idiot

In his new book, Yale historian Samuel Moyn explores whether the push to make U.S. wars more “humane” by banning torture and limiting civilian casualties has helped fuel more military interventions around the world. He looks in detail at the role of President Obama in expanding the use of drones even as he received the Nobel Peace Prize.

 

“What happened after 2001 is that, in the midst of an extremely brutal war on terror, a new kind of war emerged. … It was important to Americans to see their wars fought more humanely,” says Moyn. “Even though this represents a kind of progress, it also helped Americans sustain war and helped make the war on terror endless.” Moyn’s new book is “Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War.”

 

Transcript

 

 

scomonuke

 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken faced bipartisan criticism Tuesday over the botched US withdrawal from Afghanistan — as a top Senate Republican questioned whether President Biden is actually calling the shots in the White House.

Blinken’s second consecutive day of grilling by Capitol Hill lawmakers even saw the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee blast last month’s humiliating exit — which included the killings of 13 American service members — as “clearly and fatally flawed.”

Also during Tuesday’s hearing:

trumpnuke

 

Of course. "Trump was going to bomb the planet with nukes"...There is a bit of misunderstanding around the trap in the MSM about this. And I mean DELIBERATE MISUNDERSTANDING about what Trump has said or not said… For example: 

 

President Donald Trump has floated the idea of thwarting hurricanes headed for the US by bombing them, including by dropping nuclear bombs on hurricanes to disrupt their course, Axios reported, citing conversations with sources who heard Trump's comments and were briefed on a National Security Council memo that recorded the comments.

 

TRUMP DENIES IT OF COURSE BUT THIS "MEMO” MADE "GOOD COPY” for the pundits...

 

 

gladys

Gladys Berejiklian's own Treasury officials appear to have initially advised against setting aside $5.5 million for a grant pursued by Daryl Maguire, but the grant was later approved and came from a fund overseen by Ms Berejiklian, according to an internal government memo obtained by 7.30.

abbott

 Former prime minister Tony Abbott has been fined $500 for allegedly failing to wear a mask as required by public health orders.

Mr Abbott was photographed this week by a member of the public in Manly who observed him talking to a friend at Fairy Bower near the main beach.

He was subsequently reported to NSW Police, who confirmed on Saturday the former prime minister had been issued with a fine.

“A 63-year-old man was issued a $500 Penalty Infringement Notice on Friday (10 September, 2021), for failure to comply with wearing face covering directive,” police said in a statement.

taxes

House Democrats’ plans to raise taxes on the rich and on profitable corporations stop well short of the grand proposals many in the party once envisioned to tax the vast fortunes of tycoons like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk — or even thoroughly close loopholes exploited by high-flying captains of finance.

 

Instead, the House Ways and Means Committee, influenced more by the need to win the votes of moderate Democrats than by progressive Democratic ambitions, focused on traditional ways of raising revenue to pay for the party’s $3.5 trillion social policy bill — by raising tax rates on income.

horseshit

The George Bush Center for Intelligence is the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency, located in the unincorporated community of Langley in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States; near Washington, D.C.

ill-reputeJournalist Glenn Greenwald teared into several prominent Democrats after they praised ex-President George W. Bush’s speech about the “dangers to our country” rising “at home” – 20 years after the beginning of his ‘War on Terror’.

 

In his speech on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks – which sparked Bush’s invasion of Afghanistan, war crimes, and the rise of a surveillance state against American citizens – the former president warned that there was “growing evidence that the dangers to our country can come not only across borders, but from violence that gathers within.”

 

revolution

The American Revolution is often credited to be the first before the French Revolution. But these two events that bear the name “revolution” have nothing in common. nothing at all...

 

The American Revolution was mostly the revolt of a rich people who did not want to pay taxes (what’s new in the land of the Pilgrims?) and the French Revolution was from a people who could not afford bread ("let’s them have cake"). As well the American Revolution was helped by the French armies against the English without whom the American Revolution would have completely fizzled. The debt to the French was soon erased by what could have been the first US “false flag” event called the XYZ affair.

cia

A controlled detonation by American forces that was heard throughout Kabul has destroyed Eagle Base, the final C.I.A. outpost outside the Kabul airport, U.S. officials said on Friday.

Blowing up the base was intended to ensure that any equipment or information left behind would not fall into the hands of the Taliban.

Eagle Base, first started early in the war at a former brick factory, had been used throughout the conflict. It grew from a small outpost to a sprawling center that was used to train the counterterrorism forces of Afghanistan’s intelligence agencies.

unity

WASHINGTON — As they traveled the country laying wreaths, strolling through crash sites in pastoral meadows and comforting families whose wounds are ripped open anew each year, two living presidents used the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks to urge Americans to come together in an effort to weather deep political and cultural divisions.

 

godots

“My freedom and my children’s freedom and children’s children’s freedom are at stake,” said Ms. Holmes, who lives in Indiana. In August, she submitted an exemption request she wrote herself, bolstered by her own Bible study and language from sources online.

 

Some vaccines were developed using fetal cell lines from aborted fetuses, she wrote, citing a remote connection to a practice she finds abhorrent. She quoted a passage from the New Testament: “Let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit.”

 

Read more:

 

the list...

The execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein took place on 30 December 2006. Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death by hanging, after being convicted of crimes against humanity by the Iraqi Special Tribunal for the Dujail massacre — the killing of 148 Iraqi Shi'ites in the town of Dujail — in 1982, in retaliation for an assassination attempt against him.

 

greg

Our leaders have used a pandemic to divide us, and we have taken the bait.

Public health is now a pawn on a political chessboard as Australia’s major parties seek to wedge each other over whose fault it is that much of the eastern seaboard remains locked down and under-vaccinated, and whose strategy is better.

The timing of the forthcoming federal election is entirely linked to COVID, and whether there will be enough vaccine in arms to allow liberty to return before Christmas, or whether the Festive Season will come with a huge spike in hospital admissions.

 

That would be bad optics.

superman

ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, I woke up around 8:30 a.m., took a shower, and made a mug of Nescafé instant coffee. By the time I opened up my laptop and maneuvered to Common Dreams — the favorite website of all progressives of that time — it was 9 a.m.

 

Common Dreams was then designed with the important stories in the middle of the page, with brief snippets about less significant issues in a column on the left. It was the left-hand column that featured one sentence in red: “Plane hits World Trade Center.”