Tax Wall Street PartyUnited Front Against Austerity
September 10, 2015
According to unconfirmed reports carried by Reuters, Russian military forces in Syria are now engaged in combat, presumably against one of the terrorist rebel factions arrayed against the government of President Assad. This development, if true, would provide the most dramatic confirmation of the bankruptcy of the current US strategy, which has been engineered by the duplicitous and conniving ISIS Czar John Allen in cahoots with his ally, Turkish President Erdogan, a Moslem brotherhood bigwig with great influence over ISIS and an unconcealed ambition to take over as Caliph in his own right. The US government has repeatedly declared ISIS to be the enemy of human civilization under any definition. But instead of destroying ISIS by cutting its supply lines over the Turkish-Syrian border, the US effort has been locked into impotence because of Allen’s secret deals with his pro-terrorist Turkish buddies. Russian President Putin was therefore 100% correct a few days ago when he branded the entire US-led effort against ISIS as ineffective. Indeed, because of the Turkish policy of bombing the YPG and PKK Kurdish forces, who are the most formidable opponents of the ISIS butchers and have inflicted humiliating defeats on them, in recent months, it is clear that Allen’s policy of phony war and a terrorist safe haven or sanctuary enclave in northern Syria has in the aggregate been helping these extremist butchers. Russia is evidently not prepared to wait until the black flag of ISIS genocide is unfurled over the Caucasus. Putin is also perfectly aware of the treacherous role of the NATO states in building up the deadly Caliphate in the first place.
Reuters reports:
“Russian forces have begun participating in military operations in Syria in support of government troops, three Lebanese sources familiar with the political and military situation there said on Wednesday. The sources, speaking to Reuters on condition they not be identified, gave the most forthright account yet from the region of what the United States fears is a deepening Russian military role in Syria’s civil war, though one of the Lebanese sources said the number of Russians involved so far was small. U.S. officials said Russia sent two tank landing ships and additional cargo aircraft to Syria in the past day or so and deployed a small number of naval infantry forces. The U.S. officials, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said the intent of Russia’s military moves in Syria was unclear. One suggested the focus may be on preparing an airfield near the port city of Latakia, a stronghold of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.”[i]
In response, US Secretary of State John “Skull and Bones” Kerry has once again called Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to complain about Russian interference. The White House spokesman has been whining that the Russian demand to include the Assad government in the necessary international front against ISIS is “unconscionable.” Erdogan’s Turkish government is refusing to allow Russian planes to cross its airspace. The US has been arm-twisting Bulgaria (known in past decades as one of the most servile members of the Warsaw Pact) to deny overflight privileges even to Russian transport aircraft carrying humanitarian aid to the conflict zone. Bulgaria has apparently complied. But Iran is apparently willing to cooperate with Moscow, a gesture which has inevitably stoked a new round of warmonger hysteria here in Washington.
In the U.S. Congress, the Republican posturing over the multilateral Iran nuclear accord is now in full swing. In the Senate, GOP orators are by and large sticking with the advice of the Israeli ambassador, who had recommended that they altogether avoid talking about the details of the multilateral arrangement, and simply focus on their mantra that Iran is bad. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas, who has been organizing filibusters on every item before the Senate for the past six years, outdid himself in sheer hypocrisy by lamenting the partisan atmosphere, which has led the Democrats to filibuster the attempted GOP sabotage resolution. Republicans in general offered unctuous praise for Senators Schumer, Cardin, and Menendez, the three renegade Democrats who are voting with the warmongers. Schumer must never be allowed to assume the role of Democratic Senate leader. Cardin is clearly out of touch with Maryland, and will be widely boycotted in the state. The corrupt Menendez is facing federal indictment, and may soon be making speeches from jail.
Bernie “F-35” Sanders: “the military option should always be on the table” for Iran – have Democrats learned nothing?
As for Senator Bernie “F-35” Sanders, his speech raised many eyebrows when he spouted a line lifted directly from the complete works of Bush and Cheney. “The military option should always be on the table,” intoned Bernie. He hastened to add that his military option was only a last resort, but anyone who has lived through the past 15 years was already alerted to the cloud banks of duplicity surrounding the mush-head candidate. Bernie tried to make it look like he had been against the two main Bush-Cheney wars, when in fact he had voted for the post-September 11 Authorization to Use Military Force, which is the legislation which has opened the floodgates of domestic police state operations as well as empowering Bush’s fool’s errand in Afghanistan. Hillary Clinton, for her part, was engaged across town in a ranting bellicose tirade about how eager she was to bomb Iran.
The fatal weakness shown by Bernie Sanders when he capitulated to a pair of provocateurs claiming to represent Black Lives Matter has now been confirmed. Bernie has surrendered to fascist warmonger ideology, virtually groveling at the pagan altar of Bush and Cheney. Democrats would be well advised to keep looking for a candidate with the intellectual and moral strength to stand up to the inevitable fascist and warmonger bullying.
As reported yesterday, 42 Democratic senators are now in favor of the Iran deal, meaning that it is virtually guaranteed to pass, most likely without even needing the help of an Obama veto to the resolution of disapproval.
Over on the House side, the plans of the feckless Speaker of the House John Boehner were shredded by a revolt of the reactionary, bigoted, and xenophobic Tea Party swamp. Boehner – who may soon fall to an extremist coup — had wanted to liquidate the entire Iran deal question with a single vote, especially since the blocking effort is a sure loser for the GOP, and will serve only to remind 2016 voters that this is a party of incorrigible warmongers. But the tea partiers are determined to prolong the agony in the vain hope of gaining some kind of demagogic advantage. All this makes it more likely that the House will fail to pass the FY 2017 budget, leading to a government shutdown on October 1.
According to The Hill:
“Instead of a single vote to disapprove of the deal, the House will now hold three separate votes on the agreement. One would be a resolution to approve the deal — which is sure to fail and, in the process, force many Democrats to break from the White House. The second would be to express a sense to the House that the Obama administration has not met the requirements of legislation guaranteeing congressional oversight of the deal by failing to give lawmakers text of the so-called secret side deals. The bilateral deals between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are at the center of the House’s uprising over the Iran pact, and concern the details of inspections at some Iranian sites. Finally, the House would vote to prevent the U.S. from lifting sanctions on Iran as part of complying with the nuclear deal. The House is still expected to finish votes regarding Iran on Friday, which coincides with the 14th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.”[ii]
Outside on the west front of the Capitol, the fascist bully Donald Trump and his sidekick, the cartoon-faced hypocrite Ted Cruz of Texas, trotted out their histrionics for an embarrassingly meager crowd of boosters, many of whom appeared to be drawn from the homeless population of the area. It was clear that Trump had not used any of his fabled millions to charter buses to bring his backers to the event.
Trump Pledges Triumph Of The Will Against Iran
Trump blustered that, if he gets to be president, “We will have so much winning if I’m elected, you might get bored with winning.” But, when he was asked by Major Garrett of CBS News exactly how he would change the Iran nuclear settlement, he fell back on his all-purpose cop out, The Triumph of the Will. Trump lectured the reporter that he was not about to reveal the devastating secret tactics which he would unleash on Iran, but that his entire track record showed that he was an unbeatable negotiator. Some in the audience were remembering Richard Nixon’s secret plan to end the war in Vietnam, which he talked so much about during the 1968 election, but which turned out never to have existed as the war dragged on into 1973.
The west front rally was sponsored by the corporate-funded Tea Party Patriots, reduced these days to flotsam and jetsam left on the political beach after the tide of tea party triumphalism went out. The mistress of ceremonies was the vapid Jenny Beth Martin, who introduced Trump and Cruz, followed by the has-been Sarah Palin and the never-was Gary Bauer. Knowing that there were not enough votes in the “corrupt chambers” of Congress, the wily Mormon theologian Glenn Beck called for a miracle wrought by God. The “blessed are the peacemakers” part of the Sermon on the Mount seemed to be missing from Beck’s copy of scripture.
Louis Gohmert
On display were also some of the more imbecilic tea baggers from the House GOP faction, including the incoherent Louie Gohmert, the Brylcreemed Trent Franks, the bigot Steve King, plus the various demented Yohos, Mike Kellys, Heuelscamps, and Marsha Blackburns. Michelle Bachman was there to take the crowd down her own delusional memory lane. Not to be missed was Brigitte Gabriel, a snakelike creature from the notorious Islamophobia network. Mark Levin, that personification of the petty-bourgeois id, spewed venom. Senator Perdue of Georgia was one of the few senators to join Cruz. Otherwise, back benchers from the lunatic fringe – although the network commentators resisted this obvious conclusion.
In the view of the Tax Wall Street Party, the Iran nuclear deal must be approved and followed by a Middle East conference for peace and economic reconstruction. Because the mere existence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program has never been proven, Bernie Sanders’ ignominious surrender to the demagogy of “the military option stays on the table” must be rejected. It is time to take up the Russian proposal for a serious anti-ISIS alliance.
Kim Davis of Kentucky a Nepotist Married Four Times
But no account of the absurd spectacle of American reactionary politics on this Tuesday after Labor Day would be complete without some reference to the hereditary County Clerk from Kentucky who wants to decide who gets a marriage license based on her own personal whims. The slogan of the United States being a “government of laws” is thrown around far too much, but this is exactly the principle which is being challenged by this sanctimonious right-wing anarchist and her backers, including Governor Huckabee of Arkansas, who wants to use Ms. Davis as a trampoline to relaunch his own faltering presidential campaign. The elective county clerk post held by Ms. Davis was held by her father before her, and she clearly hopes to be succeeded by her son, who is already part of her staff. If Ms. Davis disagrees with court directives to issue marriage licenses to all qualified couples, her obvious and honorable option would have been to resign her post. But this, she apparently believes, would interfere with her hereditary property rights to hold this office. There is also some question about Ms. Davis’ personal piety. According to one account:
“Court records detail Kim Davis’ turbulent marital history: She has been married to her current husband twice, with a divorce and another husband in between. She married her first husband, Dwain Wallace, when she was 18, and divorced him in 1994. She acknowledged in a 2008 divorce filing having had two children in 1994 while she was not married. In 1996, at age 30, she married Joe Davis for the first time. They divorced in 2006. The next year, at 40 years old, Davis wed Thomas McIntryre, though their marriage lasted less than a year. She re-married Joe Davis in 2009.”[iii]
During the era of the wars of religion in the 1500s and 1600s, it became obvious to thoughtful observers that a very dangerous and widespread tendency among the clergy was to engage in apocalyptic pronouncements in the hope of increasing gate receipts and attendance, and thus personal power and wealth. Where the clergy represented rival churches or rival sects, they often made sweeping absolute claims so categorical that their followers were sometimes swept up into civil strife and civil war. As a reaction to this, there emerged in France in the late 1500s the so-called politique school of thought, which maintained that the incendiary activities of these apocalyptic preachers needed to be subjected to the discipline of the civil magistrate, or as we would say today, the government. This realization was one of the factors that saved European civilization from total breakdown as a result of these wars of religion. The example of the politiques had an important influence on the U.S. Constitution.
Today, this means that government officials must be bound by applicable law, direct court orders, and by the lawful policies of the relevant state or federal executive branches. To argue that state officials have a right to override the law because of their own purported religious opinions is to promote chaos.
[i]http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/09/us-mideast-crisis-syria-exclus…
[ii]http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/253146-house-gop-shakes-up-i…
[iii] http://m.snopes.com/kim-davis-married-four-times/#hr066MjwjYTukDVE.99
