September 29, 2014

New War 22 Billion yr, meanwhile $8.7 B Cut in Food Stamps causes Families to Lose $90 per month

WASHINGTON (MCT) — The air war in Syria and Iraq has already cost nearly $1 billion and ultimately could cost as much as $22 billion per year if a large ground force is deployed to the region
http://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/cost-of-air-war-against-islamic-state-already-near-1-billion-as-strategy-shifts-1.305511


Feb 7, 2014

On Friday, President Obama added his signature to legislation that will cut $8.7 billion in food stamp benefits over the next 10 years, causing 850,000 households to lose an average of $90 per month. The signing of the legislation known as the 2014 Farm Bill occurred at a public event in East Lansing, Mich.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/obama-signs-food-stamp-cut


$90 per month is a lot of money to people who need food

That is such a pittance for the federal government, why did they do that?

To save money?

They cannot be serious that ISIS is so much more important that 850,000 Americans who are starving.

All of a sudden, money is no problem.

Where are the debt conscious Republicans that just wouldn't shut up before?

Imagine a headline, "ISIS causes 850,000 Americans to go hungry"

Imagine the outrage from the corporate media


We need to tell these assholes that ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

This is completely unacceptable and they need to hear it from US!

September 29, 2014

During operations in Fallujah, Iraq, white phosphorus munitions were used as an incendiary weapon

This is a war crime!

In April 2004, during the First Battle of Fallujah, Darrin Mortenson of California's North County Times reported that white phosphorus was used as an incendiary weapon.

In November 2004, during the Second Battle of Fallujah, Washington Post reporters embedded with Task Force 2-2, Regimental Combat Team 7, wrote on November 9, 2004 that "Some artillery guns fired white phosphorus (WP) rounds that create a screen of fire that cannot be extinguished with water." Insurgents reported being attacked with a substance that melted their skin, a reaction consistent with white phosphorus burns.

On November 9, 2005 the Italian state-run broadcaster Radiotelevisione Italiana S.p.A. aired a documentary titled "Fallujah, The Hidden Massacre", alleging that the United States' used white phosphorus as a weapon in Fallujah causing insurgents and civilians to be killed or injured by chemical burns. The filmmakers further claimed that the United States used incendiary MK-77 bombs in violation of Protocol III of the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. According to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, quoted in the documentary, white phosphorus is permitted for use as an illumination device and as a weapon with regard to heat energy, but not permitted as an offensive weapon with regard to its toxic chemical properties

On November 15, 2005, U.S. Department of Defense spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Barry Venable confirmed to the BBC that white phosphorus had been used as an incendiary antipersonnel weapon in Fallujah.

On November 16, 2005, BBC News reported that an article published in the March–April 2005 issue of Field Artillery, a U.S. Army magazine, noted that white phosphorus had been used during the battle.

On November 22, 2005, the Iraqi government stated it would investigate the use of white phosphorus in the battle of Fallujah.[11]

On November 30, 2005, General Peter Pace stated that white phosphorus munitions were a "legitimate tool of the military" used to illuminate targets and create smokescreens, saying "It is not a chemical weapon. It is an incendiary. And it is well within the law of war to use those weapons as they're being used, for marking and for screening"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_phosphorus_use_in_Iraq


It was a war crime when Israel used it


Israel accused of indiscriminate phosphorus use in Gaza
Human Rights Watch report claims Israel committed war crimes in its use of air-burst white phosphorus artillery shells
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/mar/25/israel-white-phosphorus-gaza

We sure didn't like it when Saddam did it...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_poison_gas_attack

White phosphorus was used by Saddam Hussein during the Halabja poison gas attack. According to an undated ANSA article quoted by an RAI documentary, on the morning of March 16, 1988, the Iraqi Air Force bombed Halabja several times with a chemical cocktail of yperite, tabun, VX, napalm and white phosphorus."



I don't think we are the 'good guys' anymore.

Where is the UN when you need them?

September 29, 2014

US jets and tanks fired nearly 10,000 depleted uranium rounds in Iraq during the war in 2003

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/19/us-depleted-uranium-weapons-civilian-areas-iraq



Now please take a look at the effects of depleted uranium on babies

https://www.google.com/search?q=depleted+uranium+iraq&client=firefox-a&hs=eOf&rls=org.mozilla:en-US fficial&channel=sb&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=DIUpVLKOLoa4igKCwoCYAw&ved=0CAoQ_AUoAw

I don't want to post any pictures, nor can I look at them because they are so just ... I just don't know what to say.


Anyone who thinks we are on some kind of humanitarian mission in Iraq needs to wake up.

Please send pictures to fundies who are pro life.

I know they don't care about Iraqis (so why are we 'helping' them?) but our troops are also affected by this and have had babies with birth defects as well.

September 29, 2014

Terrorism experts believe that the actual danger posed by ISIS has been distorted in hours of TV

But as President Obama prepares to send the United States on what could be a yearslong military campaign against the militant group, American intelligence agencies have concluded that it poses no immediate threat to the United States. Some officials and terrorism experts believe that the actual danger posed by ISIS has been distorted in hours of television punditry and alarmist statements by politicians, and that there has been little substantive public debate about the unintended consequences of expanding American military action in the Middle East"

Daniel Benjamin, who served as the State Department’s top counterterrorism adviser during Mr. Obama’s first term, said the public discussion about the ISIS threat has been a “farce,” with “members of the cabinet and top military officers all over the place describing the threat in lurid terms that are not justified.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/world/middleeast/struggling-to-gauge-isis-threat-even-as-us-prepares-to-act.html?_r=2


These are our public airwaves, politicians we pay to do very little....starting a war based on nothing.

September 29, 2014

Just because Obama won 2 elections, it doesn't mean our voting systems have been improved

In fact, nothing has changed at all.

Even in states with paper ballots, they are still counted only on diebold accuvote machines.

It should be clear by now, that Obama is a part of the whole homeland world domination plan.

Perhaps they let Obama win so that they could blame everything on him, and use him as an excuse to spend even more money on military.


While everyone keeps talking about getting out the vote, Republicans are manufacturing consent that they will win.

Republicans own the polling, they own the media, they no longer do exit polls which was the canary in the coal mine.

September 29, 2014

Are there legal grounds for our airstrikes on Syria,Iraq? Are we in violation of international law?

Are we a nation of laws?

Do we follow international law?

Does the UN have any meaning?


Are we a rogue nation that does whatever they want, the kind of nation the UN was set up to reign in?


In Iraq, we already used cluster bombs and white phosphorous on Fallujah.

These are war crimes and collective punishment.

Then there is the depleted uranium all over causing birth defects, genocide.

Our government is out of control.

Where is the UN on this?

September 26, 2014

We need a "Put up or shut up" Bill in Congress on the new war in Iraq and Syria

If the media, Obama and Congress want a war so bad...

There needs to be a vote in Congress which includes the following:

1. Vote yes on war

2. Includes hefty raise in taxes on the wealthy to pay for it- If they aren't going to raise taxes to pay for this- What the fuck have they been talking about with all the debt/deficit 'it's all welfare's fault' bullshit- Warmongering Republicans need to be called out on the right now! If they feel so strongly the country needs to be protected, they need to put their money where their mouth is.

3. Congress and all war profiteers agree to take the salary of a grunt until the war is over. If you are truly patriotic, you would not try to make a killing off of killing. (General Smedley Butler suggested this is the only way to end war forever)

4. Congress, Obama and media pundits will each offer one family member to go to the middle east with the 'boots on the ground'

September 26, 2014

"Republicans are People" caught using Stock images "Republicans are Liars" manufacturing consent

from reddit
http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/2hhlsx/republicans_are_people_too_campaign_promptly/

All of the photos in the video seem like stock images.

Has anyone reverse imaged them to see where they came from? I bet half of those people don't especially care about American politics, let alone are Republican.

Edit: From the little bit of research /u/thehatetrain has done, it appears that they are, in fact, stock photos and not actual Republicans. Where is Buzzfeed when you need them?
---
Took your advice, and looked up some of the images from the people. FIRST girl I looked up is one of the older white ladies... and the picture is also used on this website! http://www.theinclusioninstitute.com/services.html

I don't know if it means anything. Will update with more searching!
----

If they're stock photos from a paid website, I'm not sure if you need consent. There might be some free ones, too.

Still, it should be worth noting that none of these people are Republicans.


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Young black woman is on this website! Someone has got to call them out on this!

http://www.toigofoundation.org/Support-Us#

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I suggest we let twitter know with a counter-campagin, how about #IAmAStockPhoto

edit: better idea, a parody campaign with ridiculous stock photos photoshopped with this campaign's slogan and hashtags. I'll start this off with: Republican Cyber Woman has corn

You can find more stock photos at shutterstock.com or corbisimages.com, they will have watermarks but maybe that would work better for this parody.

September 25, 2014

Anyone remember how this time last year Obama and Kerry Pushed for Bombing Syria?

The Obama administration is currently in the midst of its final push to convince skeptical lawmakers to give it the green-light to strike Syria, and it's unclear how the new developments will impact the debate in Washington, let alone abroad where the White House still hopes to find a few more allies. Of course, with congressional approval for a U.S.-led strike uncertain to say the least, it's quite possible that Kerry may have accidentally stumbled onto a potential face-saving solution for the administration.

For what it's worth, Kerry's initial comments came when asked if there was anything Assad could do to avert an American-led attack. "Sure, he could turn over every bit of his weapons to the international community within the next week, without delay," Kerry said. "But he isn’t about to."

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/09/09/syria_chemical_weapons_did_john_kerry_just_accidentally_find_a_workable.html

What Kerry never expected is that Russia would step up, Syria would agree, and the UN would all help to stop the planned US bombing.


It has only been a little over a year, and now 'oh my gawd ISIS, we must bomb Syria'

Do we have selective collective amnesia or something?

Seriously, who cannot see through this bullshit?

September 25, 2014

What Difference Does it Make to the Dead, The Orphans, and the Homeless