Finally: Justice for Islamic terrorist Arabs Accused of Plotting 9/11 Attacks Is coming 2021

Via NYT:

WASHINGTON — Moving toward a final reckoning as the nation approaches the 20th anniversary of the day that led to the longest war in American history, a military judge on Friday set a date for the death penalty trial at Guantánamo Bay of the five men accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The judge, Col. W. Shane Cohen of the Air Force, set Jan. 11, 2021, for the start of the selection of a military jury at Camp Justice, the war court compound at the Navy base in Cuba. It is the first time that a judge in the case actually set a start-of-trial date.

The case against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other men, should it proceed, would be the definitive trial tied to the Sept. 11 attacks. Until now, only foot soldiers of Al Qaeda have been tried at Guantánamo, and many of their convictions have been overturned.

Mr. Mohammed and the four others face the death penalty in a conspiracy case that describes Mr. Mohammed as the architect of the plot in which 19 men hijacked four commercial passenger planes and slammed two of them into the World Trade Center towers and one into the Pentagon. The fourth, which was believed to be aimed for the Capitol, crashed into a Pennsylvania field instead. The other four men are described as helping the hijackers with training, travel or finances.

[….]

In July, a prosecutor, Ed Ryan, urged the judge to set a date saying, “Our client, this nation, deserves a reckoning.”

In a lengthy exchange with the judge, Mr. Ryan argued that “dates energize and mobilize” people to prepare.

On Friday, defense lawyers on the case said that many of the judge’s milestones toward trial were dependent on the prosecution meeting a series of deadlines.

“For a January 2021 trial date to happen, the government would have to drop its obstructionism and produce a lot of important evidence and witnesses,” said James G. Connell III, the lead defense counsel for Mr. Baluchi. Mr. Connell said he had received more than 25,000 pages of case-related documents since July and expected that many more were coming.

Selection of the jury — 12 members and four alternate members — is expected to last months, with American military officers shuttled by air to and from the base in groups because of the limited housing at Guantánamo.

Besides conspiracy, the men are charged with committing murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians and terrorism. Should the men be convicted and sentenced to death, it is up to the secretary of defense to determine the method of execution.

It’s about damned time that these sleaze ball motherfuckers got to trial and are tried and killed. As someone who lived through 9/11 and struggled with depression, Anxiety; of which I am now on medication for…. I hope these rat bastards get the firing squad.

Screw them and their false religion and Pedophile prophet!

Former Senator Joe Walsh is running for POTUS in 2020

Just to let you know, I donated $5.00 to this man’s campaign. We need a change. Anything is better than 4 more years of the egotistical blowhard in the White House and a loony liberal Democrat.

Because folks, I voted for Donald Trump, I had some very high expectations for him. He did some of them; but not nearly enough. I came to soon realize that this man, Donald Trump, was more interested in polishing his very large ego. This is not what a Presidency should be; and under Trump, that is what it is become. So, I’ve cast my $5.00 lot with Walsh, if more run, I will donate to them as well.

The point is, we can do better than Trump, much better. I remember, Conservatives droned on about Obama and bad he was; and yes, he was a terrible President. But, these same people gush over Trump and it disgusts me to no end. I do not wish to have a egomaniac for President, I wish a President that will DO HIS JOB.

The Video:

Donate at Joe Walsh 2020 Website

(H/T HotAir.com)

Meet Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Republican challenger Scherie Murray

The Story via Fox News:

EXCLUSIVE — Scherie Murray, a New York businesswoman who immigrated from Jamaica as a child and is active in state Republican politics, is launching a campaign Wednesday for the congressional seat held by Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Fox News has learned.

In a phone interview, Murray, 38, confirmed her intention to run for the New York congressional seat as a Republican.

“There is a crisis in Queens, and it’s called AOC,” Murray told Fox News. “And instead of focusing on us, she’s focusing on being famous. Mainly rolling back progress and authoring the job-killing Green New Deal and killing the Amazon New York deal.”

Murray, who was born in Jamaica and moved to the United States when she was 9, is officially launching her campaign Wednesday with an introductory video that takes sharp jabs at the 29-year-old Ocasio-Cortez.

“Your representative in Washington chooses self-promotion over service, conflict over constituents, resistance over assistance,” Murray said in the video. “Queens and the Bronx needs someone who will create jobs instead of turning them away.”

Asked about Ocasio-Cortez’s brand of Democratic socialism, Murray said, “I think it’s far, far to the left and it is not connecting with everyday Americans.”

As for “Medicare-for-all,” which Ocasio-Cortez has embraced, the Republican said: “Medicare-for-all, I think a lot of people are happy with their current health insurance.” And on the Green New Deal, the left-wing proposal to address climate change pushed by Ocasio-Ortez, she said: “We know that it certainly will kill jobs.

 

Please visit Scherie Murray for Congress.

Donate to her campaign. It will be an uphill battle. But, she’s just what that area needs.

How to and how not to address the subject of reparations for slavery in America

First the proper, dignified, and intelligent way to argue against reparations for Slavery.

And there’s the is the stupid way, as presented by one of the stupidest people in Conservatism today: (Via the Daily Beast)

If this is the best that the Republican Party and/or The Conservative movement can come up with, we’re screwed. She’s really giving Ann Coulter a run for her money.

Video: Tucker Carlson says, “War with Iran will end Trump’s Presidency”

Looks like me and Tucker Carlson think much alike.

Tucker is right, if we move against Iran, it’s over for Trump and possibly even America.

The Neocons in the Trump Administration are steering America into another war

This also includes the Saudi Government as well. I say this, because of this piece of news here, via YNetNews.com:

A state-aligned Saudi newspaper is calling for “surgical” U.S. strikes in retaliation against alleged threats from Iran.

The Arab News published an editorial in English on Thursday, arguing that after incidents this week against Saudi energy targets, the next logical step “should be surgical strikes.”

The editorial says U.S. airstrikes in Syria, when the government there was suspected of using chemical weapons against civilians, “set a precedent.”

It added that it’s “clear that (U.S.) sanctions are not sending the right message” and that “they must be hit hard,” in reference to Iran, without elaborating on what specific targets should be struck.

The newspaper’s publisher is the Saudi Research and Marketing Group, a company that had long been chaired by various sons of King Salman until 2014 and is regarded as reflecting official position.

It seems that John Bolton is behind much of this:

Donald Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton wants the United States to go to war with Iran.

We know this because he has been saying it for nearlytwodecades.

And everything that the Trump administration has done over its Iran policy, particularly since Bolton became Trump’s top foreign policy adviser in April of 2018, must be viewed through this lens, including the alarming US military posturing in the Middle East of the past two weeks.

Just after one month on the job, Bolton gave Trump the final push he needed to withdraw from the Iran nuclear agreement, which at the time was (and still is, for now) successfully boxing in Iran’s nuclear program and blocking all pathways for Iran to build a bomb. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – as the Iran deal is formally known – was the biggest obstacle to Bolton’s drive for a regime change war, because it eliminated a helpful pretext that served so useful to sell the war in Iraq 17 years ago.

Since walking away from the deal, the Trump administration has claimed that with a “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran, it can achieve a “better deal” that magically turns Iran into a Jeffersonian democracy bowing to every and any American wish. But this has always been a fantastically bad-faith argument meant to obscure the actual goal (regime change) and provide cover for the incremental steps – the crushing sanctions, bellicose rhetoric, and antagonizing military maneuvers – that have now put the United States closer to war with Iran than it has been since at least the latter half of the Bush administration, or perhaps ever.

And Bolton has no qualms about manipulating or outright ignoring intelligence to advance his agenda, which is exactly what’s happening right now.

In his White House statement 10 days ago announcing (an already pre-planned) carrier and bomber deployment to the Middle East, Bolton cited “a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings” from Iran to justify the bolstered US military presence. But multiple sources who have seen the same intelligence have since said that Bolton and the Trump administration blew it “out of proportion, characterizing the threat as more significant than it actually was”. Even a British general operating in the region pushed back this week, saying he has seen no evidence of an increased Iranian threat.

Pat Buchanan observes:

After Venezuela’s army decided not to rise up and overthrow Nicholas Maduro, by Sunday night, it was Iran that was in our gun sights.

Bolton ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln, its carrier battle group and a bomber force to the Mideast “to send a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force.”

What “attack” was Bolton talking about?

According to Axios, Israel had alerted Bolton that an Iranian strike on U.S. interests in Iraq was imminent.

Flying to Finland, Pompeo echoed Bolton’s warning:

“We’ve seen escalatory actions from the Iranians, and … we will hold the Iranians accountable for attacks on American interests. … (If) these actions take place, if they do by some third-party proxy, whether that’s a Shia militia group or the Houthis or Hezbollah, we will hold the … Iranian leadership directly accountable for that.”

Taken together, the Bolton-Pompeo threats add up to an ultimatum that any attack by Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, or Iran-backed militias — on Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE or U.S. forces in Iraq, Syria or the Gulf states — will bring a U.S. retaliatory response on Iran itself.

Did President Donald Trump approve of this? For he appears to be going along. He has pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal and re-imposed sanctions. Last week, he canceled waivers he had given eight nations to let them continue buying Iranian oil.

Purpose: Reduce Iran’s oil exports, 40% of GDP, to zero, to deepen an economic crisis that is already expected to cut Iran’s GDP this year by 6%.

Trump has also designated Iran a terrorist state and the Republican Guard a terrorist organization, the first time we have done that with the armed forces of a foreign nation. We don’t even do that with North Korea.

Iran responded last Tuesday by naming the U.S. a state sponsor of terror and designating U.S. forces in the Middle East as terrorists.

[…]

Today, Trump’s approval rating in the Gallup Poll has reached an all-time high, 46%, a level surely related to the astonishing performance of the U.S. economy following Trump’s tax cuts and sweeping deregulation.

While a Gulf war with Iran might be popular at the outset, what would it do for the U.S. economy or our ability to exit the forever war of the Middle East, as Trump has pledged to do?

In late April, in an interview with Fox News, Iran’s foreign minister identified those he believes truly want a U.S.-Iranian war.

Asked if Trump was seeking the confrontation and the “regime change” that Bolton championed before becoming his national security adviser, Mohammad Javad Zarif said no. “I do not believe President Trump wants to do that. I believe President Trump ran on a campaign promise of not bringing the United States into another war.

“President Trump himself has said that the U.S. spent $7 trillion in our region … and the only outcome of that was that we have more terror, we have more insecurity, and we have more instability.

“People in our region are making the determination that the presence of the United States is inherently destabilizing. I think President Trump agrees with that.”

But if it is not Trump pushing for confrontation and war with Iran, who is?

Said Zarif, “I believe ‘the B-team’ wants to actually push the United States, lure President Trump, into a confrontation that he doesn’t want.”

And who makes up “the B-team”?

Zarif identifies them: Bolton, Benjamin Netanyahu, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed.

Should the B-team succeed in its ambitions — it will be Trump’s war, and Trump’s presidency will pay the price.

Buchanan also writes:

After an exhausting two weeks, one is tempted to ask: How many quarrels, clashes and conflicts can even a superpower manage at one time? And is it not time for the United States, preoccupied with so many crises, to begin asking, “Why is this our problem?”

Perhaps the most serious issue is North Korea’s quest for nuclear-armed missiles that can reach the United States. But the reason Kim is developing missiles that can strike Seattle or LA is that 28,000 U.S. troops are in South Korea, committed to attack the North should war break out. That treaty commitment dates to a Korean War that ended in an armed truce 66 years ago.

If we cannot persuade Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons in return for a lifting of sanctions, perhaps we should pull U.S. forces off the peninsula and let China deal with the possible acquisition of their own nuclear weapons by Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

Iran has no nukes or ICBMs. It wants no war with us. It does not threaten us. Why is Iran then our problem to solve rather than a problem for Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and the Sunni Arabs?

Nor does Russia’s annexation of Crimea threaten us. When Ronald Reagan strolled through Red Square with Mikhail Gorbachev in 1988, all of Ukraine was ruled by Moscow.

The Venezuelan regime of Nicolas Maduro was established decades ago by his mentor, Hugo Chavez. When did that regime become so grave a threat that the U.S. should consider an invasion to remove it?

During the uprising in Caracas, Bolton cited the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. But according to President James Monroe, and Mike Pompeo’s predecessor John Quincy Adams, who wrote the message to Congress, under the Doctrine, while European powers were to keep their hands off our hemisphere — we would reciprocate and stay out of Europe’s quarrels and wars.

Wise folks, those Founding Fathers.

Bolton must go, if Trump wants to remain President. because those who elected him, who do not subscribe to the neocon foreign policy doctrine, will vote for someone else or not at all.

 

There goes Rev. Jerry Falwell’s career as a Pastor

Hoo boy, this is going to be a bombshell of a revelation for the Evangelical Christian World. If it is not, it should be.

Via Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Months before evangelical leader Jerry Falwell Jr.’s game-changing presidential endorsement of Donald Trump in 2016, Falwell asked Trump fixer Michael Cohen for a personal favor, Cohen said in a recorded conversation reviewed by Reuters.

Falwell, president of Liberty University, one of the world’s largest Christian universities, said someone had come into possession of what Cohen described as racy “personal” photographs — the sort that would typically be kept “between husband and wife,” Cohen said in the taped conversation.

According to a source familiar with Cohen’s thinking, the person who possessed the photos destroyed them after Cohen intervened on the Falwells’ behalf.

The Falwells, through a lawyer, declined to comment for this article.

Cohen, who began a three-year prison sentence this week for federal campaign violations and lying to Congress, recounted his involvement in the matter in a recording made surreptitiously by comedian Tom Arnold on March 25. Portions of the recording — in which Cohen appeared to disavow parts of his guilty plea — were first reported April 24 by The Wall Street Journal.

The Falwells enlisted Cohen’s help in 2015, according to the source familiar with Cohen’s thinking, the year Trump announced his presidential candidacy. At the time, Cohen was Trump’s confidant and personal lawyer, and he worked for the Trump Organization.

The Falwells wanted to keep “a bunch of photographs, personal photographs” from becoming public, Cohen told Arnold. “I actually have one of the photos,” he said, without going into specifics. “It’s terrible.”

Now, Trump loyalists will dismiss this as another lie from someone what’s reputation is in question. But, if that Church Falwell Pastors and the evangelical world is smart, they’ll hold him to account about this.

Others: Talking Points Memo, Raw Story, Splinter, Axios, The Week, Daily Kos, Washington Times, The Daily Caller, ABC News and Mediaite

Senator Joe Biden Announces his candidacy for President of the United States

Via Joe Biden’s Youtube channel:

I’m gonna tell ya, if the Democratic Party machine doesn’t give into the race hustlers, like these people here; Joe just might have a chance and his message will resonate with those who agree with this message.

I am, so far, quite impressed. I might not agree with him, on some things. But, this, I do.

Others:

The Atlantic, CNN, Washington Monthly, Bloomberg, Associated Press, Washington Post, FiveThirtyEight, Talking Points Memo, The Hill, NBC News, HuffPost, UPI, Morning Call, CBS News, The Rush Limbaugh Show, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, American Greatness, Townhall, Sputnik International, ABC News, PJ Media Home, IJR, The Daily Caller, Fox News Insider, Roll Call, Daily Wire, CBS Philly, Shakesville, Daily Caller News Foundation, Breitbart, Reason, New York Post, CNBC, Mediaite, Joe.My.God., The Irish Times, LifeNews.com, Fox News, WHOTV, WPIX 11 New York, Politico, The Week, Q13 FOX News, ThinkProgress, Al Jazeera, KTLA, NPR, Raw Story, The Resurgent, WNEP-TV, Washington Times, Axios, twitchy.com and Unfogged and more via Memeorndum

Congressman John Dingell Jr. RIP

He was from an era, when the Democrats actually gave a damn about the working middle class in this Country,

The Detroit News writes:

Congressman John Dingell Jr.


Michigan Democrat John Dingell Jr., the longest-serving member of Congress in American history who helped write most of the nation’s major environmental and energy laws, died Thursday, his wife said. He was 92.


The Dearborn statesman was a champion of the auto industry and was credited with increasing access to health care, among other accomplishments.


He died peacefully at his home in Dearborn, surrounded by his wife, U.S. Rep. Deborah Dingell, her office said in a statement. 


“He was a lion of the United States Congress and a loving son, father, husband, grandfather, and friend,” the statement said.


“He will be remembered for his decades of public service to the people of Southeast Michigan, his razor-sharp wit and a lifetime of dedication to improving the lives of all who walk this earth.”


A year ago, John Dingell was diagnosed with prostate cancer that had metastasized and which the former congressman chose not to treat, according to his family. He also had suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized in Detroit last year.


News of his death prompted an outpouring online from lawmakers, former colleagues and others — many of whom regularly enjoyed Dingell’s tweets

.Gov. Gretchen Whitmer ordered U.S. and Michigan flags within the State Capitol Complex and on all state buildings to be lowered to half-staff Friday in Dingell’s honor.


“Today, the great state of Michigan said farewell to one of our greatest leaders,” Whitmer said.  “We are a stronger, safer, healthier nation because of Congressman Dingell’s 59 years of service, and his work will continue to improve the lives of Michiganders for generations to come.”
Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, said Dingell understood the connection Michiganians have to manufacturing, agriculture, to the land and the Great Lakes.


“Congressman John Dingell — the Dean of the House and my dear friend — was not merely a witness to history. He was a maker of it,” Stabenow said.


“His original family name, translated into Polish, meant ‘blacksmith.’ Nothing could be more fitting for a man who hammered out our nation’s laws, forging a stronger union that could weather the challenges of the future. John Dingell loved Michigan.”


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, called Dingell “a beloved pillar of the Congress and one of the greatest legislators in American history.”  


“John Dingell leaves a towering legacy of unshakable strength, boundless energy and transformative leadership,” Pelosi said. 

“Chairman Dingell was our distinguished Dean and Chairman, our legendary colleague and a beloved friend. His memory will stand as an inspiration to all who worked with him or had the pleasure of knowing him. His leadership will endure in the lives of the millions of American families he touched.”


Detroit News Publisher and Editor Jon Wolman said Dingell “was public service personified, a giant personality whose political ingenuity lasted until his final breath, or should I say his final tweet.” 

“I never knew a better legislator or a stronger voice,” added Wolman, who knew Dingell from their time together in Washington and Detroit.

I think if there were more democrats like Dingell, I’d be tempted to vote for them. Sadly, those days are gone for good. 🙁

Others:
Washington Post, Axios, BuzzFeed News, Political Wire, WTKR-TV, Michigan Advance, Mediaite, KTLA, Washington Times, KDFW, The Atlantic, Raw Story, The Daily Caller, The Week, Balloon Juice and CNN