Sunday, September 30, 2018

Kavanaugh : senate judiciary committee Opinions .

President Trump to nominate a woman to the bench. It seemed he picked the worst . There's no doubt that Trump wants to nominate an anti-abortion judge to the court. Trump should have learn from Ronald Reagan , it is worth noting that Reagan's first appointee -- Sandra Day O'Connor --. Donald Trump choice was a political move , the guts to put forward a nominee who would so clearly inflame the culture wars? Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. A mistake .Though Kavanaugh will likely get the bench , choosing an equally qualified female nominee should have been a priority for the president, considering his team seemed to believe there were equally qualified female nominees. Considering the times we live in America . A woman would have been a better choice .

Dangers of a Judge Kavanaugh .

Brett Kavanaugh—a former senior aide in the George W. Bush White House who has been involved in multiple controversial political events spearheaded by conservative activists— In September of 2017, he delivered a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington, D.C. conservative think tank, in which he characterized the right to privacy as a creation of a ‘“tide of freewheeling judicial creation of unenumerated rights that were not rooted in the nation’s history or tradition.” He views the right to privacy as an erroneous concept, a mistake of judicial interpretation. In his interpretation of the Constitution, the right to privacy does not exist –In his telling AEI speech, Kavanaugh positioned himself as Rehnquist’s natural successor on the Supreme Court.

A Politically Motivated Leak .

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., vowed Sunday to launch a thorough inquiry into Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee to find out whether there was any wrongdoing in how they managed the sexual misconduct allegation Christine Blasey Ford leveled at Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh."We're going to do a wholesale, full scale investigation of what I think was a despicable process to deter it from happening again," Graham said during an interview on ABC News' "This Week.""The FBI will do a supplemental background investigation, then I'm going to call for an investigation of what happened in this committee. Who betrayed Dr. Ford's trust? Who in Feinstein's office recommended Katz as a lawyer? Why did Ms. Ford not know that the committee was willing to go to California?" Graham continued, referring to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Debra Katz, one of Ford's attorneys who has been involved in Democratic politics in the past.Feinstein denied leaking the letter, but Kavanaugh alleged during his Thursday testimony that the accusation was used as a back-up plan to derail his nomination after he appeared likely to be confirmed. Feinstein has been criticized for keeping the letter secret and not handing it over to authorities or Congress until confirmation hearings for Kavanaugh had concluded. Feinstein has argued she was honoring Ford's request of confidentiality. Republicans have routinely accused Feinstein for sitting on Ford's allegations for six weeks after receiving them, and accused her of weaponizing it to torpedo Kavanaugh's nomination for political purposes.Graham said he suspects “somebody” in Feinstein’s office of leaking the information, reported The Huffington Post. He did not cite any evidence for the accusation.“All I can tell you is it came from somebody with a political motive. … No friend would do this to Dr. Ford,” Graham said on “This Week,” according to The Huffington Post. “She has been victimized by Democrats ... on a search-and-destroy mission for Brett Kavanaugh,” Cotton said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” reported Politico.

The Accusations.

Commenting on a "sensitive" issue as a male with out disrupting how most women feel in the #MeToo movement regarding Christine Blasey Ford is going to be difficult. In our era of #MeToo reckoning, these voices have become quieter and things have finally started to change. But things haven’t changed enough for one woman’s word to be believed simply on its own without corroborating evidence. Or without the argument that her experience has timed out—that statue of limitations exist when it comes to trauma.Here is what I think , not to be insensitive , and just say that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in a speculative way did assault Christine Blasey Ford, here I can't say that it did not happen , but I will not pass judgment on this . I am going say that I am cautious to what I already heard and read from the news media sources . If it is true as she claims , sorry but Kavanaugh committed a serious crime , that today many young men get jail time for the same actions & so [if true again] he should have paid for it a long time ago . So here I have to elaborate . I read President Trump's tweet regarding Dr. Ford , while it "alarmed" many that he questioned the credibility of Christine Blasey Ford asking 'If the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local law enforcement authorities". While Trump sounds like a jerk , he nailed a problem with Dr. Ford . Like I said that there can not be any denial that she may been a victim of a crime . Rape is a crime on the law books . At 15 years old Dr. Ford, at that age had the power to say something way back 37 years ago . (2)>>She was a minor . She was at a party that involved underage drinking . I suspect that her 40 years of silence has much to do that she may have been at this party without her parents consent . That might be seen that the legal age for drinking in the 1980s was 21 years old . There is so much move involved again with this accusation. While most women have sympathized with her , why women don't report rape , the excuse the really has been so politicized . That point made me think as to what kind of culture we have in America , in most countries any kind of rape is the death penalty [ if you think Saudi Arabia ] , with such harsh laws it's unlikely that the victims are afraid to speak up to the authorities . I think that the root of the problem why many men have gotten away with such a crime (3)>>is because women don't speak up. There exists a culture of silence.Waiting nearly 40 years to accuse someone ruins the credibility of the victim . It shames the victim to public scrutinize , which now Dr. Ford has to testify . I think that the FBI should investigate her claims because she was a minor at that time .And for the record, this is not the last minute. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, are obviously -- and brazenly -- setting artificial deadlines in an attempt to rush Kavanaugh's confirmation through before the November election. It seems sadly with the Republican control of the Congress Kavanaugh may seem to have slipped through the system.

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

(1.1)>>using a politically motivated scheme just before the midterms . It's clear that these vicious Dems are out on a smear campaign — confident that a character assassination of Kavanaugh will result. If the voting public sees this as a coordinated smear campaign (1.2)>>President Trump to nominate a woman to the bench.When running for president, Trump published a list of people, which included women, he would likely appoint to the court should a vacancy or vacancies occur. In that regard, he was like Reagan who promised in his 1980 campaign that one of his first appointments to the court would be a woman, though he did not give any names.(2)>>She was a minor . Hypothetically, should a serious offense committed at age 17 be held against someone for the rest of his life? It happens all the time. Seventeen-year-olds are often tried, convicted, sentenced and jailed as adults in many states, including Maryland, where Ford claims the assault took place. These youthful offenders' lives are permanently shadowed, if not ruined, for things they did when they were too young to vote. (3)>>is because women don't speak up. According to stats from the Criminal Justice System, female victims don't report because They fear retaliation . Believe police would or could not do anythingIt was a personal matter. It was reported to another agency .It wasn't important enough to report. Didn't want the person to get in trouble. 30 percent gave another reason. The LAW as it is written in the books of this nation since the 1980s requires the victim to report it before any statute of limitations take place .

Saturday, September 22, 2018

TRUMP's TRADE WAR.

Get Ready for commodities and goods prices to soar . President Trump's master plan latest round of tariffs ($200billion) is sure enough to effect American goods with the "made in China" label . While I thought that the tariffs were about "Chinese goods" & NOPE ! . Its going hurt American companies who take their manufacturing plants to China for almost cheap labor , so it could be repackaged , shipped to the United States . While beating on President Trump these days is becoming the "norm" . We should reflect a little what President Obama did in 2009 . Is it possible that what Trump's tariffs are politically motivated ? ( **)>>same as Obama's see reports ) President Obama slapped a stiff 35% tariff on Chinese tires in 2009 after American companies complained about unfair competition. They said China was flooding America with tires at low prices making it tough for U.S. companies to compete. The Obama administration has filed numerous unfair trade cases and won several tariff judgments against China in recent years. The consumer goods affected represents a dramatic increase form the previous round of tariffs, according to a breakdown of a previous version of the list of goods affected. (1)>>Jack Ma, China’s second-richest man and the founder of the Alibaba multinational conglomerate has said. But he warned Mr Trump while he might win the battle, he would “lose the war”, stressing Washington's protectionist stance would result in Chinese businesses refocusing on other countries at the expense of the US. But what about the Stock Market ? Stock prices suffered for months amid investors' worries about higher interest rates and President Donald Trump's trade war with China and others.While some analysts say the rest of the world remains complacent about how disruptive a trade war could get between the two biggest economies - with their deep and long production supply chain - the accusation could not be leveled at investors in Chinese markets, which have been hemorrhaging.It’s getting harder to shield consumers from higher import taxes. This latest round of tariffs, which going into effect on Sep. 24, will hit $42 billion worth of consumer goods, according to Bank of America/Merrill Lynch estimates.While people could see and feel the pain that resulted from U.S. trade policy overall, they are now not clear on what is to be gained from the tariffs Trump is imposing on imports from Canada, the European Union, China and other trading partners. A tariff is a tax, and tax increases are usually not popular. Here is the BIGGER question with the new revived summits between Russia , China and EU the Trump tariffs may backfire putting the United States into economic isolation .

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

( **)>>same as Obama's. The new tariffs, which will start out at a rate of 10% and could increase to 25% by the end of the year, will affect a far greater cross section of consumer goods than the previous round. 23% of the imports targeted are consumer goods, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, and include everyday items like furniture ($11 billion), chair seats ($10 billion) and computers ($8 billion). Apple INC for example productes products made in China for American consumers , just think what a 25 % hike on consumer taxes will be like.(1)>>Jack Ma. Jack Ma, the recently departed chairman of Chinese retail giant Alibaba, said Wednesday that President Donald Trump's trade war with China will scuttle the company's pledge to bring 1 million jobs to the US. Ma has previously been critical of the protectionist moves from the Trump administration and said Wednesday that trade should not be used as a weapon, but rather as a way to bring peace between countries. The Alibaba executive's comments come the day after the trade war escalated further. On Monday, Trump announced a 10 percent tariff on another $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. On Tuesday, Beijing came back with tariffs on another $60 billion worth of US goods.Given the relative lack of talks between the two sides, the likelihood of the trade war subsiding anytime soon is slim. Alibaba's original promise was predicated on the idea that by giving US small businesses more access to the Chinese market through Alibaba, the platform could help job growth in America.

Monday, September 17, 2018

Kavanaugh's shady Past.

There is another thing that is interesting about Kavanaugh. That people seem to have forgotten . This was not the first time that he was under the radar & It was the second time (1)>>since 2003 that Brett Kavanaugh has appeared before the committee, where his nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Nearly a decade later he faces the same Democrats .While the FOCUS now has turned to Kavanaugh and his alleged woman who came forward in a Washington Post interview Sunday as the author of a letter accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of assault three decades ago, is a professor at Palo Alto University in California. Now is unwinding . Democratic Senator Dick Durbin has called for a delay in the vote regarding Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. “There are far too many questions swirling around this nomination,” Mr Durbin said, urging Republicans on the US Senate Judiciary Committee to delay the (2)>>scheduled 20 September vote. “The American people deserve to know who Judge Kavanaugh is, but Republicans are trying to rush through this nomination while concealing critical parts of the nominee’s record,” Mr Durbin tweeted. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's 2015 defense of the (3)>>National Security Agency's widescale secret collection of telephone metadata — records of callers and recipients' phone numbers and times and durations of the calls. Seems to go back decades into the Bush Administration . The Senate has good reason to be extra-cautious when it comes to judicial nominees . Judge Kavanaugh’s paper trail is far longer than those of prior nominees; the archives hold six million to seven million documents related to him. [ for the most part of them about 900,000 worth a look ] . As staff secretary from 2003 to 2006, Kavanaugh would have been well-placed to weigh in on some of the Bush administration’s most significant moments, including the (4)>>Iraq War and its aftermath, the Abu Ghraib scandal and other torture-related policies, the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act, the federal partial-birth abortion ban, and more. These issues aren’t unrelated to the judicial role he would perform on the high court, especially given that Kavanaugh has said how influential the staff secretary role was on his future performance on the bench. His trustworthness is a big problem . A decade ago Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York. said much of about Kavanaugh "I have deep concerns about this nominee,""If there was a political fight that needed a political foot soldier in the last decade, Brett Kavanaugh was probably there," Schumer said. Schumer cited the nominee's work as a lawyer for independent counsel (5)>>Kenneth Starr's investigation of President Clinton, and the 2000 Florida ballot recount. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wants to have Kavanaugh confirmed for the start of the Supreme Court session Oct. 1 and to serve up a midterm election boost for Republicans in November.This stonewalling by Republican leaders is so extreme that Democratic senators have been reduced to filing unheard-of requests for the missing documents under the Freedom of Information Act — a process that can take many months. OnAugust 2018 , the National Archives distanced itself from this shady process, calling it “something that has never happened before.” I said Oh Really ?

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

(1)>>since 2003 that Brett Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh’s five years working for Bush, as a White House counsel and the staff secretary, are the subject of a fierce dispute between Senate Republicans and Democrats about the scope of documents being made available. The battle over the paper trail has come to dominate the debate over confirming the 53-year-old appellate judge to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy.The first download of thousands of papers Thursday is being pored over by activists and media organizations for insight into Kavanaugh’s legal thinking. But it’s unclear how revealing the papers will be. One of the initial pages was a discussion of lunch plans.The records cast light on Kavanaugh’s role when he served in the White House counsel’s office. Documents regarding the selection of judicial nominees show he took an interest in news and editorial coverage of Democratic resistance to some of Bush’s early nominees to appellate judgeships. (2)>>scheduled 20 September vote. Because Republicans hold a majority in the Senate, confirmation is likely, But with the Senate narrowly divided 51-49. (3)>>National Security Agency's widescale secret collection of telephone metadata. Kavanaugh's complete record on civil liberties , Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based organization dedicated to digital privacy rights, worries that "he has a very broad view of the government's ability to do mass surveillance and specifically in the context where the government is claiming national security." Cohn has pursued a lawsuit alleging illegal NSA surveillance of "millions of ordinary Americans," among cases she said could eventually reach the Supreme Court. She questions whether Kavanaugh supports "real checks and balances on the power of the executive branch" on privacy issues. In a 2013 lecture , Kavanaugh talked about his appeals court's rulings in cases involving Guantanamo detainees and counterterrorism, saying he disagreed with people who believed "the courts should be creating new rules to constrain the executive — that this new kind of war requires new rules created by the courts."(4)>>Iraq War and its aftermath. Kavanaugh worked with G W Bush for the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and the torture of prisoners. He supports big business over employees, wardens over prisoners, the rights of the wealthy to steal elections. He refused a detained teen the right of an abortion. He ratified a DC agency forcing medical procedures on the disabled against their will.(5)>>Kenneth Starr's investigation of President Clinton, and the 2000 Florida ballot recount.Judge Brett Kavanaugh helped Bush steal the election in which the majority of voters voted for Al Gore. the 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore. With the Florida votes still undecided in December because of a state-mandated recount due to the razor-thin margin of the election results, Kavanaugh joined Bush's legal team, which was trying to stop the ballot recount in the state.Brett Kavanaugh’s involvement in deliberations two decades ago about whether to seek criminal charges against a top adviser to President Bill Clinton.A smattering of Kavanaugh’s memos from his work for Starr have been public for years as a result of previous Freedom of Information Act requests.describe his dealings with conservative media figures and activists while investigating the death of Clinton White House lawyer Vince Foster. Those contacts have fueled broader questions about Kavanaugh’s interactions with the press during his tenure in Starr’s office

Saturday, September 15, 2018

Remembering September 11th 2001. (Revised)

Remembering September 11th 2001. Is like waking up from a nightmare , where ever you were that day , the whole nation rattled . I remember I was heading to work tuning in a the local radio & around 7 a.m. , the report came that a "Small plane hit one of the world trade center towers". Hours later the reality would set in , as news trickled down from the East Coast . News crews later were already showing images on TV of the first towers being hit by the plane . I remember I was with group of people watching it on TV with bad reception .In those days cable TV was not an option at the work place . What unfolded on Tv was a static image of the first tower . Seeing the plane hit the first tower was hard for the mind to register at first glance. It was creepy . Vary otherworldly . The first crash had changed everything; the second changed it again. Anyone who thought the first was an accident now knew better. This was not some awful, isolated episode, not Oklahoma City, not even the first World Trade Center bombing. The Aftermath, we all know what happened . War was coming , it did . There are still a lot of puzzling things about it,(1)>> conspiracy mongering is no small phenomenon. Any Internet search turns up thousands of explanations for the events of September 11. These theories come in a nearly infinite variety, but all reach essentially the same conclusion: The U.S. government, or some shadowy group that controls it, organized the attacks as part of a master plan for global domination. But the truth is more mundane. Strangely enough a few days before September 11th , 2001 things seemed a bit too normal . Never the less it may not have been . (1.2)>>How far the US government "knew" has been the subject of a lot of writing and film making . Micheal Moore's (2)>>Fahrenheit 9/11 did a great job on documenting exactly what led up to the attack and it's aftermath . The film then segues into the September 11 attacks. Moore says Bush was informed of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center on his way to an elementary school. Bush is then shown sitting in a Florida classroom with children. When told that a second plane has hit the World Trade Center and that the nation is "under attack", Bush allows the students to finish their book reading, and Moore notes that he continued reading for nearly seven minutes. Right before the September 11th attacks, some fishy business happened within the stock market and insurance firms. An “extraordinary” amount of put options were placed on United Airlines and American Airlines stocks, the same airlines that were hijacked during the attacks. Many speculate that traders were tipped off about the attacks and profited from the tragedy. The Securities and Exchange Commission launched an insider trading investigation in which Osama bin Laden was a suspect, after receiving information from at least one Wall Street firm. [ You might like to read this CNN chronology here shorturl.at/iEFKP ] . Osama was always the first suspect . What I found a bit curious as to why the Twin Towers were picked . For some reason it may have never been said that hitting the towers was about hitting America . As we know that the WTC Towers were infact the headquarters of the WTO , keep in mind after nearly 20 years it was missed by everyone . Not one single News media investigated it . Mostly because no one thought that bringing down the WTC Towers was just a terrorist act committed by a bunch of Islamic extremists . But no one knew that the real reason for the attack was to bring down the WTO , destroying it would end the biggest "conspiracy" of them all , it’s kind of funny that the very people who are concerned often about protecting labor and protecting the environment are opposed to the first steps to create some kind of international authority that might actually do that very thing. And if you look at the records, corporations that operate in less-developed countries often have a much better record of protecting human rights in those countries and protecting the environment in those countries than do the governments of those countries themselves. So in some cases, one power – that is, a corporation – may actually be better than the existing power – the corrupt government – that’s already there. It’s complex, but the issue is what are we really concerned about? Are we concerned, then, about the rights of workers, the environment, and the prospects for citizens in countries that are poor to get access to food, clothing, and other goods at low prices? Destroying it would have cause the Stock Market to crash . Now after 9-11 the market took a dive , nearly crashed as traders began selling . It nearly suceeded. Nearly seven years after 2001 by 2008 the market did not recover till President Obama bailed out the banks , keeping them form collapsing because of bad loans to home buyers . So the whole September 11th , 2001 attack was probably just a lot more than just a terrorist act on our American soil .

Who would our president be now?

If there had been no 9/11 and no retaliatory invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq—we might be living through an Islamist Winter rather than an Arab Spring.Replaying the history game without 9/11 suggests that, ironically, the real impact of the attacks was not on Americans but on the homelands of the attackers themselves Someone else would have won in 2008, and everyone in 2008 wouldn't have been fighting to distance themselves from being compared with Bush. Would Obama have rallied all the voters sick of the war and swept into office in 2008? Running against an incumbent president would be difficult, and Obama may not have even run for another four years. President Obama's win may never happned if September 11th was just a normal day in American history . Since it did As we all witnessed, his actions, along with a complicit democrat congress, caused 8 years of a struggling economy. Granted, he inherited a recession, but he made it worse by raising taxes and pushing through his ObamaCare. How we arrived here with a President Trump is a rather a strange twist of events . It was completely a reaction to President Obama’s policies that gave rise to President Trumps election . While alleged Russian interference helped Trump as it may theoretically put to the test . If ONLY we have had different time lines in this UNIVERSE . Maybe God could be a bit more comical & if Trump descended that infamous golden escalator and declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination? might history have been changed ? And what about Hillary? What would Hillary Clinton have done with all her spare time from 2009 to 2013? She would not have been McCain’s choice for SecState, so there would have been neither the Benghazi-Benghazi-Benghazi nonsense, nor the e-mail server nonsense the Right Wing Noise Machine spent tens of millions of dollars chasing its tail over. We might of had a more stable world rather the obvious of the last 18 years .

Did Osama bin Laden die in 2005 & not 2011?

We all remember the victory speech that President Obama gave regading the "death" of Osama bin Ladin . The whole thing was strange that the worlds most wanted man with a 25 million dollar bounty was killed by six navy seals , his body dumped out in the middle of the Indian ocean . How many Americans bought into it . Honestly I was always a bit skeptical. On May 1, 2011, an image purporting to show a dead bin Laden was broadcast on Pakistani television. Though the story was picked up by much of the British press, the American press without question . However it made no sense on how Bin Laden's body was disposed of in the first place . First place the explination was why his body was dumped out at sea was a bit skiddish . So the news reported that it was done out of "respect for the Muslim religion....' . While reason is bound up within Islamic practice and tradition. And that practice calls for the body of the deceased to be buried within 24 hours, according to a U.S. official. For me, it sounded more like a cover up . The Pakistani Former Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) Chief Lt. General (retd) Hameed Gul has claimed that al-Qaeda Chief Osama bin Laden died in 2005 and not in the US Navy Seals raid in Abbottabad. What been said about Laden for years is that around 2001 in the wake of the 9-11 attack , Laden was in need of a kidney transplant , was so ill that he was walking on two crutches. Many of these reports of bin Laden's premature death are contradictory. There's the Pakistan Observer piece claiming the al-Qaeda terror chief died in Afghanistan in December 2001 due to a lung complication. Another report cited Taliban sources claiming he had died around the same time due to kidney failure.In October 2002, Israeli intelligence reportedly concluded that bin Laden had died in Afghanistan. In 2005, Senator Harry Reid was told bin Laden died in Pakistan in October, due to the earthquakes. Well he either died in Afghanistan in 2001, or he died years later due to earthquakes. At any case it casts the Obama White House’s account of the operation as a frantic and harried cover-up designed to valorize a “homicide,” as one anonymous commando put it. That probably the wrong person was killed . That prospect could be true , since in Pakistan most men have beards and could be mistaken as Laden so easily . Now if we buy into the Obama White House killing of Osama bin Laden, there arises a moral issue regarding the extradition of wanted international criminals . When the story of bin Laden’s killing was made public, crowds of people gathered at the White House and Ground Zero to celebrate what was understood to be an American victory in the war on terror. In a clip from the (3)>>UK Press TV show the Agenda, Corbyn is heard complaining that there had been “no attempt whatsoever that I can see to arrest him and put him on trial, to go through that process”. He went on: “This was an assassination attempt, and is yet another tragedy, upon a tragedy, upon a tragedy.The official sources inform us that, if possible, the American Special Forces would have arrested Bin Laden. This, of course, would have been a much more judicially satisfactory option since it will have devolved to Courts, rather than to a commando, the responsibility to judge and punish the culprit. As such, the killing of Bin Laden sees the predominance of the executive over the judicial power. President Obama stated that “justice has been done”, but proper justice is made in the tribunals, not outside them.

Below is a previous post I did about September 11th .

dated 2012 . What if ......

September 11th , what if's .....

Erase 9/11 and the local political scene would be similarly transfigured

If September 11th never happened, we
would have a vary different world today .

With September 11th coming up. I wanted to summarize a 'what if scenario' . What our world would have been like if the fatal hijacking terrorist plot never happened . We would still see two twin towers over looking the Manhattan skyline. Better yet there would be obvious scenarios right out out of science fiction , and an alternative timeline. Imagine that the twin towers still dominated the Manhattan skyline. Imagine that the Pentagon’s western facade had remained intact. Imagine that there was no reason to build a memorial in Shanksville, Pa. And imagine that the numbers 9 and 11 meant nothing more than an emergency telephone call.Historians and novelists love constructing “what if” scenarios: What if Hitler had won World War II? What if the Confederacy had prevailed in the Civil War? What if a Chinese sailor, rather than Columbus, had discovered America? First off former President Bush would have come out a much better President than he is viewed now, for sure we would have not have had the economic meltdown that happened in 2008. We would have not had a President Obama either. In this parallel universe, that group of voters might have stayed with the GOP rather than defecting to the Democrats in great numbers in 2008 — and would have wielded more influence in contemporary politics than the tea party movement. And unlike Obama, a Democratic president in a world without 9/11 might have paid less attention to right-leaning independents and governed as more of a progressive. That means Barack Obama might still be a senator from Illinois. There would have been no history-making first African American president, no birth-certificate controversy — and ** Obama could still be friends with his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Why am I saying this ? Well lets figure the September 11 attacks greatly ruined America's economic system that has sent the deficit through the roof with war costs . American politics would have unfolded in vastly different ways. Assume that, with no 9/11 to use as a pretext to invade Iraq, the election of 2004 would have been a peacetime contest, centered largely on economic issues. It may seem minor compared with today’s $ economic difficulties, but after 9/11 followed the crash of the tech bubble, and the subsequent bubble in real estate and stocks took time to inflate. George W. Bush likely would have still won the 2004 election , basing this probability that John Kerry would not have won the nomination to the Democratic Party . California would not have seen the massive debt , and likely we would have avoided recalling it's Governor . Arnold Schwarzenegger still would have been acting . These are just my guesses , but guesses are not accurate . I just pasting a history of what if . Launching it from a non event 9/11 from happening .The terrorist attacks further accelerated our descent towards becoming a police state. Over the past few years we have seen the establishment of "wars" against this and that, the appointment of "czars" to implement these various "war" efforts, and increase legislation diminishing our civil rights. Due process is vaporizing. "Without the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there would have been no effort to reorient the U.S. armed forces toward counterinsurgency operations. No 9/11, no COIN. America’s defense planners might have spent the first decade of the 21st century focusing on possible high-tech naval and air combat in Asia, rather than on policing and nation-building in occupied Muslim countries." Contrasting this we may never know , but 9/11 had serious consequences to the United States over the past 12 years . It leaves us with something to think about this week.

NOTES AND COMMENTS :

(1)>> conspiracy mongering. Conspiracy theorists claim that action or inaction by U.S. officials with foreknowledge was intended to ensure that the attacks took place successfully. For example, Michael Meacher, former British environment minister and member of Tony Blair's Cabinet said that the United States knowingly failed to prevent the attacks. (see https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/sep/06/september11.iraq ) The idea that the 9-11 attack was a "excuse" by our American governmnet to engage in a globalist war . The title of the opertation as "Operation Enduring Freedom" gave that sense that America would be at war for an extended time . And what of the U.S. economy in a world in which Mohamed Atta and his fellow terrorists never hijacked airplanes? If the United States had not invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, the national deficit and debt would be considerably lower today. According to a recent report by the Congressional Research Service, between September 2001 and March 2011, Congress appropriated $1.283 trillion for the wars, additional security measures and health care for veterans — with 63 percent of the total related to Iraq and 35 percent to Afghanistan. Economists Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes have estimated that the long-term cost of the wars, including veterans’ care, may exceed $3 trillion . Adding the fact the Afganistan was the first target , the Taliban and Bin Ladin . Next Iraq and Saddam . By 2011 the Arab Spring was a trigger that the American Neocon's needed . While it looked like the Muslim world was rocked with upheaval that was a by product of the US Invasion & conquest of Iraq , the war spilled over into Libya and Tunisia . The overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi , last of all Syria with Assad .In the past 10 years, the U.S. has directly or indirectly overthrown at least three governments in the Muslim world. In reality it really smells that something more was going on . Right now the American war machine is exausted , it can't further continue this war [ war on terror] , it has reached its apex . With Russia taking sides with Syria and Assad against the American supported Jihadists seeking the overthrow of Assad, this war may be closing to an end , perhaps nations need to sit down and stop drawing the "red line". (1.2)>>How far the US government "knew". I don't want to put up anything that may not contridict " known facts" { OFFICIAL REPORT} , but I submit the entire 9-11 Commission Report [ https://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf ] its a long read that was published in book form . (2)>>Fahrenheit 9/11. I finally got to see "Fahrenheit 9/11", and I don't know where to begin describing it. The first adjective that comes to my mind is "horrifying". How honest is Michael Moore with this film? One thing is for certain: he is honest about his intent, which is to help defeat Bush in 2004. The quotes he uses from the Bush administration folks are genuine, as they are provided in the form of video clips that feature the suspects. As usual, Moore injects a lot of his personal emotions... he is a master at this. There is speculation which appears a bit wild at times, particularly in the first half of the film. However, the basic information is there and the questions arise from it.The fact that Michael Moore can make a film this compelling and exposing makes me want to scream at the top of my lungs to question why we let this Bush administration do these things. This movie was not a total shock to me, as I must admit that I already agreed with Moore long before I saw it, but this movie made me so angry and upset at the current state of America. It filled me with such a sense of urgency which has stayed with me for months and months afterward. Everyone in America should sit down and watch this movie if they haven't. You might like Moore's new film with a similar title Fahrenheit 11/9 ↦ In May, Moore teased the documentary on Twitter, sharing a clip of him and Trump appearing together on Roseanne Barr’s 1998 talk show, The Roseanne Show. In the clip, Trump congratulated Moore on Roger & Me, Moore’s film about General Motors C.E.O. Roger Smith. “I hope he never does one on me,” Trump said. And that election is the jumping-off point for “Fahrenheit 11/9,” which begins with a lengthy section on election night and leads into the opening credits with a simple question: “How the f— did this happen?” (3)>>UK Press TV show the Agenda. Jeremy Corbyn has come under fire for saying it was a “tragedy” that Osama bin Laden was killed by the US rather than being put on trial.