Swiftboating Trump: Khan gambit against Trump at the Democratic Convention
The term swiftboating is used to describe an unfair or untrue political attack. The term is derived
from the name of the organization "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" (SBVT, later the Swift Vets and POWs
for Truth) because of their widely publicized — and later discredited — campaign against 2004 US presidential
candidate John Kerry.
Love of freedom? Love of cash? Grieving Parent? How about all three? Neutral observer?
That’s a harder sell.
"Terrible things we expect from Donald Trump,
we've actually already seen from Hillary Clinton,"
~ Jill Stein
Decency requires consistency. Was this not the crowd
that, two weeks ago, was condemning the Republican's
cynical exploitation of grief by showcasing grieving mothers?
If you want to be outraged by this behavior, fine,
but I expect you to find it contemptible
when both republicans and democrats do it.
I suspect the reason that neocons hate Trump is not because he is a dangerous
maniac, but became he isn't the precise type of dangerous maniac they prefer. He shows contempt for
the establishment idiots that favored the Iraq War, not that Trump opposed it himself. That by
itself would be unforgivable for them.
~ Donald
If you look closer at what's being said by the Democratic camp, including by no less than Obama himself,
it looks like Kahn gambit -- a prepared, scripted swift boating of Trump -- was used as a
counterattack on DNC emails leak:
switfboating Bernie Sanders and blaming Vladimir Putin. Neoliberal MSM are playing a
collective Joseph McCarthy at the moment, questioning patriotism of anybody who represent an
obstacle of crowning Hillary Clinton in November. MSNBC is especially toxic, but CNN and ABC are
close in denouncing Trump and claiming that Trump reaction to the a prepared immigration lawyer
attack, in which he claimed that death of his son in Iraq war years 12 ago invalidates
Trump stance toward Muslim immigration, and automatically make Trump unsuitable for the position of
POTUS. No more, no less. Looks at the absurdity of the this propaganda campaign: what
"single issue" attitude can tell about suitability of particular person for the position on POTUS.
At the same time, in case of Hillary, three more important issues does not have any weight for
neoliberal MSM: "private
mail server scandal," "Clinton cash
scandal," and very serious
health problems facing Hillary (including possible onset of dementia or Parkinson disease). The next stage was accusing Trump of collusion with Putin
and telling amusing lies along the way ( I wonder when they discover the connection of Melania
and Putin). And not only Trump is unsuitable to be the president. Trump supporters in the eyes of
neoliberal MSM are unsuitable to be citizens of the country. A prominent neoliberal Krugman has summarily denounced the whole white Christian "tribe"
as "unpatriotic".
I would take
Khizr Khan's speech at the DNC more seriously, if he had also taken the courageous stance of calling
out Hillary Clinton as a bloodthirsty neoliberal warmonger in the manner of Cindy Sheehan. By
Nuremberg tribunal standards of justice Hillary would be classified as war criminal for "crimes
against peace" -- her role in unleashing
Libya war and
Syria bloodbath.
The Allies eventually established the laws and procedures for the Nuremberg trials with the
London Charter of the International Military Tribunal (IMT), issued on August 8, 1945. Among
other things, the charter defined three categories of crimes: crimes against peace (including
planning, preparing, starting or waging wars of aggression or wars in violation of international
agreements), war crimes (including violations of customs or laws of war, including improper
treatment of civilians and prisoners of war) and crimes against humanity (including murder,
enslavement or deportation of civilians or persecution on political, religious or racial
grounds). It was determined that civilian officials as well as military officers could be
accused of war crimes.
Hillary's
vote for the Iraqi invasion is more relevant in a sense of the direct cause-and-effect line of
Khan's son's death than any
actions by Trump. To chastise one candidate
on trump-up charges omitting real and undeniable sins of the other candidate (Hillary) is an
action lacking any trace of nobility or decency. Political trap -- in this case
swift boating. The latter is a preplanned unjustified attack instantly amplified
into national tragedy proportion by neoliberal presstitutes in major MSM.
Despite all efforts by the media to distort Trump's position about "banning" Muslims, he
has made perfectly clear time and again that he does not want to ban all Muslims. He wants to
simply perform thorough and complete background checks on all immigrants coming from countries
presently in the grips of violent Islamic terrorism.
...So, why would Khizr Khan choose to insert himself into politics and demean his son's
sacrifice by lying at a political convention on national television? The answer is simple: He
allowed himself to be tricked into it. And the Clinton campaign was all too eager to take
advantage of him and his family and Capt. Khan and use them for their own political partisan
purposes.
...Politicians like Hillary Clinton do not see people like Capt. Humayun Khan as a soldier who
made the ultimate sacrifice on a foreign battlefield in defense of his country. Politicians like
Hillary Clinton see him only a demographic, a dispensable political pawn to be scooted around an
electoral map, the way generals used to move armies across giant maps of the lands they were
invading.
To her, Capt. Khan is not a just soldier who died defending his country in a foreign land.
First and foremost, to her, he is a Muslim of Pakistani heritage and therefore is a perfect
political pawn for just the right situation.
For just about every American alive, Capt. Khan is an inspiring and unifying figure. To
Hillary Clinton, he is a tool to be used to divide people. In her false promise of unifying
America, she creates a national political Babylon. Her avaricious greed for more and more power
knows no bounds.
While all the grieving parents deserve sympathy, the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) network evening
and morning shows seemed to only care about the parents that showed up at the Democratic
Convention. Khizr Khan and his wife Ghazla's DNC appearance earned 55 minutes, 13 seconds of Big
Three network coverage, nearly 50 times more than Pat Smith, whose RNC speech honoring her son
earned just 70 seconds of airtime.
In the days (July 19 to August 1) that followed Smith's indictment of Clinton from the RNC
podium, CBS (3 seconds) ABC (13 seconds) and NBC (54 seconds) gave her speech a total of just
70 seconds of coverage.
In the four days (July 29 to August 1) following Khizr Khan and his wife Ghazala's speech
NBC (31 minutes, 39 seconds), offered the most amount of time followed by ABC (14 minutes, 21
seconds) and then CBS (9 minutes, 13 seconds).
This is a textbook case of bias-by-agenda: One of these stories (the Khan story) matched the
Democratic agenda, and the partisan media couldn't push it hard enough. The other (the Smith
story) reflected poorly on the Democratic nominee, so it was barely mentioned.
Trump behaviors in this episode also does not instill too much optimism. He should realize that
this is a DNC-created trap, a diversion from DNC email leaks, as well as swiftboating style
character assassination, sooner and behave differently. With minimum preparation, he couple wipe out
the floor with this neoliberal presstitute
George Stephanopoulos. Instead he fall into the trap. Looks like his need for approval
is at a dangerous level for a presidential candidate. As neocon Krauthammer noted (political enemies
usually give the most truthful picture in such cases):
"Of course we all try to protect our own dignity and command respect," he wrote. "But Trump's
hypersensitivity and unedited, untempered Pavlovian responses are, shall we say, unusual in both
ferocity and predictability."
What we now call
"Khan Gambit" is just a part of a larger campaign of demonization of Trump. Other parts of this
neoliberal MSM demonization process include:
The "revolt of diplomats" gambit. On March 3, 2016 neocons
staged 40 "national security leaders" (read dyed-in-the-wool neocons)
open letter against Trump.
Trump is 'fundamentally dishonest,' say GOP national security leaders in open letter - The
Washington Post.
This panic at neocons Jurassic park
is pretty telling. Among 40 neocons who signed the letter we see only few diplomats. The list
mostly composed of second rate "security establishment/foreign policy" players. There are some
exceptions -- recognizable names -- such as Robert B. Zoellick (the eleventh
president of the
World Bank),
Ken_Adelman (former
deputy U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations),
Robert Kagan (Counselor of the State
Department appointed by Hillary Clinton, co-founder of PNAC),
Eliot A. Cohen (Counselor of the State
Department appointed by Rice), Daniel Pipes
(famous Israeli lobbyist)
Michael Chertoff (the second
United States Secretary of Homeland Security under Presidents
George W. Bush,
co-author of the USA
PATRIOT Act), and Dov S. Zakheim (Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Planning and Resources
from 1985 to 1987). The major neocon players in George W Bush
administration such as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle,
Douglas Feith, Lewis "Scooter" Libby,
Elliott Abrams are not in the list. "The letter comes just days
after Michael Hayden, the former head of the Central Intelligence Agency and the
National Security Agency, said
the U.S. military might disobey orders if Trump becomes president. "
We know that such letters are a standard part of "color revolutions"
(including but not limited to Libya, Ukraine(The
Revolt of diplomats) and Syria ), but in this case this trick was used preemptively against
a leading candidate from Republican party. It was followed by Khan gambit.
"Revolt of diplomats" from the perspective of propaganda is a very powerful weapon in the Arsenal of
"soft coups". It can, if you want to ask Leonid Kuchma, that could confirm "the Colonel
Kaddafi", and Mr. Yanukovich. But in order for bomb to explode more powerfully you need that
the revolt of diplomats was (as in the era of Orange Revolution, in Libya and in Syria) is
involve the diplomats of the highest
rank, preferably the level of acting heads of diplomatic missions. In this case it produces an avalanche
style affect de-legitimizing the current government. and then can serve as a starting point
for the further de-legitimization.
Looks like US neocons now use the color revolution playbook against Trump. This is
a technique of "soft
coup".
"Waving the flag attacks". Typically they are switfboat style attacks.
This is what this page is about. Khan gambit opened Trump military record to investigation
and blackmailing by neoliberal MSM. It also facilitated the attacks design to put a verge
between Trump and military voters.
Creating a false image of Trump as a fascist authoritarian (with the goal of blocking
voting for Trump of Sanders supporters after Sanders betrayal
of his political platform)
Fanning anti-Russian hysteria and accusing Trump of connections to Putin (Putin stooge
gambit). This is a
typical cold war trick that works very well because of demonization of Putin in neoliberal MSM.
Neocons, as former Trotskyites, were the propagandist warriors of Cold War and are very skilled
in below the belt blows of this kind (searching for "communists under each bed"). As
such this can be viewed as a variation of McCarthy-style attacks -- a witch hunt for Putin
supporters within Trump close cycle of advisors. Anti-Russian and pro-Israel stance is a part of neoconservative ideology (and is shared by
a large part of Washington elite), so for neocons (and neoliberal MSM) this type of attacks are
as a natural as breathing. McCarthyism
painted liberals as soft on Communism, now neocon paint opponents of Warmonger Hillary, as soft on Putin.
When in reality the main danger is not softness, but the danger of nuclear confrontation with
Russia. Neocon demagogues, such as Robert Kagan managed simultaneously accuse Trump of being Putin stooge
and a fascist. It is well known that chickenhawks are rabidly jingoistic, so this theme
also is played as a part of "waving the flag attacks" such as
Swiftboating Trump: Khan gambit against
Trump at the Democratic Convention
Projecting on Trump accusations of racism ( a variant of
Gaslighting)
with the goal of eliminating Trump voters among minorities. In reality Bill Clinton, as a staunch
neoliberal, initiated the largest program of incarceration of black men in history.
He also substantially cut federal support to poor families.
Creating an image of Trump as an unstable maniac who can't be trusted with important
assignments, such as control of nuclear button (and forgetting that Obama is
a
former cocaine addict and marijuana user, who might not completely abandon this habit in the
White house). This one proved to be dangerous play for neoliberal MSM, as it open Hillary to
similar attacks due to her failing health.
Denigration Trump personality by constantly using in coverage of Trump-related events
such epithets as "crazy, reckless, ignorant, unqualified, unhinged lunatic, nuclear weapons
trigger happy, narcissist, xenophobe, anti-Muslim, misogynist,
buffoon"
Obama behavior in Singapore was especially
disgusting. He allowed himself to bash Trump in Singapore on trumped up by DNC charges which is a clear
violation of diplomatic etiquette:
"I don't doubt their sincerity. I don't doubt they were outraged by some of the statements that
Mr. Trump and his supporters made about the Khan family," Obama said, speaking of Republican leaders,
a number of whom
spoke out against Trump's remarks about the Khan family. "But there has to come a point in which
you say, 'Somebody who makes those kinds of statements doesn't have the judgment, the temperament,
the understanding to occupy the most powerful position in the world.'"
The most humiliating aspect of "Khan gambit" is how easily Trump was lured into this trap (essentially
Swiftboating): looks like he organically is
unable not to reply on false accusations, no matter how unfounded they are. At the same time understanding
that Trump was lured into a trap should not be used for promoting xenophobia.
The idea of swiftboating is very simple: negative information repeated many times by MSM sticks
in viewer minds
and creates doubts in the candidate attacked. If the race is close that's enough. Swiftboating Kerry
proved that such attacks produce the necessary
effect even if later is discovered that they are completely false. It's just to late to undo
the damage. Essentially the control over the major MSM is close to controlling the results of
the elections. From Wikipedia
Since the political
smear campaign[2][5][6][7][8]
that the group conducted against Kerry, the term has come into common use to refer to a harsh attack
by a political opponent that is dishonest, personal, and unfair.[9][10]
The Swift Boat Veterans and media pundits objected to this use of the term to define a smear campaign.[11][12]
Now we can tell with almost 100% certainty that Khan gambit was pre-planned by DNC as two stage swift boating
style attack on Trump, similar to one of Kerry:
Opening Trump military record to close scrutiny. Questionable claim that death of his son that occurred eleven years ago somehow discredit the proposed by Trump measures directed
on protecting the country from inflow of radical Islam extremists. The death of his son is a
result of Bush illegal invasion of Iraq (supported by Hillary). The key idea here is to open Trump military record
to a review and make it a liability. Opening
Trump military record to close scrutiny by a pack of wolfs from neoliberal press was the key idea of the gambit.
Promoting bloodthirsty warmonger Hillary using the hysterical campaign in neoliberal MSM based on post-9/11 knee-jerk militarism.
Now DemoRats (Clinton neoliberal rats, betraying solidarity with countrymen in economic space,
are rational, selfish and mean),
the "neoliberal" party whose sitting incumbent two-term president captured the White House by running
against the Iraq war, demands that everyone fall to their knees in order to pay homage to Hilary
"competence" in unleashing wars of neoliberal conquest in Middle East and to the "good
Muslims" - those sent to Middle East to kill bad ones. That is a perfect example of
predatory "solidarity" play. Hillary is looking for dupes to support her - for people
(with gentle encouragement from neoliberal MSM) to jump in saying "Trump is hostile to the US
veterans"
The subsequent neoliberal MSM witch hunt was an important part of the Khan gambit and should be viewed
exclusively in general context of the efforts to demonize and discredit Trump. It was clear this swift boating attack
was performed on behave of Hillary Clinton handlers (Hillary Clinton in her current health
state is just a figurehead, a patsy of the forces that defend neoliberal globalization, which include
Bill Clinton and Wall Street banks). They even used Obama, who forgot about the danger of throwing
stones in a glass house (Obama is a self-confessed
former cocaine
addict who might well be on high during
Benghazi incident and during his Olympics'
interview). Americans did elect a former cocaine addict in 2008 and then in 2012. So why not
Trump? Still Obama risked opening this can of worms by blabbing about the
preparation to the position of POTUS. In reality former addict is never the best choice but look how
skillfully this issue (trusting the former cocaine addict a nuclear button) was hashed by neoliberal
press (Obama's
Cocaine Confessional Won't 'Blow' His Chances - ABC News):
At the moment, Republican strategists and Clinton loyalists share a common dream, an identical
yearning and an increasingly forlorn hope: wishing with prayerful fervor for some revelation or scandal
or personal weakness that will block Barack Obama's candidacy for president.
In that context, The Washington Post raises the pre-emptive question of the senator's direct confession
(in his intimate memoir, "Dreams of My Father") that he used cocaine and marijuana in high school
and college.
Much to the disappointment of his rivals in both parties, these disclosures stand no chance of
derailing his potential campaign and may end up adding to Obama's unconventional appeal.
First of all, Obama is hardly the first prominent politician to acknowledge youthful indiscretions
involving illegal drugs. Fourteen years ago, Bill Clinton easily survived his discussions of smoking
marijuana, and drew far more criticism for his dodgy, weasel-words regarding his experience ("I smoked,
but I didn't inhale") than for his one-time exposure to the demon weed.
Al Gore also admitted to dope indulgence (and reportedly became a heavy user at Harvard, which may
help explain the spectacularly weird workings of his mind) as did Newt Gingrich and John Kerry. George
W. Bush refused to share specifics of his own drug experience beyond a general acknowledgment of
a rowdy youth ("when I was young and stupid, I was young and stupid"). Still, he did little to contradict
ubiquitous reports of his consumption of booze, marijuana and even cocaine.
The utter hysteria about Trump in neoliberal MSM like NYT is very illuminating. From comments in
discussion of Crooked Timber:
The NYT argues that some truths needed to be sacrificed for the greater good of keeping the
candidate 'we' don't like out of office.
... ... ...
Democrats waving the bloody shirt and suddenly discovering the purity of gold-star families is
very much on-topic. As is the bias of the press. Romney was deemed entirely unfit to be president
in precisely the same way as the current candidate is. Romney's great crime? Laughing about
killing people? Nope. Invading nations, or abusing national security? Uh-uh. Strapping the family
dog to the roof of his car.
Because when weighing the big issues in American presidential elections: Pets Lives Matter!!
Lanny Davis, longtime Clinton ally and DNC hack, explaining in great detail ( on Fox no less)
why the Romney dog story makes the Republican candidate (is a Mormon the same as an atheist,
Debbie?) unfit for the office of the President.
foxnews.com
...I have said that I could never vote for her because of Iraq. It was a political
calculation for her. Never bought the bullshit about 'if I knew then…' Yeah sure bitch. Then,
I was swayed by the lesser evil argument telling me not be an idealist asshole. Buy, now comes
the Kissinger wet kiss, and the Negroponte handjob, now the Clinton campaign is
seen in the hacked emails she wants to go easy on down ballot republicans.
Letting them off the hook for creating the conditions for Trump to emerge. This
is the last straw for me. Fuck her, I will not vote for her.
For those of you so afraid of Trump that you will hold your nose at the polls,
I have only one thing to say.
Y'all a bunch a sniveling fearful pussies. We survived a bloody civil war. We
survived WW2. We survived the Soviets. Was it over when the Japan bombed
Pearl Harbor? No. And it ain't over now. Yes it will be a bad 4 years. It will
be an embarrassment. But Trump is a childish half-educated buffoon. Do you
really think the JCS will hand him the nuke codes and launch on his order? I
don't.
So suck it up and get rid of Clinton and her destructive new democrats for
good.
It goes without saying the neoliberal MSM are organically
unable to turning a critical lens on the presidential candidate who supported the war that killed Khan's
son. They really feel the danger to neoliberal globalization from Trump and at this point "gloves comes
off" -- the neoliberal media is outperforming anything envisioned by Orwell. It brazenly lies,
censors the truth and spins every fact, still pretending to be objective, independent and balanced.
"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. -1984". And the "permanent war for
permanent peace" that Hillary and other neoliberal interventionists advocate is the only viable path
forward fro the nation. Bacevich discussed this issue of dominance of "New American
Militarism" at length in his books, articles and speeches. See also in depth analysis
of this issue by Ted Rall in his brilliant (simply brilliant !) article
Khizr Khan and The Triumph of Democratic Militarism(UNZ Review, Aug 2, 2016). Here are
some relevant quotes:
"... A week ago corporate media gatekeepers managed to transform the Democratic National Committee
internal emails released by WikiLeaks from what it really was – scandalous proof that Bernie Sanders
and his supporters were right when they said the Democratic leadership was biased and had rigged the
primaries against them ..."
"... Hillary's vote for an illegal war of choice that was sold with lies, was a major contributing
factor to the death of Captain Khan, thousands of his comrades, and over a million Iraqis. Iraq should
be a major issue in this campaign - against her. ..."
"... Instead, it's being used by his parents and the Democratic Party to bait Donald Trump into
a retro-post-9/11 "Support Our Troops" militaristic trap. Khan, you see, was " defending his country
." ..."
"... (How anyone can say U.S. soldiers in Iraq, part of an invasion force thousands of miles away
where no one threatens the United States, are "defending" the U.S. remains a long-running linguistic
mystery.) ..."
"... "Hillary Clinton was right when she called my son 'the best of America,'" Khizr Khan told the
convention. Unfortunately, the moniker can't apply to once-and-possible-future-first-daughter Chelsea
Clinton, who never considered a military career before collecting $600,000 a year from NBC News for
essentially a no-show job. But anyway… ..."
"... "If it was up to Donald Trump, he never would have been in America," Khizr Khan continued.
The cognitive dissonance makes my head spin. ..."
"... "Let me ask you: Have you even read the U.S. Constitution?" asked Khizr, who is originally
from Pakistan ..."
"... A good question. While we're at it, however, where does it say in the U.S. Constitution that
the president can send troops overseas for years at a time without a formal congressional declaration
of war? Where does it say that the United States can attack foreign countries that have done it no harm
and have never threatened it? ..."
"... As you'd expect Trump, he of little impulse control, has handled this about as poorly as possible.
Asked about Khizr Khan's remark that Trump hasn't made any sacrifices, he idiotically attempted to compare
his business dealings with the death of a son. Still, you have to grudgingly admire Trump for fighting
back against a guy you are officially not allowed to say anything mean about. ..."
"... Democrats have successfully appropriated images of patriotism and "optimism" – scare quotes
because this is not the kind of actual optimism in which you think things are going to actually get
better, but the bizarro variety in which you accept that things will really never get better so you'd
might as well accept the status quo – from the Republicans. This is part of Hillary Clinton's strategy
of taking liberal Democrats for granted while trying to seduce Republicans away from Trump. ..."
"... The Khan episode marks a high water mark for post-9/11 knee-jerk militarism. Even the "liberal"
party whose sitting incumbent two-term president captured the White House by running against the Iraq
war demands that everyone fall to their knees in order to pay homage to the "good" Muslims - those willing
to go to the Middle East to kill bad ones. ..."
"... Next time you see a panel of experts discussing a foreign crisis, pay attention: does anyone
argue against intervention? No. The debate is always between going in light and going in hard: bombs,
or "boots on the ground." Not getting involved is never an option. As long as this militaristic approach
to the world continues, the United States will never have enough money to take care of its problems
here at home, and it will always be hated around the world. ..."
"... Most Americans believe the Iraq war was a mistake . Who speaks for us? No one in the media.
And no one in mainstream politics. ..."
"... Trump's proposal to ban Muslims can't possibly be racist because Muslims are not a race. If
the US were to ban European devotees of a white supremacist pagan cult - such cults do exist, and the
US has every right to ban its devotees if it so chooses - nobody would bat an eye. ..."
"... The vote to authorize the war in Iraq was in 2002. Khan's DNC speech was 14 years later (and
12 years after his son was killed), not 8 years later. ..."
"... "The rest of us who makes heroes of our dead…" "Perpetuate war by exalting sacrifice…"
watch-v=reUstMn4bM8 ..."
"... "Most Americans believe the Iraq war was a mistake. Who speaks for us? No one in the media.
And no one in mainstream politics." The last sentence is incorrect. Donald Trump repeatedly said the
war was a mistake, even at times when it could have landed him in serious trouble. ..."
At the same time the mood of the majority of the US population and its attitude toward neoliberal
globalization changed. People no longer trust the neoliberal elite and neoliberal media. Obama was probably
the last "wolf is sheep cloth" who managed to "bait and switch" the US electorate. Now the slogan as
for TPP should be the same as in Spanish civil war: "¡No Pasarán!". Even on
this particular topic a talk about ABC, CNN, MSNBC
objectivity already invoke sardonic laugher from most people. They are all despicable
presstitutes, serving to their corporate masters, devoid of any trace of objectivity in their
desperate attempts to push Hillary into White House, by whatever means possible.
To compensate for this loss if influence neoliberal MSM switch to the level of real hysteria. In
way this can be viewed as a defense reaction against that danger of losing thier positions and
influence if neoliberalism is scaled back during Trump administration. And this new,
more critical mood of the 90% of US population means that it is more difficult to achieve a lasting
effect via Khan gambit as well as to continue to sell neoliberal
globalization to regular American, despite all efforts by neoliberal propaganda honchos. Because all
Khan gambit is designed for is to put Hillary in White House and preserve NAFTA, TPP,
revocation of Glass-Steagall and other cornerstones of neoliberal globalization.
Many US citizens
already developed strong allergic reaction to neoliberal MSM, much like the population of the USSR developed
allergy to communist propaganda. Declining standard of living destroys attempts of neoliberal
media to brainwash the population about the benefits of globalization outside top 10% of population
that really benefits form it. That's why neoliberal media was forced on the "war trail"
and is engaging in constant paranoid exaggeration of Trump speeches, words and twits. It is also
amplifying any attacks on Trump, as is the case with Khan speech. This is a textbook example about how
the demonization of the opponent works. But Hillary herself is living in a
glass house funded by Goldman Sachs and should be throwing no stones.
Nice example was hysterias about Melania Trump plagiarism and about Trump request (probably made
to provoke the MSM) to Putin to provide deleted by Hillary from her private "bathroom" mail server emails.
But those demolishing Trump pieces have little or no effect. And neoliberal presstitutes are getting
desperate as the realization sets in: Trump 2016!
Hillary is an establishment candidate that propose to American people "kick the can down the
road" strategy. In other words she is Obama II with the same idea of bait and switch of voters after
the elections. That means that the best chance for Hillary (with her
mounting health issues)
to win election is to avoid discussions of any real issues, that the county face. And first of all
jobs. Her main fear is that Trump would adopt the slogan: "Jobs, Jobs Jobs", sinking her
candidacy. She wants to convert the election on referendum on Trump personality and hide in the
shadow.
That means that to achieve victory she needs to demonize Trump with the help of neoliberal MSM
which are a part of her compaigh staff. Those presstitutes can be relied on to produce 24 x7 smear
campaign that creates a smoke screen thick enough to avoid discussions of any real issues facing the
county. They are powerful enough to destort and exaggerate what Trump is saying to present to voters
a caricature figure, for which no normal person can vote.
On her own she has little or no chances, as most of
Americans are tied of dynasties (with Bush II being a real disaster, that got us into Iraq war). So
neoliberal MSM are using standard demonization process template that is so successfully was against
foreign leaders (see
Demonization of Putin) that the USA neoliberal establishment does not like. This is the
root of Khan gambit designed and implemented by DNC. the same DNC that stole nomination from Bernie
Sanders by using all kind of dirty tricks and illegal media alliances. Now the are trying to do
the same with Trump. In this sense Khan is just a pawn, used and thrown out. As Khan, who was
brought to the podium by DNC strategists, he should remember this famous quote: "The Moor has done his
duty the Moor can go". (The Moors were a Muslim people who established a civilization in North
Africa and Spain between the 8th and the 15th century A.D.) Like in case with DNC leaks, the Democratic
nomenklatura is always evasive when it comes to answering uncomfortable questions and will throw him
under the bus if uncomfortable emails surface. Clinton has never been sentimental with its allies and
in the absence of vital interests or mere presence of danger were dumping them from the chess
board as unnecessary figures.
You need to be a very courageous person to fight against neocons. They already launched several below
the belt attacks on Trump. But his last was probably the most successful, if you can call swift boarding
a success.
This was 100% pure
Democratic Militarism. If it was up to Donald
Trump, the Khans sun would still be alive in the United Arab Emirates. And no Iraqis would be
killed on one of deadliest war of the beginning of this century (around one million Iranians
perished
due to the neocons inspired and Bush II approved attempt to change Middle East political map in favor
of Israel and global corporations.
This gambit started with the convention speech given by an immigration lawyer Khizr Khan. He tried
to present his son as Muslim, for some strange reason making this a defining characteristic ( as far
as I remember the USA is a secular country), while in reality it is not (he was an American first
and Muslim second). This way
he skillfully created a false narrative to attack Trump. This was noted by many commenters. See for
example a comment from
WaPo:
Michelle Ann, 7/31/2016 12:58 PM EST
The son of Mr. Khan was an AMERICAN SOLDIER -- Are the Khans American Citizens? If so why are
you calling them and their son Muslims .. Muslim is their religion. I don't here anyone be called
a Baptist Soldier was killed, His Baptist Parents are grieving.
Mr. Khan and Democrats were attacking Donald Trump with false narratives, Mr. Khan made his
son a Muslim Martyr on national television, to compare legal immigrants from middle east with
so called refugees from countries of terror who are not vetted is like apples and oranges. Khans
need to be angry with Terrorists no Mr. Trump who wants to protect all Americans even them from
the Jihadists.
This wealthy immigration lawyer tried to link the loss of his son in combat with Trump position
on restricting Muslim immigration (and restricting the flow of immigrant in general), pretending that
the fact that he was a Muslim by false (and hiding the fact that he was the US citizen and got citizenship
lawfully). The idea of DNS who manipulated this puppet was to somehow discredit Trump stance on limiting
the inflow of Muslims in the US from selected countries with radical Muslim movements (that list should
start with Saudi Arabia) or even temporary (Trump used the word temporary) use a blank prohibition
of entrance of citizens of those countries to the USA.
Here is how Khan (or more correctly Khan's handlers) attacked Trump's stand on Muslim immigration:
First, our thoughts and prayers are with our veterans and those who serve
today. Tonight, we are honored to stand here as the parents of Capt. Humayun Khan, and as patriotic
American
Muslims with undivided loyalty to our country.
Like many immigrants, we came to this country empty-handed. We believed
in American democracy -- that with hard work and the goodness of this country, we could share in
and contribute to its blessings.
We were blessed to raise our three sons in a nation where they were free
to be themselves and follow their dreams. Our son, Humayun, had dreams of being a military lawyer.
But he put those dreams aside the day he sacrificed his life to save his fellow soldiers.
Hillary Clinton was right when she called my son "the best of America." If it was up to
Donald Trump, he never would have been in America. Donald Trump consistently smears the character
of Muslims. He disrespects other minorities -- women, judges, even his own party leadership. He vows
to build walls and ban us from this country.
Donald Trump, you are asking Americans to trust you with our future. Let
me ask you: Have you even read the U.S. Constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy. In this document,
look for the words "liberty" and "equal protection of law."
Have you ever been to Arlington Cemetery? Go look at the graves of the
brave patriots who died defending America -- you will see all faiths, genders, and ethnicities.
You have sacrificed nothing and no one.
We can't solve our problems by building walls and sowing division.
We are stronger together. And we will keep getting stronger when Hillary Clinton becomes our next
president.
Swift boarding of Trump here consist of two major parts (with each opening a line of attacks on
Trump character):
"You have sacrificed nothing and no one." (opens Trump military
record to close scrutiny and unfavorable discussions, while Hillary is protected from the same
examination by her gender)
"Donald Trump consistently smears the character of Muslims. He disrespects other minorities
-- women, judges, even his own party leadership. He vows to build walls and ban us from this country.
" (opens investigation of Trump wife immigration record as well as smearing Trump not
only as Muslim hater, but also a person who disrespect the US servicemen)
The main accusation "You have sacrificed nothing and no one" is 100% pure switfboatingattack (what Hillary sacrificed, if we do not count her fall from stairs?). It really
opens Trump to a series of unpleasant revelations and bring back memories of Vietnam War. The key here
that is created the ground to investigate Trump draft history during Vietnam war. And this is
the essence of swiftboating attack.
Like it was the case with Kerry (who run against cocaine-snoring George W Bush who avoided draft
by enlisting in the National Guard) this personal smear is designed to dig the dirty laundry until
election in a hope that some dirt sticks. It relies of pretty artificial link between the death of the US citizen Army Capt. Humayun
Saqib Muazzam Khan, who was killed by suicide bomb while in Iraq (which makes him one of 14 Muslims
US servicemen killed in action
after 9/11.)
and immigration inflow to the USA and Trump proposed measures to stem immigration flow to the USA.
in reality Hillary Clinton, who voted for Iraq war should be help accountable, not Trump. But
neoliberal MSM would never allow this line of thinking. You can be sure about that.
The arguments like "You have sacrificed nothing and no one" and the claim that his
son "loved America" (implying that Trump does not by attacking immigration) are perfect starting points
for MSM demonization company were they can serve as baits to illicit response that will be played by
neoliberal media the way they want. All they need is "any response" from Trump. After that full scale
smearing campaign is launched. The heat level can be raised gradually until he is fully cooked.
The bait worked. Trump jumped into the trap.
When Mr. Khan asked the question: what have you sacrificed? he opened the door to comparisons. first
of all with Mr. Obama who is a current president, and with Mr. Clinton a former president. The comparisons
became instantly pretty legitimate as he used Democratic convention to voice this "sacrifices" theme.
By his standard nether Me. Obama or Mr. Clinton should be allowed to serve as POTUS because not only
they scarifies nothing, Clintons benefited financially from wars via foreign (including Saudi) donations
to their foundation.
In reality, as Ron Paul aptly noted Army Capt. Humayun Saqib Muazzam Khan was a victim of unlawful
and unjust Iraq war unleashed by neocons during Buss II administration (remember Paul Wolfowitz, Richard
Perle, Dick Cheney and other members of
PNAC think tank)
The Project for the New American Century (PNAC), an influential neoconservative think tank, publishes
a letter to President Clinton urging war against Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein because he
is a "hazard" to "a significant portion of the world's supply of oil." In a foretaste of what eventually
happens, the letter calls for the US to go to war alone, attacks the United Nations, and says the
US should not be "crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council." The
letter is signed by many who will later lead the 2003 Iraq war. 10 of the 18 signatories later join
the Bush Administration, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Assistant Defense Secretary
Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretaries of State Richard Armitage and Robert Zoellick, Undersecretaries
of State John Bolton and Paula Dobriansky, presidential adviser for the Middle East Elliott Abrams,
Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle, and George W. Bush's special Iraq envoy Zalmay Khalilzad.
Other signatories include William Bennett, Jeffrey Bergner, Francis Fukuyama, Robert Kagan, William
Kristol, Peter Rodman, William Schneider, Vin Weber, and James Woolsey. [Project
for the New American Century, 1/26/1998;
Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 3/16/2003;
Unger, 2007, pp. 158] Clinton does heavily bomb Iraq in late 1998, but the bombing doesn't
last long and its long term effect is the break off of United Nations weapons inspections.
[New
York Times, 3/23/2003] The PNAC neoconservatives do not seriously expect Clinton to attack
Iraq in any meaningful sense, author Craig Unger will observe in 2007. Instead, they are positioning
themselves for the future. "This was a key moment," one State Department official will recall. "The
neocons were maneuvering to put this issue in play and box Clinton in. Now, they could draw a dichotomy.
They could argue to their next candidate, 'Clinton was weak. You must be strong.'" [Unger,
2007, pp. 158]
That means that evoking his death was a low blow at Trump, skillfully designed by DNC propaganda
professionals and media honchos Stephanopoulos
like to discredit him. Khan was just a tool for delivering this pre-programmed swiftboating attack:
Democratic Party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's team invited the parents of Capt.
Humayun Khan, killed in Iraq in 2004, to speak at the convention and criticize Republican nominee
Donald Trump's policy on Muslim immigration. It was a classic trap and Trump bumbled into it.
The ensuing blow-up may have made great ratings for the media, but what is unsaid is that both
sides agreed that Khan's death was a great sacrifice for our liberties and freedoms back home in
the US. The media went along with this view. But being killed in a war started by government
and media lies does not make one a heroic sacrifice. In fact, it makes on a victim. Khan was a victim
of both Republicans and Democrats who supported the war in 2002 and he is victim again today.
As Corey Lewandowski later noted
"If Donald Trump was the president, Captain Khan would be alive today because he never would have
engaged in a war that didn't directly benefit this country. He's been very clear about that fact
and said I don't support Iraq and I don't support Afghanistan,"
Donald Trump has responded to the
emotional speech given by the father of a fallen Muslim U.S. Army soldier at the Democratic National
Convention this week.
In an interview with
ABC News' George Stephanopoulos on Saturday, Trump fired back at Khizr Khan's statement that
he has "sacrificed nothing" for his country.
"I've made a lot of sacrifices," Trump said. "I work very, very hard. I've created thousands and
thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. I've had tremendous success.
I think I've done a lot."
Khan addressed Trump directly in his
Thursday speech at the DNC, challenging the Republican presidential nominee's proposed ban on
Muslim immigrants to the U.S.
"Have you ever been to Arlington Cemetery? Go look at the graves of brave patriots who died defending
the United States of America. You will see all faiths, genders and ethnicities," Khan said. "You
have sacrificed nothing and no one."
Does Donald Trump Rattle You?
In his interview with Stephanopoulos, Trump also took a jab at Khan's wife Ghazala, who stood
silently next to her husband at the DNC as he spoke about their son Capt. Humayun Khan, who was killed
by a car bomb in Iraq in 2004 and posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star for his heroism.
"If you look at his wife, she was standing there," Trump said. "She had nothing to say. She probably,
maybe she wasn't allowed to have anything to say. You tell me."
Trump echoed this sentiment in an interview Friday with the New York Times' Maureen Dowd.
When Dowd asked him about Khan's heartfelt speech, Trump's only response was, "I'd like to hear
his wife say something."
Ghazala told MSNBC in an interview on Friday that she was too emotional to speak about her son
at the DNC, but opened up to MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell about her son's bravery.
After the neoliberal media received a carte blanche
for wiping out Trump the amount of minute spend in coverage of this non-story is staggering. They
just saturated air-waves and TV screen with it. As
Dean Speir
noted that this was a perfect a diversion from Hillary's E-mail problems and the DNC's sub
rosa usurpation of the democratic process. (The
Khan gambit succeeds...)
Here we are five days later, with the Khans now familar figures on television,
continuing to castigate Trump, calling him "an ignorant,
divisive manipulator" and saying he possessed "a
black soul."
A number of prominent Republicans were also moved to
denounce the candidate, including former Vietnam War POW/failed
2008 presidential candidate Senator John McCain
[r, az] and billionaire investor
Warren Buffett...
the latter quoting
attorney Joseph Welch's celebrated 1954 denunciation of Senator Joe McCarthy:
"Have you no sense of decency?"
Just about everyone everywhere is condemning Trump, and certainly, he walked
right into it... all credit to the Clintonistas for unerringly finding the man's
greatest vulnerability. I have to think that this was all by design...
ah, there, James Carville? How else to explain the presence of Humayun Khan's
parents in Philadelphia at the DNC Thursday night? Someone in the Clinton campaign
had to find a Muslim family who'd lost their son in one of America's wars, was
willing to aid the Hillary team, and could make the proper presentation on the
DNC's prime time stage.
But along the way certain elements of the reality of Humayun Khan's 12-year old
battlefield death were skimmed over, as became apparent.
The narrative, according to Hillary:
"After a vehicle packed with an improvised explosive device drove into the gate
of his compound while he was inspecting soldiers on guard duty, Captain Khan
told his troops to get back, but he went forward. He took 10 steps toward the
car. The car exploded, killing Humayun Khan. Because he took 10 steps forward
to check out the suspicious vehicle himself, he saved the lives of the soldiers
he supervised."
Tragic? Indisputably! The man lost...
not "gave," but lost... his life in
service to the United States. The nature of the posthumous honors are instructive
on this issue: the 27-years-old officer received the
Bronze Star and
Purple Heart. Had the death been anything out of the ordinary, had it been as
a result of a particularly heroic action on Captain Khan's part, for instance, he
would have been awarded nothing less than the
Congressional Medal of Honor. I'm confident that the whole Khan matter is a
pretty shady one, a diversion from Hillary's E-mail problems and the DNC's sub
rosa usurpation of the democratic process.
Just as Nixon's crew of scoundrels had their dirty tricksters, so too do the
Democratic powers, and Donald Trump will be their meat...
watch for it.
Look how skillfully all questionable moments of Khan speech (such as Khan connections to Clintons,
Saudi and his personal interest in immigration slow as an immigration lawyer) are avoided and all blame
was projected on Trump. This is what demonization is about. Even more stark demonstration of the
same demonization skills can be found is
George Stephanopoulos interview of
Trump aired/published on July 31, 2016
George Stephanopoulos a journalist,
political operative for the Democratic party and Clinton loyalist. According to Wikipedia "Stephanopoulos
rose to early prominence as a Communications Director for the
1992 U.S. Presidential Campaign of
Bill Clinton, subsequently
becoming
White House Communications Director, then Senior Advisor for Policy and Strategy before departing
in December 1996.[3]."
He is a member of the
Council on Foreign Relations So it is fair to say that he is a neocon (or close) and support neoliberal
globalization. Moreover:
Stephanopoulos donated $25,000 in 2012, 2013, and 2014, a total of $75,000, to the
Clinton
Foundation, but did not disclose the donations to ABC News, his employer, or to his
viewers.[26]
Stephanopoulos failed to reveal the donations even on April 26, 2015, while interviewing
Peter Schweizer,
the author of Clinton Cash,
a book which alleges that donations to the Foundation influenced some of
Hillary
Clinton's actions as Secretary of State.[26]
After exposure of the donations by Politico on May
14, 2015, Stephanopoulos apologized and admitted he should have disclosed the donations
to ABC News and its viewers.[26][27]
The story was broken by The Washington Free Beacon, which had aggressively questioned ABC News regarding
the matter.[28]
The donations had been reported by the Clinton Foundation, which Stephanopoulos had considered
sufficient, a reliance ABC News characterized as "an honest mistake."[27]
Based on Stephanopoulos' donations to The Clinton Foundation charity and his behavior
during prior interviews and presidential debates, Republican party leaders and candidates
expressed their distrust, and called for him to be banned from moderating 2016 Presidential
debates, due to bias and
conflict of interest.[28][29]
He agreed to drop out as a moderator of the scheduled
February 2016 Republican Presidential primary debate.[30]
See how skillfully he lured Trump into the trap and then started swift boating him using fake "sacrifices"
claim (what are Hillary and Clinton Family personal scarifies ? They just milk any war as hard as they
can) Here is a relevant quote from the interview transcript and how relentlessly this "sacrifices"
theme were pushed by this neoliberal pressitute (Donald
Trump ABC Interview With George Stephanopoulos…):
STEPHANOPOULOS: I don't know if you saw this speech, but there was a man named Khizr
Khan speaking at the Democratic Convention last night. His son, Captain Humayun Khan, was killed
serving in Iraq. And he had some very tough questions for you. He said you wouldn't have even let
his son in America.
TRUMP: He doesn't know. He doesn't know that. I saw him. He
was, you know, very emotional and probably looked like a nice guy to me. His wife, if you look at
his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn't allowed
to have anything to say. You tell me. But plenty of people have written that. She was extremely quiet.
And it looked like she had nothing to say. A lot of people have said that. And personally, I watched
him. I wish him the best of luck.
STEPHANOPOULOS: What would you say to that father?
TRUMP: Well, I'd say we've had a lot of problems with radical Islamic terrorism.
That's what I'd say. We have a lot of problems, where you look at San Bernardino. You look at Orlando.
You look at the World Trade Center. You look at so many different things.
You look at what happened to the priest over the weekend in Paris, where his throat was cut, 85-year-old,
beloved Catholic priest. You look at what happened in Nice, France, a couple of weeks ago. I'd say
you've got to take a look at that, because something is going on. And it's not good.
STEPHANOPOULOS: He said you have sacrificed nothing and no one.
TRUMP: Well, that sounds – who wrote that? Did Hillary's scriptwriters write
it? Because everybody that went out there, we also had John Allen who failed with ISIS. I mean, he
was a general, Allen, General Allen. He went out. And he was ranting and raving. And then I read
a report. He was in there for a number of months. And he failed with ISIS.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You saw Hillary say last night, you don't know more than the
generals.
TRUMP: Well, I'll tell you, the generals aren't doing so well right now. Now,
I have a feeling it may be Obama's fault. But if you look at ISIS…General McArthur and General Patton,
they're spinning in their graves. The generals certainly aren't doing very well right now. And General
Allen, after I saw he was on ranting and raving about me, who he never met, I checked up. Guess what.
They weren't so happy with him. He didn't beat ISIS. He didn't beat ISIS. He didn't do even well
with ISIS.
STEPHANOPOULOS: How would you answer that father? What sacrifice have you
made for your country?
TRUMP: I think I've made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard. I've created
thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. I've done, I've
had tremendous success. I think I've done a lot.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Those are sacrifices?
TRUMP: Oh, sure. I think they're sacrifices. I think when I can employ thousands
and thousands of people, take care of their education, take care of so many things, even in military.
I mean, I was very responsible, along with a group of people, for getting the Vietnam Memorial built
in downtown Manhattan, which to this day people thank me for.
I raised, and I have raised, millions of dollars for the vets. I'm helping the vets a lot. I think
my popularity with the vets is through the roof, far greater than hers. She's done nothing. All she's
done is tell everybody that the vets are in good shape. They're fine. And they're not fine. People
are waiting on line for seven days to see a doctor. She thinks it's fine.
We can argue that Donald Trump here presented himself as very weak and completely unprepared for
this frontal swift boats assault. He proved that he can't decipher pretty obvious trap and behaved like
a typical "loose cannon". George Stephanopoulos plays him like a violin extracting the necessary
sounds with ease. But behavior of George Stephanopoulos is extremely despicable. He acts as a media
hack, a media assassin who got his marching orders and need to knife the victim and then to turn
the knife in the wound.
Compare with his other interview of Trump (in 2011), were he is literally licking Trump butt, carefully
avoiding anything that can embarrass or even challenge him:
I find "Khan gambit" using Democratic convention podium to be a well prepared trap.
While the fact that Trump got into in (and this is plain vanilla swift boating, so any normal
politicians would sense the danger immediately) does not characterize him well, the shame IMHO
is on neocons who created this trap.
BTW endorsement by Whitman is nothing to be proud of. She is a regular neoliberal. So what
would you expect? That's simply silly not to expect that some/most of them will not cross the
party line. Neocons like Kagan were the first, now neoliberals follow the suit. The same is even
more true about Bloomberg (with his media empire being essentially propaganda arm of GS)
I think Trump demonstrated courage by opposing well oiled with money propaganda machine of
neocons.
In their zeal to discredit Trump some MSM became pretty disingenuous and that might have the
opposite effect, if "Khan gambit" is overplayed:
While many Republicans have rebuked Donald Trump for attacking Khizr Khan and his wife - who
lost their U.S. Army captain son, Humayun, in the war in Iraq - some of Trump's allies are rallying
to his side and, in the process, attacking Khan.
Trump's longtime ally, political consultant Roger Stone, who has a long history as a controversialist,
set the pattern on Twitter Sunday night by linking to an article that accused Khan, an immigration
lawyer from Virginia, of being an agent of the Muslim Brotherhood, an inflammatory and unproved
charge.
Here is what else you can expect to hear from some of Trump's backers as the controversy builds:
Hillary Clinton, they say, is not being called out adequately for contradicting Pat
Smith, another Gold Star mother, whose son Sean was one of the Americans killed in the
attack in 2012 on a diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. Smith blames Clinton for misrepresenting
the cause of the attack that took her son's death, and ultimately for the death itself.
Khan, they note, once worked for a law firm that represented Saudi Arabia, which has
donated to the Clinton Foundation.
They argue that because Clinton voted for the war in Iraq, she should be called to
account for the death of Humayun Khan, who died 12 years ago in a suicide bomb attack.
Trump supported the Iraq war at the time, although he now claims to have opposed it.
The Khans, some Trump supporters say, opened themselves to criticism by taking the
stage at a political event, thus politicizing their son's death.
After "Khan gambit" attack of Trump became a huge success, the analysis of the biography and business
activities of Khizr Khan started. Among other interesting things that this backlash revealed was
his connection to controversial the EB5 program (Muslim
Father Bashing Trump Sells US Citizenship " InvestmentWatch)
As Jessica Vaughan, the policy director for the Center for Immigration Studies explained it to
the Washington Examiner:
"The E-2 and EB-5 programs are two of the most notoriously abused visa categories that essentially
allow wealthy foreigners to buy their way to U.S. residency, and possibly citizenship, with a relatively
modest investment."
Vaughan calls the EB-5 program a "citizenship for sale" program:
"It's an amazing deal. Compared to other countries, America is the Walmart of investor visa programs."
According to Walid Shoebat, a former jihadist whose mother was an American, and so was educated
in Chicago. Khizr Khan is a Muslim Brotherhood agent working to bring pro-jihadi Muslims in to the
United States for the express purpose of helping construct a plan to conquer the U.S. for Islam.
"Saudi interests [are] using Khan to advance Muslim immigration and advance Muslim Sharia.… [Khan]
has ties to Hillary Clinton's aid Huma Abedin as well."
Adiebin is the wife of disgraced Congressman Anthony Weiner who resigned from Congress in 2011
due to a sexting scandal.
"It is obvious that Khan is upset, that a Trump victory will eliminate and destroy decades of
hard work to bring in Islamic immigration into the United States which was spearheaded by agents
in Saudi Arabia like Khan and Huma Abedin and family."
Less certain, but also interesting are his indirect (via his former employer) connections to Saudi
Arabia, which also was a large donor to Clinton foundation. Unfortunately I did not found statistics
of Khan clients by country, so this is more or less a rumor. Khan spent seven years, from 2000 to 2007,
in the Washington, D.C., office of then-Hogan & Hartson which was involved on lobbing interests of Saudi
Arabia. He served as the firm's manager of litigation technology. Although he did not practice
law while at Hogan, Khan was well versed in understanding the American courts system. The problem
for Khan with this connection is that his son death can be directly connected with Saudi effects to
promote Wahhabism. In other words he worked for the enemy, who killed his son. There is no question
that Saudi Arabia is closely connected with the financing of the rise of Islamic extremism in general
and suicide bombing in particular (Saudi
Arabia funds and exports Islamic extremism The truth behind the toxic U.S. relationship with the theocratic
monarchy). This connection exist since the days of Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, when Washington
in alliance with Saudi and other Persian Gulf monarchies decided to create political Islam and organized
the stream of volunteers and US weapons to fight Russians in Afghanistan (this is were Osama bin Laden
surfaced, first working for recruitment of mujahidin as Islamic extremists were called those days) as
the tool of bleeding Russians to death:
"Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating
in it." So advised world-renowned public intellectual Noam Chomsky, one of the most cited thinkers
in human history. The counsel may sound simple and intuitive - that's because it is. But when it
comes to Saudi Arabia, the U.S. ignores it. Saudi Arabia is the world's leading sponsor of Islamic
extremism. It is also a close U.S. ally.
... ... ...
Saudi Arabia is a theocratic absolute monarchy that governs based on an extreme interpretation
of Sharia (Islamic law). It is so extreme, it has been widely compared to ISIS. Algerian journalist
Kamel Daoud characterized Saudi Arabia in an
op-ed in The New York Times as "an ISIS that has made it."
"Black Daesh, white Daesh," Daoud wrote, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS. "The former slits
throats, kills, stones, cuts off hands, destroys humanity's common heritage and despises archaeology,
women and non-Muslims. The latter is better dressed and neater but does the same things. The Islamic
State; Saudi Arabia."
"In its struggle against terrorism, the West wages war on one, but shakes hands with the other,"
Daoud continued. "This is a mechanism of denial, and denial has a price: preserving the famous strategic
alliance with Saudi Arabia at the risk of forgetting that the kingdom also relies on an alliance
with a religious clergy that produces, legitimizes, spreads, preaches and defends Wahhabism, the
ultra-puritanical form of Islam that Daesh feeds on."
Later
Breitbart
added to this picture the fact that Khan well-being is deeply dependent on the scope of Muslim migration:
... the Khans are financially and legally tied deeply to the industry of Muslim migration–and
to the government of Saudi Arabia and to the Clintons themselves.
Khan,
according to
Intelius as
also reported by Walid Shoebat, used to work at the law firm Hogan Lovells, LLP, a major D.C.
law firm that has been on retainer as the law firm representing the government of Saudi Arabia in
the United States for years. Citing federal government disclosure forms, the Washington Free Beacon
reported the connection between Saudi Arabia and Hogan Lovells a couple weeks ago.
"Hogan Lovells LLP, another U.S. firm hired by the Saudis, is registered to work for the Royal
Embassy of Saudi Arabia through 2016, disclosures show," Joe Schoffstall of the Free Beacon
reported.
The federal
form filed with the Department of Justice is a requirement under the Foreign Agents Registration
Act of 1938, which makes lobbyists and lawyers working on behalf of foreign governments and other
agents from abroad with interests in the United States register with the federal government.
The government of Saudi Arabia, of course, has donated heavily to the Clinton Foundation.
"The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has given between $10 and $25 million to the foundation while Friends
of Saudi Arabia has contributed between $1 and $5 million," Schoffstall wrote.
Trump, of course, has called on Hillary Clinton to have the Clinton Foundation return the
money.
"Saudi Arabia and many of the countries that gave vast amounts of money to the Clinton Foundation
want women as slaves and to kill gays," Trump wrote in a Facebook post back in June,
according
to Politico. "Hillary must return all money from such countries!"
"Crooked Hillary says we must call on Saudi Arabia and other countries to stop funding hate,"
Trump posted in a separate Facebook posting at the time. "I am calling on her to immediately return
the $25 million plus she got from them for the Clinton Foundation!"
Of course, to this day, Hillary Clinton and her Clinton Foundation has kept the money from the
Saudi Arabian government.
Schoffstall's piece in the Washington Free Beacon also notes how Hogan Lovells lobbyist Robert
Kyle,
per Federal Election Commission (FEC) records, has bundled more than $50,000 in donations for
Clinton's campaign this year.
"Many lawyers at Hogan Lovells remember the week in 2004 when U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan lost
his life to a suicide bomber," Polantz wrote. "Then-Hogan & Hartson attorneys mourned the death because
the soldier's father, Khizr Khan, a Muslim American immigrant, was among their beloved colleagues."
Polantz wrote that Khan worked at the mega-D.C. law firm for years.
"Khan spent seven years, from 2000 to 2007, in the Washington, D.C., office of then-Hogan & Hartson,"
Polantz wrote. "He served as the firm's manager of litigation technology. Although he did not practice
law while at Hogan, Khan was well versed in understanding the American courts system. On Thursday
night, he described his late son dreaming of becoming a military lawyer."
But representing the Clinton Foundation backing Saudi Arabian government and having one of its
lobbyists bundle $50,000-plus for Clinton's campaign are hardly the only places where the Khan-connected
Hogan Lovells D.C. mega-firm brush elbows with Clinton Cash.
The firm also handles Hillary Clinton's taxes and is deeply connected with the email scandal whereby
when she was Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton set up a home-brew email server system that jeopardized
classified information handling and was "extremely careless" according to FBI director James Comey.
"A lawyer at Hogan & Hartson [Howard Topaz] has been Bill and Hillary Clinton's go-to guy for
tax advice since 2004, according to documents released Friday by Hillary Clinton's campaign," The
American Lawyer's Nate Raymond
wrote in 2008, as Hillary Clinton ran for president that year. "The Clintons' tax returns for
2000-07 show combined earnings of $109 million, on which they paid $33 million in taxes. New York-based
tax partner Howard Topaz has a broad tax practice, and also regularly advises corporations on M&A
and executive compensation."
"Topaz was a partner at Hogan & Hartson, which later merged to become known as Hogan Lovells,
where Topaz continues to practice. The firm's lawyers were major donors to Hillary Clinton's first
presidential campaign," Howley wrote.
For her private email system, Clinton used a spam filtering program MX Logic.
"Hogan & Hartson handled the patent for MX Logic's email-filtering program, which McAfee bought
the small company for $140 million in 2009 in order to acquire," Howley wrote. "The MX Logic company's
application for a trademark for its SPAMTRAQ program was filed in 2004 on Hogan & Hartson stationery
and signed by a Hogan & Hartson attorney. Hogan & Hartson has been responsible for MX Logic annual
reports. The email company's Clinton links present more evidence that Clinton's political and legal
establishment was monitoring her private email use."
If that all isn't enough, that same Hogan & Hartson law firm-now Hogan Lovells-employed Loretta
Lynch, the current Attorney General of the United States. Lynch infamously just a few weeks ago met
with Bill Clinton, Hillary's husband and the former president, on her private jet in Phoenix just
before clearing Hillary Clinton of any wrongdoing when it came to her illicit private email server
system.
Khizr Khan specialization in immigration law does not make him an objective observer of Trump. That's
why Khizr Khan deleted his law firm website which was devoted to immigration (http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidenti...migration/)
Sen. Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the U.S. Senate's Judiciary Committee, has detailed how the
EB5 immigration program is "riddled with flaws and corruption."
"Maybe it is only here on Capitol Hill-on this island surrounded by reality-that we can choose
to plug our ears and refuse to listen to commonly accepted facts," Grassley
said in a statement earlier this year. "The Government Accountability Office, the media, industry
experts, members of congress, and federal agency officials, have concurred that the program is a
serious problem with serious vulnerabilities. Allow me to mention a few of the flaws."
From there, Sen. Grassley listed out several of the "flaws" with the EB5 immigration program that
Khan works in:
Investments can be spent before business plans are approved.
Regional Center operators can charge exorbitant fees of foreign nationals in addition to their
required investments.
Jobs created are not "direct" or verifiable jobs but rather are "indirect" and based on estimates
and economic modeling.
Jobs created by U.S. investors are counted by the foreign national when obtaining a green
card, even if EB-5 money is only a fraction of the total invested.
Investment funds are not adequately vetted.
Gifts and loans are acceptable sources of funds from foreign nationals.
The investment level has been stagnant for nearly 25 years.
There's no prohibition against foreign governments owning or operating regional centers or
projects.
Regional centers can be rented or sold without government oversight or approval.
Regional centers don't have to certify that they comply with securities laws.
There's no oversight of promoters who work overseas for the regional centers.
There's no set of sanctions for violations, no recourse for bad actors.
There are no required background checks on anyone associated with a regional center.
Regional centers draw Targeted Employment Area boundaries around poor areas in order to come
in at a lower investment level, yet the jobs created are not actually created in those areas.
Every Targeted Employment Area designation is rubberstamped by the agency.
Adjudicators are pressured to get to a yes, especially for those politically connected.
Visas are not properly scrutinized.
Visas are pushed through despite security warnings.
Files and applications lack basic and necessary information to monitor compliance.
The agency does not do site visits for each and every project.
There's no transparency on how funds are spent, who is paid, and what investors are told about
the projects they invest in.
That's not to mention the fact that, according to Sen. Grassley, there have been serious national
security violations in connection with the EB5 program that Khan works in and around already. In
fact, the program - according to Grassley - was used by Middle Eastern operatives from Iran to attempt
to illicitly enter the United States.
"There are also classified reports that detail the national security, fraud and abuse. Our committee
has received numerous briefings and classified documents to show this side of the story," Grassley
said in the early February 2016 statement. "The enforcement arm of the Department of Homeland Security
wrote an internal memo that raises significant concerns about the program. One section of the memo
outlines concerns that it could be used by Iranian operatives to infiltrate the United States. The
memo identifies seven main areas of program vulnerability, including the export of sensitive technology,
economic espionage, use by foreign government agents and terrorists, investment fraud, illicit finance
and money laundering."
Maybe all of this is why–as Breitbart News has previously noted–the Democratic National Convention
made absolutely no mention of the Clinton Foundation or Clinton Global Initiative. Hillary Clinton's
coronation ceremony spent exactly zero minutes of the four nights of official DNC programming talking
about anything to do with perhaps one of the biggest parts of her biography.
This is an interesting take from a lover of Sharia Law, which make for good
anti-Trump sound bytes, but I don't believe he has read the Constitution, or if he has read he
understood what he read. The Constitution repudiates presidential wars: they
impoverish the people and undermine the rule of law (No
Presidential Wars). In this sense Iraq war in which his son was killed was
illegal, and Bush II is a war criminal. Trump should have make the Constitution's approach to
foreign policy the battleground of the campaign. If Khan read the US Constitution, then he should not accept
neither Hillary not Obama with their policies
toward Muslim nations so successfully implemented in Libya, Syria and Yemen: "Muslims are peaceful!
Let's bomb them to stone age". Also the US constitution contains an important
idea of wellbeing of the nation, the idea that "New Democrats" (aka DemoRats) betrayed (and Bill
Clinton got his 20 silver coins for his betrayal from Wall Street; Obama in in the line). In this sense anybody who read
Constitution, should avoid speaking at DemoRats Congress ;-)
So in you read Constitution attentively, any neoliberal politician (such as Hillary, or Bill, or
Obama) should be considered as a traitor of its spirit, if not a letter: they discarded the US constitution
ideal of nation wellbeing in order to to serve his/her Wall Street friends at the expense on 90% of Americans.
The theme "Have you even read the US Constitution?" also touches several important issues such as
whether Bush has legal right to go to war with Iraq. Did he committed a war crime by Nuremberg
standards? Is killing so many "brown people" in Iraq constitutional, because
this definitely was a war of aggression, not a war of self-defense. And by Nuremberg standards
any was of aggression is a war crime.
Is the current two party "winner takes all" system
constitutional or the USA should convert to parliamentary democracy? Is the USA still a
democracy or it shifted into inverted totalitarism state and election server the only purpose of
legitimization of candidates which "deep state" selected and approved:
Glenn 08.02.16 at 3:26
pm
Khizr Khan's sound bite makes for good free political advertising, following the lead of
Trump himself, but I don't believe he has read the Constitution, or if he has read it he
didn't understand it.
That should not trouble him overly much; Obama taught constitutional law and a generation
of his students will not understand that only Congress can declare war.
... ... ...
The conditions that produced and enabled Trump are the Democratic Party policies in its
fake posture as an opposition party serving the interests of working people. A vote for
Hillary is a vote for more of the same-increasing disparity in wealth and income.
To quote from "The Big Short", which the Clintons played no small part in bringing about by
the repeal of Glass-Steagall and passing NAFTA: "Truth is like poetry. And most people fucking
hate poetry."
The Democratic Party is bully enough to shut me and my chosen candidates down; and I don't
like Trump, but I really like it when I see him kicking some lying elitist Democratic Party
ass.
I want to see if Democrats have it in them to stop being weasels.
Glenn 08.02.16 at 4:23 pm
Consider then the partisan nature of worthiness determined by Democrats in their
vilification of Cindy Sheehan for daring to effect a change in the system that murdered her
son, whose death was more recent, the same sorrow that Khizr Khan now deals with from a
position of ignorance so common to Democrats, but so much more worthy of respect when the
sorrow strikes out in their political favor, unlike with Cindy Sheehan, who struck out in
opposition to the Democratic Party in electorally challenging Nancy Pelosi.
bruce wilder 08.02.16 at 8:02 pm
I think the U.S. Party system, in the political science sense, shifted to a new state
during George W Bush's administration as, in Kevin Phillip's terms the Republican Party was
taken over by Theocrats and Bad Money.
Glenn 08.02.16 at 9:43 pm
Layman 08.02.16 at 7:40 pm
Of course it is always more insensitive to challenge the political opinion of one who is
publicly mourning the death of a loved one than it is to have actually taken that loved one's
life.
Excuse my inexperience with American sensibilities and customs.
kidneystones 08.02.16 at 9:57 pm
It's absolutely not about the money.
Pocket Constitution waving grieving father at DNC denouncing temporary ban on Muslim
immigration coincidentally runs 'pay-to-play' US immigration visa procurement business.
Deletes law firm website and 'wipes' web server clean.
Trump has already seized on the 'If I were president, Captain Khan would be alive meme.'
How long till the Khan grieving father looking to profit from selling visas access scam blows
up the media narrative? What about Khan's business tax returns? Follow the money?
The media loves building the narrative of the hero almost as much as they love tearing it
apart.
Think Trump will ignore Khan's entirely legitimate immigration business scam? I mean the one
he just deleted? Think the media won't give Trumps comments on that story any airtime?
Love of freedom? Love of cash? Grieving Parent? How about all three? Neutral observer?
Pointing to any or all of Khan's deleted business activities/interests is a 'McCarthyite'
slur on the memory of a Gold Star mother and all others who so gloriously serve.
Going dark. What's the bet the Gold Star father goes off the radar because of 'family'
issues? "…
Khizr M. Khan's website notes that he works to help clients with the E-2 and EB-5 programs
that let overseas investors buy into U.S. companies and also provides green cards for family
members. It also said that he helps in the purchase of U.S. real estate and businesses. The
website lists his ability to practice in New York, though it gives a Washington phone number
for the lawyer who lives in Virginia. A man who answered the phone said the website was
correct, though he would not identify himself."
Mr. Khan evidently deleted his website after the Examiner story broke. Needless to say, the
facts clearly indicate a highly reputable individual specializing in helping foreign
businesses in the Middle East and elsewhere buy/invest in undervalued (we assume) US assets
and provide green cards for their families, all according to law.
There's clearly nothing in this account for Trump to make a fuss about.
So, why is Mr.Khan suddenly going to such lengths to conceal a business he clearly has no
reason to hide?
kidneystones 08.02.16 at 11:05 pm
TPM has pretty much dumped the Khan story, making it part of the past. No mention at all of
stories of Khan's financial incentives for opposing Trump, naturally. Josh does insert a
'distractor' link to nutcase scare stories. As a media-manipulation exercise, it just confirms
that the Dems know how to deploy media resources of their own. The stunt was well-executed and
achieved its purpose. So, I fully expect the media and HRC supporters to recommend 'we all
just move on.'
Trump is doubling down on his beefs with the GOP establishment. No doubt, this is a full out
attack on the globalist-Koch branch of the GOP. The Kochs gave TPP-loving Ryan a standing
ovation. Good thing Dems are backing a candidate firmly in favor of TPP.
Obama, another TPP fan, jumped on the bandwagon – so it's unanimous.
Trump is the only major political candidate firmly opposed to ending the TPP. But don't
support him because Trump hates all Muslims. Just ask Capt. Khan's dad.
kidneystones 08.03.16 at 12:37 am
84@ The problem with just sitting back and let you invade any country you like is that we
all have to live in the world you make. You're certainly correct to point out that there are
many things 'we foreigners' don't understand about America.
What we do know is that whatever you tell yourself about the sacrifices US soldiers are making
in your peacemaking wars in the ME, the overwhelming majority of those killed and wounded in
modern US led military actions are not Americans. I fully believe that many Americans are
intensely patriotic and love their country. I also believe that there are many subcultures
within America that 'we foreigners' cannot understand.
What is also clear from your comment is that you, and perhaps some others, believe that this
love of country and rich tapestry of subcultures somehow makes Americans very, very special
and beyond criticism.
We understand this much: Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor – 68 civilian casualties.
The US response: "..on the night of March 9-10, 1945…LeMay sent 334 B-29s low over Tokyo from
the Marianas. Their mission was to reduce the city to rubble, kill its citizens, and instill
terror in the survivors, with jellied gasoline and napalm that would create a sea of flames.
Stripped of their guns to make more room for bombs, and flying at altitudes averaging 7,000
feet to evade detection, the bombers, which had been designed for high-altitude precision
attacks, carried two kinds of incendiaries: M47s, 100-pound oil gel bombs, 182 per aircraft,
each capable of starting a major fire, followed by M69s, 6-pound gelled-gasoline bombs, 1,520
per aircraft in addition to a few high explosives to deter firefighters. [25] The attack on an
area that the US Strategic Bombing Survey estimated to be 84.7 percent residential succeeded
beyond the wildest dreams of air force planners…
The Strategic Bombing Survey, whose formation a few months earlier provided an important
signal of Roosevelt's support for strategic bombing, provided a technical description of the
firestorm and its effects on Tokyo: The chief characteristic of the conflagration . . . was
the presence of a fire front, an extended wall of fire moving to leeward, preceded by a mass
of pre-heated, turbid, burning vapors . . . . The 28-mile-per-hour wind, measured a mile from
the fire, increased to an estimated 55 miles at the perimeter, and probably more within. An
extended fire swept over 15 square miles in 6 hours . . . . The area of the fire was nearly
100 percent burned; no structure or its contents escaped damage."
The survey concluded-plausibly, but only for events prior to August 6, 1945-that
"probably more persons lost their lives by fire at Tokyo in a 6-hour period than at any time
in the history of man. People died from extreme heat, from oxygen deficiency, from carbon
monoxide asphyxiation, from being trampled beneath the feet of stampeding crowds, and from
drowning. The largest number of victims were the most vulnerable: women, children and the
elderly."
The raids continue for all the 'best' military reasons…
"In July, US planes blanketed the few remaining Japanese cities that had been spared
firebombing with an "Appeal to the People." "As you know," it read, "America which stands for
humanity, does not wish to injure the innocent people, so you had better evacuate these
cities." Half the leafleted cities were firebombed within days of the warning. US planes ruled
the skies. Overall, by one calculation, the US firebombing campaign destroyed 180 square miles
of 67 cities, killed more than 300,000 people and injured an additional 400,000, figures that
exclude the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki." (My italics)
http://apjjf.org/-Mark-Selden/2414/article.html
kidneystones 08.03.16 at 12:59 am
@ 86 Both my parents served. My grand-fathers served, and most of my uncles and
great-uncles served – you know, the whole mess from being shot to dying in hospitals years
after the war from gas attacks. And I served, nothing special about any of this.
You believe your nation's commitment to its military is somehow special? Prove it. Instead
we get American exceptionalism proudly on display.
Should all the foreigners in your debt salute, or simply prostrate ourselves in awe?
We're done.
Corey Robin 08.03.16 at 4:53 am
The record of George W. Bush-the man who Ezra Klein claims would never have treated the
Khans the way Trump has-with regard to Cindy Sheehan, whose son was also killed in Iraq, is
even worse than I realized. As Brendan James reports in Slate:
It's true, as the people tipping their hats to Bush have pointed out, that the president
himself did not attack Sheehan the way Trump has gone after the Khans. But he didn't have
to. He let his underlings do it.
"Cindy Sheehan is a clown," said Bush's senior adviser and dirty trickster Karl Rove, whose
management of the media ecosystem was unparalleled. The Washington Post reported at the
time that Sheehan was a frequent topic of conversation between the president and his
advisers. And somehow, some way, Rove's sentiment trickled down into every pore of the
conservative press. Bill O'Reilly called Sheehan "dumb enough" to get "in bed" with the
radical left. Glenn Beck called Sheehan a "tragedy pimp" who was "prostituting her son's
death." Rush Limbaugh said she was somehow lying about having lost her son.
…
Unlike Trump, Bush did it the right way. His team assassinated the character of his
bereaved critic through the normal, respectable political channels. Meanwhile the man of the
moment enjoyed plausible deniability and the praise of future journalists.
Corey Robin 08.03.16 at 4:59 am
Meanwhile, journalists, liberals, and Democrats are kvelling over John McCain's
denunciation of Trump's comments about the Khans. They love this nearly annual morality tale,
in which McCain is dutifully trotted out (or trots himself out) to clean up the mess of last
night's frat party.
Again, a little memory is helpful.
In 2002, after Saxby Chambliss ran that disgusting ad against Max Cleland (which I talk
about in the OP), John McCain said, "I'd never seen anything like that ad. Putting pictures of
Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden next to the picture of a man who left three limbs on the
battlefield - it's worse than disgraceful. It's reprehensible." Six years later, McCain
campaigned for Chambliss's reelection.
bruce wilder 08.03.16 at 9:51 pm
Layman @ 143
Yours seems to me like a sound if conventional analysis.
Clinton has to worry about low voter turnout. Democrats lose low turnout elections and the
Democratic Party apparatus is weak in many States, including North Carolina, Ohio and Florida,
which are usually considered battlegrounds. If Democratic turnout is low enough, Trump can put
unusual states like New York in play.
Also, attacks on Trump by establishment Republicans, who are worried about his violation of
norms and by the Media Wurlitzer staging a gotcha ("oh my gosh, Trump didn't know about
Crimea!") - these things may cause a pivot with Trump standing in place. It would be a pivot
to Trump attacking a broader range of establishment elites on a broader range of issues.
Ian Welsh notes that the story of the Trump meltdown is also a ready-made story of "a
stab-in-the-back" by elites stealing the election. Trump is the past Teflon Master on these
kinds of gotcha fests, but if the Media pivots away from playing gotcha with Trump saying
hateful and alarming things about immigration and race to Trump saying arguably true things
about foreign policy or economic policy that are kept in an undisguised box by the perverted
norms of conventional wisdom, that might be enough of a broadening pivot. Unlikely, but maybe.
Trump's candidacy is an attack on the legitimacy of elites and elite discourse. The news Media
is as much an opponent as Clinton. If he baits them, even inadvertently, into doing a pivot
for him, that's worrisome.
Again, I am firmly in the camp that thinks he has little chance in the election, but like Ian
Welsh and others, I tend to think he's a proof of concept for a more disciplined demagogue and
that he's accelerating the loss of legitimacy for the whole political system, and even if the
attacks on the legitimacy of Clinton, the Media, the Republican establishment won't get far
enough to win the election for Trump, they portend badly for Clinton's Administration.
Lupita 08.04.16 at 4:23 am
I think Trump is afraid the imperial global order presided by the US is about to crash
and thinks he will be able to steer the country into a soft landing by accepting that other
world powers have interests, by disengaging from costly and humiliating military
interventions, by re-negotiating trade deals, and by stopping the mass immigration of poor
people. Plus a few well-placed bombs.
Much has been written about the internet revolution, about the impact of people having
access to much more information than before. The elite does not recognize this and is still
organizing political and media campaigns as if it were 1990, relying on elder statesmen like
Blair, Bush, Mitterrand, Clinton, and Obama to influence public opinion. They are failing
miserably, to the point of being counterproductive.
I don't think something as parochial as racism is sustaining Trump, but rather the fear of
the loss of empire by a population with several orders of magnitude more information and
communication than in 2008, even 2012.
bruce wilder 08.06.16 at 4:31 pm
Watching Clinton scoop up bankster money, welcome Republicans neocons to the ranks of
her supporters does not fill me with hope.
kidneystones 08.09.16 at 2:28 am
Perhaps the best part of supporting Trump is that he's almost universally loathed by
virtually all the 'right people' elites on both sides of the aisle, and the 'morally-minded'
billionaires.
I've argued before that I expect he'll accomplish less than 1/10th of what he wants to do.
Dem hacks are promoting the fiction that Sanders, again an Independent, will magically
become the most powerful voice in the senate and a strong check (cough, cough) on the worst
excesses of HRC and her many neocon friends and admirers.
Given that the 'securityestablishment' consists almost entirely of quasi-fascists
and grifters looking to get richer acting as agents for defense manufacturers and private
security companies, these folks clearly see which candidate is likely to provide more of the
filthy lucre. Wall st. and the Kochs both want a Clinton-Ryan partnership for 2016.
So, take your chances with Trump, or be prepared for another 4-8 years of no press
conferences, no transparency, and the same screw everyone but the rich policies that have
brought us all to this unhappy pass. Safer with Hillary?
You betcha!
kidneystones 08.09.16 at 4:18 am
"The parents of two Americans killed in the 2012 terrorist attacks on U.S. diplomatic
facilities in Benghazi, Libya, filed a wrongful death lawsuit in federal court on Monday
against Hillary Clinton. In the suit, Patricia Smith and Charles Woods, the parents of Sean
Smith and Tyrone Woods, claim that Clinton's use of a private email server contributed to the
attacks." NBC
Woods and Smith are also suing Clinton for defaming them publicly and repeatedly over the last
several years. According to Woods and Smith, Clinton blamed the death of their sons on a
spontaneous attack resulting from a You Tube video when meeting in person at a ceremony.
Clinton repeated the You Tube video story publicly, as did a number of other Obama
administration officials. State department memos confirm that Clinton and other senior
officials understood within hours of the assault in Benghazi that the military-style attack
was planned well in advance to destroy the US compound on the anniversary of the 9/11 attack
on the World Trade Center.
Records confirm that no extra precautions were taken despite repeated requests from US
Ambassador Stevens, who lost his life in the assault on the compound along with Woods and
Smith. Military personnel in Libya were ordered to stand down, rather than attempt to rescue
Americans as the assault on the compound took place.
Hillary Clinton has repeatedly accused Patricia Smith and Charles Woods of 'memory loss,' when
confronted with the charges that she repeated the video fiction despite knowing the opposite
to be true. According to Clinton, Smith and Woods both misunderstood or cannot recall
Clinton's words. Her version of events, however, is severely undercut by the fact that Clinton
and other officials repeatedly claimed the video to be the cause of the attack at roughly the
same time as her private meeting with Woods and Smith.
Let the smearing of Woods and Smith begin!
Donald 08.09.16 at 11:57 am
I suspect the reason that neocons hate Trump is not because he is a dangerous maniac, but
became he isn't the precise type of dangerous maniac they prefer. He shows contempt for the
establishment idiots that favored the Iraq War, not that Trump opposed it himself. That by itself
would be unforgivable for them.
Sanders was hated by many Democrats for the same reason–he pointed out that Clinton supported the
Iraq War and therefore had bad judgment, which undercuts the whole argument based on her
expertise in foreign policy. I am in no way saying that Sanders is the same as Trump. I voted for
Sanders and would vote for almost anyone against Trump.
It's possible to be terrified by the possibility of a Trump presidency and also be cynical about
the motives of the torture apologists and warmongers who criticize him.
kidneystones 08.11.16 at 2:24 am
July 30th "Captain Humayun Khan was a hero to our country and we should honor all who have
made the ultimate sacrifice to keep our country safe. The real problem here are the radical
Islamic terrorists who killed him, and the efforts of these radicals to enter our country to
do us further harm. Given the state of the world today, we have to know everything about those
looking to enter our country, and given the state of chaos in some of these countries, that is
impossible. While I feel deeply for the loss of his son, Mr. Khan who has never met me, has no
right to stand in front of millions of people and claim I have never read the Constitution,
(which is false) and say many other inaccurate things. If I become President, I will make
America safe again.
"Further, Hillary Clinton should be held accountable for her central role in destabilizing
the Middle East. She voted to send the United States to war against Iraq, helped lead the
disastrous withdrawal of American troops years later that created the vacuum allowing the rise
of ISIS, and has never met a regime change she didn't like (which have all been disasters) –
not to mention her invasion of Libya and her abandonment of American personnel in Benghazi.
The loss of these lives in Libya is directly traceable to Clinton, but their families'
testimonials were rejected by the media."
Trump makes so many blatantly offensive claims before breakfast on any given day, I'm
astonished anyone feels the need to invent any.
Making shit up isn't going to get Trump over the finish line.
He's going to need to convince more Americans than he has to date that he has better
economic solutions than Clinton. I'm confident he will.
kidneystones 08.11.16 at 11:35 pm
As for the Khans, I'd be astonished if anyone stepping into the voting booth gives them
a moment's thought. The counter-narrative is one of a Clinton ally on ABC ambushing Trump.
Trump being blunt and politically incorrect. And the media manufacturing outrage and
amplifying the Khan complaints with every Trump critic possible jumping up to propagate the
'Pets' Lives Matter' story of 2016.
Yes, I'm being deliberately provocative in the hope that some will begin to appreciate
just how cynical, heartless, and manipulative Mr. Khan Sr. appears to many not in bubble land.
Because the same folks who are screaming about 'honoring' gold-star families have spent the
last few years describing the Benghazi massacre as a 'manufactured' scandal whilst ignoring
the attacks by HRC and her surrogates on the families of the dead.
Only one candidate played any part in the death of Captain Khan. Mr. Khan has evidently
decided that the best way of honoring the fallen is to forget that fundamental fact. It reeks.
As for his wife appearing mute on stage, whatever the reasons, remember the old Leslie
Stahl story – 'Nobody heard you.'
The Khans and the victims of 'illegal violence' are props in political campaigns. It's
another irony, of course, that those shrieking about the respect Capt. Khan's sacrifice
demands are doing all they can to turn Khan into the 2016 version of the Romney family dog.
The fact that this irony is lost on many informed readers here is, of course, anther irony –
one that is a central component of the counter-narrative driving support for Trump.
Fox News' Shepard Smith appeared intent on having a guest on his program Thursday say that Republican
presidential nominee Donald Trump is a racist.
Wall Street Journal investigative reporter James Grimaldi joined Smith on Fox Reports immediately
after Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's speech in Reno, Nev., during which she charged that Trump
will "make America hate again."
"He is taking hate groups mainstream and helping a radical fringe take over the Republican Party,"
she said.
Smith said that "the problem with any attempt to rebut her" was that "she used Donald Trump's own
words, what's historically accurate on his policies on all reviewed points."
He turned to Grimaldi and said, "Where do you begin with this?"
"I don't know. It was pretty extraordinary and pretty hard-hitting," the reporter replied.
Grimaldi went on to explain that Trump "trades in hyperbole," giving Clinton more fodder to
work with.
Smith interjected: "He trades in racism, doesn't he?"
The Wall Street Journal reporter was not willing to go that far. "Well, I'll leave that up
to the commentators. … I'm not one to generally label people like that, so I would pass on that
question."
Hillary election means new wars and death of the US servicemen/servicewomen. So Khan gambit is
much more dangerous that it looks as it implicitly promoted militarism and endless "permanent war
for permanent peace".
Notable quotes:
"... Information warfare uses disinformation and propaganda to condition a population to hate a foreign nation or population with the intent to foment a war, which is the routine "business" of the best known U.S. think tanks. ..."
"... There are two levels to this information war. The first level is by the primary provocateur, such as the Rand Corporation, the American Enterprise Institute and the smaller war instigators found wherever a Kagan family member lurks. They use psychological "suggestiveness" to create a false narrative of danger from some foreign entity with the objective being to create paranoia within the U.S. population that it is under imminent threat of attack or takeover. ..."
"... Once that fear and paranoia is instilled in much of the population, it can then be manipulated to foment a readiness or eagerness for war, in the manner that Joseph Goebbels understood well. ..."
"... Nevertheless, showing the success that our primary war provocateurs have had in fomenting hostility and possibly war is that less militaristic and bellicose Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), ostensibly working for "peace," have adopted this false propaganda theme uncritically. ..."
"... The Carnegie Moscow Center Foundation, which includes Russians on its staff, is a prime example. Lately, it has routinely echoed the more provocative and facially false accusations made against Russia by the outright militaristic and war instigating U.S. think tanks. An example is in a recent article of Carnegie, entitled: " Russia and NATO Must Communicate Better. " ..."
"... So fanatics like the U.S. Generals whom we've seen at the recent political conventions and even worse, General Breedlove, are encouraged to be ever more threatening to the world's populations. ..."
"... Recognizing that must then be coupled with recognition of a U.S. law passed in 2012 providing for military detention of journalists and social activists as the Justice Department conceded in Hedges v. Obama. Add to that what the ACLU recently compelled the U.S. government to reveal in the "Presidential Policy Guidance" and it is plain to see which nation has become most "authoritarian, nationalistic, and assertive." It is the United States. ..."
"... As this was when the Politburo was allegedly at its height in subverting and subjugating foreign countries as foreign policy, it should be exactly on point in describing current U.S. foreign policy. ..."
"... That U.S. think tanks, such as Rand and the American Enterprise Institute, put so much effort into promoting war should not come as a surprise when it is considered their funding is provided by the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) which President Eisenhower warned us about. ..."
U.S. "think tanks" rile up the American public against an ever-shifting roster of foreign "enemies"
to justify wars which line the pockets of military contractors who kick back some profits to the
"think tanks," explains retired JAG Major Todd E. Pierce.
The New York Times took notice recently of the role that so-called "think tanks" play in corrupting
U.S. government policy. Their review of think tanks "identified dozens of examples of scholars
conducting research at think tanks while corporations were paying them to help shape government policy."
Unfortunately, and perhaps predictably, while the Times investigation demonstrates well that the
U.S. is even more corrupt – albeit the corruption is better disguised – than the many foreign countries
which we routinely accuse of corruption, the Times failed to identify the most egregious form of
corruption in our system. That is, those think tanks are constantly engaged in the sort of activities
which the Defense Department identifies as "Information War" when conducted by foreign countries
that are designated by the U.S. as an enemy at any given moment.
Information warfare uses disinformation and propaganda to condition a population to hate a foreign
nation or population with the intent to foment a war, which is the routine "business" of the best
known U.S. think tanks.
There are two levels to this information war. The first level is by the primary provocateur, such
as the Rand Corporation, the American Enterprise Institute and the smaller war instigators found
wherever a Kagan family member lurks. They use psychological "suggestiveness" to create a false
narrative of danger from some foreign entity with the objective being to create paranoia within the
U.S. population that it is under imminent threat of attack or takeover.
Once that fear and paranoia is instilled in much of the population, it can then be manipulated
to foment a readiness or eagerness for war, in the manner that Joseph Goebbels understood well.
The measure of success from such a disinformation and propaganda effort can be seen when the narrative
is adopted by secondary communicators who are perhaps the most important target audience. That is
because they are "key communicators" in PsyOp terms, who in turn become provocateurs in propagating
the false narrative even more broadly and to its own audiences, and becoming "combat multipliers"
in military terms.
It is readily apparent now that Russia has taken its place as the primary target within U.S. sights.
One doesn't have to see the U.S. military buildup on Russia's borders to understand that but only
see the propaganda themes of our "think tanks."
The Role of Rand
A prime example of an act of waging information war to incite actual military attack is the Rand
Corporation, which, incidentally, published a guide to information war and the need to condition
the U.S. population for war back in the 1990s.
A
scene from "Dr. Strangelove," in which the bomber pilot (played by actor Slim Pickens) rides a
nuclear bomb to its target in the Soviet Union.
Rand was founded by, among others, the war enthusiast, Air Force General Curtis LeMay, who was
the model for the character of Gen. Buck Turgidson in the movie "Dr. Strangelove." LeMay once stated
that he would not be afraid to start a nuclear war with Russia and that spirit would seem to be alive
and well at Rand today as they project on to Vladimir Putin our own eagerness for inciting a war.
The particular act of information warfare by Rand is shown in a recent Rand article: "How to
Counter Putin's Subversive War on the West." The title suggests by its presupposition that Putin
is acting in the offensive form of war rather than the defensive form of war. But it is plain to
see he is in the defensive form of war when one looks at the numerous provocations and acts of aggression
carried out by American officials, such as Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and General
Philip Breedlove, and the U.S. and NATO military buildup on Russia's borders.
Within this Rand article however can be found no better example of psychological projection than
this propagandistic pablum that too many commentators, some witless, some not, will predictably repeat:
"Moscow's provocative active measures cause foreign investors and international lenders to see
higher risks in doing business with Russia. Iran is learning a similar, painful lesson as it persists
with harsh anti-Western policies even as nuclear-related sanctions fade. Russia will decide its own
priorities. But it should not be surprised if disregard for others' interests diminishes the international
regard it seeks as an influential great power."
In fact, an objective, dispassionate observation of U.S./Russian policies would show it has been
the U.S. carrying out these "provocative active measures" as the instigator, not Russia.
Nevertheless, showing the success that our primary war provocateurs have had in fomenting hostility
and possibly war is that less militaristic and bellicose Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), ostensibly
working for "peace," have adopted this false propaganda theme uncritically.
The Carnegie Moscow Center Foundation, which includes Russians on its staff, is a prime example.
Lately, it has routinely echoed the more provocative and facially false accusations made against
Russia by the outright militaristic and war instigating U.S. think tanks. An example is in a recent
article of Carnegie, entitled: "Russia and NATO Must Communicate Better."
It begins: "The risk of outright conflict in Europe is higher than it has been for years and the
confrontation between Russia and the West shows no sign of ending. To prevent misunderstandings and
dangerous incidents, the two sides must improve their methods of communication."
Unfortunately, that is now true. But the article's author suggests throughout that each party,
Russia and the U.S./NATO, had an equal hand in the deterioration of relations. He wrote: "The West
needs to acknowledge that the standoff with Russia is not merely the result of Russia turning authoritarian,
nationalistic, and assertive," as if Western officials don't already know that that accusation was
only a propaganda theme for their own populations to cover up the West's aggressiveness.
Blaming Russia
So Americans, such as myself, must acknowledge and confront that the standoff with Russia is not
only not "merely the result of Russia turning authoritarian, nationalistic, and assertive,"
but it is rather, that the U.S. is "turning authoritarian, nationalistic," and even more "assertive,"
i.e., aggressive, toward the world.
Suz Tzu wrote that a "sovereign" must know oneself and the enemy. In the case of the U.S. sovereign,
the people and their elected, so-called representatives, there is probably no "sovereign" in human
history more lacking in self-awareness of their own nation's behavior toward other nations.
So fanatics like the U.S. Generals whom we've seen at the recent political conventions and even
worse, General Breedlove, are encouraged to be ever more threatening to the world's populations.
When that then generates a response from some nation with a tin-pot military relative to our own,
with ours paid for by the privileged financial position we've put ourselves into post-WWII, our politicians
urgently call for even more military spending from the American people to support even more aggression,
all in the guise of "national defense."
Recognizing that must then be coupled with recognition of a U.S. law passed in 2012 providing
for military detention of journalists and social activists as the Justice Department conceded in
Hedges v. Obama. Add to that what the ACLU recently compelled the U.S. government to reveal in the
"Presidential Policy Guidance" and it is plain to see which nation has become most "authoritarian,
nationalistic, and assertive." It is the United States.
The Presidential Policy Guidance "establishes the standard operating procedures for when the United
States takes direct action, which refers to lethal and non-lethal uses of force, including capture
operations against terrorist targets outside the United States and areas of active hostilities."
What other nation, besides Israel probably, has a governmental "Regulation" providing for assassinations
outside "areas of active hostilities?"
It should readily be evident that it is the U.S. now carrying out the vast majority of provocative
active measures and has the disregard for others complained of here. At least for the moment, however,
the U.S. can still hide much of its aggression using the vast financial resources provided by the
American people to the Defense Department to produce sophisticated propaganda and to bribe foreign
officials with foreign aid to look the other way from U.S. provocations.
It is ironic that today, one can learn more about the U.S. military and foreign policy from the
Rand Corporation only by reading at least one of its historical documents, "The Operational Code
of the Politburo." This is described as "part of a major effort at RAND to provide insight into
the political leadership and foreign policy in the Soviet Union and other communist states; the development
of Soviet military strategy and doctrine."
As this was when the Politburo was allegedly at its height in subverting and subjugating foreign
countries as foreign policy, it should be exactly on point in describing current U.S. foreign policy.
That U.S. think tanks, such as Rand and the American Enterprise Institute, put so much effort
into promoting war should not come as a surprise when it is considered their funding is provided
by the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) which President Eisenhower warned us about. That this U.S.
MIC would turn against its own people, the American public, by waging perpetual information war against
this domestic target just to enrich their investors, might have been even more than Eisenhower could
imagine however.
Todd E. Pierce retired as a Major in the US Army Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps in
November 2012. His most recent assignment was defense counsel in the Office of Chief Defense Counsel,
Office of Military Commissions. [This article first appeared at
http://original.antiwar.com/Todd_Pierce/2016/08/14/inciting-wars-american-way/]
Two weeks ago at the Republican National Convention (RNC) a grieving mother blasted Hillary
Clinton for the debacle of the 2012 Benghazi attack. Last Thursday, at the Democratic National
Convention (DNC), grieving parents gave a speech criticizing Donald Trump for his statements
against Muslims.
While all the grieving parents deserve sympathy, the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) network evening
and morning shows seemed to only care about the parents that showed up at the Democratic
Convention. Khizr Khan and his wife Ghazla's DNC appearance earned 55 minutes, 13 seconds of Big
Three network coverage, nearly 50 times more than Pat Smith, whose RNC speech honoring her son
earned just 70 seconds of airtime.
In the days (July 19 to August 1) that followed Smith's indictment of Clinton from the RNC
podium, CBS (3 seconds) ABC (13 seconds) and NBC (54 seconds) gave her speech a total of just
70 seconds of coverage.
In the four days (July 29 to August 1) following Khizr Khan and his wife Ghazala's speech
NBC (31 minutes, 39 seconds), offered the most amount of time followed by ABC (14 minutes, 21
seconds) and then CBS (9 minutes, 13 seconds).
This is a textbook case of bias-by-agenda: One of these stories (the Khan story) matched the
Democratic agenda, and the partisan media couldn't push it hard enough. The other (the Smith
story) reflected poorly on the Democratic nominee, so it was barely mentioned.
... ... ...
While Smith's emotional pleas were downplayed by the networks, Khan's speech and subsequent
back and forth with Trump were played up. On the July 29 edition of CBS This Morning co-anchor
Norah O'Donnell noted "One of the most powerful convention moments last night came from the
father of a Muslim-American soldier who was killed in Iraq in 2004. Khizir Khan criticized Donald
Trump for singling out Muslims during the campaign." Her CBS colleague Gayle King added: "That
appearance by the Khans is being described as one of the most powerful of the night. People were
moved to tears by the two of them standing there."
On the August 1Today show, substitute host Tamron Hall reported "Republican presidential nominee
Donald Trump campaigns in the battleground states of Ohio and Pennsylvania today, but controversy
will follow him after his remarks about the parents of a Muslim-American soldier killed in Iraq."
Her colleague Andrea Mitchell added "Hillary Clinton is calling on Republicans to abandon Donald
Trump, and in her words, 'put country before party' because of his controversial comments about
Captain Khan and his family."
Earlier in the show, co-anchor Savannah Guthrie interviewed the Khans. But so far Pat Smith,
shamefully, has yet to be extended the same courtesy on any of the Big Three evening or morning
shows.
"... Despite all efforts by the media to distort Trump's position about "banning" Muslims, he has made perfectly clear time and again that he does not want to ban all Muslims. He wants to simply perform thorough and complete background checks on all immigrants coming from countries presently in the grips of violent Islamic terrorism. ..."
"... To her, Capt. Khan is not a just soldier who died defending his country in a foreign land. First and foremost, to her, he is a Muslim of Pakistani heritage and therefore is a perfect political pawn for just the right situation. ..."
"... For just about every American alive, Capt. Khan is an inspiring and unifying figure. To Hillary Clinton, he is a tool to be used to divide people. In her false promise of unifying America, she creates a national political Babylon. Her avaricious greed for more and more power knows no bounds. ..."
"... Politicians like Hillary Clinton slice and dice people into racial and gender groups. Then they toot on all their little "dog whistles" to send all their little demographic pawns scurrying in various directions. That is how you wind up with Khizr Khan standing on stage beside his head-scarved wife, waving around the U.S. Constitution and distorting Donald Trump's position on keeping radical Islamic terrorism at bay. ..."
"... Perhaps a better testimony from Khizr Khan would have been for him to talk about how Hillary Clinton was in the U.S. Senate when she voted to invade Iraq. Years later, after that position became politically unpopular, she changed her mind and joined new political forces to vacate all the land across Iraq that so many great American patriots like Capt. Humayun Khan had died for. ..."
"... It was her vote that sent Capt. Khan to his death. And then it was her decisions later to render that sacrifice worthless. ..."
Khizr Khan is a fine American and the father of a true American patriot. But now he is also everything
that is wrong with American politics today.
It is not entirely his fault, though he has only himself to blame for allowing his dead son to
be used for the most hideous of purposes and dragged through the gutter of nasty and dishonest partisan
politics.
Khan and his wife took to the stage at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia last week
to deliver an impassioned rebuke of Donald J.Trump that was universally celebrated by the media.
Even Republican politicos swooned at the gambit. The Clinton campaign trotted out the Muslim couple
because their son, Captain Humayun Khan, was killed by a car bomb in 2004 while guarding a base in
Iraq.
"If it was up to
Donald
Trump
, he never would have been in America," said Khan, sliding easily into the political tradition
of lying and distorting the position of one's opponent.
"Donald Trump consistently smears the character of Muslims," he went on. "He disrespects other
minorities, women, judges, even his own party leadership. He vows to build walls and ban us from
this country."
Despite all efforts by the media to distort Trump's position about "banning" Muslims, he has
made perfectly clear time and again that he does not want to ban all Muslims. He wants to simply
perform thorough and complete background checks on all immigrants coming from countries presently
in the grips of violent Islamic terrorism.
Yes, that means if you are a Muslim who wants to immigrate from Syria or Afghanistan, you are
going to get a lot more scrutiny than if you are a Jew trying to immigrate from Canada. That is most
unfortunate, but not nearly as unfortunate as innocents getting slaughtered by 10th Century savages
killing in the name of Allah.
Anyway, this higher scrutiny should be no obstacle for the likes of Khizr Khan and his family,
except for the additional hassle.
So, why would Khizr Khan choose to insert himself into politics and demean his son's sacrifice
by lying at a political convention on national television? The answer is simple: He allowed himself
to be tricked into it. And the Clinton campaign was all too eager to take advantage of him and his
family and Capt. Khan and use them for their own political partisan purposes.
Stop for a moment and ask yourself how exactly the Clinton campaign arrived at the decision to
trot out the Khan family in the middle of their highly-choreographed, exhaustively produced convention?
Were they just looking to give voice to the parents of a soldier? That would be a first. Did they
want parents of anyone who had died abroad in the defense of their country? Gee, why not pick the
parents of one of the fallen warriors who died defending the U.S. consulate in Benghazi? Oh, that's
right. They would have called
Hillary Clinton
a liar. Can't have that.
No. Politicians like Hillary Clinton do not see people like Capt. Humayun Khan as a soldier who
made the ultimate sacrifice on a foreign battlefield in defense of his country. Politicians like
Hillary Clinton see him only a demographic, a dispensable political pawn to be scooted around an
electoral map, the way generals used to move armies across giant maps of the lands they were invading.
But instead of liberating Europe from evil fascists, politicians like Hillary Clinton use their
long, worn croupier rakes to move their pawns about with the singular goal of advancing their own
personal political careers.
To her, Capt. Khan is not a just soldier who died defending his country in a foreign land.
First and foremost, to her, he is a Muslim of Pakistani heritage and therefore is a perfect political
pawn for just the right situation.
For just about every American alive, Capt. Khan is an inspiring and unifying figure. To Hillary
Clinton, he is a tool to be used to divide people. In her false promise of unifying America, she
creates a national political Babylon. Her avaricious greed for more and more power knows no bounds.
It is an open secret in Washington that politics is the last bastion of rampant racial profiling.
Both parties do it, but Democrats have taken it to a whole new scientific level.
Politicians like Hillary Clinton slice and dice people into racial and gender groups. Then
they toot on all their little "dog whistles" to send all their little demographic pawns scurrying
in various directions. That is how you wind up with Khizr Khan standing on stage beside his head-scarved
wife, waving around the U.S. Constitution and distorting Donald Trump's position on keeping radical
Islamic terrorism at bay.
Perhaps a better testimony from Khizr Khan would have been for him to talk about how Hillary
Clinton was in the U.S. Senate when she voted to invade Iraq. Years later, after that position became
politically unpopular, she changed her mind and joined new political forces to vacate all the land
across Iraq that so many great American patriots like Capt. Humayun Khan had died for.
It was her vote that sent Capt. Khan to his death. And then it was her decisions later to
render that sacrifice worthless.
Try sticking that into your dog whistle and blowing it.
Hurt writes the "Nuclear Option" column for The Washington Times. A former D.C. bureau chief
for the New York Post, he has covered the White House, Congress and presidential campaigns since
2001. Follow him on Twitter @charleshurt.
This is from 2008. An interesting mention of Rove playbook that says, "Attack your opponent's
perceived strength."
Notable quotes:
"... Rove playbook that says, "Attack your opponent's perceived strength." If that strength is merely "perceived" and not real, it's a legitimate tactic, but Rove attacks even when the perception is justified, and the Clintons are now doing the same. ..."
"... Bill did this in New Hampshire when he contended that Obama was not really a consistent war opponent. Hillary put this tactic way out front on Meet the Press today. She said that Obama's campaign is premised entirely on his October 2002 speech, and she said that Obama did nothing after that speech. ..."
"... A key point that has not been made is, if Hillary Clinton is telling the truth that she secretly opposed the invasion on March 20, 2003, then she cannot possibly claim the mantle of a leader, because she did not speak out against the prospect of invasion, even though she, due to her celebrity status, had one of the loudest megaphones to do so. ..."
Many of your
recent posts on the Obama-Clinton contest are missing the forest for the trees. They are focusing
on
small annoyances from Camp Clinton. The big story of the last week is that the Clintons are
trying to strip Obama of his rightful advantage on the Iraq war "judgment" issue and carry out
the tactic from the Rove playbook that says, "Attack your opponent's perceived strength." If that
strength is merely "perceived" and not real, it's a legitimate tactic, but Rove attacks even when
the perception is justified, and the Clintons are now doing the same.
Bill did this in New Hampshire when he contended that Obama was not really a consistent war
opponent. Hillary put this tactic way out front on Meet the Press today. She said that Obama's
campaign is premised entirely on his October 2002 speech, and she said that Obama did nothing
after that speech. This is just an out and out lie; there are no shades of gray here. Here are
two examples of what Obama did after his October 2002 speech that I was able to find through a
simple Nexis search:
On March 4, 2003, an AP story picked up by an Illinois newspaper, the Belleville News Democrat,
states as follows:
"Barack Obama is criticizing the idea of war against Iraq and challenging his Democratic
opponents in the U.S. Senate race to take a stand on the question....'What's tempting is to
take the path of least resistance and keep quiet on the issue, knowing that maybe in two or
three or six months, at least the fighting will be over and you can see how it plays itself
out,' said Obama, a state senator from Chicago."
On March 17, 2003, the Chicago Sun Times reported this:
"Thousands of demonstrators packed Daley Center Plaza for a two- hour rally Sunday [two
days before Bush issued his ultimatum against Saddam and four days before the invasion], then
marched through downtown in Chicago's largest protest to date against an Iraq war. Crowd
estimates from police and organizers ranged from 5,000 to 10,000.... State
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Chicago) told the crowd, 'It's not too late' to stop the war."
All of this is highly relevant, because Hillary's account of her own actions in the October
2002 - March 20, 2003 period (March 20 being the day of the invasion) is that she voted, not to
authorize war, but inspections, and that when the inspectors were there in March 2003, she, in
her own mind, opposed the invasion and would not have carried it out had she been President.
A key point that has not been made is, if Hillary Clinton is telling the truth that she secretly
opposed the invasion on March 20, 2003, then she cannot possibly claim the mantle of a leader,
because she did not speak out against the prospect of invasion, even though she, due to her celebrity
status, had one of the loudest megaphones to do so.
Donald Trump has made the 2016 presidential race potentially the most important of the last century.
The Constitution repudiates presidential wars: they impoverish the people and undermine the rule
of law. Trump, if he heeds our advice, can make the Constitution's foreign policy the battleground
of the campaign.
He did a masterful job of exposing the folly of the war in Iraq. He correctly denounced Hillary
Clinton's Senate vote for that war and her later use of her position as secretary of state to wage
congressionally unauthorized war against Libya. Rather than learn from her mistakes, which gave birth
to ISIS, Clinton is redoubling her efforts to drag our nation into another unconstitutional war in
Syria.
The cornerstone of the Constitution's foreign policy is the exclusive entrustment of the war power
to Congress. We made an unprecedented break with history by making Congress the sentinel against
gratuitous wars. This was the most important decision we made in Philadelphia. We understood that
from the beginning of all government, the Executive has chronically concocted excuses to go to war
for power and fame. While Congress is not infallible, the institution has everything to lose and
nothing to gain from going to war.
We recognized that these features of the Executive and Legislative branches were timeless because
they reflected personalities of the respective institutions that are as constant as the force of
gravity. We examined every prior system of government for thousands of years. Regardless of their
state of technology, Egyptian pharaohs, Israel's kings, Genghis Khan, and King George III were indistinguishable
in their gravitation toward needless wars.
The proof of our timeless wisdom is in the results. Less than a century after the ratification
of the Constitution, by avoiding presidential wars the United States became the world's largest economy.
We attracted the best and the brightest from everywhere to make America the workshop of the world.
Trump's goal of regaining our former prosperity will be stillborn without restoring the Constitution's
foreign policy. We were present at the creation of the Constitution, and we left no room for ambiguity
about why we gave the war power to Congress. We call on Donald Trump to establish a precedent for
every presidential candidate: an unequivocal pledge in writing never to initiate war without a congressional
declaration. He should lead, and ask Hillary Clinton to follow. The pledges will make America great
again.
Trump is to be complimented for questioning alliance commitments that conflict with the pledge.
He has asked why we would protect the borders of other countries when we don't protect our own. At
present, the United States is obligated through treaties or executive promises to go to war to protect
69 countries. During our many years of public service, we rejected the idea of permanent friends
or enemies and warned against the danger of entangling alliances. Trump's "No Presidential Wars"
pledge will give him justification to extricate the United States from these military entanglements.
Why should we safeguard the borders of almost half of the world's countries, who will betray us whenever
their interests diverge from ours?
In his first foreign-policy address, Trump alluded to John Quincy Adams's signature statement
about the inseparability of foreign and domestic policy:
[The United States has] abstained from interference in the concerns of others. … Wherever the
standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her
benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. …
She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners
of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the
wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors
and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change
from liberty to force. … she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit. … [America's] glory
is not dominion, but liberty.
The United States is the safest country in history. All the armies of the world couldn't take
a drink from the Colorado or make a track in the Rockies. We now possess more than 7,000 nuclear
warheads and the biggest, most technologically advanced Navy and Air Force ever seen. By contrast,
when we wrote the Constitution in 1787, the world confronted six empires armed to the teeth: the
Chinese Empire, the Russian Empire, the British Empire, the French Empire, the Spanish Empire, and
the Ottoman Empire. Despite massive superiority in manpower, ships, and weaponry, the British Empire
was unable to defeat us in our Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.
By avoiding standing
armies and entangling alliances, our foreign policy of self-defense unleashed the nation's resources
and focused our human capital on making us the richest nation in history. Our greatest entrepreneurs
did not squander their genius on warfare. But then our nation's leaders became seduced by the lure
of the limitless executive power that comes with war. Presidents of both parties replaced invincible
self-defense with a global military establishment in the false hope of dictating the affairs of other
nations. Presidents concocted pretexts to justify wars against Spain, Vietnam, Serbia, Iraq, and
Libya. American jobs were traded away to attract professed foreign allies. The Democratic and Republican
nominees have not given the American electorate a choice against unconstitutional presidential wars
for more than half a century.
Now is the time for Trump to end overseas adventurism and trumpet the invincible self-defense
that made us the envy of the world. We have lost our way in abandoning the Constitution's foreign
policy. A "No Presidential Wars" pledge is the first step to refocusing the genius of our people
on production at home rather than destruction abroad. This is the way to make America great again.
We are the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. We are the champion and vindicator
only of our own.
George Washington and James Madison are a Virginia businessman and lawyer.
"... The problem with just sitting back and let you invade any country you like is that we all have to live in the world you make. You're certainly correct to point out that there are many things 'we foreigners' don't understand about America. ..."
"... What we do know is that whatever you tell yourself about the sacrifices US soldiers are making in your peacemaking wars in the ME, the overwhelming majority of those killed and wounded in modern US led military actions are not Americans. I fully believe that many Americans are intensely patriotic and love their country. I also believe that there are many subcultures within America that 'we foreigners' cannot understand. ..."
"... You believe your nation's commitment to its military is somehow special? Prove it. Instead we get American exceptionalism proudly on display. ..."
84@ The problem with just sitting back and let you invade any country you like is that
we all have to live in the world you make. You're certainly correct to point out that there are
many things 'we foreigners' don't understand about America.
What we do know is that whatever you tell yourself about the sacrifices US soldiers are
making in your peacemaking wars in the ME, the overwhelming majority of those killed and wounded
in modern US led military actions are not Americans. I fully believe that many Americans are intensely
patriotic and love their country. I also believe that there are many subcultures within America
that 'we foreigners' cannot understand.
What is also clear from your comment is that you, and perhaps some others, believe that this
love of country and rich tapestry of subcultures somehow makes Americans very, very special and
beyond criticism.
We understand this much: Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor – 68 civilian casualties.
The US response: "..on the night of March 9-10, 1945…LeMay sent 334 B-29s low over Tokyo from
the Marianas. Their mission was to reduce the city to rubble, kill its citizens, and instill terror
in the survivors, with jellied gasoline and napalm that would create a sea of flames. Stripped
of their guns to make more room for bombs, and flying at altitudes averaging 7,000 feet to evade
detection, the bombers, which had been designed for high-altitude precision attacks, carried two
kinds of incendiaries: M47s, 100-pound oil gel bombs, 182 per aircraft, each capable of starting
a major fire, followed by M69s, 6-pound gelled-gasoline bombs, 1,520 per aircraft in addition
to a few high explosives to deter firefighters. [25] The attack on an area that the US Strategic
Bombing Survey estimated to be 84.7 percent residential succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of
air force planners…
The Strategic Bombing Survey, whose formation a few months earlier provided an important signal
of Roosevelt's support for strategic bombing, provided a technical description of the firestorm
and its effects on Tokyo: The chief characteristic of the conflagration . . . was the presence
of a fire front, an extended wall of fire moving to leeward, preceded by a mass of pre-heated,
turbid, burning vapors . . . . The 28-mile-per-hour wind, measured a mile from the fire, increased
to an estimated 55 miles at the perimeter, and probably more within. An extended fire swept over
15 square miles in 6 hours . . . . The area of the fire was nearly 100 percent burned; no structure
or its contents escaped damage."
The survey concluded-plausibly, but only for events prior to August 6, 1945-that
"probably more persons lost their lives by fire at Tokyo in a 6-hour period than at any time
in the history of man. People died from extreme heat, from oxygen deficiency, from carbon monoxide
asphyxiation, from being trampled beneath the feet of stampeding crowds, and from drowning. The
largest number of victims were the most vulnerable: women, children and the elderly."
The raids continue for all the 'best' military reasons…
"In July, US planes blanketed the few remaining Japanese cities that had been spared firebombing
with an "Appeal to the People." "As you know," it read, "America which stands for humanity, does
not wish to injure the innocent people, so you had better evacuate these cities." Half the leafleted
cities were firebombed within days of the warning. US planes ruled the skies. Overall, by one
calculation, the US firebombing campaign destroyed 180 square miles of 67 cities, killed more
than 300,000 people and injured an additional 400,000, figures that exclude the atomic bombing
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki." (My italics)
http://apjjf.org/-Mark-Selden/2414/article.html
kidneystones 08.03.16 at 12:59 am
@ 86 Both my parents served. My grand-fathers served, and most of my uncles and great-uncles
served – you know, the whole mess from being shot to dying in hospitals years after the war from
gas attacks. And I served, nothing special about any of this.
You believe your nation's commitment to its military is somehow special? Prove it. Instead
we get American exceptionalism proudly on display.
Should all the foreigners in your debt salute, or simply prostrate ourselves in awe?
"... Khizr Khan's sound bite makes for good free political advertising, following the lead of Trump himself, but I don't believe he has read the Constitution, or if he has read it he didn't understand it. ..."
"... Obama taught constitutional law and a generation of his students will not understand that only Congress can declare war. ..."
"... The conditions that produced and enabled Trump are the Democratic Party policies in its fake posture as an opposition party serving the interests of working people. A vote for Hillary is a vote for more of the same-increasing disparity in wealth and income. ..."
"... The Democratic Party is bully enough to shut me and my chosen candidates down; and I don't like Trump, but I really like it when I see him kicking some lying elitist Democratic Party ass. ..."
"... Consider then the partisan nature of worthiness determined by Democrats in their vilification of Cindy Sheehan for daring to effect a change in the system that murdered her son, whose death was more recent, the same sorrow that Khizr Khan now deals with from a position of ignorance so common to Democrats, but so much more worthy of respect when the sorrow strikes out in their political favor, unlike with Cindy Sheehan, who struck out in opposition to the Democratic Party in electorally challenging Nancy Pelosi. ..."
"... It's absolutely not about the money. Pocket Constitution waving grieving father at DNC denouncing temporary ban on Muslim immigration coincidentally runs 'pay-to-play' US immigration visa procurement business. Deletes law firm website and 'wipes' web server clean. ..."
"... Love of freedom? Love of cash? Grieving Parent? How about all three? Neutral observer? That's a harder sell. ..."
"... Khizr M. Khan's website notes that he works to help clients with the E-2 and EB-5 programs that let overseas investors buy into U.S. companies and also provides green cards for family members. ..."
"... As a media-manipulation exercise, it just confirms that the Dems know how to deploy media resources of their own. The stunt was well-executed and achieved its purpose. ..."
"... The problem with just sitting back and let you invade any country you like is that we all have to live in the world you make. You're certainly correct to point out that there are many things 'we foreigners' don't understand about America. ..."
"... What we do know is that whatever you tell yourself about the sacrifices US soldiers are making in your peacemaking wars in the ME, the overwhelming majority of those killed and wounded in modern US led military actions are not Americans. I fully believe that many Americans are intensely patriotic and love their country. I also believe that there are many subcultures within America that 'we foreigners' cannot understand. ..."
"... You believe your nation's commitment to its military is somehow special? Prove it. Instead we get American exceptionalism proudly on display. ..."
"... Unlike Trump, Bush did it the right way. His team assassinated the character of his bereaved critic through the normal, respectable political channels. Meanwhile the man of the moment enjoyed plausible deniability and the praise of future journalists. ..."
"... Meanwhile, journalists, liberals, and Democrats are kvelling over John McCain's denunciation of Trump's comments about the Khans. They love this nearly annual morality tale, in which McCain is dutifully trotted out (or trots himself out) to clean up the mess of last night's frat party. ..."
"... In 2002, after Saxby Chambliss ran that disgusting ad against Max Cleland (which I talk about in the OP), John McCain said, "I'd never seen anything like that ad. Putting pictures of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden next to the picture of a man who left three limbs on the battlefield - it's worse than disgraceful. It's reprehensible." Six years later, McCain campaigned for Chambliss's reelection. ..."
Khizr Khan's sound bite makes for good free political advertising, following the lead of
Trump himself, but I don't believe he has read the Constitution, or if he has read it he didn't
understand it.
That should not trouble him overly much; Obama taught constitutional law and a generation
of his students will not understand that only Congress can declare war.
... ... ...
The conditions that produced and enabled Trump are the Democratic Party policies in its
fake posture as an opposition party serving the interests of working people. A vote for Hillary
is a vote for more of the same-increasing disparity in wealth and income.
To quote from "The Big Short", which the Clintons played no small part in bringing about by
the repeal of Glass-Steagall and passing NAFTA: "Truth is like poetry. And most people fucking
hate poetry."
The Democratic Party is bully enough to shut me and my chosen candidates down; and I don't
like Trump, but I really like it when I see him kicking some lying elitist Democratic Party ass.
I want to see if Democrats have it in them to stop being weasels.
Glenn 08.02.16 at 4:23 pm
Consider then the partisan nature of worthiness determined by Democrats in their vilification
of Cindy Sheehan for daring to effect a change in the system that murdered her son, whose death
was more recent, the same sorrow that Khizr Khan now deals with from a position of ignorance so
common to Democrats, but so much more worthy of respect when the sorrow strikes out in their political
favor, unlike with Cindy Sheehan, who struck out in opposition to the Democratic Party in electorally
challenging Nancy Pelosi.
kidneystones 08.02.16 at 9:57 pm
It's absolutely not about the money. Pocket Constitution waving grieving father at DNC
denouncing temporary ban on Muslim immigration coincidentally runs 'pay-to-play' US immigration
visa procurement business. Deletes law firm website and 'wipes' web server clean.
Trump has already seized on the 'If I were president, Captain Khan would be alive meme.'
How long till the Khan grieving father looking to profit from selling visas access scam blows
up the media narrative? What about Khan's business tax returns? Follow the money?
The media loves building the narrative of the hero almost as much as they love tearing it apart.
Think Trump will ignore Khan's entirely legitimate immigration business scam? I mean the one
he just deleted? Think the media won't give Trumps comments on that story any airtime?
Love of freedom? Love of cash? Grieving Parent? How about all three? Neutral observer?
That's a harder sell.
Pointing to any or all of Khan's deleted business activities/interests is a 'McCarthyite' slur
on the memory of a Gold Star mother and all others who so gloriously serve.
Going dark. What's the bet the Gold Star father goes off the radar because of 'family' issues?
"…
Khizr M. Khan's website notes that he works to help clients with the E-2 and EB-5 programs
that let overseas investors buy into U.S. companies and also provides green cards for family members.
It also said that he helps in the purchase of U.S. real estate and businesses. The website
lists his ability to practice in New York, though it gives a Washington phone number for the lawyer
who lives in Virginia. A man who answered the phone said the website was correct, though he would
not identify himself."
Mr. Khan evidently deleted his website after the Examiner story broke. Needless to say, the
facts clearly indicate a highly reputable individual specializing in helping foreign businesses
in the Middle East and elsewhere buy/invest in undervalued (we assume) US assets and provide green
cards for their families, all according to law.
There's clearly nothing in this account for Trump to make a fuss about.
So, why is Mr.Khan suddenly going to such lengths to conceal a business he clearly has no reason
to hide?
kidneystones 08.02.16 at 11:05 pm
TPM has pretty much dumped the Khan story, making it part of the past. No mention at all of stories
of Khan's financial incentives for opposing Trump, naturally. Josh does insert a 'distractor'
link to nutcase scare stories. As a media-manipulation exercise, it just confirms that the
Dems know how to deploy media resources of their own. The stunt was well-executed and achieved
its purpose. So, I fully expect the media and HRC supporters to recommend 'we all just move
on.'
Trump is doubling down on his beefs with the GOP establishment. No doubt, this is a full out
attack on the globalist-Koch branch of the GOP. The Kochs gave TPP-loving Ryan a standing ovation.
Good thing Dems are backing a candidate firmly in favor of TPP.
Obama, another TPP fan, jumped on the bandwagon – so it's unanimous.
Trump is the only major political candidate firmly opposed to ending the TPP. But don't support
him because Trump hates all Muslims. Just ask Capt. Khan's dad.
kidneystones 08.03.16 at 12:37 am
84@ The problem with just sitting back and let you invade any country you like is that
we all have to live in the world you make. You're certainly correct to point out that there are
many things 'we foreigners' don't understand about America.
What we do know is that whatever you tell yourself about the sacrifices US soldiers are
making in your peacemaking wars in the ME, the overwhelming majority of those killed and wounded
in modern US led military actions are not Americans. I fully believe that many Americans are intensely
patriotic and love their country. I also believe that there are many subcultures within America
that 'we foreigners' cannot understand.
What is also clear from your comment is that you, and perhaps some others, believe that this
love of country and rich tapestry of subcultures somehow makes Americans very, very special and
beyond criticism.
We understand this much: Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor – 68 civilian casualties.
The US response: "..on the night of March 9-10, 1945…LeMay sent 334 B-29s low over Tokyo from
the Marianas. Their mission was to reduce the city to rubble, kill its citizens, and instill terror
in the survivors, with jellied gasoline and napalm that would create a sea of flames. Stripped
of their guns to make more room for bombs, and flying at altitudes averaging 7,000 feet to evade
detection, the bombers, which had been designed for high-altitude precision attacks, carried two
kinds of incendiaries: M47s, 100-pound oil gel bombs, 182 per aircraft, each capable of starting
a major fire, followed by M69s, 6-pound gelled-gasoline bombs, 1,520 per aircraft in addition
to a few high explosives to deter firefighters. [25] The attack on an area that the US Strategic
Bombing Survey estimated to be 84.7 percent residential succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of
air force planners…
The Strategic Bombing Survey, whose formation a few months earlier provided an important signal
of Roosevelt's support for strategic bombing, provided a technical description of the firestorm
and its effects on Tokyo: The chief characteristic of the conflagration . . . was the presence
of a fire front, an extended wall of fire moving to leeward, preceded by a mass of pre-heated,
turbid, burning vapors . . . . The 28-mile-per-hour wind, measured a mile from the fire, increased
to an estimated 55 miles at the perimeter, and probably more within. An extended fire swept over
15 square miles in 6 hours . . . . The area of the fire was nearly 100 percent burned; no structure
or its contents escaped damage."
The survey concluded-plausibly, but only for events prior to August 6, 1945-that
"probably more persons lost their lives by fire at Tokyo in a 6-hour period than at any time
in the history of man. People died from extreme heat, from oxygen deficiency, from carbon monoxide
asphyxiation, from being trampled beneath the feet of stampeding crowds, and from drowning. The
largest number of victims were the most vulnerable: women, children and the elderly."
The raids continue for all the 'best' military reasons…
"In July, US planes blanketed the few remaining Japanese cities that had been spared firebombing
with an "Appeal to the People." "As you know," it read, "America which stands for humanity, does
not wish to injure the innocent people, so you had better evacuate these cities." Half the leafleted
cities were firebombed within days of the warning. US planes ruled the skies. Overall, by one
calculation, the US firebombing campaign destroyed 180 square miles of 67 cities, killed more
than 300,000 people and injured an additional 400,000, figures that exclude the atomic bombing
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki." (My italics)
http://apjjf.org/-Mark-Selden/2414/article.html
kidneystones 08.03.16 at 12:59 am
@ 86 Both my parents served. My grand-fathers served, and most of my uncles and great-uncles
served – you know, the whole mess from being shot to dying in hospitals years after the war from
gas attacks. And I served, nothing special about any of this.
You believe your nation's commitment to its military is somehow special? Prove it. Instead
we get American exceptionalism proudly on display.
Should all the foreigners in your debt salute, or simply prostrate ourselves in awe?
We're done.
JM Hatch 08.03.16 at 2:23 am
@41 Lee Arnold: Are you referring to the Warren Buffet who owns Fruit-of-the-Loom? The same
company which had Hillary's State Dept bust up a minimum wage law for Haiti's textile industry?
The same company which then donated to the Clinton Foundation for aid that never arrived to Haiti?
If not, then who is this Warren Buffet?
oldster 08.03.16 at 5:28 am
Still, there was one upside to Bush's minions attacks on Sheehan. Way back in those antediluvian
times, John Cole was still a supporter of Bush and the Iraq War. (Bless his heart, he soon learned
better) He defended the wing-nuts who were calling Sheehan a prostitute by saying that this was
metaphorical. This inspired The Editors writing at The Poor Man to write a response that featured
the phrase "enormous mendacious disembodied anus", which has passed into internet legend.
And probably passed out of internet legend once again, since of the people who were alive in
those days to be amused, very few are still alive to recall it. It was the heyday of war-blogging,
and anti-(war-blog)-blogging. We really sacrificed in those days, let me tell you–it was our own
personal Vietnam.
Corey Robin 08.03.16 at 4:53 am
The record of George W. Bush-the man who Ezra Klein claims would never have treated the Khans
the way Trump has-with regard to Cindy Sheehan, whose son was also killed in Iraq, is even worse
than I realized. As Brendan James reports in Slate:
It's true, as the people tipping their hats to Bush have pointed out, that the president
himself did not attack Sheehan the way Trump has gone after the Khans. But he didn't have to.
He let his underlings do it.
"Cindy Sheehan is a clown," said Bush's senior adviser and dirty trickster Karl Rove, whose
management of the media ecosystem was unparalleled. The Washington Post reported at the time
that Sheehan was a frequent topic of conversation between the president and his advisers. And
somehow, some way, Rove's sentiment trickled down into every pore of the conservative press.
Bill O'Reilly called Sheehan "dumb enough" to get "in bed" with the radical left. Glenn Beck
called Sheehan a "tragedy pimp" who was "prostituting her son's death." Rush Limbaugh said
she was somehow lying about having lost her son.
…
Unlike Trump, Bush did it the right way. His team assassinated the character of his bereaved
critic through the normal, respectable political channels. Meanwhile the man of the moment enjoyed
plausible deniability and the praise of future journalists.
Corey Robin 08.03.16 at 4:59 am
Meanwhile, journalists, liberals, and Democrats are kvelling over John McCain's denunciation
of Trump's comments about the Khans. They love this nearly annual morality tale, in which McCain
is dutifully trotted out (or trots himself out) to clean up the mess of last night's frat party.
Again, a little memory is helpful.
In 2002, after Saxby Chambliss ran that disgusting ad against Max Cleland (which I talk
about in the OP), John McCain said, "I'd never seen anything like that ad. Putting pictures of
Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden next to the picture of a man who left three limbs on the battlefield
- it's worse than disgraceful. It's reprehensible." Six years later, McCain campaigned for Chambliss's
reelection.
This is the first class analysis. Bravo Ted !!! It's sad that I found it only today. Deep insights
into what Khan gambit means. Bravo !
Notable quotes:
"... A week ago corporate media gatekeepers managed to transform the Democratic National Committee
internal emails released by WikiLeaks from what it really was – scandalous proof that Bernie Sanders
and his supporters were right when they said the Democratic leadership was biased and had rigged the
primaries against them ..."
"... Hillary's vote for an illegal war of choice that was sold with lies, was a major contributing
factor to the death of Captain Khan, thousands of his comrades, and over a million Iraqis. Iraq should
be a major issue in this campaign - against her. ..."
"... Instead, it's being used by his parents and the Democratic Party to bait Donald Trump into
a retro-post-9/11 "Support Our Troops" militaristic trap. Khan, you see, was " defending his country
." ..."
"... (How anyone can say U.S. soldiers in Iraq, part of an invasion force thousands of miles away
where no one threatens the United States, are "defending" the U.S. remains a long-running linguistic
mystery.) ..."
"... "Hillary Clinton was right when she called my son 'the best of America,'" Khizr Khan told the
convention. Unfortunately, the moniker can't apply to once-and-possible-future-first-daughter Chelsea
Clinton, who never considered a military career before collecting $600,000 a year from NBC News for
essentially a no-show job. But anyway… ..."
"... "If it was up to Donald Trump, he never would have been in America," Khizr Khan continued.
The cognitive dissonance makes my head spin. ..."
"... "Let me ask you: Have you even read the U.S. Constitution?" asked Khizr, who is originally
from Pakistan ..."
"... A good question. While we're at it, however, where does it say in the U.S. Constitution that
the president can send troops overseas for years at a time without a formal congressional declaration
of war? Where does it say that the United States can attack foreign countries that have done it no harm
and have never threatened it? ..."
"... As you'd expect Trump, he of little impulse control, has handled this about as poorly as possible.
Asked about Khizr Khan's remark that Trump hasn't made any sacrifices, he idiotically attempted to compare
his business dealings with the death of a son. Still, you have to grudgingly admire Trump for fighting
back against a guy you are officially not allowed to say anything mean about. ..."
"... Democrats have successfully appropriated images of patriotism and "optimism" – scare quotes
because this is not the kind of actual optimism in which you think things are going to actually get
better, but the bizarro variety in which you accept that things will really never get better so you'd
might as well accept the status quo – from the Republicans. This is part of Hillary Clinton's strategy
of taking liberal Democrats for granted while trying to seduce Republicans away from Trump. ..."
"... The Khan episode marks a high water mark for post-9/11 knee-jerk militarism. Even the "liberal"
party whose sitting incumbent two-term president captured the White House by running against the Iraq
war demands that everyone fall to their knees in order to pay homage to the "good" Muslims - those willing
to go to the Middle East to kill bad ones. ..."
"... Next time you see a panel of experts discussing a foreign crisis, pay attention: does anyone
argue against intervention? No. The debate is always between going in light and going in hard: bombs,
or "boots on the ground." Not getting involved is never an option. As long as this militaristic approach
to the world continues, the United States will never have enough money to take care of its problems
here at home, and it will always be hated around the world. ..."
"... Most Americans believe the Iraq war was a mistake . Who speaks for us? No one in the media.
And no one in mainstream politics. ..."
"... Trump's proposal to ban Muslims can't possibly be racist because Muslims are not a race. If
the US were to ban European devotees of a white supremacist pagan cult - such cults do exist, and the
US has every right to ban its devotees if it so chooses - nobody would bat an eye. ..."
"... The vote to authorize the war in Iraq was in 2002. Khan's DNC speech was 14 years later (and
12 years after his son was killed), not 8 years later. ..."
"... "The rest of us who makes heroes of our dead…" "Perpetuate war by exalting sacrifice…" ..."
"... "Most Americans believe the Iraq war was a mistake. Who speaks for us? No one in the media.
And no one in mainstream politics." The last sentence is incorrect. Donald Trump repeatedly said the
war was a mistake, even at times when it could have landed him in serious trouble. ..."
A week ago corporate media gatekeepers managed to transform the Democratic National Committee
internal emails released by WikiLeaks from what it really was – scandalous proof that Bernie Sanders
and his supporters were right when they said the Democratic leadership was biased and had rigged
the primaries against them, and that the system is corrupt – into a trivial side issue over
who might be responsible for hiking the DNC computers. Who cares if it was Russia? It's the content
that matters, not that it was ever seriously discussed.
Now here we go again.
Hillary's vote for an illegal war of choice that was sold with lies, was a major contributing
factor to the death of Captain Khan, thousands of his comrades, and over a million Iraqis. Iraq should
be a major issue in this campaign - against her.
Instead, it's being used by his parents and the Democratic Party to bait Donald Trump into
a retro-post-9/11 "Support Our Troops" militaristic trap. Khan, you see, was "defending
his country."(How anyone can say U.S. soldiers in Iraq, part of an invasion force thousands
of miles away where no one threatens the United States, are "defending" the U.S. remains a long-running
linguistic mystery.)
"Hillary Clinton was right when she called my son 'the best of America,'" Khizr Khan
told the convention. Unfortunately, the moniker can't apply to once-and-possible-future-first-daughter
Chelsea Clinton, who never considered a military career before collecting
$600,000 a year from NBC News for essentially a no-show job. But anyway…
"If it was up to Donald Trump, he never would have been in America," Khizr Khan continued.
The cognitive dissonance makes my head spin. Obviously, Trump's proposal to ban Muslims is racist
and disgusting. Ironically, however, it would have saved at least one life. If it was up to Donald
Trump, the Khans would still be in the United Arab Emirates. Humayan would still be alive. As would
any Iraqis he killed.
"Let me ask you: Have you even read the US Constitution?" asked Khizr, who is originally from
Pakistan. "I will gladly lend you my copy. In this document, look for the words 'liberty' and
'equal protection of law." A good question. While we're at it, however, where does it say in
the U.S. Constitution that the president can send troops overseas for years at a time without a formal
congressional declaration of war? Where does it say that the United States can attack foreign countries
that have done it no harm and have never threatened it?
As you'd expect Trump, he of little impulse control, has handled this about as poorly as possible.
Asked about Khizr Khan's remark that Trump hasn't made any sacrifices, he
idiotically attempted to compare his business dealings with the death of a son. Still, you have
to grudgingly admire Trump for fighting back against a guy you are officially not allowed to say
anything mean about.
It has been widely remarked, always approvingly, that this year's Democrats have successfully
appropriated images of patriotism and "optimism" – scare quotes because this is not the kind
of actual optimism in which you think things are going to actually get better, but the bizarro variety
in which you accept that things will really never get better so you'd might as well accept the status
quo – from the Republicans. This is part of
Hillary Clinton's strategy of taking liberal Democrats for granted while trying to seduce Republicans
away from Trump.
The Khan episode marks a high water mark for post-9/11 knee-jerk militarism. Even the "liberal"
party whose sitting incumbent two-term president captured the White House by running against the
Iraq war demands that everyone fall to their knees in order to pay homage to the "good" Muslims -
those willing to go to the Middle East to kill bad ones.
Next time you see a panel of experts discussing a foreign crisis, pay attention: does anyone
argue against intervention? No. The debate is always between going in light and going in hard: bombs,
or "boots on the ground." Not getting involved is never an option. As long as this militaristic approach
to the world continues, the United States will never have enough money to take care of its problems
here at home, and it will always be
hated around the world.
Ted Rall, syndicated writer and the cartoonist for
ANewDomain.net,is the author of the book "Snowden,"
the biography of the NSA whistleblower.
Fidelios Automata, August 3, 2016 at 7:24
pm GMT • 100 Words
Trump's proposal to ban Muslims can't possibly be racist because Muslims are not a race.
If the US were to ban European devotees of a white supremacist pagan cult - such cults do exist,
and the US has every right to ban its devotees if it so chooses - nobody would bat an eye.
The First Amendment says that the government may not infringe in Americans' religious choices;
it says nothing about foreigners. If it did, it would be illegal for the US to give aid to Israel,
Saudi Arabia, and any other nation that discriminates by religion.
Dave Pinsen, August 5, 2016 at 4:12 am GMT
The vote to authorize the war in Iraq was in 2002. Khan's DNC speech was 14 years later
(and 12 years after his son was killed), not 8 years later.
utu, August 5, 2016 at 6:35 am GMT
"The rest of us who makes heroes of our dead…" "Perpetuate war by exalting sacrifice…"
Parsifal, August 5, 2016 at 7:39 am GMT • 100 Words
"Most Americans believe the Iraq war was a mistake. Who speaks for us? No one in the media.
And no one in mainstream politics." The last sentence is incorrect. Donald Trump repeatedly said
the war was a mistake, even at times when it could have landed him in serious trouble.
"... In his latest interview with Chris Hayes, Khizr Khan reveals that he was close friends with Lee Atwater, the racist GOP strategist. It looks like all of the old Reaganites are now snugly inside of Hillary's Big Tent. ..."
In his latest interview with Chris
Hayes, Khizr Khan reveals that he was close friends with Lee Atwater, the racist GOP strategist.
It looks like all of the old Reaganites are now snugly inside of Hillary's Big Tent.
For those of you too young to recall Atwater's demonic brand of politics. He's the guy who taught
the Republicans how to court the vote of white supremacists without "appearing" racists themselves.
(Hayes, of course, being "All In With Her," didn't pause to ask Khan about the nature of his relationship
to the architect of Reagan's "Southern Strategy.")
Here is Atwater unfiltered, bragging to Alexander Lamis, a political scientist at Case Western
Reserve University. At the time, Atwater was working in the Reagan White House:
You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger"-that
hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states' rights, and all that stuff,
and you're getting so abstract. Now, you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things
you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse
than whites.… "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and
a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."
Lamis taped the interview. You can listen to the racist rant of Khan's pal, the man who constructed
the Big Tent theory of politics here.
Hillary Clinton thought Benghazi and her
email scandal
were behind her. Even though the FBI declined to charge her with massive negligence, those affected
by her incompetence aren't gonna let her off so easy.
The families of the Benghazi victims are
going after Hillary Clinton in court! This could be it for her!
The parents of two Americans killed in the 2012 terrorist attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities
in Benghazi, Libya, filed a wrongful death lawsuit in federal court Monday against Hillary Clinton.
In the suit, Patricia Smith and Charles Woods, the parents of Sean Smith and Tyrone Woods,
claim that Clinton's use of a private e-mail server contributed to the attacks. They also accuse
her of defaming them in public statements.
Smith was an information management officer and Woods was a security officer, both stationed
in Benghazi.
This is lawsuit could be what FINALLY puts Hillary away. The families deserve justice!
Was not WaPo a cheerleader of Iraq war? What a despicable hypocrites... Judging from comments it
is more and more difficult for them to deceive and brainwash the readers... The Trump campaign is a
movement MSM and neocons will never embrace. The media bias against Trump has reached unprecedented
proportions.
Notable quotes:
"... My other thought on this is that the Wahabbi theology, which the Saudis have spread so aggressively, is likely to poison the minds of fighting age Muslim males for many many generations to come. And if the House of Saud falls, the country will most likely fall to those under the sway of the Wahabbi clerics, with whom the Saudi monarchs have a tenuous alliance. IMO, if the House of Saud falls, the country is most likely to become an even more brutal theocracy than it already is. It's much more likely to turn into another ISIS state than a western style democracy. ..."
"... Among other things, it is highly doubtful that any other religion will ever be allowed on the Arabian peninsula, which speaks volumes about what will happen "free speech" or freedom of conscience in general in Saudi Arabia for the foreseeable future. ..."
"... As I've said before, ISIS Islam is indistinguishable from Saudi (Wahabbi) Islam. If ISIS is perverting Islam, then the Saudis, the Vatican of Islam are likewise perverting Islam. ..."
"... Insisting ISIS is not Islamic probably is intellectually dishonest and an example of the No true Scotsman fallacy, but what do you expect our leaders and Muslims who abhor Islamist violence to do? Its in the world's interests to repudiate Islamic State and disconnect it from mainstream Islam. It's simple pragmatism. ..."
"... I don't see what positive purpose it serves constantly to parrot that Islamic State are "true" Muslims. Where exactly does that lead us? We know what IS wants, and what its methods are. These individuals are thugs, not deep thinkers; their motive for doing what they are doesn't need to be overthought. There isn't anyone in the world who thinks Islamic State is composed of Episcopalians. ..."
"... Not saying they are "true" Muslims; that's certainly not for me to say. I am saying the Saudis are undeniably a "mainstream" sect, not a fringe sect. That's pretty hard to deny where the holiest sites in all of Islam are in Mecca and Medina, and the Saudis exert a huge influence over Mosque construction and Islamic education. ..."
"... But when I hear someone like this soldier's poor father say "Islam has nothing to do with terrorism" I just want to throw up my hands because it so clearly does. ..."
"... That's one of big problems with Islam: the immutable word of God as expressed in the Koran is pretty consistently hateful. And "the Bible is just as bad" is not persuasive-- for Christians there's that whole "New Testament" thing and the Jews are busy winning Nobel Peace Prizes while their neighbors are refining the art of the suicide vest. ..."
"... We are at war with an ideology that is embedded in a religion. That's an inescapable fact. ..."
"... Capt. Humayun Khan was killed in combat in 2004, over 12 yrs ago. Yet Hillary & DNC brought his parents to be on the podium of the convention. Democrats and Hillary Clinton wanted to EXPLOIT HIS DEATH to hilt. And media bought it whole, hook, line & sinker. Then Trump opened his mouth (it does not matter what he says. The media will pulverize it). Trump became a punching bag of the media yet again. ..."
"... "Islamophobia" is a term meant to conflate all criticism of Islam with xenophobia and racism. It's intended to stifle thought shut down conversation. I reject it as a label; it's a nonsense term. ..."
"... Here's the reasons I'm afraid of Islam: 9/11, Mumbai, Boston, Paris, Brussels, Madrid, San Bernandino, Orlando etc etc, etc., death penalty for apostasy, death penalty for blasphemy, death penalty for homosexuality, death penalty for adultery, honor killings, female genital mutilation, misogyny etc etc. etc. ..."
"... I understand that here in the US, people are free to believe as they choose. As I've said before, I don't care if you worship a stone, as long as you don't throw it at me. The reality is that some mainstream sects of Islam (e.g. Wababbis) are spiritual Nazis, and I give them the same "respect" I would give to any other totalitarian ideology; that is, none. If I'm an "Islamophobe" for that, I'll wear it as badge of honor. ..."
"... The son of Mr Khan was an AMERICAN SOLDIER -- Are the Khans American Citizens? If so why are you calling them and their son Muslims .. Muslim is their religion. I don't hear anyone be called a Baptist Soldier was killed, His Baptist Parents are grieving. ..."
"... Mr. Khan and Democrats were attacking Donald Trump with false narratives, Mr. Khan made his son a Muslim Martyr on national television, to compare legal immigrants from middle east with so called refugees from countries of terror who are not vetted is like apples and oranges. Khans need to be angry with Terrorists no Mr Trump who wants to protect all Americans even them from the Jihadists. ..."
"... Their son was killed by Muslims who I am certain would not hesitate for one second to kill them also, yet Mr. Trump is the object of their ire, not the kind of Muslim that would blow up their son. The pocket Constitution Mr. Khan produced was a cheap theatrical prop, the Khan's have every right to have a political opinion and support Mrs. Clinton and even bad mouth Trump as much as they like; I find Trump quite indefensible however in my opinion the Khan's use of their son's sacrifice for a political commercial did only one thing, cheapened and diminished their son's memory. ..."
"... "Who wrote that? Did Hillary's scriptwriters write it?" ..."
"... First, thank you for your service. Second Trump is indefensible. However do not for one second believe that the Khan's were there to pay homage to the memory of their son, they were a commercial for Hillary Clinton plain and simple. By mixing their son's sacrifice with a political commercial in my eyes they cheapened their son's memory. ..."
"... Trump has no filter though. Although I agree with much of what he says about Islam ("Islam hates us" is more accurate than he knows-- Google "al wara wal bara") he's a loose cannon. Don't like him or Hillary, although on Islam Hillary is unquestionably worse. Bought and paid for by the Saudis, among the worst enemies America has ever known. ..."
"... They want Muslim prayer in our schools, but they do not want Christian prayer anywhere near them. ..."
"... My point is that Islamic thuggery has its roots in the religion itself. It's not at all the same as soccer hoologanism. Muhammed is the supreme example for all Muslims; the world's most perfect human. I'm sure you know the word "Sunni" essentially means example (of Muhammed). ISIS essentially claims that the prophet Muhammed was the original ISIS member. ..."
"... So who dug up this lawyer to speak at a democrate convention and why? What's so special about him? ..."
"... And what have Hillary and the Clinton's sacrificed? An ambassador and diplomat and others in Benghazi? The Dems and their racist elitist owners have a knack for chastising all average Americans (typically white Christians) as always wrong, while they search far and wide for an example that they can use to expand their multi-culturalism agenda. ..."
"... Your son served as a legal American. All Trump wants is proper vetting of people who as a group contain a small minority might do us severe harm. Since you were at the Democrat convention, may I inform you of a couple of things. First, our current president, Obama, never served in the military. Bill, the husband of the nominee you support, Hillary Clinton, never served; ..."
"... But it is worse. Bill Clinton (obviously I am reading reports and would be very unlikely to have first hand knowledge of all of these things) had an educational deferment for college during the VietNam "war." He then had an additional deferment during his two year Rhodes scholarship at Oxford. He joined a National Guard unit in Arkansas but did not report. ..."
"... You are very confused. The Clinton running for President is Hillary. The Republican opponent is Trump with 4 military deferments for his bad foot BUT he bragged he did his national patriotic service avoiding VD in New York. ..."
"... When Mr. Khan asked the question: what have you sacrificed? he opened the door to comparisons. Mr Obama is a current president, Mr Clinton a former president. The comparisons were perfectly legitimate. You consider it irrelevant I consider it relevant. That is called a difference of opinions. ..."
"If it was up to Donald Trump, [Humayun] never would have been in America," Khan said. "Donald
Trump consistently smears the character of Muslims. He disrespects other minorities, women, judges,
even his own party leadership. He vows to build walls and ban us from this country.
Muslim American Khizr Khan, whose son Humayun was killed while serving in the U.S. Army, offered
Republican candidate Donald Trump his copy of the Constitution during a speech at the Democratic
convention. (The Washington Post)
"Donald Trump," he said, "you are asking Americans to trust you with our future. Let me ask you:
Have you even read the U.S. Constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy." He pulled a copy of the
Constitution from his pocket. "In this document, look for the words 'liberty' and 'equal protection
of law.' " Earlier this month, Trump promised congressional Republicans that he would
defend "Article XII" of the Constitution, which doesn't exist.
"Have you ever been to Arlington Cemetery?" Khan asked. "Go look at the graves of the brave patriots
who died defending America - you will see all faiths, genders, and ethnicities.
"You have sacrificed nothing. And no one."
Norger, 8/3/2016
My other thought on this is that the Wahabbi theology, which the Saudis have spread so
aggressively, is likely to poison the minds of fighting age Muslim males for many many generations
to come. And if the House of Saud falls, the country will most likely fall to those under the
sway of the Wahabbi clerics, with whom the Saudi monarchs have a tenuous alliance. IMO, if the
House of Saud falls, the country is most likely to become an even more brutal theocracy than it
already is. It's much more likely to turn into another ISIS state than a western style democracy.
Among other things, it is highly doubtful that any other religion will ever be allowed
on the Arabian peninsula, which speaks volumes about what will happen "free speech" or freedom
of conscience in general in Saudi Arabia for the foreseeable future.
Katy Cordeth, 8/2/2016
@Katy.
As I've said before, ISIS Islam is indistinguishable from Saudi (Wahabbi) Islam. If
ISIS is perverting Islam, then the Saudis, the Vatican of Islam are likewise perverting Islam.
To say that "ISIS is not Islamic" is deception and complete intellectual dishonesty not
from you, but from our leaders. They literally think we must be lied to, that we can't handle
the truth. ISIS is very Islamic, in the sense that they are ultra orthodox.
Not if they ignore the parts of the Qur'an which promote peace and respect for all people,
Norger, and such passages do exist despite what your Mr. Spencer might tell you. Being orthodox
means not being able to cherry-pick the parts of one's holy texts one wishes and ignoring the
rest. It depends which definition of "orthodox" one is employing, but if this were the case the
Phelps clan could be described as orthodox.
Insisting ISIS is not Islamic probably is intellectually dishonest and an example of the
No true Scotsman fallacy, but what do you expect our leaders and Muslims who abhor Islamist violence
to do? Its in the world's interests to repudiate Islamic State and disconnect it from mainstream
Islam. It's simple pragmatism. It reminds non-Muslims that, in direct contravention of IS
(and Donald Trump's) goal, the majority do not support the kind of violence Islamists use; and
it stops impressionable Muslims such as those three British schoolgirls from viewing terrorists
as legitimate followers of their faith.
I don't see what positive purpose it serves constantly to parrot that Islamic State are
"true" Muslims. Where exactly does that lead us? We know what IS wants, and what its methods are.
These individuals are thugs, not deep thinkers; their motive for doing what they are doesn't need
to be overthought. There isn't anyone in the world who thinks Islamic State is composed of Episcopalians.
Norger, 8/2/2016
Not saying they are "true" Muslims; that's certainly not for me to say. I am saying the
Saudis are undeniably a "mainstream" sect, not a fringe sect. That's pretty hard to deny where
the holiest sites in all of Islam are in Mecca and Medina, and the Saudis exert a huge influence
over Mosque construction and Islamic education. It's not our leaders' job (and certainly
not mine)to decide which interpretation of Islam is "proper" or true. It is their job to recognize
threats to our national security and deal with them appropriately. As Sam Harris says, the Taliban,
Al Quaeda etc. offer up an entirely plausible interpretation of the faith. And there is no clear
dividing line between their "bad" Islam and "good" Islam.
Anwar al-Awlaki was supposedly a good or "moderate" Muslim until we found out he wasn't and
killed him in a drone strike. I wish I were as optimistic as you about the power of moderate Muslims
to transform the faith. But the threat of being labeled an apostate can be seriously hazardous
to one's health, even here in the US. But when I hear someone like this soldier's poor father
say "Islam has nothing to do with terrorism" I just want to throw up my hands because it so clearly
does.
Norger, 8/3/2016
Tell me about those parts of the Koran that promote respect for all people if you can -- but
I will tell you they are far outnumbered by the hateful verses, which I could spend all day quoting,
And if you are going to quote that "whosoever kills another person it's as though he killed all
mankind verse" I suggest you quit the entire verse (including the always omitted language about
when it IS OK to kill another person) and the verse which follows, which describes the manner
in which such transgressors are to be killed.
That's one of big problems with Islam: the immutable word of God as expressed in the Koran
is pretty consistently hateful. And "the Bible is just as bad" is not persuasive-- for Christians
there's that whole "New Testament" thing and the Jews are busy winning Nobel Peace Prizes while
their neighbors are refining the art of the suicide vest.
BigPicture , 8/1/2016
Something worth repeating. Below, I quote from @Norger's comment. Mr. Norger said:
"We are at war with an ideology that is embedded in a religion. That's an inescapable
fact. Are we at war with all Muslims? I sure hope not. But if, in your words, the jihadis
represent "the worst," then we (particularly military and law enforcement) need to be able
to take a hard and unflinching look at our enemies' self-stated motivating ideology in order
to defeat it. That necessarily means developing a deep understanding of the most extreme Islamic
ideologies. The fact is that some Muslims will inevitably not find this "insulting" or "offensive."
It is noteworthy that in Sharia law, "slander" is not necessarily a false statement; it's any
discussion of something which the aggrieved party does not wish to be known. Unless we have
a death wish, "cultural sensitivity" should take a back seat to national security when lives
are at stake. We knew this after 9/11, the body count must rise once again before we learn
it again.
Don't know if Andrew McCarthy (federal prosecutor of the "Blind Sheik," Omar Abdel Rahman)
is also "beneath contempt" in your circles, but I would alsorecommend his book, "Willful Blindness."
(yes Ted Cruz ripped this off).
BigPicture View, 8/1/2016 8:02 AM EST
Capt. Humayun Khan was killed in combat in 2004, over 12 yrs ago. Yet Hillary & DNC brought
his parents to be on the podium of the convention. Democrats and Hillary Clinton wanted to EXPLOIT
HIS DEATH to hilt. And media bought it whole, hook, line & sinker. Then Trump opened his mouth
(it does not matter what he says. The media will pulverize it). Trump became a punching bag of
the media yet again.
Hillary exploited the death of Capt, Khan. The media had something to report besides zero.
Trump became the media punching bag, yet again Trump got free ads and voters' sympathy.
Every one got something out of it. Who is the loser??? Mr. & Mrs. Khan became suckers.
Norger, 8/1/2016 7:44 AM EST
"Islamophobia" is a term meant to conflate all criticism of Islam with xenophobia and racism.
It's intended to stifle thought shut down conversation. I reject it as a label; it's a nonsense
term.
Here's the reasons I'm afraid of Islam: 9/11, Mumbai, Boston, Paris, Brussels, Madrid,
San Bernandino, Orlando etc etc, etc., death penalty for apostasy, death penalty for blasphemy,
death penalty for homosexuality, death penalty for adultery, honor killings, female genital mutilation,
misogyny etc etc. etc.
To you, I'm a borderline racist for being concerned about these things. To me, you are a blind
apologist. Jihad is different in kind from anything the US military does. It's quite literally
murder as a sacrament, in the name of spreading or defending the faith. Afraid of Islam? You bet.
Among other things, "mutually assured destruction" means nothing to a country in possession of
nuclear weapons whose leaders are of this mindset (Iran, anyone?)
I understand that here in the US, people are free to believe as they choose. As I've said
before, I don't care if you worship a stone, as long as you don't throw it at me. The reality
is that some mainstream sects of Islam (e.g. Wababbis) are spiritual Nazis, and I give them the
same "respect" I would give to any other totalitarian ideology; that is, none. If I'm an "Islamophobe"
for that, I'll wear it as badge of honor.
"ISIS is not Islamic." Riiiight.
Michelle Ann, 7/31/2016 12:58 PM EST
The son of Mr Khan was an AMERICAN SOLDIER -- Are the Khans American Citizens? If so why
are you calling them and their son Muslims .. Muslim is their religion. I don't hear anyone be
called a Baptist Soldier was killed, His Baptist Parents are grieving.
Mr. Khan and Democrats were attacking Donald Trump with false narratives, Mr. Khan made
his son a Muslim Martyr on national television, to compare legal immigrants from middle east with
so called refugees from countries of terror who are not vetted is like apples and oranges. Khans
need to be angry with Terrorists no Mr Trump who wants to protect all Americans even them from
the Jihadists.
American, 7/31/2016 8:45 AM EST [Edited]
Any parent who has to bury a child is worthy of compassion, I cannot imagine a greater pain.
Captain Khan is a hero, there is nothing more noble than to lay down your life so another may
live. Mr. and Mrs. Khan used their son's memory to attack Mr. Trump, they politicized the death
of their son, they went on TV in front of an audience of millions with only one purpose: to attack
Mr. Trump.
Their son was killed by Muslims who I am certain would not hesitate for one second to kill
them also, yet Mr. Trump is the object of their ire, not the kind of Muslim that would blow up
their son. The pocket Constitution Mr. Khan produced was a cheap theatrical prop, the Khan's have
every right to have a political opinion and support Mrs. Clinton and even bad mouth Trump as much
as they like; I find Trump quite indefensible however in my opinion the Khan's use of their son's
sacrifice for a political commercial did only one thing, cheapened and diminished their son's
memory.
G_Minde, 7/31/2016 4:04 AM EST
"Who wrote that? Did Hillary's scriptwriters write it?"
For shame.
A father who has lost a son in our nation's service calls out The Donald – and his lame response
is to question whether or not the father wrote his own words?
The Donald can't believe that someone born in a country that had English as an official language,
trained as a lawyer, and with over 20 years in the United States can not make his own speech?
The Donald can't believe that someone with a darker skin tone than his can be eloquent?
The Donald can't handle that a family who has lost a son in our nation's service would disagree
with his proposed policy that would have kept them from coming to this country in the first place.
And when questioned about it, instead of being compassionate, or non-committal, or at least
*respectful* of the father of one of our fallen soldiers, questions whether or not those were
even his words.
Contrast that with former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, talking about how "Virtually every
night for four and a half years, writing condolence letters and reading about these mostly young
men and women, I wept."
Donald, when the father of a fallen solder says ""You have sacrificed nothing and no one, "
I don't think that staying that you have 'worked hard' to make money is really quite…sacrifice.
It's not like you have been one of the 'dollar a year' men like served under FDR in World War
Two. I can't think of anyone who wouldn't expect to 'work hard' in the course of making billions
of dollars.
You claim 'creating jobs' in the process of making money as a sacrifice you have made.
So how many jobs is the life of a son worth?
The Donald wants to be the Commander-in-Chief, but this is how he talks about the Families
of the Fallen. Such character. Such temperament.
Here's one Afghan veteran whose vote he will not be getting.
American, 7/31/2016 8:58 AM EST
First, thank you for your service. Second Trump is indefensible. However do not for one
second believe that the Khan's were there to pay homage to the memory of their son, they were
a commercial for Hillary Clinton plain and simple. By mixing their son's sacrifice with a political
commercial in my eyes they cheapened their son's memory.
Norger, 8/7/2016 10:08 AM EST
Yes, and the Republicans tried the same thing with a mother of one of soldiers killed in Benghazi;
she was ripped by many in the MSM, essentially for these same reasons. Not that there's any double
standard.
Trump has no filter though. Although I agree with much of what he says about Islam ("Islam
hates us" is more accurate than he knows-- Google "al wara wal bara") he's a loose cannon. Don't
like him or Hillary, although on Islam Hillary is unquestionably worse. Bought and paid for by
the Saudis, among the worst enemies America has ever known.
GeorgeVreelandHill1, 7/30/2016 10:37 PM EST
I agree with Trump on banning Muslims.
Far too many of them have killed innocent people around the world including in the United States.
Far too many of them chant "Death To America" in their streets and few have real respect for America.
I see Muslims all over Los Angeles and they want to do things their way according to their own
customs.
You say no to them and they sue.
A Christmas tree is an insult to them. They want Muslim prayer in our schools, but they do not want Christian prayer anywhere near
them.
They try to take over any space they are in.
On 9/11, there were two Arab boys pointing to the smoldering ruins of the Twin Towers.
They were laughing.
That is typical Muslim behavior towards America.
The United States is THE land of freedom, but Muslims are trying to take away as much of the freedom
as they can.
Their agenda is the Middle East agenda and they dare others to stop.
Well, stop them we must.
In America, you do what is according to the laws of this land and not the laws of other places.
Don't like it, then get out.
Or be banned.
George Vreeland Hill
Norger, 7/30/2016 10:50 PM EST
OK, so it appears you now agree you said that many Muslims are in fact intimidated into silence
even though you were outraged in your last post that I would suggest you said such a thing.
I don't doubt that political grievances play some part in this but there are many other groups
throughout the world (e.g. Christians in the Middle East, Tibetan Buddhists) who suffer oppression
equal or greater than that of Muslims, but don't resort to terroristic violence. (where are those
Tibetan suicide bombers). And sorry no, I don't think that western imperialism is responsible
for the second (or more) generation Islamist violence we are seeing in France, Belgium and Germany.
Islam reliably breeds a certain percentage of terrorists.
My point is that Islamic thuggery has its roots in the religion itself. It's not at all
the same as soccer hoologanism. Muhammed is the supreme example for all Muslims; the world's most
perfect human. I'm sure you know the word "Sunni" essentially means example (of Muhammed). ISIS
essentially claims that the prophet Muhammed was the original ISIS member. They emulate his
behavior in every way and (accurately) cite Islamic scripture in support of virtually every atrocity
they commit. It's not just "human nature;" it's an ideology of conquest, cloaked in a veneer of
religion.And ther is little or no difference between ISIS Islam and Saudi Islam. That fact alone
should terrify us.
I say that jihad terror is going to continue until we recognize it for what it is--religiously
motivated warfare. I'm supposed to be flattened by you telling me that "sounds like Trump?" Here's
my question to you: how can we possibly fight jihad terror effectively if we refuse to recognize,
name and study our enemies' self-stated motivating ideology? How can that possibly be helpful?
If we are "at war" with "violent extremism" then intentionally refusing to "come to grips" with
our enemies' self-stated motivating ideology is beyond foolish.
DPMP, 7/30/2016 9:24 PM EST
So who dug up this lawyer to speak at a democrate convention and why? What's so special
about him?
anagitator, 7/30/2016 8:45 PM EST
And what have Hillary and the Clinton's sacrificed? An ambassador and diplomat and others
in Benghazi? The Dems and their racist elitist owners have a knack for chastising all average
Americans (typically white Christians) as always wrong, while they search far and wide for an
example that they can use to expand their multi-culturalism agenda.
How many such average Americans also were killed in action and Hillary could care less because
it doesn't fit her or the elites agenda? The Clinton family will drag us into more wars to advance
the bankster interests.
Jake55, 7/30/2016 4:39 PM EST
For the, 70 plus years, Hillary has been destroying America. She in her term as the Governor's
wife was snorting so much cocaine that she drifted through that term. She had a good start with
Watergate, where she was fired for dishonesty and trying to manufacture evidence. Then during
her husband's vie for the presidential seat, she was a master at covering up his affairs and picadillos.
Rape, indiscretions...all covered up by Hillary. She has ruined many lives protecting her errant
husband and his sex crazed impulses.
... ... ...
Katy Cordeth, 7/30/2016 5:07 PM EST
Everything else in your comment was too asinine, hysterical (God help us indeed) and borderline-libellous
to respond to, but this Watergate calumny should be addressed.
OK, let's talk about your son, who gave his life AS AN AMERICAN soldier, and your Trump insult
by your rhetorical question of whether Trump has ever been to Arlington (where, BTW, my parents
are also buried...so it is a powerful image associated with this WaPo article).
Your son served as a legal American. All Trump wants is proper vetting of people who as a group
contain a small minority might do us severe harm.
Since you were at the Democrat convention, may I inform you of a couple of things. First, our
current president, Obama, never served in the military. Bill, the husband of the nominee you support,
Hillary Clinton, never served;
But it is worse. Bill Clinton (obviously I am reading reports and would be very unlikely to
have first hand knowledge of all of these things) had an educational deferment for college during
the VietNam "war." He then had an additional deferment during his two year Rhodes scholarship
at Oxford. He joined a National Guard unit in Arkansas but did not report. He picketed against
America while overseas. When he did not report to his Guard unit, he was, in June, sent a draft
notice. But he did not go. In August, two months later, the draft was changed to a lottery system
and he received a high number, meaning he would not go into the military. BUT...those who had
already received a draft note, as Bill, were not eligible for the lottery. How did he escape that??
And how can you therefore support Hillary?
What have you done personally to stop Muslim terrorists from striking us here in America?
BobSanderson, 7/30/2016 2:24 PM EST
You are very confused. The Clinton running for President is Hillary. The Republican opponent
is Trump with 4 military deferments for his bad foot BUT he bragged he did his national patriotic
service avoiding VD in New York.
How did you miss the revelant parties and facts on service?
American, 7/30/2016 2:39 PM EST
When Mr. Khan asked the question: what have you sacrificed? he opened the door to comparisons.
Mr Obama is a current president, Mr Clinton a former president. The comparisons were perfectly
legitimate. You consider it irrelevant I consider it relevant. That is called a difference of
opinions.
Another nice example of swiftboating. What scarifies for illegal and disastrous Iraq war that made
Iran region superpower mean?
Notable quotes:
"... "He says, 'You have sacrificed nothing and no one,'" Stephanopoulos asked. "Who wrote that,
did Hillary's scriptwriters write it?" Trump replied. "How would you answer that father?" Stephanopoulos
asked. "What sacrifice have you made?" ..."
"... In lieu of participating in a debate on Fox News earlier this year, Trump held a fundraiser
at which he said he raised millions of dollars for veterans' charities and given $1 million of his own.
When The Washington Post investigated, we found that he had overstated how much had been raised and
contributed and that Trump himself hadn't made a contribution. ..."
"... Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said during a campaign speech in Iowa on July
28 that he wanted to "hit" some of the speakers at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
"I was going to hit one guy in particular. A very little guy," Trump said to laughter. (Reuters) ..."
Trump's
response to the New York Times's Maureen Dowd was brief: "I'd like to hear his wife say something."
If your assumption was that Trump was suggesting that, as a Muslim woman, Ghazala Khan may have
been forced into a position of subservience, Trump made that point explicitly in
an interview with ABC News's George Stephanopoulos.
"I saw him," Trump said of the speech. "He was very emotional and probably looked like a nice
guy to me. His wife … if you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say."
"She probably, maybe she wasn't allowed to have anything to say. You tell me," Trump continued.
"But a plenty of people have written that. She was extremely quiet, and it looked like she had nothing
to say. A lot of people have said that."
O'DONNELL: You were very nervous about going to the convention and actually were reluctant,
didn't really want to go out on the stage and especially didn't want to speak because you would
not be able to keep your composure and I have to say, I'm just like you. I don't think I would
have been able to do what your husband did out there last night.
How do you feel now about having gone to the convention and gone out on stage and seen what
an impact it's had?
GHAZALA KHAN: First of all, I thank all America who listened from their heart to my husband's
and my heart, and I'm so grateful for that. And it was very nervous because I cannot see my son's
picture, and I cannot even come in the room where his pictures are. That's why when I saw the
picture at my back I couldn't take it, and I controlled myself at that time. So, it is very hard.
While Khizr Khan spoke, a large photo of their son was displayed on the large video screens behind
the couple.
"He says, 'You have sacrificed nothing and no one,'" Stephanopoulos asked.
"Who wrote that, did Hillary's scriptwriters write it?" Trump replied.
"How would you answer that father?" Stephanopoulos asked. "What sacrifice have you made?"
"I think I've made a lot of sacrifices," Trump said. "I've worked very, very hard. I've created
thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs …"
"Those are sacrifices?" Stephanopoulos asked.
"Sure. I think they're sacrifices. I think when I can employ thousands and thousands of people,
take care of their education, take care of so many things," Trump said. "Even the military. I mean,
I was very responsible along with a group of people for getting the Vietnam Memorial built in downtown
Manhattan, which to this day people thank me for."
"I raised and I have raised millions of dollars for the vets," he added.
In lieu of participating in a debate on Fox News earlier this year, Trump held a fundraiser
at which he said he raised millions of dollars for veterans' charities and given $1 million of his
own. When The Washington Post investigated, we found that
he had overstated how much had been raised and contributed and that Trump himself hadn't made
a contribution.
It was only after that report that Trump wrote a check.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said during a campaign speech in Iowa on July 28
that he wanted to "hit" some of the speakers at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
"I was going to hit one guy in particular. A very little guy," Trump said to laughter. (Reuters)
MRC's Bozell Lashes Out at 'Stupid' Trump Giving Media Excuse
to Not Cover DNC Leaks, Hillary
By
NB Staff |
August 6, 2016 | 10:17 AM EDT
Media Research Center President Brent Bozell was in rare
form on Tuesday night while speaking to Dana Loesch of The
Blaze TV in calling out Donald Trump as "stupid" for
giving the liberal media an endless number of excuses to
not cover the firings and Wikileaks dumps about the
Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton's
latest problems with the truth.
"... There's no question that the guy was not just picked off a list of "Gold Star Muslim Families." And everyone who spoke at that convention was a Clinton supporter; that's one of the main reasons for the convention. But a better candidate, a candidate with better character and intellect, would never have fallen into such an obvious trap. ..."
"... I hope Trump runs ads that say "Why did Hillary have a guy --with Muslim Brotherhood and Saudi connections, an attorney who specializes in helping Arab Muslims into our country on greencards and visas, ..."
"... What often gets lost in the White Water, Castle Grande real estate kiting scam discussion, is that the original funds AND the monies for multiple inflated resale of those properties came from the Madison Savings and Loan, in cahoots with the State of Arkansas (Clintons cohorts) raiding a Federal fund (HUD) meant for low income housing. ..."
"... After embezzling and laudering hundreds of millions, they never built ANY low income housing for the poor. That's the nature of the Clinton's compassion for the poor. ..."
"... clinton got millions from 'sharia law education group' ..."
"... With the help of republicans demonizing Trump. Instead of talking about Clinton and all the dirt, the lies, the treasonous behavior, the e-mail scandal, her lying to the Benghazi families, etc. etc. Instead they keep harping on what they claim Trump said. In other words republicans going out of their way to help Clinton. ..."
"... More and more Khan is being exposed as a plant and a stooge for Hillary and the Democrat Party. And the Leftist media, an embedded wing of the Democrat Party, will not tolerate us exposing their lies, hypocrisies and false narratives. Which is all the more incentive to keep ON exposing them. ..."
"... We will have to deal with Trump's verbal antics, and take him to task, but we MUST see to it he is elected President. The Republican Party be damned! Our country is at stake. Khan will not be the person to decide this election, and we will not let him have that power. ..."
"... All the media types think "Trump going after the gold star muslim family" is hurting him. I don't think this has any effect on voters at all. The [neo]liberal playbook is to put a little girl in the boxing ring to throw punches, and if she's hit back they scream "how could you hit a little girl???" It's all theater and all very old shtick. I think real voters know this and are unaffected. ..."
"... Ever notice how the truth causes [neo]liberals to go batshit crazy? It's like sunlight to a vampire.... ..."
"... FACTS: A [neo]liberals worst enemy ..."
"... The Clinton Campaign has held up a Muslim Human Shield. You are no longer allowed to criticize them on "refugees" or "immigration". ..."
"... What the f does making sure we vet Syrian refugees have to do with the member of the Muslim brotherhood's losing a son in the first Irag war have to do with anything? The fact is the DNC dragged these poor people out there to try and smear Trump just because he wants to make sure no terrorist get in with these refugees. I believe the Khan's son was a US citizen, so what does this have to do with Syrian refugees, this is how the left lies time and time again. ..."
"... The last sentence says everything you need to know about [neo[liberals. Bravo to Bauer for standing up to this ignorant [neo]liberal Troll from CNN. You can count down 3, 2, 1....until the screaming [neo]liberal goes off after hearing facts. ..."
"... The newest form of ignorance out there Knowing what the Clinton campaign is Deliberately doing and making excuses and steering the viewers away from the reality that comes with common sense. Trump may not be the perfect candidate but sure as the Good lord loves me, Hillary represents Satan And everything wrong Corrupted and evil about humanity. If you vote for that woman (and I don't care if you write in someone else) but if you vote for that woman you are an accomplice to every evil the Democratic party now represents and that is just plain NO BS Common Sense. ..."
"... "You're like he worked for Hillary Clinton like that somehow makes him unqualified to speak about his son-" It simply makes everything he says suspect. ..."
"... I am sick of this. Trump criticized Khan, and it turned out he (Khan) is a Clinton insider, working for a group of lawyers who did the Clinton's frickin' taxes... ..."
"... When you participate in a partisan attack--as the Khan's, Pat Smith and Charles Wood have done -- then you're opening yourself to a partisan counter-attack. Having no defense for the deaths in Benghazi, the Hillary surrogates are reduced to claiming that the Khan's are neutral territory. Sorry, it doesn't work that way. ..."
"... If he cared about the memory of his son, he would shut the f**k up. His son didn't join the Army to support Hillary Clinton. Just another case of a Cindy Sheehan. Hillary voted on the war, because her independent research convinced her that regime change was necessary. ..."
"... Truth and facts are by definition "smears" on the Clintons... After all these years I have a pretty good grasp just exactly who and what they are... What I do not understand is how nearly half of the electorate in this country continues to drink the lemonade... ..."
"... We must distinguish between the son, who died in the service of this country, and the father, who has his own life and agenda. Trump was wrong if he criticized the son. The father is fair game. ..."
Appearing on Tuesday's New Day, liberal Daily Beast contributor and recurring CNN guest Dean Obeidallah
went ballistic after a fellow guest and Donald Trump supporter recalled that Khizr Khan has a history
of ties to the Clintons as the immigration expert was an employee of the law firm Hogan Lovells LLP,
which not only has represented the Clinton Foundation but also worked on immigration cases involving
the controversial EB-5 visa program.
After former South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer recalled Khan's connections to the
Clintons, the two got into a heated debate as Obeidallah incredulously accused the Trump supporter
of "smearing" Khan by merely introducing his links to the Clintons into the political conversation.
At 8:30 a.m. ET, Bauer brought up Khan's ties to the Clintons:
Mr. Khan worked for the Clintons. There is a direct connection. Nobody wants to engage in that
because of the loss of a child, which is a terrible thing, but again, he is continuing to push
this, too. He is making it political, and there is a bigger tie to the Clintons. He's worked for
them. He's worked for the EB-5 program, which is controversial.
The South Carolina Republican added:
Senator Grassley even pointed out there are inconsistencies and really not checks and balances
in a program that's let too many folks in that are questionable, individuals that probably should
never have been allowed in our country.
robert108 > bkeyser
He works for her, then shows up at her convention and lies about her opponent. He smeared himself
by his lack of integrity. Furthermore, papa khan is a sharia advocate, standing there with his
good little hijab wearing sharia wife, and waves the Constitution, as if he believes in it. A
complete crock, designed to serve his employer, Hillary.
bkeyser Mod > robert108
There's no question that the guy was not just picked off a list of "Gold Star Muslim Families."
And everyone who spoke at that convention was a Clinton supporter; that's one of the main reasons
for the convention. But a better candidate, a candidate with better character and intellect, would
never have fallen into such an obvious trap. You can blame Clinton, you can blame the Khan's,
but this is a story only because of Trump.
CruzAmnestiedHortence > bkeyser
I hope it remains a story.
I hope Trump runs ads that say "Why did Hillary have a guy --with Muslim Brotherhood and
Saudi connections, an attorney who specializes in helping Arab Muslims into our country on greencards
and visas, who has written and lectured admiringly of the "superiority" of Sharia law-- in
a prime time slot at her convention? And why is he carrying water for her? Could it be that this
Jihadist in a suit has financial and ideological interests in supporting her policy of importing
millions more Muslims?
Might Mr Khan understand that Trump policy objectives conflict with his professional AND ideological
goals?
Check out Breitbart now before they change it.....ALL the Benghazi mothers and widows are laying
wood to Hillary right now. Ugly. Hillary is going to LOSE this one eventually. Khan has already
said he wants out of the discussion. The Democrats will want out next.
Don Meaker > bkeyser
If you look at what Trump actually said, it was unexceptional. The outrageous part is what
the media shills are saying.
Gary Hall Mod > bkeyser
Certainly the broad electorate should be well aware (and, of course they are not) that many
many friends and associates of the Clinton's have been charged and found guilty - or plead guilty
of crimes. I think that there were 15 in the Whitewater development scam alone (oh, did the Clinton's
ever pay all those that lost all of their investment purchasing lots?). And then there were another
batch in this lot:
And for a little walk down memory lane (and I apologize, looks like the video has been taken
down - perhaps someone can locate it) -- PBS's Frontline production - "The Fixers."
What often gets lost in the White Water, Castle Grande real estate kiting scam discussion,
is that the original funds AND the monies for multiple inflated resale of those properties came
from the Madison Savings and Loan, in cahoots with the State of Arkansas (Clintons cohorts) raiding
a Federal fund (HUD) meant for low income housing.
After embezzling and laudering hundreds of millions, they never built ANY low income housing
for the poor.
That's the nature of the Clinton's compassion for the poor.
FACT: Trump spoke highly of Captain Khan and his scacrifice. But, NOT the outrageous rants
of the dead soldier's father.
FACT: Khizr M. Khan is a very rich Muslim attorney with DEEP ties to Saudi Arabia.
FACT: Khan is an immigration lawyer who specializes in a highly controversial program accused
of letting RICH Muslims buy their way into the U.S.
FACT: The E-2 and EB-5 are two of the most notoriously abused visa categories that essentially
allow wealthy foreigners to buy their way to U.S. residency, and possibly citizenship, with a
relatively modest investment,
FACT: Khan's website notes that he works to help clients with the E-2 and EB-5 programs that
let overseas investors buy into U.S. companies and also provides green cards for family members.
FACT: Khan has now taken his website down coz it exposes his hypocrisy.
FACT: Khan has written extensively about Sharia Law and wants to replace America's Constitution
with it.
FACT: Khan has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
ohio granny > bill
With the help of republicans demonizing Trump. Instead of talking about Clinton and all
the dirt, the lies, the treasonous behavior, the e-mail scandal, her lying to the Benghazi families,
etc. etc. Instead they keep harping on what they claim Trump said. In other words republicans
going out of their way to help Clinton.
DanB_Tiffin
Who is Khizr Khan, the father of a fallen US soldier?
01Aug2016 by Clarice Feldman
http://www.americanthinker.com...
"a Muslim Cindy Sheehan playing on people's sympathies to foster a Democratic Party political
agenda."
Simon Battle > DanB_Tiffin
The GOPe, rather than point out Khan's radical jihadi connections, are spending their time
to further divide in the Republican party. Who's side is the GOPe on? The Republican party, we
the people, have made our choice. We have chosen Donald Trump because he best represents us, the
Republican party. It's time for the GOPe to coalesce around the Republican party or get the hell
out of the way.
ohio granny > Simon Battle
Yep helping the democRATs slander Trump almost like they want Trump to lose. They are nothing
but hypocrites doing the democRATs dirty work.
CruzAmnestiedHortence > ohio granny
The GOPe went into "vandalize Trump's campaign" mode as soon as they realized they couldn't
steal the nomination 3 weeks ago.
JValjean > DanB_Tiffin
Moslem Americans with compelling personal narratives, i.e. losing a child on the battlefield,
do not have an unassailable right to haughtily lecture other Americans on what's proper Americanism,
that includes presidential candidates. If "Moslem Gold Star Families" are indeed not unicorns,
perhaps there is a better and less controversial avatar in that community to legitimately promote
its political agenda other than the baggage laden Mr. Khan.
ZombieProcesses > JValjean
The Clintonistas were being lazy. No need not to be as the press (and the globalistas in the
GOP) will focus on the prey, not the bait.
twfuller • 5 days ago
More and more Khan is being exposed as a plant and a stooge for Hillary and the
Democrat Party. And the Leftist media, an embedded wing of the Democrat Party, will not
tolerate us exposing their lies, hypocrisies and false narratives. Which is all the more
incentive to keep ON exposing them.
We will have to deal with Trump's verbal antics, and take him to task, but we MUST see
to it he is elected President. The Republican Party be damned! Our country is at stake. Khan
will not be the person to decide this election, and we will not let him have that power.
Never thought that the Clinton News Network would admit that just
being associated with the Clintons was a smear on your character. I
always thought it was but I now see CNN agrees.
PJ1193
What part of Mr Khan calling Trump a racist then wrapping himself in his dead sons memory
to shut off a response to his personal smear of Trump not a sick thing to do. We all know what
this is about and all this faux outrage by the left is pure bull$#!+.....Plus Mr Khan is a
radical Sharia defending Islamist on top of everything else, pure phony.
Kaiser
Khan is a Demorat operative. Get it, Clinton media hacks?
toledofan
The entire Khan event was staged and the made into political fodder. Right or wrong Trump
took it at face value and defended his honor. The Khans should have declined but their is no
doubt they were motivated by politics as well.
Russ Neal
All the media types think "Trump going after the gold star muslim family" is hurting
him. I don't think this has any effect on voters at all. The [neo]liberal playbook is to put a
little girl in the boxing ring to throw punches, and if she's hit back they scream "how could
you hit a little girl???" It's all theater and all very old shtick. I think real voters know
this and are unaffected.
Biff Wellington
Ever notice how the truth causes [neo]liberals to go batshit crazy? It's like sunlight
to a vampire....
Cajunkingkong
FACTS: A [neo]liberals worst enemy
Rob
[Neo]Liberalism is a disease. This so-called journalist just proved it, once again.
Smackalicious
The Clinton Campaign has held up a Muslim Human Shield. You are no longer allowed to
criticize them on "refugees" or "immigration".
fastfood
The mans' parents certainly experienced the great loss of a loved one. No parent should
ever expect to have to bury their child. It's supposed to be the other way around.
But Speaking of "frankly" and "Blunt" and political so-called correctness aside; it was not
the parents who experience the "sacrifice". It was their son who selflessly made that ultimate
sacrifice. He could have chosen any one of a million other professions. Instead, he selflessly
chose to serve to protect his country, his way of life and to help other folks to achieve the
same. And as many before him, it was [he] who made the ultimate sacrifice attempting to
accomplish that noble goal.
But no. The man's parents did not make the "sacrifice". To falsely claim this soldiers sad and
ultimate "sacrifice" in the name of his Country is tantamount to claiming to have [earned] a
Medal of Honor because someone else in the family happened to have earned it. Trump may seemed
to have made light of the soldiers selfless sacrifice, but I see and hear the soldiers' Father
do at least as bad day in and day out, and day after day.
Timothy Riley
What the f does making sure we vet Syrian refugees have to do with the member of the
Muslim brotherhood's losing a son in the first Irag war have to do with anything? The fact is
the DNC dragged these poor people out there to try and smear Trump just because he wants to
make sure no terrorist get in with these refugees. I believe the Khan's son was a US citizen,
so what does this have to do with Syrian refugees, this is how the left lies time and time
again.
BLM=TERRORIST GROUP ✓ᵀᴿᵁᴹᴾ • 4 days ago
"BAUER: Yeah, facts matter, but not to you."
The last sentence says everything you need to know about [neo[liberals. Bravo to Bauer
for standing up to this ignorant [neo]liberal Troll from CNN. You can count down 3, 2,
1....until the screaming [neo]liberal goes off after hearing facts.
HAMMERBOX
The newest form of ignorance out there Knowing what the Clinton campaign is
Deliberately doing and making excuses and steering the viewers away from the reality that
comes with common sense. Trump may not be the perfect candidate but sure as the Good lord
loves me, Hillary represents Satan And everything wrong Corrupted and evil about humanity. If
you vote for that woman (and I don't care if you write in someone else) but if you vote for
that woman you are an accomplice to every evil the Democratic party now represents and that is
just plain NO BS Common Sense.
However if you are a die hard democrat whom has voted in Murderers, KKK Grand Poobah's,
Alcoholics and adulterers in the past I don't forsee you being capable of not doing the same
with Hillary because common sense is lacking. TRUTH
lars1701c • 5 days ago
I am voting for Trump but even i agree its a uphill battle against the rampant corruption
of hillary and the DNC but if Trump does win its going to be so delicious to see the
republicans come crawling back to him. Oh it'll be fun to watch obama give Trump that tour of
the WH that every outgoing president gives. I would pay real money to be a fly on that wall :D
Phil Christensen
"You're like he worked for Hillary Clinton like that somehow makes him unqualified to
speak about his son-" It simply makes everything he says suspect.
bluepeahen
I am sick of this. Trump criticized Khan, and it turned out he (Khan) is a Clinton
insider, working for a group of lawyers who did the Clinton's frickin' taxes...
menloman
When you participate in a partisan attack--as the Khan's, Pat Smith and Charles Wood
have done -- then you're opening yourself to a partisan counter-attack. Having no defense for
the deaths in Benghazi, the Hillary surrogates are reduced to claiming that the Khan's are
neutral territory. Sorry, it doesn't work that way.
Zero Flash
Mr. Khan is a progressive hypocrite. If he cared about the memory of his son, he would
shut the f**k up. His son didn't join the Army to support Hillary Clinton. Just another case
of a Cindy Sheehan. Hillary voted on the war, because her independent research convinced her
that regime change was necessary. Check the record. Mr. Khan is using the death of his
son to pad in bank account and he should be ashamed. Like I always say, "There is no hypocrite
like a progressive hypocrtie."
Mark Merritt
Truth and facts are by definition "smears" on the Clintons... After all these years I
have a pretty good grasp just exactly who and what they are... What I do not understand is how
nearly half of the electorate in this country continues to drink the lemonade...
Pretty clearly, the story of the Pied Piper is true... Or, perhaps, it involves lemmings...
I'm north of 75 and probably will not be around when it all crashes in... I just have great
concern for my children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren... Not in any way comfortable
with the country in which I foresee them living...
jimc
Now that telling the truth about a person is considered a "smear" the [neoliberal] left
proves its intent to sink deeper and deeper into utter depravity.
Bik Fizbyn
Funny how they want to call Trump a bigot and a Nazi yet there's this.
Letter to Lieutenant General Artur Phleps of August 6, 1943,
"I do not wish that through the folly and narrowness of mind of an isolated person, a
single one of the tens of thousands of these brave volunteers and their families should
suffer from ill humor and feel deprived of the rights which have been granted to them. …
Moreover, I forbid the jokes and facetious remarks about the Moslem volunteers which are so
much enjoyed in groups of comrades. There will no longer be the least discussion about the
special rights afforded to the Moslems in these circles." - Heinrich Himmler
Doesn't sound like Trump to me.
Proud Skeptic
We must distinguish between the son, who died in the service of this country, and the
father, who has his own life and agenda. Trump was wrong if he criticized the son. The father
is fair game.
Khizr Muazzam Kahn moved from Pakistan to the United Arab Emirates prior
to emigrating into the U.S. Kahn is directly affiliated with the
advancement of Muslim immigration into the United States.
Mr. Kahn runs
a law firm in New York called KM Kahn Law Office:
Kahn's primary area of expertise -as advertised- is legal aide and
legal services for Muslim immigration assistance.
Attorney Khizr Kahn also used to work for Hogan, Hartson and Lovells
law firm within Washington DC which has direct ties to the Clinton
Foundation.
... ... ...
Hogan, Hartson, Lovells are one of the lobbying entities for Saudi
affairs in Washington DC.
[…] Hogan Lovells LLP, another U.S. firm
hired by the Saudis
, is registered to work for the Royal Embassy of
Saudi Arabia through 2016, disclosures show. Robert Kyle, a lobbyist from
the firm, has bundled $50,850 for Clinton's campaign"
"Many lawyers at Hogan Lovells remember the week in 2004 when U.S.
Army Capt. Humayun Khan lost his life to a suicide bomber. Then-Hogan &
Hartson attorneys mourned the death because the soldier's father, Khizr
Khan, a Muslim American immigrant, was among their beloved colleagues"
Mr. Khizr Kahn is not some arbitrary Muslim voice called upon randomly
to speak at the Democrat National Convention on behalf of former
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Attorney Kahn is a well documented, and well compensated, conscript
and activist for the advancement of Islamic interests into the United
States. So it should come as no surprise to see the Clinton Machine use
Kahn to serve both of their interests in this political election season.
–
The Conservative Treehouse
...
But little known
is the fact that Lynch was a litigation partner for eight years at a major Washington law firm
that served the Clintons.
Lynch was with the Washington-headquartered international
law firm
Hogan & Hartson LLP from March 2002 through April 2010.
According to documents Hillary Clinton's first presidential campaign made public in
2008, Hogan & Harrison's New York-based partner Howard Topaz was the tax lawyer who filed
income tax returns for Bill and Hillary Clinton beginning in 2004. –GR
Khizr Muazzam Khan graduated in Punjab University Law College, as the New York Times
confirms. He specialized in International Trade Law in Saudi Arabia. An interest lawyer for
Islamic oil companies Khan wrote a paper, called In Defense of OPEC to defend the Organization of
the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), an intergovernmental oil company consisting of mainly
Islamic countries.
But more than this, Khan is a promoter of Islamic Sharia Law in the U.S. He was a co-founder of
the Journal of Contemporary Issues in Muslim Law (Islamic Sharia). Khan's fascination with
Islamic Sharia stems from his life in Saudi Arabia. During the eighties Khan wrote a paper titled
Juristic Classification of Islamic [Sharia] Law. In it he elucidated on the system of Sharia law
expressing his reverence for "The Sunnah [the works of Muhammad] - authentic tradition of the
Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him)." A snapshot of his essay can be seen here:
But Khan's fascination with Islam isn't the only issue. What is more
worrisome is that at the bottom of the intro, Khan shows his appreciation
and the source of his work and gives credit to an icon of the Muslim
Brotherhood:
"The contribution to this article of S. Ramadan's writing is
greatly acknowledged."
This alone speaks volumes. Khan used the works of
S. Ramadan to lay his foundation for his
inspiration regarding the promotion of Sharia. S.
Ramadan is Said Ramadan, head of the Islamic
Center in Geneva and a major icon of the Muslim
Brotherhood, the grandson of Hassan Al-Banna the
founder and hero of the Muslim Brotherhood which
spread terrorism throughout the world.
In
regards to his son and his sacrifice, on the
other side of the coin, many were the 'Muslim
martyrs' who joined the US military. Ali Abdul
Saoud Mohamed, for example, enlisted in the
Special Forces of the US Army; he was a double
agent for Al-Qaeda. How about Hasan K. Akbar, a
Muslim American soldier who murdered and injured
fifteen soldiers. There was Bowe Bergdahl, an
American Muslim soldier who deserted his men to
join the Taliban, a desertion which led to six
American being ambushed and killed while they
were on the search looking for him. And of course
the example of Nidal Malik Hassan, who murdered
fourteen Americans in cold blood in Fort Hood.
What about infiltration into the U.S. military
like Taha Jaber Al-Alwani, a major Muslim thinker
for the Muslim Minority Affairs, an icon of the
Abedin family (Hillary's aid Human) who, while he
served in U.S. military, called on arming Muslims
to fight the U.S? Al-Alwani is an IMMA (Institute
of Muslims Minority Affairs) favorite, Taha Jaber
al-Alwani, whom the Abedins say is the source for
their doctrine (see Abedins-Meii-Kampf) is an
ardent anti-Semite who by the way, runs the
United States Department of Defense program (out
of all places) for training Muslim military
chaplains in the U.S. military. Via:
Shoebat.com
Paul Vallely, a retired Army general turned conservative activist, defended Donald Trump's
attacks on the Muslim-American family of a slain service member yesterday, telling Newsmax host
Ed Berliner that the late soldier's father, Khizr Khan is "a Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer" and
saying that the mother, Ghazala Khan, made herself a "political pawn" when she stood silently by
her husband's side "as most Muslim women do."
Vallely noted that he himself lost a son in the armed forces, saying that Khizr Khan "put himself
out there" and became a "political pawn" when he agreed to speak against Trump at the Democratic
National Convention. He accused Kahn of being "the one that initiated the attack against Trump"
and claimed that Khan is "a Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer," a baseless charge that Berliner
challenged.
When Berliner asked Vallely about Trump's attacks on Ghazala Khan, who, overcome by emotion,
chose not to speak onstage at the convention, Vallely repeated Trump's charge that she had been
silenced by her religion: "Well, she did stand there, as most Muslim women do and they don't say
anything, so there again, when you put yourself up into being a political pawn like that, you've
got to take the heat."
This idea of "Khan gambit" gets more and more currency...
Notable quotes:
"... Trump is just about everything everybody has said about him – excepting of course the "insane" business. That said, it remains he is not as risky a prospect as President Hillary. The reason those neocons and neoliberals are so desperate for Hillary is that they desire more wars. More stuff like the TPP treaty. ..."
"... Poking a nuclear Russia is NOT a good idea. Nor is handing our government over to Corporations. ..."
"... I continue to contend that Trump, bad as he very obviously is, would not likely be as terrible has Hillary. ..."
"... If Trump truly is a Manchurian Candidate for the Clintons, we might see much worse from him. Wikileaks probably has some awfully bad dirt on Hillary, and if the election gets close on that account, I'd expect to see Trump do whatever it takes to lose. ..."
"... HP was a disaster by all reckoning, but it's also generally true that women and minorities are more likely to become CEOs of companies that are in trouble ..."
"... Zack Smith I'm with you bro, do not give up the fight against the neocons. Meg Whitman, Michael Bloomberg and many others like them are the oligarchs in their little corporate castles that have betrayed America. HRC and now the DNC, main stream news media and large corporations have flipped and become the main mail carriers of the oligarchs billionaires club. ..."
"... Trump is the outsider now who is being demonized by the elites of the oligarchs. They do not want any change in any meaningful way and are determined to try to undermine and destroy Trump by any means… Scandal after scandal after scandal with a life time of with HRC do you think that the American people would see trough the smoke, mirrors and deception. ..."
"... The American public is very gullible and mis informed today due to the oligarchs determination to stay in control of greed, profit and power…The greatest driving force-mission of Wall St. today is profit above anything and the rule of law is dead. This is what and why they need HRC to be their next president at any cost…. ..."
"... The endorsements of Whitman, Bloomberg, neo-cons, etc. are not endorsements of Clinton but endorsements for the movement to keep Trump out of the White House. They are not pro-HRC, they are anti-Trump. In any other election year and against any other sane Republican candidate they would be opposed to Clinton. ..."
"... Even the neocon Washington Post is getting a little worried about the extent of the DUMP ON TRUMP crusade. As Robert Parry reports in his current essay "The Danger of Excessive Trump Bashing" the momentum of a successful campaign will have serious consequences. "The grave danger from this media behavior is that it will empower the neocons and liberal hawks already nesting inside Hillary Clinton's campaign to prepare for a new series of geopolitical provocations once Clinton takes office." ..."
"... Half the things attributed to Trump were spun from whole cloth and printed as fact. That Joe Sarbourough's sisters ex roomates cousin (apologies to Dark Helmet) thought she heard Trump ask about nukes doesn't impress me much . ..."
"... Of course nukes are meant to be used , otherwise we wasted a lot of money on the 20,000 ++++ that we bought during the last 70 years. ..."
"... But if we take her statements about Syria and Russia at face value she is either dangerously ignorant or (more probably) is a female sociopath. Like sociopaths she has no self-control, no sense of self-preservation, no boundaries. So her arrogant and reckless behavior as for "getting rich quick" and with the private "bathroom" email server is a sign of more general and more dangerous tendency. ..."
"…when it's become undeniable that Trump is not sane."
"Trump is publicly descending into outright madness." Trump is many ugly things, but the
proposition he is clinically insane is "a bridge too far".
"The dam is bursting, and it barely has anything to do with Clinton or whom she asks for
an endorsement." That is true. The neocons and neoliberals have decided that nothing less than
a total assault on Trump will do the job, and that's exactly what they have arranged.
Trump is just about everything everybody has said about him – excepting of course the "insane"
business. That said, it remains he is not as risky a prospect as President Hillary. The reason
those neocons and neoliberals are so desperate for Hillary is that they desire more wars. More
stuff like the TPP treaty.
Poking a nuclear Russia is NOT a good idea. Nor is handing our government over to Corporations.
Zachary Smith August 3, 2016 10:27 pm
To Noni Mausa
August 3, 2016 8:48 pm
I hope you haven't gotten the impression I like Donald Trump. Or that I'll vote for him. The
man lost me when he endorsed torture. He compounded that when he said he would outsource the Supreme
Court to the Heritage Foundation loons. But any chance of redeeming himself was lost with the
selection of Pence as VP. We've had that dingleberry as governor here in Indiana, and the thought
of Pence being one heartbeat from the Oval Office is at least as scary as President Hillary.
In 2016 I'm taking what some will consider to be the coward's way out. Like in 2012, I'm not
voting for either candidate. Yes, somebody else will select who gets to be President because both
of them are too far over the edge of pure evil for me. We're going to have a very bad time ahead
of us, no matter what happens in November. Just as in 2012, I won't be subconsciously in bed with
"my" candidate because I voted for him as a "lesser evil". Though I voted for Obama in 2008, after
I'd learned what a worthless *** he was, never again. In Indiana Jill Stein won't be on the ballot,
so I'll leave the top part of the Computer Voting Device empty, and can only hope the computer
hackers won't turn the empty spot to a vote for Hillary.
But I continue to contend that Trump, bad as he very obviously is, would not likely be
as terrible has Hillary. That's just an educated guess of mine, but that's how I see it.
If Trump truly is a Manchurian Candidate for the Clintons, we might see much worse from
him. Wikileaks probably has some awfully bad dirt on Hillary, and if the election gets close on
that account, I'd expect to see Trump do whatever it takes to lose. Like – "This last mass
gun slaughter was one too many. As President I will work to amend the Second Amendment to restrict
gun ownership." Whatever it takes.
J.Goodwin August 4, 2016 10:28 am
Meg Whitman is not the kind of person you want endorsing you if you're pretending to have
a progressive agenda. She is fundamentally on the side of business over anything like workers
rights, environmental concerns, she in favor of forms of immigration reform that are primarily
aimed at benefiting business over labor.
Like Hillary, she had a long and tight history with Goldman Sachs. She's not even known in
business for her acumen. She had some major acquisition failures particularly Skype when she was
at eBay (you can argue the company had grown beyond her capacity, this happens). HP was a
disaster by all reckoning, but it's also generally true that women and minorities are more likely
to become CEOs of companies that are in trouble (men can always go somewhere else, and decline
the worst roles).
Zack Smith I'm with you bro, do not give up the fight against the neocons. Meg Whitman,
Michael Bloomberg and many others like them are the oligarchs in their little corporate castles
that have betrayed America. HRC and now the DNC, main stream news media and large corporations
have flipped and become the main mail carriers of the oligarchs billionaires club.
Trump is the outsider now who is being demonized by the elites of the oligarchs. They do
not want any change in any meaningful way and are determined to try to undermine and destroy Trump
by any means… Scandal after scandal after scandal with a life time of with HRC do you think that
the American people would see trough the smoke, mirrors and deception.
The American public is very gullible and mis informed today due to the oligarchs determination
to stay in control of greed, profit and power…The greatest driving force-mission of Wall St. today
is profit above anything and the rule of law is dead. This is what and why they need HRC to be
their next president at any cost….
ms 57 August 4, 2016 11:13 am
The endorsements of Whitman, Bloomberg, neo-cons, etc. are not endorsements of Clinton
but endorsements for the movement to keep Trump out of the White House. They are not pro-HRC,
they are anti-Trump. In any other election year and against any other sane Republican candidate
they would be opposed to Clinton.
In this election year, with Trump running for President of the United States, the hostility
toward HRC on this page never takes into account what a Trump victory would look like. It is as
if they see Trump as some benign player "who will "change" when he gets in office. While the criticism
of HRC are right, the support for Trump as President is either wishful thinking, a delusion or
a hallucination. It's like criticizing your left hand while your right hand holds a dagger to
your throat.
Even the neocon Washington Post is getting a little worried about the extent of the DUMP
ON TRUMP crusade. As Robert Parry reports in his current essay "The Danger of Excessive Trump
Bashing" the momentum of a successful campaign will have serious consequences. "The grave danger
from this media behavior is that it will empower the neocons and liberal hawks already nesting
inside Hillary Clinton's campaign to prepare for a new series of geopolitical provocations once
Clinton takes office."
Source: Consortium News site.
Bronco, August 4, 2016 7:13 pm
MS 57 I don't know why you would think I'm a trump supporter , I voted for Sanders in the primary.
You know that thing Team Hillary rigged ? And the media has been deflecting attention from with
all its might?
Half the things attributed to Trump were spun from whole cloth and printed as fact. That
Joe Sarbourough's sisters ex roomates cousin (apologies to Dark Helmet) thought she heard Trump
ask about nukes doesn't impress me much .
Of course nukes are meant to be used , otherwise we wasted a lot of money on the 20,000
++++ that we bought during the last 70 years.
likbez , August 5, 2016 12:01 am
I find "Khan gambit" using Democratic conventions podium to be a well prepared trap.
While the fact that Trump got into in (and this is plain vanilla swift boating, so any normal
politicians would sense the danger immediately) does not characterize him well, the shame IMHO
is on neocons who created this trap.
BTW endorsement by Whitman is nothing to be proud of. She is a regular neoliberal. So what
would you expect? That's simply silly not to expect that some/most of them will not cross the
party line. Neocons like Kagan were the first, now neoliberals follow the suit. The same is even
more true about Bloomberg (with his media empire being essentially propaganda arm of GS)
I think Trump demonstrated courage by opposing well oiled with money propaganda machine of
neocons.
In their zeal to discredit Trump some MSM became pretty disingenuous and that might have the
opposite effect, if "Khan gambit" is overplayed:
While many Republicans have rebuked Donald Trump for attacking Khizr Khan and his wife - who
lost their U.S. Army captain son, Humayun, in the war in Iraq - some of Trump's allies are rallying
to his side and, in the process, attacking Khan.
Trump's longtime ally, political consultant Roger Stone, who has a long history as a controversialist,
set the pattern on Twitter Sunday night by linking to an article that accused Khan, an immigration
lawyer from Virginia, of being an agent of the Muslim Brotherhood, an inflammatory and unproved
charge.
Here is what else you can expect to hear from some of Trump's backers as the controversy builds:
Hillary Clinton, they say, is not being called out adequately for contradicting Pat Smith,
another Gold Star mother, whose son Sean was one of the Americans killed in the attack in 2012
on a diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. Smith blames Clinton for misrepresenting the cause
of the attack that took her son's death, and ultimately for the death itself.
Khan, they note, once worked for a law firm that represented Saudi Arabia, which has donated
to the Clinton Foundation.
They argue that because Clinton voted for the war in Iraq, she should be called to account
for the death of Humayun Khan, who died 12 years ago in a suicide bomb attack. Trump supported
the Iraq war at the time, although he now claims to have opposed it.
The Khans, some Trump supporters say, opened themselves to criticism by taking the stage
at a political event, thus politicizing their son's death.
Zachary Smith , August 5, 2016 6:55 pm
Hillary 2008: "George Stephanopoulos: "Senator Clinton, would you [extend our deterrent to
Israel]?"
Hillary Clinton: "Well, in fact … I think that we should be looking to create an umbrella of
deterrence that goes much further than just Israel. Of course I would make it clear to the Iranians
that an attack on Israel would incur massive retaliation from the United States, but I would do
the same with other countries in the region."
Massive Retaliation has always had the meaning of a 'massive' nuclear attack.
Hillary 2016: "MR. CUOMO: Iran: some language recently. You said if Iran were to strike Israel,
there would be a massive retaliation. Scary words. Does massive retaliation mean you'd go into
Iran? You would bomb Iran? Is that what that's supposed to suggest?
SEN. CLINTON: Well, the question was if Iran were to launch a nuclear attack on Israel, what
would our response be? And I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack
Iran. And I want them to understand that.
Because it does mean that they have to look very carefully at their society, because whatever
stage of development they might be in their nuclear weapons program in the next 10 years during
which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally
obliterate them.
That's a terrible thing to say, but those people who run Iran need to understand that, because
that perhaps will deter them from doing something that would be reckless, foolish, and tragic."
The warmongering neocon woman gets a little careless in the second part of her statement, forgetting
"nuclear" and reverting to the 2008 declaration. Worse, she says that even if they don't have
nukes quite yet, an attack on Holy Israel means it's "glow-in-the-dark" time in Iran.
It really is a tragic thing to be talking about. That's the way the Madeleine Albright *****
– the one who has declared that any woman who doesn't vote for Hillary will go to hell – put it
when speaking of 500,000 dead Iraqi kids. Darned shame, but it had to be done.
But move on – it's the insane Trump who can't be trusted with nukes.
Don't even think about a possibility why Hillary might be so devoted to Israel. When she was in
the Senate the woman went to a prayer breakfast with some of the most repulsive of the Conservative
Republicans. Nobody at all is talking about Hillary's religion. If she is one of the Rapture types,
her access to nukes would mean an End-Timer finally has a chance to force God to get off the pot
and start with the Second Coming.
Just think of it – the First and the Last woman president.
likbez , August 5, 2016 11:29 pm
Hi Zachary,
> Just think of it – the First and the Last woman president.
You are right. She is a huge danger. Not only due to her frail health, age and history of blood
clots. As Huma Abedin noted in her deposition, she often is "confused". Which means that she does
not have a "normal" level of situational awareness.
For some specialties like airplane pilots this is a death sentence. Unfortunately, if elected,
she can take the country with her.
While the USSR existed, as bad as it was for people within its borders, it was a blessing for
the people of the USA, as it kept the elite in check and frightful to behave in "natural, greedy
and delusional "Masters of the Universe" way".
After the dissolution of the USSR and the "triumphal march" of neoliberalism, the US elite
by-and-large lost the sense of self-preservation.
If you read what Hillary utters like "no fly zone" in Syria and other similar staff, to me
this looks like a sign of madness, plain and simple. No reasonable politician should go off the
cliff like that, if stakes are not extremely high.
And MSM try to sell her as a more reasonable politician then Trump. In reality she is like
Kelvin absolute zero. You just can't go lower. The only hope is that she is a puppet and it does
not matter what she utters.
But if we take her statements about Syria and Russia at face value she is either dangerously
ignorant or (more probably) is a female sociopath. Like sociopaths she has no self-control, no
sense of self-preservation, no boundaries. So her arrogant and reckless behavior as for "getting
rich quick" and with the private "bathroom" email server is a sign of more general and more dangerous
tendency.
Neocons are still way too powerful. They dominate MSM and essentially dictate the agenda. So
we can only pray to God to spare us.
Zachary Smith , August 6, 2016 10:53 am
To likbez August 5, 2016 11:29 pm:
"She is a huge danger. Not only due to her frail health, age and history of blood clots.
As Huma Abedin noted in her deposition, she often is "confused". Which means that she does
not have "normal" level of situational awareness."
At this moment I'm feeling very foolish, for I'd totally forgotten the state of Hillary's health.
The [attorney] father of a Muslim-American soldier killed in Iraq who is caught up in a war of
words with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is an
immigration lawyer who specializes in a highly controversial program accused of letting immigrants
buy their way into the U.S. Khizr M. Khan's website notes that he works to help clients with the
E-2 and EB-5 programs that let overseas investors buy into U.S. companies and also provides green
cards for family members...
The EB-5 program has been caught up in multiple scandals and critics are
pressing Congress to kill it.
"... At one point Khan challenged Trump, "You have sacrificed nothing and no one." True. But let
us also remember the Clinton family sent no one to war. Their daughter did not serve any more than any
Trump kid. Bill and Hillary served exactly as many days as Trump and Melania. Khan should have been
more inclusive in his condemnation. ..."
"... I would also like to ask Khan how he reconciles his son's death with the fact that only a few
years later Iraq is still deep in war. ..."
"... I think it was a direct attempt to bait Trump into another racist spectacle and it looks like
it worked. ..."
"... Nailed it. Trump's biggest weakness was exposed in March when he talked about the size of his
hands, and other parts, on a national debate stage. He can't help but lash out after almost any attack,
even when there is clearly nothing to be gained by responding. ..."
"... On a side note, if it was an intentional trap anticipating this reaction, you almost have to
give props to the democrats for being sneaky and clever. ..."
"... It will not change anything at all. The staged circus of putting these parents on display for
political purposes -- is just reinforcing the cynics in all of us. ..."
"... The amusing part is 911 was a false flag operation to make Americans fear and hate Muslims
so Israel could expand The Greater Israel Project. (google it). So 911 set up a sub conscious dislike
of Muslims in the majority of Americans and Donald Trump, being the marketing genius he is, is exploiting
it. Now the MSM screams bloody murder because he brings it to people's conscious minds and they agree
with Trump. So they bash Trump for saying it while they murder Muslims all over the middle east for
Israel. Can we say hypocrites? ..."
"... Damn, I sure do feel more and more that it's a setup. Like that star wars character whose name
I don't remember from a movie I didn't watch, some kind of general (I saw the parody of it on a Family
Guy cartoon with some of the other Seth McFarlane show American Dad) but the line is "it's a trap".
..."
"... If the Kahn's had their way, their son would have deserted. (right click and open in a new
tab) ..."
Last Thursday night, speaking at the Democratic National Convention, Khizr Khan paid tribute to his
son, U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan, who died in Iraq on June 8, 2004, after he tried to stop a suicide
bomber.
As for every parent, husband, wife, brother, sister and friend who lost someone any war, I grieve
with them. I am sorry for the Khan's loss. I am a parent and can all too easily be sent to thinking
about the loss of a child.
So go ahead and hate on me. But of the almost 7,000 American families who lost sons and daughters
in the last 15 years of American war of terror, why did the Democrats choose a single Muslim family
to highlight?
No one knows how many hundreds of thousands (millions?) of non-American Muslims were killed as
collateral damage along the way in those wars. Who spoke for them at the Convention?
I found the Democrats' message shallow. It was pandering of the most contemptible kind, but not
as some say simple pandering for Muslim votes from those alienated by Trump's rhetoric.
The Democratic pandering was to an America that wants to believe we have good Muslims (who express
their goodness by sending their kids to fight our wars) and "they" have the bad Muslims (who express
their badness by sending their kids to fight their wars.) The pandering was to the cozy narrative
that makes the majority of Americans comfortable with perpetual war in the Middle East and Africa.
MORE: At one point Khan challenged Trump, "You have sacrificed nothing and no one."
True. But let us also remember the Clinton family sent no one to war. Their daughter did not serve
any more than any Trump kid. Bill and Hillary served exactly as many days as Trump and Melania. Khan
should have been more inclusive in his condemnation.
I would also like to ask Khan how he reconciles his son's death with the fact that only a
few years later Iraq is still deep in war.
Trump is an ass and I do not support him in any way. I am particularly troubled by his hate speech
directed at Muslims, and Mexicans, and everyone else he hates.
It is not disrespectful to discuss these things. Khan choose to put himself and his son's death
on television to serve a partisan political purpose. We need to talk about what he talked about.
Nailed it. Trump's biggest weakness was exposed in March when he talked about the size of
his hands, and other parts, on a national debate stage. He can't help but lash out after almost
any attack, even when there is clearly nothing to be gained by responding. There's so much
wrong with Trump, but the Queen of Chaos is just so dangerous, and stumbles like these might just
be devastating to his chances at success.
On a side note, if it was an intentional trap anticipating this reaction, you almost have
to give props to the democrats for being sneaky and clever. Too bad they're success may endangers
all our lives. (Not that Trump would guarantee our safety, but perhaps he might increase the odds)
It will not change anything at all. The staged circus of putting these parents on display
for political purposes -- is just reinforcing the cynics in all of us.
And now everyone is jumping to trash Trump -- and guess what? In the end, he will be the winner
of this.
The stage management around Hillary, the pandering to people of all races, without ever having
done anything human for them -- is her undoing. Trump does not hate anyone, he is just committing
sin after sin against political correctness. And everyone who understands what it means, gets
it. The era of putting people into neat boxes has come to an end. The era when only black people
can talk about problems in black community, or Mexicans in their community, or only women can
criticize a woman -- are gone. Guess what? Hillary is not an inch closer to offering any solutions
to our financial bleeding wound, the "wars" of choice that make the chosen elite, very, very rich.
In fact, she will push spineless Obama into more of those during the months before election.
So, how is it bad to tell that there is an Islamic cult, or "radical Islam" that Trump is talking
about -- or is it better to fluff up the problem, so we can by implication blame all Moslems.
As we arm, finance and provide all the logistics to various fundamentalist cults in the Middle
East, we are pious here about not even mentioning the word "Moslem". Nobody would be happier then
the Moslem community if finally somebody will point out that we have Salafi centers in US, Saudi
schools preaching the Wahhabi Islam, and then, we are shocked and surprised when something like
Boston happens. Somebody needs to talk about this, why not Trump. Or that we have over 100 schools
in US that were privatized by Feds for failing standards, converted into Charter schools, and
run by no other then Gulen Foundation, the "moderate" cleric we give refugee to, and who has with
"his" money caused many a problem in Turkey. Moderate? He is a Salafi, but our wonderful lying
press calls him "Sufi cleric"? Deliberate deception, in order to mix the two. Sufi branch is known
for its peacefulness, for its poetry, twirling Dervishes. Salafis by head chopping. Gulen will
not shake hands with women.
By confusing, mixing unmixable, we are led by the nose. And the wars go on and on, and expand
as we speak. So, have mercy on Moslems of US, and identify the cults -- who is financing them,
and why are our politicians so comfy cozy with them.
Can we say something about Mexicans? Do you think that Mexicans do not know of gangs that endanger
their community in the first place? Who does not know that the descent into hell of Mexican society
is due to the drug trafficking, chiefly with the US, and illegally across the border? Who does
not know that we, the US, have given rights to El-Salvador and Guatemalan people right to apply
for refugee status, and that they are -- once caught at the border, promptly released? How is
destabilizing these two countries by our meddling, and then taking in refugees, helping us or
them?
But the real sin that Trump committed is this -- he wants to pull our forces out of the profit-making
schema that is our foreign policy, and use money to repair our crumbling infrastructure, RETURN
money to Social Security Fund from which the warmongers are borrowing, and punish the corporations
that leave US only to profit from it. Now, these are the sins against the international financial
cartels and their deals. Heavens forbid that people are going to find out how they are ripped
off, and stop the gravy train of the riches at the expense of our soldiers, their families, and
the US citizens.
Please, do not let yourself be bamboozled by the scary woman. When she talks, one gets a fright.
Trump is just human, and is not following the political correctness unwritten rules.
Scary thing is listening to Hillary talking about the hacking of Democratic election e-mails.
She lies, and believes in her lies, as if she is a God, and creates realities. Without flinching,
and against all sense, she goes on an Russia diatribe. She blames Russian hackers -- but that
is not enough for her. She then claims that these were run by the Russian government, that is
under full control of Vladimir Putin. She looked like she was going to continue how he is under
full control by the Martian federation, and they in turn are controlled by the Orion empire. Her
fanaticism is not normal, say what you want. But she would not talk of the e-mails that tell the
story of her campaign, and the questions it raises of the legitimacy of her win over Sanders.
But Sanders has proven to be not much more then her strategy to reel in some young and disaffected
democrats. And they have learned now enough about politics to know -- without a wrecking ball,
this cabal will stay in power. And there is a good sized one in Donald Trump.
Yup. I think the next step will be the Dems trotting out a Downs syndrome teen to reprimand Trump
for whatever. It's like dangling red meat in front of a tiger, he can't possibly resist. No reason
for Dems not to repeat this if it keep working.
The amusing part is 911 was a false flag operation to make Americans fear and hate Muslims
so Israel could expand The Greater Israel Project. (google it). So 911 set up a sub conscious
dislike of Muslims in the majority of Americans and Donald Trump, being the marketing genius he
is, is exploiting it. Now the MSM screams bloody murder because he brings it to people's conscious
minds and they agree with Trump. So they bash Trump for saying it while they murder Muslims all
over the middle east for Israel. Can we say hypocrites?
Damn, I sure do feel more and more that it's a setup. Like that star wars character whose
name I don't remember from a movie I didn't watch, some kind of general (I saw the parody of it
on a Family Guy cartoon with some of the other Seth McFarlane show American Dad) but the line
is "it's a trap".
But as previously overstated by moi meme sui, the Leaders and especially the bureaucrats who
infest our body politic, well, they've got a long history of engineering coups. It's the fastest
way to steal control of territory and enslave cultures, as in "any culture except White Anglo
Saxon Protestants" and some of our favorite regime change targets have consistently been Latin
America. Mostly because of proximity.
So are we suddenly faced with the crap decision of well, you know, in a setup for a coup immediately
following the election? A national state of emergency brought on by post-election brawling?
"... go to 13:30 and listen. Kahn's mom and dad are MAD about their son completing his tour of duty
and then being forced to return via a BACK DOOR DRAFT in a war Hillary voted for and Trump opposed.
..."
"... Let's see how many others have been hatchet jobbed after serving in the military and doing
what they were told to do in war. Max Cleland. The Republicans smeared him ten ways from Sunday in support
of a Plantation Aristocrat named Saxby Chambliss 111. Who was a chickenhawk. The slander against a man
who left half his body weight and three of his limbs in VietNam would be sickening, right? The Wave
The Flag crowd would of course not permit that to be unanswered. So they cheered on the punk Chambliss
and his publicists. That was their answer. Same for Ron Kovic. People who had never gotten their delicate
fingers calloused or fought any of their own battles, far less risked becoming paraplegic, loved him
like a hero until he renounced war. And said some things, wrote some things that enraged the Warmongers.
..."
"... Ploy by the democratic party and their fake patriotism after getting the USA involved in illegal
wars. Hillary Clinton voted to go to war to protect the vested interests of Wall Street and big banks
as well as the military industrial complex. ..."
Democratic Party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's team invited the parents of Capt.
Humayun Khan, killed in Iraq in 2004, to speak at the convention and criticize Republican nominee
Donald Trump's policy on Muslim immigration. It was a classic trap and Trump bumbled into it.
The ensuing blow-up may have made great ratings for the media, but what is unsaid is that both
sides agreed that Khan's death was a great sacrifice for our liberties and freedoms back home in
the US. The media went along with this view. But being killed in a war started by government
and media lies does not make one a heroic sacrifice. In fact, it makes on a victim. Khan was a victim
of both Republicans and Democrats who supported the war in 2002 and he is victim again today.
Ron Paul's view in today's Ron Paul Liberty Report:
… go to 13:30 and listen. Kahn's mom and dad are MAD about their son completing his tour
of duty and then being forced to return via a BACK DOOR DRAFT in a war Hillary voted for and Trump
opposed. Notice how they terminate the interview as his dad is going off again on his son
being forced to have to go to Iraq.
His mother told him NOT to be hero. There is another side of this story the MSM is not telling
us. I suspect they're only in the USA to take what they can take without giving back. If they
had their way, their son would have deserted.
BrotherJonah
And my nephew, a top-shirt (E8) in the US Army, I wish he would desert. Who needs another killer
in the world? He's been in since just before 9-11. Killed a few folks, and none of them (just
guess the next part, ok?)
not a single one of them was involved with 9-11 or WMDs. Did you guess correctly?? Clever lad.
Forget desertion, maybe what's needed is some good old fashioned mutiny.
Let's see how many others have been hatchet jobbed after serving in the military and doing
what they were told to do in war. Max Cleland. The Republicans smeared him ten ways from Sunday
in support of a Plantation Aristocrat named Saxby Chambliss 111. Who was a chickenhawk. The slander
against a man who left half his body weight and three of his limbs in VietNam would be sickening,
right? The Wave The Flag crowd would of course not permit that to be unanswered. So they cheered
on the punk Chambliss and his publicists. That was their answer. Same for Ron Kovic. People who
had never gotten their delicate fingers calloused or fought any of their own battles, far less
risked becoming paraplegic, loved him like a hero until he renounced war. And said some things,
wrote some things that enraged the Warmongers.
So Hillary and Trump made damned sure this other young American and his family get the same
treatment.
Greg Kenny
Ploy by the democratic party and their fake patriotism after getting the USA involved in
illegal wars. Hillary Clinton voted to go to war to protect the vested interests of Wall Street
and big banks as well as the military industrial complex.
Khizr Khan, the Muslim Gold Star father that the mainstream media and former Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton have been using to criticize Donald J. Trump, has deep ties to the government
of Saudi Arabia-and to international Islamist investors through his own law firm. In addition to
those ties to the wealthy Islamist nation, Khan also has ties to controversial immigration programs
that wealthy foreigners can use to essentially buy their way into the United States-and has deep
ties to the "Clinton Cash" narrative through the Clinton Foundation.
Khan and his wife Ghazala Khan both appeared on stage at the Democratic National Convention
to attack, on Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's behalf, Donald Trump-the Republican
nominee for president. Their son, U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan, was killed in Iraq in 2004. Khizr
Khan, in his speech to the DNC, lambasted Donald Trump for wanting to temporarily halt Islamic migration
to America from countries with a proven history of exporting terrorists.
Since then, Clinton operative George Stephanopoulos-who served as a senior adviser
to the president in Bill Clinton's White House and
is a Clinton Foundation donor as well as a host on the ABC network-pushed Trump on the matter
in an interview. Trump's comments in that interview have sparked the same mini-rebellion inside his
party, in the media and across the aisle that has happened many times before. The usual suspects
inside the GOP, from former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to House Speaker
Paul Ryan to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to Ohio Gov. John Kasich, have condemned Trump
in one way or another. The media condemnation has been swift and Democrats, as well their friends
throughout media, are driving the train as fast as they can.
But until now, it looked like the Khans were just Gold Star parents who the big bad
Donald Trump attacked. It turns out, however, in addition to being Gold Star parents, the Khans are
financially and legally tied deeply to the industry of Muslim migration–and to the government of
Saudi Arabia and to the Clintons themselves.
Khan,
according to
Intelius as
also reported by Walid Shoebat, used to work at the law firm Hogan Lovells, LLP, a major D.C.
law firm that has been on retainer as the law firm representing the government of Saudi Arabia in
the United States for years. Citing federal government disclosure forms, the Washington Free Beacon
reported the connection between Saudi Arabia and Hogan Lovells a couple weeks ago.
"Hogan Lovells LLP, another U.S. firm hired by the Saudis, is registered to work for
the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia through 2016, disclosures show," Joe Schoffstall of the Free Beacon
reported.
The
federal form filed
with the Department of Justice is a requirement under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of
1938, which makes lobbyists and lawyers working on behalf of foreign governments and other agents
from abroad with interests in the United States register with the federal government.
The government of Saudi Arabia, of course, has donated heavily to the Clinton Foundation.
"The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has given between $10 and $25 million to the foundation
while Friends of Saudi Arabia has contributed between $1 and $5 million," Schoffstall wrote.
Trump, of course, has called on Hillary Clinton to have the Clinton Foundation return
the money.
"Saudi Arabia and many of the countries that gave vast amounts of money to the Clinton
Foundation want women as slaves and to kill gays," Trump wrote in a Facebook post back in June,
according
to Politico. "Hillary must return all money from such countries!"
"Crooked Hillary says we must call on Saudi Arabia and other countries to stop funding
hate," Trump posted in a separate Facebook posting at the time. "I am calling on her to immediately
return the $25 million plus she got from them for the Clinton Foundation!"
Of course, to this day, Hillary Clinton and her Clinton Foundation has kept the money
from the Saudi Arabian government.
Schoffstall's piece in the Washington Free Beacon also notes how Hogan Lovells lobbyist
Robert Kyle,
per Federal Election Commission (FEC) records, has bundled more than $50,000 in donations for
Clinton's campaign this year.
"Many lawyers at Hogan Lovells remember the week in 2004 when U.S. Army Capt. Humayun
Khan lost his life to a suicide bomber," Polantz wrote. "Then-Hogan & Hartson attorneys mourned the
death because the soldier's father, Khizr Khan, a Muslim American immigrant, was among their beloved
colleagues."
Polantz wrote that Khan worked at the mega-D.C. law firm for years.
"Khan spent seven years, from 2000 to 2007, in the Washington, D.C., office of then-Hogan
& Hartson," Polantz wrote. "He served as the firm's manager of litigation technology. Although he
did not practice law while at Hogan, Khan was well versed in understanding the American courts system.
On Thursday night, he described his late son dreaming of becoming a military lawyer."
But representing the Clinton Foundation backing Saudi Arabian government and having
one of its lobbyists bundle $50,000-plus for Clinton's campaign are hardly the only places where
the Khan-connected Hogan Lovells D.C. mega-firm brush elbows with Clinton Cash.
The firm also handles Hillary Clinton's taxes and is deeply connected with the email
scandal whereby when she was Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton set up a home-brew email server
system that jeopardized classified information handling and was "extremely careless" according to
FBI director James Comey.
"A lawyer at Hogan & Hartson [Howard Topaz] has been Bill and Hillary Clinton's go-to
guy for tax advice since 2004, according to documents released Friday by Hillary Clinton's campaign,"
The American Lawyer's Nate Raymond
wrote in 2008, as Hillary Clinton ran for president that year. "The Clintons' tax returns for
2000-07 show combined earnings of $109 million, on which they paid $33 million in taxes. New York-based
tax partner Howard Topaz has a broad tax practice, and also regularly advises corporations on M&A
and executive compensation."
"Topaz was a partner at Hogan & Hartson, which later merged to become known as Hogan
Lovells, where Topaz continues to practice. The firm's lawyers were major donors to Hillary Clinton's
first presidential campaign," Howley wrote.
For her private email system, Clinton used a spam filtering program MX Logic.
"Hogan & Hartson handled the patent for MX Logic's email-filtering program, which McAfee
bought the small company for $140 million in 2009 in order to acquire," Howley wrote. "The MX Logic
company's application for a trademark for its SPAMTRAQ program was filed in 2004 on Hogan & Hartson
stationery and signed by a Hogan & Hartson attorney. Hogan & Hartson has been responsible for MX
Logic annual reports. The email company's Clinton links present more evidence that Clinton's political
and legal establishment was monitoring her private email use."
If that all isn't enough, that same Hogan & Hartson law firm-now Hogan Lovells-employed
Loretta Lynch, the current Attorney General of the United States. Lynch infamously just a few weeks
ago met with Bill Clinton, Hillary's husband and the former president, on her private jet in Phoenix
just before clearing Hillary Clinton of any wrongdoing when it came to her illicit private email
server system.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the U.S. Senate's Judiciary Committee, has detailed
how the EB5 immigration program is "riddled with flaws and corruption."
"Maybe it is only here on Capitol Hill-on this island surrounded by reality-that we
can choose to plug our ears and refuse to listen to commonly accepted facts," Grassley
said in a statement earlier this year. "The Government Accountability Office, the media, industry
experts, members of congress, and federal agency officials, have concurred that the program is a
serious problem with serious vulnerabilities. Allow me to mention a few of the flaws."
From there, Sen. Grassley listed out several of the "flaws" with the EB5 immigration
program that Khan works in:
– Investments can be spent before business plans are approved.
– Regional Center operators can charge exorbitant fees of foreign nationals in addition
to their required investments.
– Jobs created are not "direct" or verifiable jobs but rather are "indirect" and
based on estimates and economic modeling.
– Jobs created by U.S. investors are counted by the foreign national when obtaining
a green card, even if EB-5 money is only a fraction of the total invested.
– Investment funds are not adequately vetted.
– Gifts and loans are acceptable sources of funds from foreign nationals.
– The investment level has been stagnant for nearly 25 years.
– There's no prohibition against foreign governments owning or operating regional
centers or projects.
– Regional centers can be rented or sold without government oversight or approval.
– Regional centers don't have to certify that they comply with securities laws.
– There's no oversight of promoters who work overseas for the regional centers.
– There's no set of sanctions for violations, no recourse for bad actors.
– There are no required background checks on anyone associated with a regional center.
– Regional centers draw Targeted Employment Area boundaries around poor areas in
order to come in at a lower investment level, yet the jobs created are not actually created in
those areas.
– Every Targeted Employment Area designation is rubberstamped by the agency.
– Adjudicators are pressured to get to a yes, especially for those politically connected.
– Visas are not properly scrutinized.
– Visas are pushed through despite security warnings.
– Files and applications lack basic and necessary information to monitor compliance.
– The agency does not do site visits for each and every project.
– There's no transparency on how funds are spent, who is paid, and what investors
are told about the projects they invest in.
That's not to mention the fact that, according to Sen. Grassley, there have been serious
national security violations in connection with the EB5 program that Khan works in and around already.
In fact, the program-according to Grassley-was used by Middle Eastern operatives from Iran to attempt
to illicitly enter the United States.
"There are also classified reports that detail the national security, fraud and abuse.
Our committee has received numerous briefings and classified documents to show this side of the story,"
Grassley said in the early February 2016 statement. "The enforcement arm of the Department of Homeland
Security wrote an internal memo that raises significant concerns about the program. One section of
the memo outlines concerns that it could be used by Iranian operatives to infiltrate the United States.
The memo identifies seven main areas of program vulnerability, including the export of sensitive
technology, economic espionage, use by foreign government agents and terrorists, investment fraud,
illicit finance and money laundering."
Maybe all of this is why–as Breitbart News has previously noted–the Democratic National
Convention made absolutely no mention of the Clinton Foundation or Clinton Global Initiative. Hillary
Clinton's coronation ceremony spent exactly zero minutes of the four nights of official DNC programming
talking about anything to do with perhaps one of the biggest parts of her biography.
Michael Rawlings -> Jeremy Stevens
No wonder Khan is so mad at Trump, Trump is threatening Khan's multi million $ corrupt EB5
immigration business.
jones -> Michael Rawlings
Right. It makes me totally forget the fact that a candidate for the presidency has the temperament
of a seven-year-old bully and can't control his mouth. Good thing we know the truth about this
random guy with a tiny bit of power and a small possibly corrupt business so that we can go ahead
and elect a madman to be the most powerful person in the world.
TechZilla -> jones
We should support the NWO warmonger HRC ....because Trump can be uncouth?
No thanks, I don't want more destabilization of the middle east, my cousin would still be
alive if Trump's foreign policy was in effect circa 2000. O but she's the one that loves vets,
not the guy who disagrees with more aggressive actions against Russia. These elitist promoted
wars are not in the public interest, and they have effected me personally.
Taylor -> jones
This is just a drop in the bucket for what Hillary's campaign is a part of. I'd rather have
someone who can speak their mind and know their crazy rather than having a liar that can't
even own up to their corruption.
In an interview with CNN on Monday, Khan called Trump "ignorant" and "arrogant" and
criticized other Republicans for not doing more to denounce their party's nominee.
"Enough is enough," he said. "Every decent Republican ... has rebuked this behavior,
yet no one has stood up and said, 'Enough, stop it. You will not be our candidate.'"
It was the second time since his convention speech that Khan has directly appealed
to GOP leadership on Capitol Hill to push back against the nominee. Over the weekend,
he singled out Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker Paul Ryan on MSNBC,
saying the "only reason they're not repudiating his behavior, his threat to our
democracy, our decency, our foundation, is just because of political consequences."
"... Journal of Contemporary Issues in Muslim Law ..."
"... The Journal of Contemporary Issues in Muslim Law ..."
"... Virginia continues to provide driver's licenses to terrorists. Mohammad Khweis, a member of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), was captured by Kurdish forces in northern Iraq. Like seven of the 9/11 hijackers, Khweis carried a Virginia license. Khizr Khan's legal advice to followers of Sharia law has allowed them to game the U.S. immigration system and Virginia legal statutes. Khan has some explaining to do about his legal practice. ..."
"... Wayne Madsen is an investigative journalist who consistently exposes cover-ups from deep within the government. Want to be the first to learn the latest scandal? Go to WayneMadsenReport.com subscribe today! ..."
Khizr Khan, the Muslim immigrant lawyer from Pakistan who arrived in America by way of Dubai
and pulled at the heart strings of viewers of the Democratic National Convention by regaling the
audience with the story of the loss of his son in Iraq, Army Captain Humayun Khan, told his son's
story but skipped over his own.
Khizr Khan entered the United States in 1980 from Dubai
to attend Harvard Law School. That year saw the Central Intelligence Agency ramp up its operations
in Pakistan in support of the Afghan mujaheddin against the Soviets.
The Pakistan operation was shepherded by national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, currently
an outspoken opponent of Donald Trump and a bitter foe of Russia.
Khan received his bachelor of law degree from Punjab University Law College in Lahore, Pakistan
in 1974. After entering the United States from Dubai in 1980, Khan received a masters of law degree
from the University of Missouri in 1982.
Khan specializes in international trade law for Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. As anyone familiar
with these countries knows, trade law for both countries involves the traditional Muslim bribe, the
baksheesh, which, depending on the value of the deal, can involve millions of dollars. These deals
are very familiar to Trump, who could have strengthened his argument against Khan by revealing the
"Gold Star father's" specialty in the "art of the bribe."
Khan co-founded the Journal of Contemporary Issues in Muslim Law, an academic periodical
that seeks to defend the arcane Sharia law to a legal system based on Western jurisprudence. Of course,
Sharia law justifies the execution of gays, prostitutes, blasphemers, and Muslim "apostates" who
convert to other religions.
Trying to advance Sharia law in legal systems based on Roman and English Common Law is like forcing
a square peg into a round hole.
... ... ...
Khan is a firm believer that law is based on the Sunnah, the works of the prophet Mohammed.
The Journal of Contemporary Issues in Muslim Law is linked to the Islamic Center of Geneva,
Switzerland, an arm of the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood.
And here we run the circle back to Khan's favorite candidate, Hillary Clinton. Clinton's close
aide and reported lesbian lover, Huma Abedin, has close links to radical Wahhabist Islam through
her mother, the Pakistani-born Saleha Mahmood Abedin. Saleha Abedin resides in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
and teaches sociology at Dar Al-Hekma College in Jeddah.
Although she was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Huma lived in Jeddah from infancy to her college
years before returning to the United States. Dar Al-Hekma College is a women-only college in keeping
with Sharia and Quranic principles of segregation of the sexes.
The college, which was endowed by the Al-Ilm Foundation, is part of a network of Wahhabist colleges
and schools that extend from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan, Malaysia, and southern California.
Khizr Khan practices law in New York and is a member of the New York Bar. Khan's Manhattan law
office is next door to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, which also happens to house the residence of the
U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power.
Power's husband is Cass Sunstein, President Obama's former information czar who excels in the
art of disinformation, propaganda, and cognitive dissonance. But more interesting is the fact that
Khan and his wife are residents of Charlottesville, Virginia, a home to a number of foreign Muslims,
many of whom are students at the University of Virginia who wish to change their student visa status
to permanent residency, or "green card" status.
Charlottesville is a so-called "sanctuary city" that welcomes those who either enter the United
States illegally or overstay their limited residency visas.
Khan's wife, Ghazala, is a pediatrician in Virginia Beach, which is a three-hour drive from Charlottesville.
The Khans are not attracted to Charlottesville because of a convenient distance to their places of
work.
So why do they reside in the university town? When their son died in Iraq in 2004, the Khans lived
in Bristow, Virginia, a far suburb of Washington, DC in Prince William County. The Khans had also
once lived in Silver Spring, Maryland.
The official notification of Khan's death stated:
"Captain Humayun S. M. Khan, 27, of Bristow, Virginia, died June 8, 2004, in Baquabah, Iraq, after
a vehicle packed with an improvised explosive device drove into the gate of his compound while he
was inspecting soldiers on guard duty. Khan was assigned to Headquarters, Headquarters Company, 201st
Forward Support Battalion, 1st Infantry Division, Vilseck, Germany."
Khan was actually an Army intelligence officer, fluent in Arabic, who worked with Iraqi civilians
in a program called the United States-Iraq Sponsorship Program, which was actually an operation designed
to recruit Iraqis to work as police and in other "capacities" for the Coalition Provisional Authority,
the U.S. occupation government of Iraq.
Khan's home base of Vilseck is a center for U.S. intelligence operations involving units of the
U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command. When Khan was killed, oversight of Iraq "transition"
programs, such as the U.S.-Iraq Sponsorship Program, had just come under the control of General David
Petraeus, the first commander of the Multi-National Security Transition Command – Iraq.
Members of the Pakistani embassy, including deputy chief of mission (DCM) Mohammad Sadiq, attended
Captain Khan's burial at Arlington National Cemetery. The DCM of large embassies are almost always
the embassy intelligence chief of station. In the case of Sadig, this would be the Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI).
In 2008, Sadiq, who paid his respects to Captain Khan at Arlington, was defending ISI as the Pakistan
Foreign Ministry's chief spokesman. India accused the ISI of bombing its embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.
The bombing killed four people, including two Indian diplomats.
It was not only India that blamed the ISI for the bombing in Kabul. CIA officials said that intercepts
of communications showed ISI involvement. Pakistan was so incensed by the statements from U.S. intelligence
that it summoned CIA official Stephen Kappes to Islamabad for a chewing out session.
Virginia continues to provide driver's licenses to terrorists. Mohammad Khweis, a member of the
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), was captured by Kurdish forces in northern Iraq. Like
seven of the 9/11 hijackers, Khweis carried a Virginia license. Khizr Khan's legal advice to followers
of Sharia law has allowed them to game the U.S. immigration system and Virginia legal statutes. Khan
has some explaining to do about his legal practice.
Pakistan was not a member of the U.S. coalition in Iraq, which begs the question of why the Pakistani
embassy's ISI chief attended Captain Humayun Khan's funeral at Arlington? Was Khan working, through
his Saudi- and Pakistani-connected father with the ISI?
If so, was the contact "sanctioned" by the CIA? If not, was Humayun Khan freelancing and feeding
information from Iraq to the ISI, which then passed it to their close allies in the Saudi General
Intelligence Department?
Khizr Khan claims he is a "legal consultant" in Charlottesville, although he is not a member of
the Virginia Bar. Given the nature of Charlotteville's status as a sanctuary city, Khan's legal background
and his work with the Muslim community in Virginia, it is likely that Khan offers help to Muslims
who have overstayed their student visas in the university and sanctuary city to obtain permanent
residence.
It should be recalled that seven of the 9/11 hijackers obtained Virginia driver's licenses, three
of which were used as official identification to check in for flights on September 11, 2001. Perhaps
if Khizr Khan had not been so willing to help dodgy Muslim "students" overstay their visas and seek
workarounds to the law, Virginia might have been able to prevent the hijackers fraudulently obtain
driver's licenses.
And had there been no 9/11, there certainly would have been no U.S. invasion of Iraq and Humayun
Khan would have realized his dream of attending the University of Virginia law school and becoming
a military lawyer. In making it easy for Saudis, Emiratis, and others to game the U.S. immigration
system, Khizr Khan shares in some of the responsibility for his son's death.
Because it is not advisable to attack any Gold Star family, Trump should have merely replied to
Khizr Khan's attack by saying, "I understand the family's loss and although they attacked me, I will
not respond to a grieving family."
Trump could have added that Captain Khan would not have died had it not been for the U.S. invasion
and occupation of Iraq, a war for which Hillary Clinton voted as a senator. Through surrogates, Trump
could have revealed the Khan's connections to the Muslim Brotherhood, Sharia law advocates, the Saudis,
and the ISI.
Wayne Madsen is an investigative journalist who consistently exposes cover-ups
from deep within the government. Want to be the first to learn the latest scandal? Go to
WayneMadsenReport.com subscribe today!
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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