#43 ...

#36 There is no such thing.

So, I guess "stories" about cooking and "stories" about "bridge with the 'wife'" are now ... not needed?

#16 | Posted by ClownShack

Peoples' Exhibit B:

#16 | Posted by ClownShack

Citation:

#11 JPW accurately says, "The worst are puling, self-righteous "progressives."

Indeed ...

Recently posted ... Part 1 of 2 parts ...

by Allen Clifton

I apologize for some of the language, but I really need to vent for a bit - can we please just ------ have a president who isn't a complete, unhinged, embarrassing, childish idiot?

At this point, I don't even care if I agree with their policies, I just want an adult leading this nation. Not an emotionally stunted, 80-year-old toddler.

It's pretty bad when I find myself sometimes missing the Republican days of George W. Bush's leadership *** - someone who, at the time, we all thought was a pretty low bar to set for Republican presidents..

Oh, how naive we all were. When people said, "They can't get any dumber than Bush," Republicans clearly took that as a challenge.

The headlines I come across nearly every single day... Jesus Christ.

The Strait of Hormuz is "open"... wait, now it's closed again - no, actually, it's open, but only closed by the United States, which now "completely controls it," but then Iran is shooting at ships trying to cross it, and it's closed again, seemingly by Iran.

Yet we fully control it!

But wait - no, Iran's military and navy no longer exist, right? Isn't that what we've been told?

The war is "over," we "won," and Iran has been "obliterated," but then we're negotiating a deal, but then we're not because, according to Trump, Iran isn't "ready" to make a deal - but then he says they're also desperate to make one.

Because all that makes total sense.

All the while, gas has been over $4 a gallon nationally for months and inflation is at three-year highs.

Oh, and now there's the ongoing possibility that when this disaster finally ends, there's going to be a toll charge to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, when it was previously free.

But then who really knows, because that story changes every hour.

Yet we totally control the strait!

This all comes after we were told, repeatedly, all last year, that Iran's nuclear capabilities were also "totally obliterated." Anyone who said anything other than that Trump's first strike had "totally obliterated" their nuclear program - setting them back years - was "fake news."

Except just a few months later, apparently, their impending nuclear weapon was why we had to go to war with them.

So, was the news "fake" or not? Shouldn't Trump have to answer for that, considering he told all of us last summer that their nuclear program had been set back years? Especially when the "fake news" he attacked was that we had only marginally set the Iranian government back "a few months," and here we are, a few months later, at war.

#18 The bible claims that we were all "created in the image of God."

Okay, then:

Does God have a penis, or does God have a vagina ? ? ? ?

#16 'Tis almost like he's doing the Democrats a favor, AU!

#3 Or is this one of those things where we're not supposed to see that the emperor has no clothes? ** ...

#3 Why do you keep posting "links" that lead to ...

Here's the moment Steven Chung found out he was on the decoy plane ...

#29 Ah, perhaps this is reinheitsgebot,

#29 Sort of Oddjob does the *ahem* odd job?

#33 | Postscript: ... There are those here who take "Thank you, my good friend" as an insult ('tis a long story :-) .. ).

#31 When I read a comment like yours, Corky, it makes me long for the days that TonyRoma (and so many others) would have such fantastic conversations with us here. People like danni, califchiris, niceville (yuck) DethSpud, ... damn, I cannot remember all, except to remember that it was fun.

Thank you again, Corky.

(and, to say "--- you" to those who condemn this)...

#31 Thank you, Corky.

Posted, just for transparency ...

#12 What's that condemnation supposed to mean, C0RI0LANUS, when you also post THIS ------- as well?

WTF are you against?

Or are you just content with posting Putin talking points, just like Tulsi Gabbard?

Christ on a bike, you're so transparent.

snip ...

Follow the money to Israel

Fast forward to Israel, a nation that receives more financial support from the U.S. than any other nation since World War II. Under the current U.S. Israel agreement, the annual $3.8 billion consists of $3.3 billion in Foreign Military Financing plus $500 million for joint missile defense programs.

But Israel receives much of its U.S. military assistance through Foreign Military Financing, which is subject to the Leahy Law. So that should be eliminating...limiting... at least curbing the money we send to it, no?

Not so much.

Here's the loophole.

snip ...

Fast-forward to the 1990s and Senator Patrick Leahy*, who proposed a different approach.

Since the 1970s, though, very few countries were actually cut off from U.S. aid because...well, strategic interests kept winning. The interest in keeping money flowing from our pockets into the pockets of the industrial-military complex, was the big one.

And to do that, the U.S. couldn't be too particular about human right abuses. So, they frequently invoked a convenient little exception called "extraordinary circumstances." If the administration determined that extraordinary circumstances justified it, then they didn't have to pull funding for the country. And almost every circumstance turned out to be extraordinary.

Senator Leahy saw that Section 502B wasn't really working. That even when governments were committing abuses right, left and center, the administration chose to ignore it. So, he proposed a solution. Leahy said, (I'm paraphrasing) Look, if you're not going to stop funding whole countries like Colombia, where paramilitary forces are committing gross human rights violations as we speak, then what if we stop funding only the specific military or police unit committing the abuses?

That idea became the Leahy Laws.

snip ...

And so, Chile became one of the first countries for which Congress imposed human rights-related restrictions on aid.

They said they would continue to support countries that needed their help, but not if the government engaged in a consistent pattern of gross human rights violations.

Up until then, the U.S. had been a generous sugar daddy, funding any country that claimed to be driving out communists. Even if the government doing the driving was itself authoritarian. Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Guatemala, Indonesia, South Korea, the Philippines all received U.S. military weapons and assistance during the Cold War. And happily used these weapons to kidnap, torture, kill or disappear their opponents.

But in the 1970s, after years of a failed war in Vietnam and an angry public exhausted and bereft, that changed.