Former US Vice President Dick Cheney speaks on the nuclear deal with Iran at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, September 8, 2015.
Found this gem of a crazy person at Tedeschi in Boston on the 4th of July. She was so rude and racist that I had no issue holding a camera right to her face for the world to see.
Vice President Dick Cheney opposes the Iran nuclear deal. If his reasoning sounds familiar, it's because we've heard it from him before on the Iraq war.
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The lessons we should learn from the Iraq war:
September 8, 2015 at 1:32 PM ET by Mike Breen
Summary: Mike Breen, an Iraq war combat veteran, shares the lessons Congress needs to remember when they consider their vote for the Iran deal.
This week, critics of the Iran deal -- including Former Vice President Dick Cheney -- are gathering in Washington.
It's a safe bet that they will call for abandoning our diplomatic deal with Iran and the world, and call for a dangerously simplistic vision of American "leadership" based on unilateral action that would ultimately leave us with a choice between accepting a nuclear Iran or using military force.
This is no abstract debate. Those, like me, who have served, understand all too well the sacrifice that is required when diplomacy is abandoned. I have spent much of my adult life attempting to redeem the aftermath of a deeply unnecessary and misguided war in Iraq in the name of non-proliferation. Having served in Iraq myself as an Army officer, and then worked with Iraqi refugee families facing desperate circumstances in Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, I believe we must ask a simple question of anyone wishing to be taken seriously on matters of national security today: What have you learned from the Iraq war?
Some of the same people who supported premature military action in Iraq, based on faulty intelligence, remain eager to reject tough diplomacy now. Remarkably, many of them have made clear that they reject the very idea of negotiating with Iran at all.
We must remember how radical that view truly is.
Presidents from Eisenhower to Nixon to Kennedy, from Reagan to Bush Sr., knew that sometimes, facing our adversaries across the negotiating table is a better way to advance our interests, promote our values, and improve our security than rushing to face them on the battlefield. They understood that tough, principled diplomacy is a hallmark of our strength -- and that exhausting diplomatic options before asking our men and women in uniform to confront the awful face of battle is a basic responsibility of leadership.
Embracing the use of force as a first option, while rejecting the very idea of tough negotiations with dangerous countries, is a departure from our nation's best strategic traditions and most essential moral values. The costs of that departure have been great, and remain with us to this day. We who have spent our lives since 9/11 on the front lines of a dangerous world have learned from our shared experience that America can -- and must -- do better, and be smarter.
Using tough, principled diplomacy, backed by strength, to reduce the threat posed by our enemies is one of America's greatest bipartisan traditions.
This deal with Iran reflects the painful lessons of our recent past, and represents a higher form of renewed American leadership. America rallied support for sanctions around the world, forced Iran to the table, and delivered a tough deal based on verification -- not trust. If Iran abides by the terms, that leadership will have improved our security and safeguarded our allies without putting American lives at risk. If Iran cheats, or threatens our security in other ways, we will be watching – with every tool of our national power remaining at our disposal, much better intelligence, and the world committed to standing with us in our response.
We must remember our essential goal: To prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. This deal accomplishes that goal.
And if Iran does choose conflict, there is nothing in this deal that gives away the power and resolve of our military, or our commitment to defend our nation and our allies. Make no mistake. The men and women I was once privileged to serve alongside will fight and win on any battlefield our elected civilian leaders may choose. That is their responsibility. Ours is to learn from painful experience, and choose with wisdom worthy of their service.
The radical worldview that led to the Iraq war belongs to the past. Our generation has charted a new course for the future. Embracing tough, principled diplomacy as a first resort is the best way forward for our nation and the world.
The many ways in which Donald Trump was once a liberal’s liberal
By Hunter Schwarz July 9
Businessman and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to supporters during a back-yard reception in Bedford, New Hampshire, June 30, 2015. REUTERS/Dominick Reuter
Has Donald Trump ever been wrong about anything? (Also, does he ever cry? Has he ever had self-doubt? Has he ever lay in bed awake at night crippled with anxiety?)
Perhaps no presidential candidate has the self-confidence he does, even in the face of some glaring flip-flops on his political positions. Where lesser candidates would dodge questions about why they've changed their mind or give a focus-group-tested line about how they evolved, Trump doesn't admit to ever having a different opinion.
.. in January, Trump said, "I'm pro-life and I have been pro-life." He said he believed there should be exceptions in cases of rape, incest or the life of the mother.
Guns
Then: In Trump's 200 book "The America We Deserve," he wrote that he "generally" opposed gun control but supported an assault weapons ban and a longer waiting period to purchase a firearm. Now: At the 2015 NRA-ILA Leadership Forum, Trump said if he became president, "the 2nd Amendment will be totally protected." He told the Web site Ammoland .. http://www.ammoland.com/2015/07/donald-trump-talks-gun-control-assault-weapons-gun-free-zones/#axzz3fPLqmfKS .. he does "not support expanding background checks" and said current background checks "don't work."
Healthcare
Then: In an interview with Larry King in 1999, Trump said he was "very liberal when it comes to health care" and that he believes in "universal healthcare." Now: During his announcement, he called Obamacare "a disaster called the big lie" and said the deductibles were so high they were "virtually useless."
Hillary Clinton
Then: Either Trump or his son donated to Clinton .. http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/donald-trump-donations-democrats-hillary-clinton-119071.html .. in 2002, 2005, 2006 and 2007, he invited her to his 2005 wedding in Florida, where she sat front row, and he's donated at least $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation. He also said in an appearance on the Howard Stern show in the mid-2000s that she was a fantastic senator. Now: On NBC on Wednesday, he called Clinton "the worst secretary of state in the history of our nation" and said she would be "a terrible president."
Party affiliation
Then: Trump changed his party from Republican to Independent Party in 1999, and switched again to Democrat in 2001. Now: Has been a registered Republican since 2009.
There are also some flips which haven't necessarily been from left to right.
Army of God? 6 Modern-Day Christian Terrorist Groups You Never Hear About
.. while Islam terrorists are absolutely surely to be condemned we cannot see this repeated condemnation of only Islam without given fair consideration to ones gaining undue absence in western msm .. 'is only fair ..
Just because they don't get as much coverage as ISIS or Boko Haram doesn’t mean that they don’t exist.
By Alex Henderson / AlterNet April 1, 2015
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) recently released an in-depth report on terrorism in the United States. Covering April 2009 to February 2015, the report (titled “The Age of the Wolf”) found that during that period, “more people have been killed in America by non-Islamic domestic terrorists .. http://www.splcenter.org/lone-wolf .. than jihadists.” The SPLC asserted that “the jihadist threat is a tremendous one,” pointing out that al-Qaeda’s attacks of September 11, 2001 remain the deadliest in U.S. history. But the study also noted that the second deadliest was carried out not by Islamists, but by Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995—and law enforcement, the SPLC stressed, are doing the public a huge disservice if they view terrorism as an exclusively Islamist phenomenon.
The report, in a sense, echoed the assertions that President Barack Obama made when he spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast in February and stressed that Muslims don’t have the market cornered on religious extremism. In the minds of far-right Republicans, Obama committed the ultimate sin by daring to mention that Christianity has a dark side .. http://www.salon.com/2015/02/06/wingnuts_latest_meltdown_conservatives_go_nuts_over_obamas_remarks_on_christianity_and_islam/ .. and citing the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition as two examples from the distant past. Obama wasn’t attacking Christianity on the whole but rather, was making the point that just as not all Christians can be held responsible for the horrors of the Inquisition, not all Muslims can be blamed for the violent extremism of ISIS (the Islamic State, Iraq and Syria), the Taliban, al-Qaeda or Boko Haram. But Obama certainly didn’t need to look 800 or 900 years in the past to find examples of extreme Christianists committing atrocities. Violent Christianists are a reality in different parts of the world—including the United States—and the fact that the mainstream media don’t give them as much coverage as ISIS or Boko Haram doesn’t mean that they don’t exist.
Below are six extreme Christianist groups that have shown their capacity for violence and fanaticism.
1. The Army of God
A network of violent Christianists that has been active since the early 1980s, the Army of God openly promotes killing abortion providers—and the long list of terrorists who have been active in that organization has included Paul Jennings Hill (who was executed by lethal injection in 2003 for the 1994 killings of abortion doctor John Britton and his bodyguard James Barrett), John C. Salvi (who killed two receptionists when he attacked a Planned Parenthood clinic in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1994) and Eric Rudolph, who is serving life in prison for his role in the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta in 1996 and other terrorist acts. Rudolph, in fact, has often been exalted as a Christian hero on the Army of God’s website .. http://www.armyofgod.com/ , as have fellow Army of God members such as Scott Roeder (who is serving life without parole for murdering Wichita, Kansas-based abortion doctor George Tiller in 2009), Shelley Shannon (who attempted to kill Tiller in 2003) and Michael Frederick Griffin (who is serving a life sentence for the 1993 killing of Dr. David Gunn, an OB-GYN, in Pensacola, Florida).
Although primarily an anti-abortion organization, the Army of God also has a history of promoting violence against gays .. http://www.salon.com/2002/02/19/gays_10/ . And one of the terrorist acts that Rudolph confessed to was bombing a lesbian bar in Atlanta in 1997.
2. Eastern Lightning, a.k.a. the Church of the Almighty God
Founded in Henan Province, China in 1990, Eastern Lightning (also known as the Church of the Almighty God or the Church of the Gospel’s Kingdom) is a Christianist cult with an end-time/apocalypse focus .. http://articles.latimes.com/2012/dec/17/world/la-fg-china-doomsday-arrests-20121218 : Eastern Lightning believes that the world is coming to an end, and in the meantime, its duty is to slay as many demons as possible. While most Christianists have an extremely patriarchal viewpoint (much like their Islamist counterparts) and consider women inferior to men, Eastern Lightning believe that Jesus Christ will return to Earth in the form of a Chinese woman. But they are quite capable of violence against women: in May 2014, for example, members of the cult beat a 37-year-old woman named Wu Shuoyan to death in a McDonalds in Zhaoyuan, China when she refused to give them her phone number. Eastern Lightning members Zhang Lidong and his daughter, Zhang Fan, were convicted of murder for the crime and executed in February .. http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/02/china/mcdonalds-murder-culprits-executed/ . In a 2014 interview in prison, Lidong expressed no remorse when he said of Shuoyan, “I beat her with all my might and stamped on her too. She was a demon. We had to destroy her .. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-29581195 .”
Eastern Lightning’s other acts of violence .. http://en.people.cn/n/2014/0603/c90882-8735801.html .. have ranged from the killing of a grammar school student in 2010 (in retaliation, police believe, for one of the child’s relatives wanting to leave the cult) to cult member Min Yongjun using a knife to attack an elderly woman and a group of schoolchildren in Chenpeng in 2012. Christian groups are not exempt from Eastern Lightning’s fanaticism: in 2002, cult members kidnapped 34 members of a Christian group called the China Gospel Fellowship and held them captive for two months .. http://www.vice.com/read/the-chinese-cult-who-kidnap-christians-and-paint-snakes .. in the hope of forcing them to join their cult. Although mainly active in the communist People’s Republic of China, Eastern Lighting has been trying to expand its membership in Hong Kong .. http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/06/world/asia/china-eastern-lightning-killing/ .
3. The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA)
The mainstream media have had much to say about the Islamist brutality of Boko Haram, but one terrorist group they haven’t paid nearly as much attention to is the Lord’s Resistance Army—which was founded by Joseph Kony (a radical Christianist) in Uganda in 1987 and has called for the establishment of a severe Christian fundamentalist government in that country. The LRA, according to Human Rights Watch, has committed thousands of killings and kidnappings .. http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/03/21/qa-joseph-kony-and-lords-resistance-army#3 —and along the way, its terrorism spread from Uganda to parts of the Congo, the Central African Republic (CAR) and South Sudan. The word “jihadist” is seldom used in connection with the LRA, but in fact, the LRA’s tactics are not unlike those of ISIS or Boko Haram. And the governments Kony hopes to establish in Sub-Saharan Africa would implement a Christianist equivalent of Islamic Sharia law.
4. The National Liberation Front of Tripura
India is not only a country of Hindus and Sikhs, but also, of Muslims, Buddhists, Catholics and Protestants. Most of India’s Christians are peaceful, but a major exception is the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT). Active in the state of Tripura in Northeastern India since 1989, NLFT is a paramilitary Christianist movement that hopes to secede from India .. http://www.trackingterrorism.org/group/national-liberation-front-tripura-nlft .. and establish a Christian fundamentalist government in Tripura. NLFT has zero tolerance for any religion other than Christianity, and the group has repeatedly shown a willingness to kill, kidnap or torture Hindus who refuse to be converted to its extreme brand of Protestant fundamentalism.
In 2000, NLFT vowed to kill anyone who participated in Durga Puja .. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/953200.stm .. (an annual Hindu festival) And in May 2003, at least 30 Hindus were murdered during one of NLFT’s killing sprees.
5. The Phineas Priesthood
White supremacist groups don’t necessarily have a religious orientation: some of them welcome atheists as long as they believe in white superiority. But the Christian Identity movement specifically combines white supremacist ideology with Christianist terrorism, arguing that violence against non-WASPs is ordained by God and that white Anglo Saxon Protestants are God’s chosen people. The modern Christian Identity movement in the U.S. has been greatly influenced by the Ku Klux Klan—an organization that has committed numerous acts of terrorism over the years—and in the 1970s, new Christian Identity groups like the Aryan Nations and the Covenant, the Sword and the Arm of the Lord (CSA) emerged. Another Christian Identity group of recent decades has been the Phineas Priesthood, whose members have been involved in violent activities ranging from abortion clinic bombings to bank robberies .. http://preps.spokesman.com/stories/1997/nov/01/sentencing-delayed-for-valley-bomber-but-no-third/ .. (mainly in the Pacific Northwest). On November 28, 2014, Phineas Priesthood member Larry Steven McQuilliams went on a violent rampage .. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/12/01/police-austin-shooter-belonged-to-an-ultra-conservative-christian-hate-group/ .. in Austin, Texas—where he fired over 100 rounds at various targets (including a federal courthouse, the local Mexican Consulate building and a police station) before being shot and killed by police.
6. The Concerned Christians
One of the ironic things about some Christianists is the fact that although they believe that Jews must be converted to Christianity, they consider themselves staunch supporters of Israel. And some of them believe in violently forcing all Muslims out of Israel. The Concerned Christians, a Christianist doomsday cult that was founded by pastor Monte “Kim” Miller in Denver in the 1980s, alarmed Colorado residents when, in 1998, at least 60 of its members suddenly quit their jobs, abandoned their homes and went missing—and it turned out there was reason for concern. In 1999, Israeli officials arrested 14 members of the Concerned Christians in Jerusalem and deported them from Israel .. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/251815.stm .. because they suspected them of plotting terrorist attacks against Muslims. One likely target, according to Israeli police, was Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque .. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/11/jews-muslims-share-al-aqsa-mosque-2013111184111359951.html —the same mosque that was targeted in 1969 (when a Christianist from Australia named Denis Michael Rohan unsuccessfully tried to destroy it by arson) and, Israeli police suspect, was a likely target in 2014 (when Adam Everett Livix, a Christianist from Texas, was arrested by Israeli police on suspicion of plotting to blow up Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/09/israel-indicts-texan-plot-attack-muslim-sites ).
Alex Henderson's work has appeared in the L.A. Weekly, Billboard, Spin, Creem, the Pasadena Weekly and many other publications. Follow him on Twitter @alexvhenderson.
Here are 8 Christian Terrorist Organizations That Equal ISIS
.. though you gotta say not as successful so far ..
Posted by: AATTP in Religion, TEApublican Smack Downs February 9, 2015
.. those not detailed above ..
7. Ku Klux Klan Active: 1860s-Present, 149 years
5. Antibalaka Active: 1990s to present, about 25 years Who are they? I’ve cited the Central African Genocide
4. Catholic Reaction Force/Protestant Action Force Active: 1983 till 1994; at least 2002 for other groups using the CRF name; 1970s till 1990s for PAF Who are they? Really, anytime some claims that Christians aren’t violent, all you have to do is direct them to Ireland.
3. The Orange Volunteers Active: Early 1970s to Present, about 40 years Who are they: We’re staying in Ireland for this next group.
2. The Aryan Nations Active: Unknown, to the Present Who are they? “The Aryan Nations” is an umbrella agency that nets a large number of White and Christian Supremacist agencies ranging from certain breeds of Neo-Nazi to the KKK itself. It’s heyday was in the 1980s and the 1990s, when various White Nationalist groups would convene at the group’s Idaho compound for their annual congress.
1. The Christian Identity Movement Active: 1920/1930s to Present, about 95 years Who are they? When you’re dealing with White Nationalism and White Supremacy in the United States, it’s turtles all the way down, but you can almost certainly find God at the top of the heap. That’s what the Christian Identity Movement is; it’s not necessarily an organization so much as it is a loose affiliation of organizations like the Aryan Nations.
So this is it? Nope. There are hundreds more. I mentioned a few of them in the article — the Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord, the Oklahoma Constitution Militia, and the Provisional IRA are just a few who didn’t get entries but deserve noting anyway. By now it should be apparent to anyone watching that Christian Terrorism is a thing, it exists, and it’s just as bad and widespread as Islamic Terrorism. The only difference between Christian Terrorism and Islamic terrorism is that Christian Terrorism never makes the evening news. .. more with links .. http://aattp.org/here-are-8-christian-terrorist-organizations-that-equal-isis/
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