running for the GOP nomination — said this morning, the first priority for a president is to keep Americans safe from our enemies.

Show time is over.

I hope …

 

International news, military news, national news, political news

Here’s a novel idea: Ask Congress to declare war

President Franklin D. Rossevelt signing the declaration of war against Japan, December 8, 1941. (National Park Service) NARA FILE #: 079-AR-82 WAR & CONFLICT BOOK #: 743

Former Florida governor — and Republican presidential candidate — Jeb Bush wants the United States to declare war on the Islamic State.

I am going to make a leap here and presume for a moment that he means the real thing. You know, actually make a formal declaration of war. It’s kind of an old-fashioned idea that hasn’t been carried out since, oh, Dec. 8, 1941. President Roosevelt stood before a joint session of Congress and asked lawmakers to make that declaration … which is how the U.S. Constitution prescribes it.

Well, why not do it the old-fashioned way?

I am increasingly of the opinion that war is what we’ve got on our hands. The Islamic State seems to want it. They committed an act of war Friday in France, bombing and shooting its way further into infamy, killing more than 100 innocent victims.

France has called it a wartime act. French President Francois Hollande has vowed zero mercy in seeking revenge for the killings. The Islamic State already has demonstrated unfathomable barbarism with its video-recorded beheadings of foreign captives, including Americans.

ISIL has killed tens of thousands of Muslims on its reign of terror — supposedly in the name of Islam. It is a murderous cult that must be wiped out.

This war, though, is being fought on terms with which the world is not yet familiar. There used to be a time when we defined war simply as nations taking up arms against each other. This war is vastly different.

It is an ideological war being fought with guns, knives and bombs.

Is it possible then to declare war the way this country used to declare war? I think it can be done.

The question now is this: Does the president have the will to ask for a declaration and does Congress have the courage to make that declaration?

Your thoughts? Is a war declaration possible?

 

International news, media news, military news, national news, political news

Attacks work against Trump, Ms. Coulter

Conservative author Ann Coulter addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington on Saturday Feb. 20,2010. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Ann Coulter’s political expertise is, shall we say, quite suspect.

The latest exhibition of her ignorance surfaced this weekend when she tweeted that the Paris terror attacks have guaranteed Donald Trump’s election as the 45th president of the United States.

Someone, pass the smelling salts to the fiery conservative commentator and make her take a whiff.

In the hours since the attacks — in the midst of this political season — one of the key questions has become: How does this hideous event affect the presidential contest?

Well, the Pundit Class in Washington and around the country has been virtually unanimous in this regard: The attacks expose Trump’s utter lack of experience dealing with international terrorism.

His empire-building experience won’t help him. Trump’s self-proclaimed ability to “negotiate” deals will be of zero value; we don’t negotiate with monstrous killers such as the Islamic State.

Yet, there was Ann Coulter — the darling of the far-right talk radio listening audience, blathering on her Twitter account that Trump’s election is a sure thing.

We need someone with actual experience in government and/or diplomacy — and someone who gathers his or her military knowledge from sources other than Sunday morning new talk shows — to take the reins as commander in chief.

My own advice to Ann Coulter? Shut the bleep up!

 

 

International news, national news, political news

Does it matter what we call the enemy?

islam-at-war

Hillary Rodham Clinton did not use the words “radical Islam” during the Democratic presidential debate Saturday night to define the enemy with whom the civilized world is at war.

Does it matter? Is it vitally important for Clinton — or any leading politician — to use those words when describing terrorist organizations?

Her Republican opponents say it is. The leading Democratic presidential candidate, though, answered with a statement of her own, invoking the words — of all people — of former Republican President George W. Bush.

We are not at war with Islam, President Bush said in September 2001 after the 9/11 attacks. The fight, he said, was against extremists, those who have perverted what he called a religion of “peace.”

Clinton and President Obama have gone to great lengths to avoid using the words “radical Islam,” giving their foes plenty of ammo to use against them.

Personally, I think the words “radical Islam” are quite appropriate to describe our foes.

But does it really matter more what we say about them more than what we do to fight them?

No.

This debate is getting bogged down in a game of semantics. From my perch out here in Flyover Country it appears to be that our national leadership knows the name of the enemy — and is taking the fight to them.

 

 

International news, national news, political news, Vietnam War

GOP turns on itself over immigration

anti-immigration

It’s fascinating to the max to watch what has happened to today’s Republican Party.

It is at war with itself. Immigration is the catalyst that has ignited the spark among the gaggle of GOP pols seeking the party’s presidential nomination.

There once was a time when Democrats were torching each other. The Vietnam War split Democrats between the Hawk Wing and the Dove Wing. Stay the course in ‘Nam or get the hell out of there … immediately if not sooner!

Well, the intraparty division sent Democrats into the presidential electoral wilderness for a time. Then Watergate occurred and the nation elected Democrat Jimmy Carter for a single term in 1976; Republican Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980 launched a 12-year run of GOP White House control.

Democrats are relatively united these days.

Republicans? They’re fighting like the dickens over immigration.

Two of the main protagonists are Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida. Rubio has accused Cruz of endorsing “amnesty” for illegal immigrants.

Cruz has fired back with his own allegations that Rubio has flip-flopped on the issue.

It’s all quite fun to watch, at least it is to me.

Cruz and Rubio both are playing semantics over what they — and each other — have said about immigration. Cruz seeks to become the most conservative of the Gang of 14 (GOP presidential candidates) on the issue. I don’t know what Rubio is trying to do, other than trying to muddy up Cruz’s stated positions on immigration.

They both share a common dislike of President Obama’s policies, which include granting temporary amnesty to millions of undocumented immigrants while sparing the children who were brought here by their parents illegally the misery of being kicked out of the only country they’ve ever called home; that would be the United States of America.

I don’t know when the pendulum will swing back to the old ways of Democrats tearing each other’s lungs out. I guess it will … eventually. For now, though, leave it to those silly Republicans to provide the entertainment.

 

national news, political news

Trump tirade … up close and queasy

donald

Ben White, writing for Politico, said he went to Fort Dodge, Iowa to get an idea of what the Donald Trump magic is all about.

He learned a lot about the candidate who’s taken the Republican Party primary campaign by storm.

White’s not sure why Trump remains at or near the top of the GOP campaign heap.

He got an earful from Trump during a 95-minute rant that included statements about how “stupid” Iowa voters must be if they like Ben Carson more than they like Trump; his cuff links; his experience with Macy’s department store; Bowe Bergdahl, the Army sergeant taken captive by the Taliban … and a lot of other things that have nothing to do with much of anything relevant.

White wonders how it can be that Trump’s nonsensical rambling plays so well among his diehard supporters. In another time — not so long ago — a performance such as the one Trump provided in Fort Dodge would have doomed his candidacy. These days? Why, it’s possible his poll rating will skyrocket.

I’ll say this, though, based on White’s reporting of the event. It appears that the packed house of Trump supporters were getting a bit antsy sitting through his tirade. The cheers and whoops became less vocal the longer he went on, White said.

I’d wonder about now if this means he’s worn out his welcome among those looking for something different in a major-party presidential nominee.

Except that given the nature of the GOP campaign so far, I can’t rely on anything approaching conventional wisdom.

 

International news, military news, national news, political news

Patience is the key to eliminating these monsters

Drone-Strike

American and British intelligence officials are beginning to talk now as though they believe they have killed Mohammad Emwazi, aka Jihadi John.

The strike was quick but it was months in the planning.

It goes to show that patience is a critical ingredient in this war against terrorism and the people who commit these horrific acts.

Emwazi was a British citizen, born in Kuwait but reared in the U.K. He became a propaganda tool for the Islamic State and was video-recorded beheading captive foreigners, the first of whom was U.S. journalist James Foley.

Yes, a lot of folks demanded immediate justice. As it turned out, though, in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, these efforts require tremendous coordination, attention to the tiniest detail and absolute certainty that we’ve got the bad guy right where we want him if we intend to strike.

The hunt for bin Laden commenced right after the 9/11 attacks. The Bush administration hunted far and wide across Afghanistan and Pakistan. Bin Laden almost got it at Tora Bora, Afghanistan. He got away. President Bush left office in January 2009, handed the operation off to President Obama, who then took up where his predecessor left off.

Detailed analysis of intelligence led the Navy SEALs and CIA spooks to the Pakistan complex, where they found bin Laden — and then shot him to death.

Emwazi’s death — which is beginning to sound more certain — was delivered after tremendous effort by U.S. and British intelligence agencies and military planners from both countries.

What’s the lesson?

It’s that we cannot antsy when we don’t bring justice to these monsters right away.

Patience, folks. Patience.