Quotes by
Contemporary Experts on the USS Liberty
A number of Johnson administration,
military, and intelligence community officials – all of whom had access to
classified materials regarding the attack – have commented on the conclusions
they reached concerning the attack…
Members of Congress
Craig Hosmer, then-U.S. Representative:
"Whatever the reason for the
attack, it was an act of high piracy. Those responsible should be
court-martialed on charges of murder, amongst other counts. The Israel Government should
pay full reparations to the United States and indemnities to the families of
the Americans killed." —Craig Hosmer, then-U.S. Representative, on
the floor of the House of Representatives, 29 June 1967
*Adlai Stevenson III, former United States Senator:
"Those sailors who were
wounded, who were eyewitnesses, have not been heard from by the American
public. . . [Their story] leaves no doubt but what this was a premeditated,
carefully reconnoitered attack by Israeli aircraft against our ship."
—US Senator Adlai Stevenson III in interview with Wm. J. Small, UPI, for
publication September 28, 1980
James Abourezk, former United States Senator
"The shame of the U.S.S.
Liberty incident is that our sailors were treated as though they were enemies,
rather than the patriots and heroes that they were. There is no other
incident--beyond Israeli attack on the U.S.S. Liberty--that shows the power of
the Israeli Lobby by being able to silence successive American governments.
Allowing the lies told by the Israelis and their minions in the U.S. is
disheartening to all of us who are proud of our servicemen." —James
Abourezk, United States Senate, 1973-79
*Paul Findley, former U.S. Congressman:
"Certain facts are clear. The attack was no accident. The Liberty was
assaulted in broad daylight by Israeli forces who knew the ship's identity.
...THE
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES LED A COVER-UP so thorough that years
after he left office, the episode was still largely unknown to the public -- and the men who suffered and died have gone
largely unhonored." —Paul Findley, They Dare to Speak Out, Lawrence
Hill & Co., 1985, p166
Military Officials
Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, US Navy (Ret.):
“The ship was clearly identified,
not only by its unique configuration but
by a very large U.S. flag that was flown at the time. The weather was
calm and the visibility was excellent. During
this unprovoked attack 34 U.S. Navy men were killed and 171 wounded.
Nevertheless, to this day the American
public does not know why the attack took place and who was involved overall. “In
my opinion, the United States government and the Israeli government must share
responsibility for this cover-up.
Commander William McGonagle, Captain, USS Liberty:
After
more than two hours of unremitting assault, the Israelis finally halted
their attack. One of the torpedo boats
approached the Liberty. This same
torpedo boat crew had been circling the ship, machine-gunning anyone who stuck
his head above decks, AS WELL
AS THE LIFEBOATS THE CREW HAD PUT OVER THE SIDE.
What had changed? The Israeli government knew that US aircraft carriers
had just launched aircraft to come to Liberty's aid AND THE ATTACK WAS
QUICKLY CALLED OFF. The Israeli government called the US Embassy and said
that they had made a "mistake."
A torpedo boat officer asked in
English over a bullhorn: "Do
you need any help?"
The wounded commander of the Liberty, Captain William McGonagle,
instructed the quartermaster to respond emphatically: "FUCK YOU."
America’s midterm election results are in and it has been
decided, warmongering Zionist Republicans and warmongering Zionist Democrats
have won. If Nancy Pelosi returns as the
Speaker of the House, it is assured nothing will change. Pelosi has already vowed to work with
Republicans when it comes to continuing America’s trillion dollar Israeli
directed foreign policy.
However Pelosi sternly threatened that in areas where they
do not agree, i.e. domestic policy, she will fight hard for incremental,
meaningless changes. The election is a
joke because there is no opposition party.
Any time a progressive populist manages to win an election in spite of
the Democratic establishment’s road blocks, the elitists vote for the same old,
tired, bought off leadership that have controlled the party for the last 35
years. The Democratic voters have no
say.
On the contrary, Republicans rotate younger members with
absolute unwavering loyalty to the GOP’s Zionist agenda into leadership
positions giving a false face of change.
All the while, the American people have zero, zip, nada to say about the
agenda that will be smashed down upon their heads. From Russia Insider:
Excerpt:
Israel Wins the Midterms
No matter who is elected Israel
comes first
Judging from the mainstream media, Israel was not a major issue in the
midterm election but it sure did come up a lot when candidates
for office were wooing Jewish or Evangelical voters.
To cite only one example, Florida Congressman Ron DeSantis criticized
his opponent Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum during their gubernatorial race for receiving support from the Dream Defenders, a group favoring
Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, and giving a
speech welcoming members of the Council on American-Islamic Relations to his
city.
DeSantis claimed in a video clip
that “I can find anti-Semites around
him, but it’s almost like ‘we don’t want to discuss that.’” DeSantis, who sponsored the 2013 Palestinian
Accountability Act which called for the withholding of U.S. aid to the
Palestinian Authority until it recognizes Israel as a Jewish state, charged that Gillum would not be a “friend”
of Israel…
DeSantis boasted about his presence in Jerusalem when the U.S.
Embassy was moved to that city in May and has promised as governor to visit Israel’s illegal settlements on the
West Bank, which he refers to by the preferred Israeli usage as “Judea
and Samaria.” He threatens critics that
“If you boycott Israel, the state of Florida will boycott you.”
One might note at a minimum that for Ron DeSantis and ambitious slimeballs
like him it is all about Israel due to their own political self-interest, with
nothing actually in the mix for either Florida or the United States.
The uninformed public buys into the narrative because it doesn’t know any
better thanks to the media’s heavy slant in favor of Israel, allowing
uncritical support for the Jewish state to continue under the radar
unchallenged.
DeSantis, a former U.S. Navy lawyer, has demonstrated that he reveres Israel even more than his former
comrades in arms. In his congressional district
there are a number of survivors of the U.S.S. Liberty, which was attacked
in international waters by Israel on June 8, 1967, killing 34 crewmen and
injuring 171 more. They report that
DeSantis has been completely unsympathetic to their requests that a commission
of inquiry finally be convened to determine what actually happened on
that day.
In fact, Americans have never had the option of voting on the “special
relationship” that Israel enjoys with the United States as no Congressman
would dare run against it lest they be smeared in the media and find themselves
running against an extraordinarily well funded opponent benefitting from large
donations coming from out of state sources.
The list of prominent
politicians “taken down” by Israel is lengthy, and includes Cynthia
McKinney, *Adlai Stevenson III, *Paul
Findley, Chuck Percy, William Fulbright, Roger Jepsen, and Pete McCloskey.
It is particularly ironic that as
the midterm campaigns were drawing to a close there appeared some serious
investigative journalism that demonstrates precisely how Israel and Jewish
groups corrupt the political process in America to provide virtually unlimited support for anything and everything that the
despicable Benjamin Netanyahu and his gang of war criminals seek to do.
How the process has succeeded is best
illustrated by the current Israeli government’s policy of “mowing the grass” in Gaza where it is using army snipers to kill
unarmed Palestinian protesters. Washington not only does not protest against
the in-your-face war crime, it aids and abets it with U.S. Ambassador David
Friedman justifying the military response as measured and appropriate…
To be sure, the groundbreaking book
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by professors Stephen Walt and John
Mearsheimer, which appeared in 2007, pulled no punches in describing how the
Israel Lobby operates in the United States. It also made clear that
the relationship with Israel serves no United States national interest
whatsoever and exists solely because of the corruption of the political
system and the media by principally Jewish individuals and groups that are
dedicated to that task…
That’s right the American people have never had a vote as to
whether they want to continue a special
relationship with Israel, a relationship the serves no national interest whatsoever. The American people have never been given the
facts that surround the deliberate cover-up of the murderous attack on the
U.S.S. Liberty.
The American government is rife with politicians whose first
loyalty is to Israel and it has cost the American people dearly, last count
around $21 trillion. Any politician who
dares to question that relationship is as good as dead. It seems the only occupant of the current
political world with the courage and will to stand up to the Israeli
stranglehold on our government is First Lady Melania Trump. From Ron Paul Institute:
Excerpt:
Melania Trump Kneecaps Top Bolton Aide
Hooray for First Lady Melania
Trump! In a refreshingly - and
shockingly - frank statement, the relatively quiet First Lady has issued a
statement through her spokeswoman today making it clear that top National
Security Council aide Mira Ricardel needs to hit the bricks.
Ricardel, Deputy National Security Adviser under John Bolton,
is said to have "berated people in meetings, yelled at professional staff,
argued with the first lady and spread
rumors about [Defense Secretary] Mattis." But denying NSC resources to
the First Lady in support of Melania Trump's recent trip to Africa may have
been the last straw. That and her tussling with the First Lady's staff over
seating assignments on the Africa-bound plane.
According to, Stephanie Grisham,
the First Lady's spokeswoman, "It
is the position of the Office of the First Lady that she no longer deserves the
honor of serving in this White House."
In the Kremlinology of White House
power watching, what is most interesting
about this dust-up is that Ricardel is firmly in the Bolton wing and has
repeatedly clashed with White House Chief
of Staff Kelly and Defense Secretary Mattis.
While it is currently unclear
whether Ricardel has actually been fired, the reported move by the First Lady
marks her most public foray into personnel issues. Is the First Lady looking out for President Trump's flank as
second-tier neocon attack dogs nip at his ankles? We can only hope so!
What does that mean for the NSC's
top dog? Might the days of John
"Regime Change" Bolton be numbered as President Trump's National
Security Advisor? We can only hope! Last month Bolton's chief of staff, Fred
Fleitz, unexpectedly resigned his position after just a couple of months on the
job. Bolton has described Fleitz as "a longtime friend and adviser."
Adding that, "he's been a valuable member of the National Security Council
team."
Fleitz claimed that he decided to ditch his powerful position at
the right hand of National Security Advisor Bolton because he was promised the
top job at the relatively minor neoconservative think tank, Center for
Security Policy. Insiders claim Fleitz's
hardline neoconservative views, particularly his previously stated position
that Islamic Sharia was "creeping" worldwide, had been a political liability
to the White House.
Why the move on Ricardel by
Melania? The First Lady only became a permanent US resident two years after the
neocons pushed President Clinton into an unprovoked attack on her native former
Yugoslavia. Is it possible the quiet
Melania has retained memories of what monsters they are and is now determined
to rid the Trump Administration of those scheming murderers? We shouldn't
slip too deeply into this fantasy, but if that is your intent, Madame First
Lady, please allow us to provide you with our top ten pink slip
recommendations...
Bravo our wonderful First Lady, you are truly a magnificent
asset to your husband, our President Donald Trump. The daggers pointed at your husband are long
and dangerous. Those around him are
traitors of the worst kind, they have no loyalty to America or Americans. Their awards are not American awards but
awards for betraying America. From
Global Research:
Excerpt:
John Bolton Wins “Defender of Israel” Award From Zionist Lobby Group
That Helped Appoint Him
The ZOA, Bolton’s enthusiastic sponsor, led the campaign to remove
former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster from his post after railing
against McMaster’s “anti-Israel” positions, most notably his support for
the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known as the Iran
nuclear deal.
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) recently awarded U.S. National
Security Adviser John Bolton the “Defender of Israel Award” during its
annual awards dinner, which took place in New York on Sunday night…
Though Bolton has received several awards from the Israel lobby in the
past, due to his fervent promotion of Zionism and Israeli government policy,
this more recent award is notable, as the ZOA is largely responsible for
Bolton’s appointment as National Security Adviser within the Trump
administration…
However, McMaster had also earned the ire of American Zionists for
allegedly referring to Israel as an “occupying power” and acknowledging the
existence of Palestine — as Zionists at ZOA and like-minded organizations
support a revisionist history of the creation of the Israeli state that asserts
that Palestine as a state never existed prior to Israel’s establishment in
1948.
Bolton’s Past Advocacy for
Israel at US Expense Heralds Dangerous New Era in Geopolitics
Leaked emails reported on by
MintPress earlier this year revealed that ZOA’s
campaign to remove McMaster soon won the support of Trump’s top political donor, Zionist billionaire Sheldon Adelson.
It was later revealed that Adelson had been instrumental in placing Bolton in
the position McMaster vacated, as Bolton had long been a confidant of the
politically influential casino magnate and Adelson
had previously lobbied Trump – then president-elect – to include Bolton in his
cabinet.
President Trump vowed to usher in an America First agenda
when he campaigned for president. Trump’s
initial cabinet members such as McMaster and Tillerson showed a real commitment
to that end. The Republican and
Democratic elites couldn’t allow that to stand so they launched the Mueller
Investigation to disrupt the Trump presidency.
Make no mistake, those strings were pulled by the Israeli lobby. From Mint Press:
Excerpt:
Now Biggest Donor in all of US Politics, Sheldon Adelson Brings an
Israel First Agenda to Washington
Adelson’s massive expenditures in
federal elections this cycle are being made because he believes that Republican
control of the House and the Senate is vital to maintaining right-wing and
pro-Zionist policies and his influence in Washington and at the White House.
WASHINGTON – According to publicly
available campaign finance data, Sheldon
Adelson – the conservative, Zionist, casino billionaire –is now the biggest
spender on federal elections in all of American politics. Adelson, who was
the top donor to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and the Republican Party
in 2016, has cemented his role as the top political donor in the country after
giving $55 million in recent months to Republicans in an effort to help the
party keep its majority in both houses of Congress.
Adelson’s willingness to help the
GOP stay in power is likely born out of his desire to protect the massive
investment he placed in the party last election cycle. In 2016, the Republican
mega-donor gave heavily to the Trump campaign and Republicans, donating $35 million to the former and $55
million to the top two Republican Super PACs — the Congressional Leadership
Fund and the Senate Leadership Fund — during that election cycle.
Adelson’s decision to again donate
tens of millions of dollars to Republican efforts to stay in power is a direct consequence of how successfully
Adelson has been able to influence U.S. policy since Trump and the GOP rode to
victory in the last election cycle.
A New York Times article on
Adelson, titled “Sheldon Adelson Sees a Lot to Like in Trump’s Washington,”
notes that Adelson “enjoys a direct line to the president.” Furthermore, Adelson and Trump regularly
meet once a month “in private in-person meetings and phone conversations” that
Adelson has used to push major changes to U.S. policy that Trump has made
reality — such as moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and
cutting aid to Palestinian refugees, among others…
The fact that Adelson is
“pleased-as-punch” with Trump’s performance as president should hardly come as
a surprise, given that the president has
fulfilled his campaign promises that were of prime importance to Adelson, while
many of his other campaign promises – namely those that were populist or
anti-war in nature – have rung hollow…
As previously mentioned, The New
York Times recently noted that the
cutting of aid to Palestinians, the U.S.’ removal from JCPOA, and the Jerusalem
embassy move all resulted from private in-person meetings and phone
conversations between Adelson and Trump.
Adelson has also been successful in
stocking the Trump administration with
politicians he has long supported as well as his confidantes.
Adelson-supported appointees include Nikki
Haley, long-time recipient of Adelson campaign funds who now serves as
U.S. ambassador to the UN; Mike
Pompeo, former CIA director who has advocated for bombing Iran and now
serves as secretary of state; and John
Bolton, a close confidante of Adelson, who is now national security adviser.
Adelson was also instrumental in removing Pompeo and Bolton’s
predecessors, Rex Tillerson and H.R.
McMaster, from their respective posts, owing to their support for JCPOA
and their alleged “anti-Israel” positions. Speculation has recently grown that Secretary of Defense James Mattis
may share their fate for similarly opposing Adelson’s positions.
Yet, upon closer examination, these
Adelson-driven personnel and policy moves enacted by Trump seem to merely be
the foundation for the so-called
“Adelson agenda,” a set of convergent goals that could potentially result in
thousands of deaths in the Middle East and embroil the U.S. in yet another
regime-change war.
While Adelson’s top-donor status has allowed him unprecedented access to
the Trump administration and has resulted in dramatic changes to U.S. policy, there is every indication that the worst
is yet to come…
As an example, during the negotiations that eventually led to the Iran nuclear deal,
Adelson publicly advocated for a U.S. nuclear attack on Iran without
provocation, so the U.S. could “impose its demands [on Iran] from a
position of strength.”
More specifically, Adelson’s “negotiation” plan involved the
U.S. dropping a nuclear bomb in the middle of the Iranian desert and then
threatening to drop “the next one […] in the middle of Tehran” to show that
“we mean business.” Tehran, Iran’s capital, is home to nearly 9 million people
with 15 million more in its suburbs. Were Tehran to be attacked with nuclear
weapons, an estimated 7 million would die within moments…
With the Trump administration now
applying “maximum pressure” to Iran, Adelson’s
vision for engaging the Islamic Republic is of critical importance. For
instance, if this “maximum pressure” campaign — currently a combination of
draconian sanctions, bullying Iran’s trading partners, and covert CIA-driven
regime-change operations — ultimately fails, Adelson is likely to push Trump towards more drastic “negotiation”
tactics in order to force Iran into a “new treaty” designed by and for pro-Israel
interests that seek to eliminate Iran as a regional player…
Beyond the fact that Adelson’s
unprecedented influence on U.S. politics is set to create much more instability
than past policies he has promoted, lies another unsettling truth: for less than $150 million — pocket
change for such a plutocrat — Adelson has effectively bought the
presidency and Congress…
Indeed, crossing Adelson — as shown
by the high-profile firings of McMaster and Tillerson — has its steep price,
and obeying Adelson now seems to be the
most essential step that Trump and other Republicans must follow to stay in
power.
AMERICANS, MEET YOUR NEW, UNELECTED OVERLORD — Sheldon Adelson —
because, as long as the U.S. political system is “hostage to his fortune,” he’s
not going anywhere.
“Americans, meet your new unelected overlord” indeed. Sadly there was great hope in America when
Donald Trump and his “Make America Great Again” agenda went to Washington. Trump has been hijacked by the Adelson
coalition in congress and if he dares to veer from the Adelson agenda, the
Mueller investigation will be used to remove him from power. Adelson’s agenda includes undoing the very
basic tenants in place from the beginning of this nation. From Strategic Culture:
Excerpt:
US Threatens Pullout from UPU and ITU, Which Survived Hitler but Not
Trump
The United States is threatening to
withdraw from two international
organizations that survived World Wars I and II but may not survive the
retrogressive neo-conservative foreign policy of Donald Trump. The world’s
third-oldest international organization, the Universal Postal Union (UPU),
founded in 1874 in Bern, Switzerland, has been informed by Washington of the US
withdrawal. The United States became, under the administration of President
Ulysses Grant, a founding member of the UPU.
The Trump administration, notably the rabidly-rightwing White House
trade adviser, Peter Navarro, is upset over foreign government subsidies for
certain postal authorities, most notably that of China, which reduces
international parcel mailing costs to manufacturers and consumers. Rather
than negotiate revised postal rates, through the auspices of the UPU, which was
established to standardize the world’s postal system, Trump plans to leave
the organization.
The Trump White House is also
threatening US withdrawal from the second-oldest international organization,
the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), established by the
International Telegraph Convention in Paris in 1865. The United States joined
the ITU in 1908, during the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt. The two presidents – Grant and Roosevelt
– who ushered the United States into the UPU and ITU, respectively, were
Republicans.
Trump’s beef with the ITU is over
the organization’s management of the international radio frequency spectrum and
its movement toward managing international data bandwidth. Trump’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
members, notably FCC chairman Ajit Pai and member Michael O’Rielly, both of
whom are owned and operated by America’s communications giants -- including
AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast -- who
want private industry, not government agencies, to set the rules for radio
spectrum and bandwidth governance…
The candidate dropped for RRB chair
was board vice-chair Joanne Wilson, nominated by Barack Obama in 2014 to the
board’s second-ranking position…
The Trump administration has threatened
to cut off funding of the ITU, a move tantamount to withdrawal, unless the ITU selects Doreen
Bogdan-Martin, a favorite of the scandal-ridden US Commerce Secretary, Wilbur
Ross, to be the next BDT director… Bogdan-Martin…
had the backing of the George W. Bush administration for various
positions at the ITU…
The UPU's main responsibility is to
set standards for electronic data interchange (EDI), mail encoding, postal
forms, international reply coupons, international postal money orders, and
meters between postal authorities. It
also strives to ensure that member states adhere to uniform flat rates for
mailing letters to any location around the world…
The UPU also sets regulations for the sending of biologically perishable
materials via international post and the handling of both hazardous
materials and disease-bearing items that
could pose a danger to postal workers…
The Trump administration also
announced the US withdrawal from UNESCO,
EFFECTIVE DECEMBER 31, 2018. The United States maintains the horrible
distinction of being the only UPU member where the postal system was used, during the George W. Bush administration,
to distribute a biological warfare agent – anthrax.
The consequences of US withdrawal
from the UPU will be felt immediately. According to UPU deputy director-general
Pascal Clivaz, upon termination of
American membership in the treaty, Americans will no longer be able to send or
receive letters or packages to and from UPU member states, including Canada and
Mexico.
The UPU will no longer share
special codes with the US Postal Service (USPS) that are necessary to send and
receive international mail. The only mechanism
to send and receive international mail will be via more expensive private
delivery services, such as FedEx and UPS.
Although belligerent nations in
World War II conducted extensive wiretapping of international telegraph and
telephone lines and radio connections,
phone calls and telegrams could still be sent between major world capitals
because the ITU’s standards continued to be maintained. Seamless digital
communications may no longer be the case if the Trump administration, unlike
Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, or Imperial Japan, abandons the ITU and its radio
frequency management and standards criteria.
The UPU and ITU survived Adolf Hitler, but not Donald Trump. That
is a legacy for which every American should feel nothing but shame and
everlasting remorse.
There are winners and losers for every decision the U.S.
President makes. Seems to me the big
losers in Trump pulling out of the UPU effective December 31 will be the
American people. The huge winners will
be FedEx and UPS who will be able to charge anything they want to ship outside
the US because there will be no alternatives available. Postal workers will only be able to
accommodate domestic mail services resulting in massive layoffs and loss of
jobs, jobs, jobs.
Is that what Americans voted for when they elected Donald
Trump? Did Americans vote for an even
more bloated military budget and cuts to Social Security and Medicare? From Rolling Stone:
Excerpt:
Trump’s Defense Spending Is Out of Control, and Poised to Get Worse
Using a time-honored trick, a
bipartisan congressional panel argues we should boost the president’s record
defense bill even more
A bipartisan commission has determined that President Trump’s recent
record defense bill is insufficiently massive to keep America safe, and we
should spend more, while cutting “entitlements.”
The National Defense Strategy
Commission concluded the Department of
Defense was too focused on “efficiency” and needed to accept “greater
cost and risk” to search for “leap-ahead technologies” to help the U.S.
maintain superiority.
The panel added that Defense is
“not where most of the money is.” It
said Congress should be focused on “domestic entitlement programs” and
“interest payments on the national debt” as sources of savings… The report even contains a graph that shows
defense spending crawling sadly along the floor of the spending X-axis as
mighty mandatory “entitlements” soar to great heights.
This is the same Department of Defense with a serious existing
accounting problem. In 2016, before Trump was elected, its Inspector General
said he could not properly track $6.5
trillion in defense spending. A later academic study claimed the number was $21
trillion, looking at the years 1998-2015.
Trump originally asked for over
$730 billion in defense spending for Fiscal Year 2019, and last spring a budget setting spending at $716 billion passed 85-10
in the Senate. This would have meant an $82 billion spending hike, an
increase that by itself was larger than the entire defense budget of every
country on earth, save China.
Trump later called for an
across-the-board budget cut of 5 percent, leaving the amount of the defense
budget in confusion. He still claims he wants $700 billion. Whatever the final
amount turns out to be, it will be massive —
about 10 times the size of Russia’s defense budget, and four times the size of
China’s.
The National Defense Strategy Commission was created as part of the
2017 National Defense Authorization Act. It’s section 942 in this bill, and
it requires that the majority and minority committee chiefs for Armed Services
in both the House and the Senate to each name three people to the panel.
Eric Edelman, who was the senior policy official in the Defense
Department from 2005-2009, chairs the panel. The co-chair, appointed by
Democrat Adam Smith of Washington, is Admiral Gary Roughead, who was named
chief of Naval operations in 2007 and now sits
on the board of Northrup Grumman…
To recap: While spending record sums on a defense bill, Congress allocated still more money to a panel of current and former
defense specialists whose purpose seems to have been to write a
report asking for more money…
We regularly hear that our weapons
systems are old, outdated and placing troops in harm’s way. It’s an ancient
political device and it usually works… This appeal to national consumerist shame —
we can’t be seen in public driving something old! — is effective. On a
policy level, such appeals are usually couched in terms of needing to make
American “hard power” a more “credible” foreign policy tool…
So instead of looking honestly at where we do and do not need to spend,
the military mostly looks at existing weapons systems — even ones that work
pretty well — and focuses on how long
it’s been since we unveiled jazzy re-designs. That allows the endless cycle
of patronage and political contributions to stay in place.
This is why we continue to spend on
projects like the F-35 Joint Strike
Fighter, an infamous boondoggle that projects to cost over a trillion dollars
over the life of the program. Even our president could see through it,
once. Shortly after his election, Trump blasted the F-35 program as “out of
control” and promised to save “billions” on it.
Then Trump met with Lockheed Martin
chief executive Marilyn Hewson, and the president appeared to warm to the F-35.
Among other things, he seems to believe
“stealth” means the plane is literally invisible:
TRUMP: We buy billions and billions dollars worth of that beautiful F-35. It’s
stealth, you cannot see it. Is that correct?
HEWSON: That’s correct, Mr. President.
Before long, Trump was speaking of
the weapon in almost erotic, Conan The Barbarian-esque tones:
Now
when our enemies hear the F-35’s engines, when they’re roaring overhead, their
souls will tremble and they will know the day of reckoning has arrived.
Politicians inevitably fall in love
with weapons and weapons-makers. They
tend to have less interaction with the people we’re blowing up overseas, or
with those who just want us to spend relatively more on schools and medicine. The
Pentagon has a powerful lobby; the anti-Pentagon, not so much.
Along with jet fighters, the U.S. is spending a fortune trying to upgrade
its aircraft carrier fleet. Trump is adding ships like the unfortunately
named U.S.S. Gerald Ford. According to
the Project on Government Oversight, the
Ford now projects to cost $12.9 billion, or about 25 percent above original
estimates.
Moreover, because it is replacing the proven technology of
“steam catapults” with a new, glitchy “digital catapult,” it may take a
while before the Ford class even matches the capability of the existing Nimitz
carriers.
The Pentagon doesn’t just spend money; it spends a lot of money asking for
more money. And it has many friends in politics and the media to help them
along. Its people may not be great at preparing for the next war, but, they
know how to keep their budgets high, and they’re at it again.
The more things change the more they stay the same. It didn’t take long for Trump to abandon his
campaign promises of jobs, jobs, jobs. Now
the midterm election results are mostly in and we are in the “rubber hits the
road” portion of the election where the two parties undo the election results
through leadership assignments. From
OpEd News:
Excerpt:
The "Pelosi Problem" Runs Deep
Nancy Pelosi will probably be the
next House speaker, a prospect that
fills most alert progressives with disquiet, if not dread. But instead of
fixating on her as a villain, progressives should recognize the long-standing
House Democratic leader as a symptom
of a calcified party hierarchy that has worn out its grassroots welcome
and is beginning to lose its grip.
Increasingly at odds with the
Democratic Party's mobilized base, that
grip has held on with gobs of money from centralized, deep-pocket sources --
endlessly reinforcing continual deference to corporate power and an ongoing
embrace of massively profitable militarism.
Pelosi has earned a reputation as
an excellent manager, and she has certainly managed to keep herself in power
atop Democrats in the House. She's a deft expert on how Congress works, but she seems out of touch -- intentionally or
not -- with the millions of grassroots progressives who are fed up with her
kind of leadership.
Those progressives should not
reconcile with Pelosi, any more than they should demonize her… There is much to
counter at the top of the party. Pelosi
still refuses to support single-payer enhanced "Medicare for all."
As on many other issues, she -- and
others, such as the more
corporate-friendly House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer -- are clinging to
timeworn, Wall Street-friendly positions against powerful political winds
generated by years of grassroots activism.
Increasingly, such leadership is isolated from the party it claims to lead. Yet
the progressive base is having more and more impact. As a Vox headline
proclaimed, more than a year ago, "The stunning Democratic shift on
single-payer: In 2008, no leading Democratic presidential candidate backed
single-payer. In 2020, all of them might." The Medicare for All Caucus now lists 76 House members.
Any progressive should emphatically reject Pelosi's current embrace of
a "pay-go" rule that would straitjacket spending for new social
programs by requiring offset tax hikes or budget cuts.
Her position is even more
outrageous in view of her fervent support for astronomical military spending.
Like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (who was just re-elected to his
post), Pelosi went out of her way last
winter to proclaim avid support for President Trump's major increase in the
already-bloated Pentagon budget, boasting: "In our negotiations,
congressional Democrats have been fighting for increases in funding for
defense."
Whether our concerns involve
militarism, social equity, economic justice, civil liberties, climate change or
the overarching necessity of a Green New Deal, the Democratic Party must change from the bottom up…
During the Obama years, by deferring to top-tier party leaders, many in
the Progressive Caucus showed themselves to be unreliable advocates for
progressive causes when push came to shove -- during the 2009 health
care debate, for example…
While the governing body of the
party, the Democratic National Committee, gave ground this year on such matters
as internal party democracy (disempowering superdelegates in the process), senior Democrats have retained a firm hold
on such powerful mechanisms as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
(DCCC)…
Yeah, so much for the progressive movement in the Democratic
Party. There will be no change, there
will be no justice for the Americans murdered, maimed and brutalized aboard the
U.S.S. Liberty. America’s midterm
election results are in and it has been decided, warmongering Zionist
Republicans and warmongering Zionist Democrats have won.
Pelosi will return as Speaker to continue the work of Paul
Ryan and the corporatist agenda. Pelosi
isn’t the only slap in the face of the Democrats who voted for a change, there’s
the Senate minority leader too. From TheIntercept:
Excerpt:
Chuck Schumer Caved to Facebook and Donald Trump. He Shouldn’t Lead
Senate Democrats.
IT WASN’T Donald Trump who said he opposed the nuclear deal with Iran
because “we will be worse off with this agreement than without it,” while lying
about the contents of that deal.
It wasn’t Mike Pence who said that “since the Palestinians in Gaza elected
Hamas … to strangle them economically until they see that’s not the way to go
makes sense.”
It wasn’t John Bolton who voted for the illegal invasion of Iraq in
2002, saying that Saddam Hussein was engaged in a “vigorous pursuit of
biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons.”
It wasn’t Mike Pompeo who said, “It’s easy to sit back in the armchair
and say that torture can never be used. But when you’re in the foxhole,
it’s a very different deal.”
It wasn’t Stephen Miller who responded to the 2015 terrorist attacks in
Paris by suggesting “a pause may be necessary” in the resettlement of
Syrian refugees in the United States.
It wasn’t Betsy DeVos who joined a group of finance industry executives
for breakfast only a few weeks after the 2008 financial crash and told
them, “We are not going to be a bunch of crazy, anti-business liberals.”
Forget the hawks, blowhards, and
kakistocrats of the Trump administration.
You know who made all these statements? It was Chuck Schumer.
Yes, the fourth-term Democratic
senator from New York has a long history of making really right-wing and rancid
remarks. Yet on Wednesday morning,
Schumer was re-elected as minority leader by acclamation in a closed-door
meeting of Senate Democrats. They didn’t even bother to vote on it.
By Wednesday evening, though, the
New York Times had published a blockbuster investigation into Facebook, which
reminded us how Schumer, in the words of
my colleague Glenn Greenwald, “has long been the embodiment of everything
sleazy, legally corrupt, corporatist and craven in Washington.”
What did the Times say about the
newly re-elected Senate minority leader?
In at least one instance, the
company also relied on Mr. Schumer, the New York senator and Senate Democratic
leader. He has long worked to advance Silicon Valley’s interests on issues such
as commercial drone regulations and patent reform. During the 2016 election cycle, he raised more money from Facebook
employees than any other member of Congress, according to the Center for
Responsive Politics.
Mr. Schumer also has a personal
connection to Facebook: His daughter
Alison joined the firm out of college and is now a marketing manager in
Facebook’s New York office, according to her LinkedIn profile.
In July, as Facebook’s troubles
threatened to cost the company billions of dollars in market value, Mr. Schumer confronted [Sen. Mark] Warner,
by then Facebook’s most insistent inquisitor in Congress. Back off, he told Mr. Warner, according
to a Facebook employee briefed on Mr. Schumer’s intervention. Mr. Warner should
be looking for ways to work with Facebook, Mr. Schumer advised, not harm it. Facebook
lobbyists were kept abreast of Mr. Schumer’s efforts to protect the company,
according to the employee.
To be clear: The leader of the Senate Democrats tried to bully a fellow Democratic
senator to “back off” from investigating a company where his daughter works
and which gives him more money than any other member of Congress. Why isn’t
this a bigger story? How is this not a resigning issue?
Remember, there are, as of right
now, 47 elected Senate Democrats. Almost
any of them — with the glaring exception of the pretend-Democrat Joe Manchin
of West Virginia — would do a better job of leading the party than Schumer.
As I argued earlier this week, the
next two years in U.S. politics will be a 24/7 battle for the future of
American democracy; a relentless fight against fascism, racism, and white
nationalism. Are we really expected to
believe that Schumer will be the leader of the #Resistance in the Senate ?
Don’t make me laugh…
In February 2018, Trump signed off “on the biggest budget the
Pentagon has ever seen: $700 billion.” Schumer’s response? “We fully support
President Trump’s Defense Department’s request,” his office announced.
In May 2018, Trump moved the U.S.
embassy to Jerusalem, in defiance of the international community. Schumer’s
response? “In a long overdue move, we
have moved our embassy to Jerusalem,” he declared, adding: “I applaud President
Trump for doing it.”
In August 2018, prior to the
Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Trump nominated a bunch of new judges to
fill vacancies in a number of federal district courts. Schumer’s response? As
Vox reported, the Senate minority leader
“reached an agreement late Tuesday with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
to fast-track the confirmations of 15 Trump-nominated judicial picks...”
Man, I think I’m going to be sick. What Pelosi and Schumer and their cadre of dinosaurs
fail to understand is that the Democrats won in spite of them, not because of
them. They are despicable and don’t’
deserve the support of any Democrats.
Which country’s interests do the Deep State’s foreign policy
serve, certainly not America’s. The only
thing that can change the status quo would be an educated, activated electorate,
or perhaps a quiet, genteel First Lady with the ear of the President to steer
the country into a new direction. Let’s
hope Melania wins out and the President truly drains this putrid, bi-partisan swamp.
