Trump

[Vengeful Glutton]

It's not politics. It's Benny Hill. What happens after the ban is lifted? We will see a host of deregulated financial practice and environmental checks removed as the same old crowd are unleashed to scorch the earth and make money off the public purse. So much for clearing out the "elite". This unbelievably amateurish immigration side show is just deflecting attention from that, and the media better fucking wake up to it soon. Trump is being played for a complete fool by corporate government.

I agree. The Trump will probably target Dodd - Frank. Streamline it perhaps rather than repeal it. That might get their economy moving again.

Clinton repealed Glass Steagall during his tenure. Some commentators have pointed to that for the cause of all the latter financial melties.

That's capitalism lads. If you want to change it, you have to get Hoi Polloi to buy into a new way of life; a rejection of consumeristic "values", credit, and all the goodies we like to buy that we don't really need.

The environmental shyte is getting old. Ye'll often hear of China getting their balls busted for burning too many fossil fuels. Yep, they do just that, but guess who their biggest market is?

[morepork]

Tell that to the people in Flint MI who got lead poisoning from their drinking water. Or the people that frolicked in all that lovely oil in the Gulf of Mexico. Both preventable.

[morepork]

And FFS....I know Clinton repeals Glass Stegal. It's common knowledge.

Also, blaming the consumer for speculative and fraudulent use of public money by big financial institutions is just getting old. Goldman Sachs don't get rich selling cell phones.

[Digby]

Ye'll often hear of China getting their balls busted for burning too many fossil fuels. Yep, they do just that, but guess who their biggest market is?

I'm guessing you want the answer to be the USA, though their biggest market is domestic. Depending on how one counts exports you could even argue their biggest export market is Hong Kong, though you have to keep at least one eye squint to really claim HK is a bigger export market than the USA, though it's closer than many might expect.

[Vengeful Glutton]

I'm guessing you want the answer to be the USA, though their biggest market is domestic. Depending on how one counts exports you could even argue their biggest export market is Hong Kong, though you have to keep at least one eye squint to really claim HK is a bigger export market than the USA, though it's closer than many might expect.

The US and EU are the their biggest export markets. Want to save the environment? Don't buy Chinese goods. Simples.

[Vengeful Glutton]

And FFS....I know Clinton repeals Glass Stegal. It's common knowledge.

Also, blaming the consumer for speculative and fraudulent use of public money by big financial institutions is just getting old. Goldman Sachs don't get rich selling cell phones.

The public lobby to expand the credit supply. That's who lobbied Clinton to repeal Glass Steagall, and that's who'll lobby Trump to repeal, or amend Frank Dodd.

[Digby]

I'm guessing you want the answer to be the USA, though their biggest market is domestic. Depending on how one counts exports you could even argue their biggest export market is Hong Kong, though you have to keep at least one eye squint to really claim HK is a bigger export market than the USA, though it's closer than many might expect.

The US and EU are the their biggest export markets. Want to save the environment? Don't buy Chinese goods. Simples.

I'd say it's possible to support both consumerism (if perhaps a revised version) and the environment. I don't actually know what the combined EU market is worth, but it'd seem quite possible it'd be worth more than Japan and even HK, as an aside it might be worth seeing if we could join this EU market thingy, it seems quite valuable.

And I only commented on the domestic market as you had merely noted market and not export market

[WaspInWales]

I'm aware this demonstrates democracy, but I'm finding the petition to block Trump's state visit a little amusing and perhaps a tad ironic.

Less than 2 years ago nearly half a million Brits signed a parliament petition to 'Stop all immigration and close the UK borders until ISIS is defeated'.

[Sandydragon]

I'm aware this demonstrates democracy, but I'm finding the petition to block Trump's state visit a little amusing and perhaps a tad ironic.

Less than 2 years ago nearly half a million Brits signed a parliament petition to 'Stop all immigration and close the UK borders until ISIS is defeated'.

It's also pointless and self defeating. Nothing like pissing off a major trading partner just as we look for trade deals.

[Sandydragon]

Referring back to this insane travel ban.

The inner working of the Trump administration take some believing. Apparently, the head of homeland security was unaware of the precise wording of the order until minutes before it was signed; it seems like this policy was developed by Trumps inner circle and never really discussed more widely.

Interestingly, a US Judge who heard a law suit against the ban asked officials how many people from the 6 countries affected had been prevented from travelling. It would appear that the officials didn't know.

At some point, this clown will need to deal with congress and I wonder how his famous lack of patience and willingness to use Twitter as a means of communication will fare when his proposals are subjected to more serious scrutiny.

It's not a travel ban. It's a restriction on immigrants entering America from countries linked with terrorist activities. As has been pointed out before (and you'll find it on d'internet), this list had already been compiled by the previous administration. The previous administration also deported many people. No outcry over that of course.

My objection to it would be that Saudi Arabia isn't on the list. A hotbed of Wahhabism, and Qutbism (a rather deranged interpretation of the latter), extreme jihadists are harboured, nurtured, and let loose to unleash death upon the world.

Obviously SA isn't on the list because, aside from providing a base for Wahhabists, it also contains USAF bases, purchases arms from the US, and holds billions of US debt.

Look, it's politics. There's a point when you have to put your personal feelings aside, and cast a cold eye on this.

It's instructive to point out that Jihadists in Syria were armed by.....yep....the Obama regime. One wonders if Industrialists and Oligarchs tied to that administration had been lobbying to get more cheap labour moving west.

It's insane because it's pointless and will only increase support for extremists. I don't care now what Obama did, trump is doing it now and he doesn't even seem to be coordinating with his cabinet members.

Temporary ban or restriction. Tomato, tomatoe.

[Sandydragon]

They have performed poorly - really? Is that based on operational experience from Iraq and Afghanistan by any chance? The cameras are normally very good (expecting perfection from anything is asking a but much and no weapons system operates as the manufacturer claims it will) and the ground attack systems are as precise as anything launched from a manned aircraft - which means that the vagaries of warfare can and do apply, often with unfortunate consequences. The identification of targets by personnel is often easier than when a pilot is trying to make his or her own judgement whilst flying the aircraft.

The Iranian capture of a drone is actually disputed (a possibility that a fake drone had been paraded in front of the cameras) and whilst the spoofing of GPS is possible, it is highly difficult to achieve in practice. It is possible that the drone malfunctioned and landed where it shouldn't. However, the same can happen with manned aircraft which are forced to land due to technical failures.

From my own experience in IRaq and Afghanistan (plus Northern IReland) ISTAR is well received and is often pretty damn good quality. Air support is often not immediately available but a mix of drones and manned aircraft has helped reduce response times in Afghanistan. Where there have been issues of blue on blue, I can find you plenty of examples of where the same has happened with manned aircraft. SO suggesting that their use is just to satisfy some corporate agenda is a bit wide of the mark.

I'm not so sure it is. I've heard it's like looking at the battle space through a straw. The A10 "Warthog" was developed specifically for ground support. It's canopy designed to give pilots a finger tip feel of the battle space. They've been decommissioned now in favour of the Global Hawk and video screens. No doubt you're aware that there was resistance to this, particularly from special forces, who testified to the Warthog's timely interventions. The global hawk, at $300 million a unit doesn't appear to be living up to expectations:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc ... on/277807/

Canceling the purchase of new Global Hawks and putting recently-built planes in long-term storage would save $2.5 billion over five years, the service projected. And the drone's military missions could be picked up by an Air Force stalwart, the U-2 spy plane, which had room for more sensors and could fly higher.

But what happened next was an object lesson in the power of a defense contractor to trump the Pentagon's own attempts to set the nation's military spending priorities amid a tough fiscal climate. A team of Northrop lobbyists, packed with former congressional staff and bolstered by hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions, persuaded Congress to demand the drone's continued production and operation.

Bear in mind that drones, originally were supposed to be cheap supplements to reconnaissance missions. BTW, orders were issued by JSOC to combat troops, particularly those who had expressed criticism of drones, and support of Warthogs, instructing them to remain silent on the issue.

William Perry outsourced defence contracts to civilian contractors a long time ago, so if there's a corporate "agenda" since then, it's been profit based; it's no different to different Corporations wanting civilians to buy the latest iphone. So like any corporation they're going to make out that their product, whether it be a fighter jet, drone, or whatever is better than the other guy's piece of kit.

As for the capture of the beast: sure, of course it's going to be disputed. The Americans aren't going to admit that their prized stealth capable UAV is a piece of crap. With the amount of bandwidth required to operate these turkeys, someones bound to be listening in. So it was only a matter of time before somebody figured out how the simple device of jamming its comms to put it into autopilot.

The whole stealth concept is nonsense as well. F-117s were escorted to Baghdad during Gulf I by fighters carrying radio jamming devices. Obviously the more famous example is of the antiquated Serb battery getting returns on one hawk, and taking it out by an SA-3.

That was due to a malfunction in the bomb bay door which left the aircraft lit up like Blackpool Pier on any radar within ten miles.

The warthog was getting on in age. No matter how iconic, all aircraft have a service life. Not exposing a pilot to ground fire makes plenty of sense and whilst the global hawk is expensive, there are thousands of cheap UAVs in service which meet that brief. Unlike manned aircraft, a drone can loiter for far longer, meaning that they are on hand a lot quicker for patrols. Soldiers like drones. The corporate side apart, and frankly every manufacturer lobbies aggressively, I have not come across any of the criticism that you suggest from troops in Afghanistan or Iraq.

[canta_brian]

Why are drones inherently more evil than a phalanx, a trebuchet, an atomic bomb, fire, chlorine gas?

And yes the US does try to target their version of legitimate targets, though their failures are well documented and rightly so, but it's far more precise than the Russian use of barrel bombs or giving missiles to drunks to shoot down Dutch airliners, and both are more discriminate than the likes of ISIS.

Pointing the finger at others does not excuse the deaths of millions of people, sorry to disappoint you. What other country has killed 20 million people through invasions and warfare since WWII? & that figure doesn't include Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Come to think of it, what other nation has dropped atomic bombs on anoher? Was that Russia's fault as well.

There is no legitimate evidence the Russians shot down the Dutch airline. It might well have been the Ukranians themselves - and they have done this before. So you're also just exposing your own prejudices and hypocrsy here.

Yes, dropping bombs on people by pressing a button from some remote location, and acknowledging that it may well hit bystanders, or not hit the intended target at all, is as cowardly as it gets. & who the hell gave America the right to do this in the first place? You're following a 'Might is Right' rationality - which is pure insanity.

You are such a hypocrite. The following was your response to an article regarding the domestic murder rate in Russia.

"Yes, this only happens in Russia. There is absolutely no violence against women in the West at all, for instance. Zero. [SMIRKING FACE]"

Pointing fingers at others does not excuse.... Blah blah fucking blah.

[rowan]

Do you own many horses, Rowan?

Er, no, Donny. I believe animal ownership is all wrong. I don't even have a fish.

[SMIRKING FACE]

There isn't such an option, Canta Brian.

Glenn Greenwald writes about Obama's drone war crimes in the Intercept:

IN 2010, President Obama directed the CIA to assassinate an American citizen in Yemen, Anwar al-Awlaki, despite the fact that he had never been charged with (let alone convicted of) any crime, and the agency successfully carried out that order a year later with a September, 2011 drone strike. While that assassination created widespread debate – the once-again-beloved ACLU sued Obama to restrain him from the assassination on the ground of due process and then, when that suit was dismissed, sued Obama again after the killing was carried out – another drone-killing carried out shortly thereafter was perhaps even more significant yet generated relatively little attention.


Two weeks after the killing of Awlaki, a separate CIA drone strike in Yemen killed his 16-year-old American-born son, Abdulrahman, along with the boy’s 17-year-old cousin and several other innocent Yemenis. The U.S. eventually claimed that the boy was not their target but merely “collateral damage.” Abdulrahman’s grief-stricken grandfather, Nasser al-Awlaki, urged the Washington Post “to visit a Facebook memorial page for Abdulrahman,” which explained: “Look at his pictures, his friends, and his hobbies His Facebook page shows a typical kid.”

Few events pulled the mask off Obama officials like this one. It highlighted how the Obama administration was ravaging Yemen, one of the world’s poorest countries: just weeks after he won the Nobel Prize, Obama used cluster bombs that killed 35 Yemeni women and children. Even Obama-supporting liberal comedians mocked the Obama DOJ’s arguments for why it had the right to execute Americans with no charges: “Due Process Just Means There’s A Process That You Do,” snarked Stephen Colbert. And a firestorm erupted when former Obama Press Secretary Robert Gibbs offered a sociopathic justification for killing the Colorado-born teenager, apparently blaming him for his own killing by saying he should have “had a more responsible father.”


The U.S. assault on Yemeni civilians not only continued but radically escalated over the next five years through the end of the Obama presidency, as the U.S. and the UK armed, supported and provide crucial assistance to their close ally Saudi Arabia as it devastated Yemen through a criminally reckless bombing campaign. Yemen now faces mass starvation, seemingly exacerbated, deliberately, by the US/UK-supported air attacks. Because of the west’s direct responsibility for these atrocities, they have received vanishingly little attention in the responsible countries.

In a hideous symbol of the bipartisan continuity of U.S. barbarism, Nasser al-Awlaki just lost another one of his young grandchildren to U.S. violence. On Sunday, the Navy’s SEAL Team 6, using armed Reaper drones for cover, carried out a commando raid on what it said was a compound harboring officials of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. A statement issued by President Trump lamented the death of an American service member and several others who were wounded, but made no mention of any civilian deaths. U.S. military officials initially denied any civilian deaths, and (therefore) the CNN report on the raid said nothing about any civilians being killed.

But reports from Yemen quickly surfaced that 30 people were killed, including 10 women and children. Among the dead: the 8-year-old granddaughter of Nasser al-Awlaki, Nawar, who was also the daughter of Anwar Awlaki.



This is the 8-year-old girl killed in US raid in Yemen

[Donny osmond]

Do you own many horses, Rowan?

Er, no, Donny. I believe animal ownership is all wrong. I don't even have a fish.

[SMIRKING FACE]

There isn't such an option, Canta Brian.

Glenn Greenwald writes about Obama's drone war crimes in the Intercept:

IN 2010, President Obama directed the CIA to assassinate an American citizen in Yemen, Anwar al-Awlaki, despite the fact that he had never been charged with (let alone convicted of) any crime, and the agency successfully carried out that order a year later with a September, 2011 drone strike. While that assassination created widespread debate – the once-again-beloved ACLU sued Obama to restrain him from the assassination on the ground of due process and then, when that suit was dismissed, sued Obama again after the killing was carried out – another drone-killing carried out shortly thereafter was perhaps even more significant yet generated relatively little attention.


Two weeks after the killing of Awlaki, a separate CIA drone strike in Yemen killed his 16-year-old American-born son, Abdulrahman, along with the boy’s 17-year-old cousin and several other innocent Yemenis. The U.S. eventually claimed that the boy was not their target but merely “collateral damage.” Abdulrahman’s grief-stricken grandfather, Nasser al-Awlaki, urged the Washington Post “to visit a Facebook memorial page for Abdulrahman,” which explained: “Look at his pictures, his friends, and his hobbies His Facebook page shows a typical kid.”

Few events pulled the mask off Obama officials like this one. It highlighted how the Obama administration was ravaging Yemen, one of the world’s poorest countries: just weeks after he won the Nobel Prize, Obama used cluster bombs that killed 35 Yemeni women and children. Even Obama-supporting liberal comedians mocked the Obama DOJ’s arguments for why it had the right to execute Americans with no charges: “Due Process Just Means There’s A Process That You Do,” snarked Stephen Colbert. And a firestorm erupted when former Obama Press Secretary Robert Gibbs offered a sociopathic justification for killing the Colorado-born teenager, apparently blaming him for his own killing by saying he should have “had a more responsible father.”


The U.S. assault on Yemeni civilians not only continued but radically escalated over the next five years through the end of the Obama presidency, as the U.S. and the UK armed, supported and provide crucial assistance to their close ally Saudi Arabia as it devastated Yemen through a criminally reckless bombing campaign. Yemen now faces mass starvation, seemingly exacerbated, deliberately, by the US/UK-supported air attacks. Because of the west’s direct responsibility for these atrocities, they have received vanishingly little attention in the responsible countries.

In a hideous symbol of the bipartisan continuity of U.S. barbarism, Nasser al-Awlaki just lost another one of his young grandchildren to U.S. violence. On Sunday, the Navy’s SEAL Team 6, using armed Reaper drones for cover, carried out a commando raid on what it said was a compound harboring officials of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. A statement issued by President Trump lamented the death of an American service member and several others who were wounded, but made no mention of any civilian deaths. U.S. military officials initially denied any civilian deaths, and (therefore) the CNN report on the raid said nothing about any civilians being killed.

But reports from Yemen quickly surfaced that 30 people were killed, including 10 women and children. Among the dead: the 8-year-old granddaughter of Nasser al-Awlaki, Nawar, who was also the daughter of Anwar Awlaki.



This is the 8-year-old girl killed in US raid in Yemen

I just wondered. You come out with so many horse shit filled strawmen I guessed you might run some stables.

#tortured

#i'llgetmycoat

#noyoufuckoff

[Vengeful Glutton]

@SandyD

Re: F117

The bomb bay doors opening did create a reflector, but the target had already been acquired by the serb early warning system - using low frequencies (VHF). Once the goblin entered the engagement zone, the returns were transferred to missile guidance, who tracked it manually. They lost it, but subsequently reacquired it and got a steady lock. The commander of the Goa battery didn't shut the system down, since he hadn't acquired non-stealth returns, and hence hostile anti-radiation missiles.

AWACS did advise that SA-3 radar had been activated, but the goblin's pilot ignored it and concentrated on tracking his own target. He released the paveways, bomb bay doors closed, and then he made a preplanned turn. Interestingly, the Serb low blow radar kept its lock, even after the bird's hard bank (left or right, can't recall).

Three SAs were fired I think? Two lost their data links and went into a ballistic trajectory, but one acquired a steady lock on the bird, and slammed into its wing, sending it off into a 7G tuck.

Nowt to do with faulty bomb bay doors.

[WaspInWales]

Haven't seen much with regards to Bannon's promotion to the security council, or the latest executive order on business regulations.

Is there any possible conflict with the latter and his business dealings?

Any thoughts?

[morepork]

Haven't seen much with regards to Bannon's promotion to the security council, or the latest executive order on business regulations.

Is there any possible conflict with the latter and his business dealings?

Any thoughts?

Yes. Representatives on both sides of the house are going at it. Bannon worked for Goldman Sachs, briefly, and has started a few boutique investment firms based on media and film. Basically, the more he runs his mouth, the greater the capital for a short term profit. He has studied "national security" at a postgraduate level, but I'm not sure what that qualifies as. His main area of expertise is in media manipulation. He is a perfect fit for Orange Reality TV. He is there to run interference and he will go all out to savage any semblance of accountability suggested by the media. We will really see how firm the checks and balances in American politics really are. Fuck me.

[WaspInWales]

Haven't seen much with regards to Bannon's promotion to the security council, or the latest executive order on business regulations.

Is there any possible conflict with the latter and his business dealings?

Any thoughts?

Yes. Representatives on both sides of the house are going at it. Bannon worked for Goldman Sachs, briefly, and has started a few boutique investment firms based on media and film. Basically, the more he runs his mouth, the greater the capital for a short term profit. He has studied "national security" at a postgraduate level, but I'm not sure what that qualifies as. His main area of expertise is in media manipulation. He is a perfect fit for Orange Reality TV. He is there to run interference and he will go all out to savage any semblance of accountability suggested by the media. We will really see how firm the checks and balances in American politics really are. Fuck me.

Cheers MP. Bannon seems like a proper piece of work.

Just seen that the acting AG has instructed the justice department not to defend any legal action against Trump's executive order on immigration. No doubt it's just a token stance considering she will soon be replaced by KKK member Sessions and may even be removed from her post by Trump for her insubordination.

As much as I was looking forward to the Trump circus and the entertainment it provides, the reality of it is proving to be far more stark than I had anticipated.

[WaspInWales]

Acting AG sacked by Trump.

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

[canta_brian]

Acting AG sacked by Trump.

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

It's like an episode of the apprentice.

[Sandydragon]

@SandyD

Re: F117

The bomb bay doors opening did create a reflector, but the target had already been acquired by the serb early warning system - using low frequencies (VHF). Once the goblin entered the engagement zone, the returns were transferred to missile guidance, who tracked it manually. They lost it, but subsequently reacquired it and got a steady lock. The commander of the Goa battery didn't shut the system down, since he hadn't acquired non-stealth returns, and hence hostile anti-radiation missiles.

AWACS did advise that SA-3 radar had been activated, but the goblin's pilot ignored it and concentrated on tracking his own target. He released the paveways, bomb bay doors closed, and then he made a preplanned turn. Interestingly, the Serb low blow radar kept its lock, even after the bird's hard bank (left or right, can't recall).

Three SAs were fired I think? Two lost their data links and went into a ballistic trajectory, but one acquired a steady lock on the bird, and slammed into its wing, sending it off into a 7G tuck.

Nowt to do with faulty bomb bay doors.

Not quite. The Serbs used good human intuition based on NATO operating patterns, long wavelength and thermal imagery. No technology is perfect, but to write off stealth completely is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

This is how the F-117A was shot down in Serbia by a SA-3 (S-75) Goa SAM in 1999
Posted by: Larkins Dsouza February 8, 2007 29 Comments



One F-117 has been lost in combat, to Serbian/Yugoslav forces. On March 27, 1999, during the Kosovo War, the 3rd Battalion of the 250th Missile Brigade under the command of Colonel Zoltán Dani, equipped with the Isayev S-125 ‘Neva-M’ (NATO designation SA-3 ‘Goa’), downed F-117A serial number 82-806 with a Neva-M missile. According to NATO Commander Wesley Clark and other NATO generals, Yugoslav air defenses found that they could detect F-117s with their “obsolete” Soviet radars operating on long wavelengths.
This, combined with the loss of stealth when the jets got wet or opened their bomb bays, made them visible on radar screens. The pilot, Lt Col Dale Zelko, survived and was later rescued by NATO forces. On the aircraft, the name Captain Ken “Wiz” Dwelle printed caused confusion on the identity of the pilot. Later, the wreckage of the F-117 was not promptly bombed, and the Serbs are believed to have invited Russian personnel to inspect the remains, inevitably compromising the US stealth technology.
The SAMs were most likely guided manually with the help of thermal images and laser rangefinders included in the Pechora-M variant of the SA-3s believed to have been used. Reportedly several SA-3s were launched, one of which detonated in close proximity to the F-117A, forcing the pilot to eject. According to an interview, Zoltán Dani was able to keep most of his missile sites intact and had a number of spotters spread out looking for F-117s and other aircraft.
Zoltán and his missile crews guessed the flight paths of earlier F-117As from occasional visual and radar spotting and judging from this information and what target had just been bombed, Zoltán and his missile battery determined the probable flight path of F-117A. His missile crews and spotters were then able to locate it and fire their missiles. Zoltán also claims to have modified his radars to better detect the F-117A, but he has not disclosed what was changed. Parts of the shot-down aircraft are now presented to the public in the Museum of Yugoslav Aviation in Belgrade.
Some sources claim a second F-117A was also damaged during a raid in the Kosovo War, and although it made it back to its base, it never flew again. Yugoslavian air defenses were seen as relatively obsolete.
Some pieces of the F-117’s wreckage are preserved at the Serbian Museum of Aviation in Belgrade, other pieces of wreckage were reportedly sent to Russia, to be used in developing anti-stealth technology. The USAF retired the F-117 in 2008.

[Sandydragon]

Do you own many horses, Rowan?

Er, no, Donny. I believe animal ownership is all wrong. I don't even have a fish.

[SMIRKING FACE]

There isn't such an option, Canta Brian.

Glenn Greenwald writes about Obama's drone war crimes in the Intercept:

IN 2010, President Obama directed the CIA to assassinate an American citizen in Yemen, Anwar al-Awlaki, despite the fact that he had never been charged with (let alone convicted of) any crime, and the agency successfully carried out that order a year later with a September, 2011 drone strike. While that assassination created widespread debate – the once-again-beloved ACLU sued Obama to restrain him from the assassination on the ground of due process and then, when that suit was dismissed, sued Obama again after the killing was carried out – another drone-killing carried out shortly thereafter was perhaps even more significant yet generated relatively little attention.


Two weeks after the killing of Awlaki, a separate CIA drone strike in Yemen killed his 16-year-old American-born son, Abdulrahman, along with the boy’s 17-year-old cousin and several other innocent Yemenis. The U.S. eventually claimed that the boy was not their target but merely “collateral damage.” Abdulrahman’s grief-stricken grandfather, Nasser al-Awlaki, urged the Washington Post “to visit a Facebook memorial page for Abdulrahman,” which explained: “Look at his pictures, his friends, and his hobbies His Facebook page shows a typical kid.”

Few events pulled the mask off Obama officials like this one. It highlighted how the Obama administration was ravaging Yemen, one of the world’s poorest countries: just weeks after he won the Nobel Prize, Obama used cluster bombs that killed 35 Yemeni women and children. Even Obama-supporting liberal comedians mocked the Obama DOJ’s arguments for why it had the right to execute Americans with no charges: “Due Process Just Means There’s A Process That You Do,” snarked Stephen Colbert. And a firestorm erupted when former Obama Press Secretary Robert Gibbs offered a sociopathic justification for killing the Colorado-born teenager, apparently blaming him for his own killing by saying he should have “had a more responsible father.”


The U.S. assault on Yemeni civilians not only continued but radically escalated over the next five years through the end of the Obama presidency, as the U.S. and the UK armed, supported and provide crucial assistance to their close ally Saudi Arabia as it devastated Yemen through a criminally reckless bombing campaign. Yemen now faces mass starvation, seemingly exacerbated, deliberately, by the US/UK-supported air attacks. Because of the west’s direct responsibility for these atrocities, they have received vanishingly little attention in the responsible countries.

In a hideous symbol of the bipartisan continuity of U.S. barbarism, Nasser al-Awlaki just lost another one of his young grandchildren to U.S. violence. On Sunday, the Navy’s SEAL Team 6, using armed Reaper drones for cover, carried out a commando raid on what it said was a compound harboring officials of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. A statement issued by President Trump lamented the death of an American service member and several others who were wounded, but made no mention of any civilian deaths. U.S. military officials initially denied any civilian deaths, and (therefore) the CNN report on the raid said nothing about any civilians being killed.

But reports from Yemen quickly surfaced that 30 people were killed, including 10 women and children. Among the dead: the 8-year-old granddaughter of Nasser al-Awlaki, Nawar, who was also the daughter of Anwar Awlaki.



This is the 8-year-old girl killed in US raid in Yemen

Would you like me to post some images of Children killed by Syrian and Russian airstrikes?

[Sandydragon]

I keep hearing the Trump administration compare their ban to that imposed by Obama.

This is a bit of a counterpoint to that.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/01/30/sor ... ation-ban/

There are so many reasons to detest the Donald Trump administration’s executive order on “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,” that it’s hard to know where to start.

Others have already argued eloquently about its cruelty in singling out the most vulnerable in society; its strategic folly in insulting countries and individuals the United States needs to help it fight terrorism (the ostensible purpose of the order in the first place); its cynical incoherence in using the September 11 attacks as a rationale and then exempting the attackers’ countries of origin; its ham-handed implementation and ever-shifting explanations for how, and to whom, it applies; and, thankfully, its legal vulnerability on a slew of soon-to-be-litigated grounds, including that it may violate the Establishment and Equal Protection clauses of the U.S. Constitution.

In light of all that, and particular in light of the new White House’s acknowledged aversion to facts, it may seem like a minor point that President Donald Trump and his advisors, in seeking to justify and normalize the executive order, have made a series of false or misleading claims about steps taken five years earlier by the Barack Obama administration. In case you missed it, a statement from the president published Sunday afternoon read:

“My policy is similar to what President Obama did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months. The seven countries named in the Executive Order are the same countries previously identified by the Obama administration as sources of terror.”

Leaving aside the unusual nature of team Trump looking to his predecessors’ policies for cover, it seems worth pointing out this statement obscures at least five enormous differences between the executive order the White House issued on Friday and what the Obama administration did.

1. Much narrower focus: The Obama administration conducted a review in 2011 of the vetting procedures applied to citizens of a single country (Iraq) and then only to refugees and applicants for Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs), created by Congress to help Iraqis (and later Afghans) who supported the United States in those conflicts. The Trump executive order, on the other hand, applies to seven countries with total population more than 130 million, and to virtually every category of immigrant other than diplomats, including tourists and business travelers.

2. Not a ban: Contrary to Trump’s Sunday statement and the repeated claims of his defenders, the Obama administration did not “ban visas for refugees from Iraq for six months.” For one thing, refugees don’t travel on visas. More importantly, while the flow of Iraqi refugees slowed significantly during the Obama administration’s review, refugees continued to be admitted to the United States during that time, and there was not a single month in which no Iraqis arrived here. In other words, while there were delays in processing, there was no outright ban.

3. Grounded in specific threat: The Obama administration’s 2011 review came in response to specific threat information, including the arrest in Kentucky of two Iraqi refugees, still the only terrorism-related arrests out of about 130,000 Iraqi refugees and SIV holders admitted to the United States. Thus far, the Trump administration has provided no evidence, nor even asserted, that any specific information or intelligence has led to its draconian order.

4. Orderly, organized process: The Obama administration’s review was conducted over roughly a dozen deputies and principals committee meetings, involving Cabinet and deputy Cabinet-level officials from all of the relevant departments and agencies — including the State, Homeland Security and Justice Departments — and the intelligence community. The Trump executive order was reportedly drafted by White House political officials and then presented to the implementing agencies a fait accompli. This is not just bad policymaking practice, it led directly to the confusion, bordering on chaos, that has attended implementation of the order by agencies that could only start asking questions (such as: “does this apply to green card holders?”) once the train had left the station.

5. Far stronger vetting today: Much has been made of Trump’s call for “extreme vetting” for citizens of certain countries. The entire purpose of the Obama administration’s 2011 review was to enhance the already stringent vetting to which refugees and SIV applicants were subjected. While many of the details are classified, those rigorous procedures, which lead to waiting times of 18-24 months for many Iraqi and Syrian refugees, remain in place today and are continually reviewed by interagency officials. The Trump administration is, therefore, taking on a problem that has already been (and is continually being) addressed.

*Bonus: Obama’s “seven countries” taken out of context: Trump’s claim that the seven countries listed in the executive order came from the Obama administration is conveniently left unexplained. A bit of background: soon after the December 2015 terror attack in San Bernadino, President Obama signed an amendment to the Visa Waiver Program, a law that allows citizens of 38 countries to travel to the United States without obtaining visas (and gives Americans reciprocal privileges in those countries). The amendment removed from the Visa Waiver Program dual nationals who were citizens of four countries (Iraq, Iran, Sudan, and Syria), or anyone who had recently traveled to those countries. The Obama administration added three more to the list (Libya, Somalia, and Yemen), bringing the total to seven. But this law did not bar anyone from coming to the United States. It only required a relatively small percentage of people to obtain a visa first. And to avoid punishing people who clearly had good reasons to travel to the relevant countries, the Obama administration used a waiver provided by Congress for certain travelers, including journalists, aid workers, and officials from international organizations like the United Nations.

Bottom line: No immigration vetting system is perfect, no matter how “extreme.” President Obama often said that his highest priority was keeping Americans safe. In keeping with America’s tradition and ideals, he also worked to establish a vetting system that worked more fairly and efficiently, particularly for refugees who are, by definition, in harm’s way. President Trump should defend his approach on the merits, if he can. He should not compare it to his predecessor’s.

[Digby]

It's easy to see why Trump takes more to someone like Putin than Obama, the feeling that if your AG advises you're acting in illegal fashion you simply fire them and replace with a toady.

In addition to his soon to be named nominee for the supreme court it also sounds like we can expected action to cut taxes for companies like Trump's. Actually it'll be somewhat limiting to the UK is the USA kicks off a global fight in corporate tax rates, we can only be grateful we voted to leave the EU at a time when it might be more important than ever

[rowan]