I like Barack Obama

I haven't posted in a while, readers have reminded me. Thank you, faithful readers! I am flattered that you are interested in my writings and the articles that I link to, even though you may disagree with them. But I have lost the motivation to blog. I'm not sure why. I used to enjoy writing and expressing my thoughts about all kinds of things I thought were important. I still think about those things, politics especially. I watch at least one hour of MSNBC (usually Lawrence O'Donnel) almost every night. I love Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Real Time With Bill Maher is a must. It's why I got a DVR.

I like to watch shows about history and science. I'm reading "The House of Wisdom" for a second time. I have learned new things at work. Very interesting things that involve math and science. But somehow I have lost the motivation to write about all the interesting things I have learned. My life is changing. I am shifting priorities. I am busy with my job and my social life. I am riding my bike everywhere.

I have often started writing posts without finishing them and never published them. The other night I wanted to write a post about John McCain and his defense of Huma Abadin, an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. I thought it was a noble thing that Senator McCain did, and it reminded me of the time he shook his head and grabbed the microphone from an old lady who had heard that Obama was an Arab. "No, no he's not, ma'am, He's a decent family man citizen whom I just happen to disagree with," Mr. McCain said respectfully yet assertively. I was going to call that post "I like John McCain.

On another night I started writing another post about Michael Moore's movie "Capitalism: A Love Story". It was a great movie that featured part of Jimmy Carter's 1975 speech about a crisis of confidence in America. I wrote the post, even embedded the YouTube video, and then I fell asleep in my bed before finishing it. 

Really the only thing I would like to say tonight before I fall asleep is that I like Barack Obama and I hope he will be reelected. Obama did not grow up rich like Mitt Romney did. Romney refuses to release his tax returns, even as a growing number of Republicans demand that he does. Mrs. Romney got on TV and said today "we've given all you people you need to know." I think that is one of the most condescending things I've heard a rich person say in a long time. I would be very surprised if Mitt Romney is elected President, but it may happen, given the ignorance and prejudice of many American voters today. But I hope it doesn't happen and I hope Barack Obama is reelected President.

Corruption in America not as visible, but is disgusting

"The U.S. was one of 29 countries out of a 31-nation sample to score below 60 on a 100-point scale on questions regarding the enforcement of political finance laws, regardless of how strong or weak the country’s regulations were, according to the new report."

 We're tied with Tajikistan! And then there's this:

There are murderous racists in America

Well Iraq is not the only country where a bigot can get away with murder. The story of a young black teenager murdered by a racist "neighborhood watch" schmuck with a gun has energized American media. Weeks after I read about the story on Gawker and Raw Story, the murderer has not been arrested. Today the story caught fire in mainstream media (except for FOX News).

In Florida, if you are a man with some authority, you can kill a man or a kid, claim self defense, and the government will look the other way, just like in Iraq! But ordinary and extraordinary Floridians are PISSED and they're doing something about it. I've been perusing some of the comments for the petition to arrest the murderer. One woman (an MD) wrote: "I can't wait for the FBI to get involved since the State of Florida is dragging its racist heels!"

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After the White House initially said it's a local matter, the US Dept of Justice and the FBI announced they would launch their own investigations.

This type of murder, the type that comes from racism, has happened a lot in America's history, but in 2012? OMG it's embarrassing. Americans should be better than this.

Democrats & Republicans agree: "containment" is not an option with Iran

Today I watched last night's episode of Real Time With Bill Maher. Bill asked the Israeli ambassador to the US if there is any difference between Obama's view on Iran and the Republicans' view. Bill said he doesn't see a difference, and the ambassador seemed to agree. That means the US policy is to seek end to the Supreme Leader's regime. There might be a difference in how they would like to achieve this goal.

He also asked the Israeli ambassador about settlements in the West Bank. Bill asked if he supports Israel, does he have to support Likud? Does an Israel supporter have to support settlements? The ambassador said no, and that Israel supports peace.

I was impressed by Bill's comments on settlements. The Israeli ambassador, who is also American, made a case to overthrow the dangerous regime in Iran. I too would like to see the end of the backward regime in Iran, but I would rather not see a war like the wars with Iraq. There are other ways to overthrow despots. Obama seems to have the right policy. Having said that, it would be nice to see the end of the Ayatollahs' power.

I'm hoping to see the end of Islamic stupidity and injustice in Baghdad too. Yesterday it was revealed that 'At least 90 Iraqi teenagers with "emo" appearances have been stoned to death by religious extremists in Baghdad in the past month after an inflammatory interior ministry statement dubbed it "devil worshiping" ' (thanks Aton for the link). The Iraqi government, which is filled with backward Shiite fundamentalists, is complicit in the murders.

Also during the show Bill said that he "got crap from the left and the right this week". He defended his defense of Rush Limbaugh. I thought that was a bad idea just a couple days ago, but Bill made some good points: Rush Limbaugh is not like Bill Maher, which a few conservatives have asserted. Sarah Palin called it hypocrisy, but it really isn't hypocrisy. Bill said Limbaugh didn't even make a joke. He said Limbaugh is "a stupid fat fuck who's not funny" but we should not push him off the air just because he was offensive. It's true that Rush has the freedom to be offensive, and of course freedom of speech is one of our most important rights, but Limbaugh's sponsors also have the freedom to pull their ads from his show, just like ABC had the freedom to fire Bill Maher a decade a ago.

There is one thing Rush Limbaugh and Bill Maher probably agree on: the US must help Israel against Iranian threats of annihilation.

Palestinians are an invented people?

Apparently many schmucks in America and Israel think so. I used to hear this a lot from the Zionuts on the Yahoo message boards more than a decade ago. Evidently Newt Gingrich (schmuck extraordinaire who wants to be President) also believes this:

'The campaign sugar daddy of Newt Gingrich (and soon, Romney) is Sheldon Adelson, a multibillionaire casino owner and hawkish Zionist who endorses Gingrich’s view that the Palestinians are “an invented people” who have no historic claim to a homeland. Gingrich told Aipac that “if an Israeli prime minister decides that he has to avoid the threat of a second Holocaust through pre-emptive measures, that I would require no advanced notice to understand why I would support the right of Israel to survive in a dangerous world.” '

Saddam could have had nuclear weapons by mid-1990s

if he had not invaded Kuwait, the author of this article argues:

'By demonstrating Iraq’s vulnerability, the attack on Osirak actually increased Hussein’s determination to develop a nuclear deterrent and provided Iraq’s scientists an opportunity to better organize the program. The Iraqi leader devoted significantly more resources toward pursuing nuclear weapons after the Israeli assault. As Reiter notes, “the Iraqi nuclear program increased from a program of 400 scientists and $400 million to one of 7,000 scientists and $10 billion.”

Iraq’s nuclear efforts also went underground. Hussein allowed the IAEA to verify Osirak’s destruction, but then he shifted from a plutonium strategy to a more dispersed and ambitious uranium-enrichment strategy. This approach relied on undeclared sites, away from the prying eyes of inspectors, and aimed to develop local technology and expertise to reduce the reliance on foreign suppliers of sensitive technologies. When inspectors finally gained access after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, they were shocked by the extent of Iraq’s nuclear infrastructure and how close Hussein had gotten to a bomb.

Ultimately, Israel’s 1981 raid didn’t end Iraq’s drive to develop nuclear weapons. It took the destruction of the Gulf War, followed by more than a decade of sanctions, containment, inspections, no-fly zones and periodic bombing — not to mention the 2003 U.S. invasion — to eliminate the program. The international community got lucky: Had Hussein not been dumb enough to invade Kuwait in 1990, he probably would have gotten the bomb sometime by the mid-1990s.'

American judge rules in favor of Sharia

Sometimes I am surprised by Americans and their perspectives on Islam. It is very strange to read about an American judge who ruled in favor of Sharia and against American law.

Addicting Info: "It was clearly an open and shut case of harassment but a judge in Pennsylvania didn’t see it that way and ruled against the victim. Of course, this happens sometimes in the American judicial system, only this time the ruling appears to have been entirely unconstitutional and may give conservatives a reason to ramp up their religious crusade.

Ernie Perce was seriously just walking down the street minding his own business while participating in a parade, when Talaag Elbayomy rushed from the crowd and harassed him.

Perce, an atheist, was dressed as a zombie version of Muhammad. Elbayomy, a Muslim, became offended and attacked him, grabbing Perce’s arm and trying to rip away the sign he was carrying. Open and shut, right? Wrong.

Despite admitting that Elbayomy harassed Perce, Judge Mark Martin ruled that Elbayomy had every right to do so because of Islamic law, which bans the insulting of Muhammad. In other words, Judge Martin ruled in favor of Sharia law.

Judge Martin didn’t just rule in favor of religious law, he also lectured and humiliated Perce. Martin told the court all about the time he has spent in Islamic nations and even gestured to a Koran he had in the courtroom. He then called Perce a ‘doofus.’ "

According to the court transcript, the Judge said:

“Well, having had the benefit of having spent over two-and-a-half years in predominantly Muslim countries, I think I know a little bit about the faith of Islam. In fact, I have a copy of the Quran here, and I would challenge you, Sir, to show me where it says in the Quran that Muhammad arose and walked among the dead. I think you misinterpreted a couple of things. So before you start mocking somebody else’s religion, you might want to find out a little more about it. It kind of makes you look like a doofus.

In many other Muslim-speaking countries, err, excuse me, many Arabic-speaking countries, predominantly Muslim, something like this is definitely against the law there, in their society. In fact, it could be punished by death, and frequently is, in their society."

The judge is correct: dressing up as a zombie version of the Prophet Muhammad would be punished in many Muslim countries, but I find it astonishing that an American judge would rule in favor of Sharia and would disregard Pennsylvania and US laws.

Obama has done it better

Another great stand up by Bill Maher, and this time it's online. It's mostly about American politics, but at about 25 minutes he compares Obama's foreign policy to George Bush's. Very funny satire. He also made good points, including: Bush spent a trillion dollars to get Saddam, and then Obama spent a billion dollars (1000 times less than a trillion) to get Qadhafi.

Maher says Obama did it better, and it's true. "It's called doing things smart," Maher says. Obama was lucky he didn't have to deal with Iraq, I've said before, but it's not over for Obama. The conflict in Syria could explode. World powers are calling for intense pressure on Assad.

At 20 min he talks about John Steinbeck's quote about socialism, which I happened to see on fb today: “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” Bill Maher replaced "embarrassed" with "inconvenienced" but I think he got the message across. Great show.

American justice may not be superior

Today I read about American-based Human Rights Watch's call on Iraq to end executions:"Iraqi authorities executed at least 65 people in the first 40 days of 2012 for various offenses, including 14 on a single day, Human Rights Watch said Thursday."

Today I also saw this on facebook:

I used to think American justice is superior to the rest of the world. The older I get and the more I learn, the more I realize American justice may not be superior.

CPA was a "disaster"

Joel Wing posted an interesting interview with Jerry Burke, an American who was head of the New England Institute of Law Enforcement Management in 2003. Mr. Burke was asked to assess the Iraqi police force in 2003 and he found them to be in "disarray". He also described the CPA as a "disaster":

"The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) was an unmitigated disaster. Many of the people in the CPA came with neo-conservative political agendas. I can't tell you how many times in military, police, and security briefings I heard the phrase, "To create a free market economy,” as one of the goals. The irony was that many CPA officials would have been for small, decentralized, states rights style government back home, but were trying to build a large, strong centralized government in Iraq. Also, many of the, I don't know what else to call them, young kids in their 20s, came with recommendations from the Heritage Foundation, and other conservative organizations. Many were just out of college or were taking a gap year to have an adventure in Baghdad. Most of them would have been doing unpaid internships if it weren't for Iraq."

The documentary No End In Sight corroborates this sad story.

It's good to be a liberal

In the last decade I have found myself at odds with some "liberals" (Arabs who are outraged by the murder of Iraqis only when Americans commit the murder, for example) but in the end I am a proud liberal. In American history, liberals have moved America forward, made America a better country. It's good to be a liberal!

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Sunni Arabs in Adhamiya celebrate US withdrawal

'Hundreds of Sunni Muslims gathered in Baghdad Friday to celebrate the withdrawal of American forces, but in a sign of the sectarian divisions that re-emerged immediately after their departure, Shiite Muslims did not join the event.

The celebration took place near the Abu Hanifa mosque, the main house of worship in the primarily Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah in northern Baghdad. To secure the event, Iraqi troops blocked traffic on roads leading to the mosque and searched people approaching the area.

During the rally, men and children waved Iraqi flags and raised banners praising those who resisted the U.S. presence in Iraq.'

CIA may assist Iraqis with security

If needed....

"As the responsibility for nurturing bilateral relations shifts to the State Department, the responsibility for security assistance moves to the C.I.A., which operates in Iraq under a separate authority, independent of the military.

Although the United States military is unlikely to return to Iraq, it is possible that military counterterrorism personnel could return, if approved by the president, under C.I.A. authority, just as an elite team of Navy commandos carried out the raid that killed Osama bin Laden under C.I.A. command.

The C.I.A. historically has operated its own strike teams, and it also has the authority to hire indigenous operatives to participate in its counterterrorism missions."

Hashemi accuses Iraqi govt of bombing Shia neighborhoods

"Iraq's Vice-President Tariq al-Hashemi has said Iraq's government was behind Thursday's series of bombings that killed nearly 70 people in Baghdad."

I think many Sunni Arabs believe this. It's either Iran or the Iraqi government, or both, according to them. I don't hear as many Arabs blaming Americans for bombings that kill civilians.

Thanks Anonymous for posting the link.

Fall of Saddam was cause for celebration, but...

"The fact that Saddam Hussein is gone is a genuine cause for celebration. But the list of errors and horrors in this war is inexcusably long, starting with a rush to invasion based on manipulated intelligence.

The Bush administration had no plan for governing the country once Saddam was deposed. The Iraqi economy still bears the scars from the first frenzied days of looting. The decision to disband the Sunni-dominated Iraqi Army helped unleash five years of sectarian strife that has not fully abated. Iraq’s political system remains deeply riven by ethnic and religious differences."

War in Iraq is ending for Americans, maybe not for Iraqis

'Iraqis will be left with a country that is not exactly at war, and not exactly at peace. It has improved in many ways since the 2007 troop “surge,” but it is still a shattered country marred by violence and political dysfunction, a land defined on sectarian lines whose future, for better or worse, is now in the hands of its people.

“It is the end for the Americans only,” Emad Risn, an Iraqi columnist, recently wrote in Assabah al-Jadeed, a government-financed newspaper. “Nobody knows if the war will end for Iraqis, too.” '

US officially ends Iraq war

LAT: 'The violence also goes on — by some estimates, an average of 30 bombings and other attacks each week and about 10 deaths a day. That death toll is roughly 20% of what it was during the worst days of the Shiite-Sunni warfare in 2006.

More than 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed, according to Iraq Body Count, a website that has tracked the war. About 12% died at the hands of American forces and the rest in terrorist attacks, sectarian violence and extrajudicial executions.

The security of civilians is now the responsibility of Iraqi troops and police, visible on virtually every major street in Baghdad, searching passing cars and patrolling avenues. More than a year ago, they took over security responsibilities after U.S. forces withdrew from Iraq's cities.

With the Americans gone, it is up to men like Cpl. Hatim Abdul Kareem to help control the country's endemic violence. He has his doubts. A Shiite, he lost a cousin to sectarian violence. He fears more bloodletting after U.S. troops leave.

"After the Americans are gone, there will be war in the streets," he said. "This is not just me saying this. Other soldiers are saying this. My family, my friends, they're all saying the violence will get worse." '

Some Americans don't like portrayal of Muslims as peaceful

Last night on GAWKER: "On tonight's Daily Show, Jon Stewart took a look at the controversy surrounding TLC's new show, All American Muslim, and the Tampa-based group that hates it. Because the Muslims depicted in the show aren't shown to be terrorists bent on destroying America, the Florida Family Association can't abide it. Like most zealots, all they want is their stereotypes reinforced. Is it too much to ask for Bravo to whip up a season of the The Real Martyrs of Jalalabad? Sheesh."

I love the writer(s) at GAWKER. And of course Jon Stewart is awesome as usual:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Obama: "Trickle-Down Economics" doesn't work

Obama gave a good speech today. It's been a while! He said trickle-down economics doesn't work, has never worked.



"Tax cuts for the wealthy, primarily those passed by Republicans in 2001 and 2003, lowered rates for the richest Americans to historically low levels — but those cuts were followed by massive deficits and weak job growth, not the economic boom conservatives promised."

Unbearable and Unfathomable

"David Emanuel Hickman, 23, was the 4,483rd American military member killed in Iraq, according to icasualties.org, and just the second in November. He was the 53rd to die this year, by far the lowest annual total of the war and 16 times lower than the peak rate in 2007.

Although combat operations have officially been considered over since September 2010, danger remains. Every death in war is tragic, but the loss of a son or daughter as a war winds down seems all the more unbearable and unfathomable."