VMI will change honor system that expels Black cadets at disproportionate rates
VMI will change honor system that expels Black cadets at disproportionate rates
By Ian Shapira
February 5, 2022
Virginia Military Institute will make changes to its student-run honor court to make the system fairer to cadets accused of lying, cheating, stealing or other transgressions that can lead to expulsion.
VMI detailed the reforms in a progress report Friday in response to a state-ordered investigation into racism and sexism at the nation’s oldest state-supported military college.
The 70-page report, which the college gave to General Assembly members and the Virginia secretary of education, describes initiatives approved, enacted or begun last year, including mandatory diversity, equity, and inclusion training for administrators and members of VMI’s Board of Visitors, and changes to the Lexington school’s one-strike-and-you’re-out honor court system.
Black students at VMI were expelled by the honor court at a disproportionately high rate, according to data obtained by The Washington Post for the three academic years between the fall of 2017 and the spring of 2020. Though Black cadets made up about 6 percent of the student body, they represented about 43 percent of those expelled for honor code violations. Twelve out of the 28 VMI students dismissed in those three academic years were Black. When students of color were included in the count, the number of expelled rose to 15, or about 54 percent of the total, even though minorities made up about 21 percent of the student population in that three-year period.
Barnes & Thornburg, the law firm hired by the state to investigate racism and sexism at VMI, recommended in its final report that the college “consider changing” its policy of allowing convictions without unanimous verdicts by student juries.
But VMI, which received $21.6 million in state funding for the 2021-2022 academic year, reported Friday that it will keep allowing student prosecutors to win cases with non-unanimous verdicts. The school did make one major concession: The student juries will expand in size and guilty verdicts will require nine out of 11 jury votes instead of five of seven votes.
The move, the college said in its progress report, “increases the Court’s burden of proof and further reduces the potential (real or perceived) of forcing a guilty verdict based on insufficient or circumstantial evidence.”
Another key honor system change will allow cadets to use pro bono attorneys during their trials. VMI used to allow lawyers to represent cadets during the proceedings, but stopped about a decade ago because of complaints that the professional litigators prosecuted the system itself and that only affluent students could afford them.
Now, VMI will draw up a list of pro bono lawyers willing to work with cadet defendants and their “defense advocates” — typically VMI faculty or staff members — before and during trials. But the attorneys will be allowed only to observe and consult their client or their defense advocate during the hearing, not argue the case themselves.
The college also said it will begin retaining “key demographic data” to “monitor the fairness of the system.” VMI’s chief diversity officer, Jamica Love, the report said, will help “facilitate annual reviews” of the honor system.
All of the new honor court changes will go into effect in August 2022, at the beginning of the next academic year.
Though there has been intense resistance from some alumni, students and parents to VMI’s cultural makeover, the progress report chronicled the college’s efforts to “temper” its links to the Confederacy.
The 182-year-old school sent many of its cadet to fight for the South during the Civil War. More than 250 cadets fought at the Battle of New Market in May 1864, and 10 were killed in battle or died later from wounds. Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson taught physics at VMI before the Civil War.
The reported noted the school’s decisions to remove many of the tributes to Jackson, including his 108-year-old statue that stood at the campus’s center, plus his name that was emblazoned on the student barracks.
But VMI is still deciding whether to preserve many more Confederate tributes, including an award and another monument partially named after and honoring Jackson, and a bronze statue of its first superintendent, Francis H. Smith, who enslaved nine people and served as the commander at abolitionist John Brown’s execution in December 1859.
The progress report noted that VMI’s new commandant, retired Col. Adrian Bogart III, has instituted an “open-door” policy on Fridays that the school hopes will encourage students of color “to discuss participation in any activity that has the potential to stir cultural or other demographic sensitivities.”
The school also detailed numerous trainings for cadets meant to crack down on racist jokes, slurs, misogyny and sexual violence.
VMI’s chief diversity officer, Love, has also begun training freshmen on “inclusive excellence” and will educate the remaining students later this academic year.
According to a survey the college conducted on the sessions, three-quarters of the freshmen were “mostly or completely satisfied” with the program; 88 percent found that it helped “connect them with their peers;” and 94 percent said the activities “helped initiate dialogue about inclusivity.”
Much of the racism and sexism at VMI is also found online, especially via the social media app Jodel, where cadets anonymously denigrate one another day-in, day-out. The report said the school’s communications and marketing team monitors Jodel’s traffic and said that “there has been a noticeable decrease” in inflammatory posts on the app and an uptick in “corrective or regulating” posts when provocative comments surface.
“Both the Superintendent and the Commandant have clearly and publicly – on numerous occasions and in various venues – expressed to the Corps of Cadets and the greater VMI community what is and is not acceptable behavior,” the report said. “These incontrovertible statements by VMI leadership establish straightforward expectations for moving VMI forward to a more diverse and inclusive environment that is also a physically and emotionally safe place of higher learning.”
VMI completed the progress report at the behest of Barnes & Thornburg. In its final investigative report, released in June, the law firm the said that school suffered from an “overall racist and sexist culture.”
Barnes & Thornburg said the college should issue these reports every quarter for three years to its Board of Visitors, the General Assembly and the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, an agency that makes higher education policy proposals to the commonwealth’s lawmakers.
“VMI will likely follow through on its promised reforms only if it is forced to do so,” the Barnes & Thornburg report said. “For the betterment of the school, VMI must be held accountable to its promises and plans to change the current culture.”
Russia attacks Ukraine; peace in Europe ‘shattered’
https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-attacks-ukraine-defiant-putin-055130690.html
Russia attacks Ukraine; peace in Europe ‘shattered’
By YURAS KARMANAU, JIM HEINTZ, VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV and DASHA LITVINOVA
February 24, 2022
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia launched a wide-ranging attack on Ukraine on Thursday, hitting cities and bases with airstrikes or shelling, as civilians piled into trains and cars to flee. Ukraine’s government said Russian tanks and troops rolled across the border in a “full-scale war” that could rewrite the geopolitical order and whose fallout already reverberated around the world.
In unleashing Moscow’s most aggressive action since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, President Vladimir Putin deflected global condemnation and cascading new sanctions — and chillingly referred to his country’s nuclear arsenal. He threatened any foreign country attempting to interfere with “consequences you have never seen.”
Sirens wailed in Ukraine’s capital, large explosions were heard there and in other cities, and people massed in train stations and took to roads, as the government said the former Soviet republic was seeing a long-anticipated invasion from the east, north and south. It reported more than 40 soldiers had been killed and dozens wounded so far.
The chief of the NATO alliance said the “brutal act of war” shattered peace in Europe, joining a chorus of world leaders who decried the attack, which could cause massive casualties, topple Ukraine’s democratically elected government and upend the post-Cold War security order. The conflict was already shaking global financial markets: Stocks plunged and oil prices soared amid concerns that heating bills and food prices would skyrocket.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy cut diplomatic ties with Moscow and declared martial law.
“As of today, our countries are on different sides of world history,” Zelenskyy tweeted. “Russia has embarked on a path of evil, but Ukraine is defending itself and won’t give up its freedom.”
His adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said: “A full-scale war in Europe has begun. … Russia is not only attacking Ukraine, but the rules of normal life in the modern world.”
The attack targeted a country the size of Texas that has increasingly tilted toward the democratic West and away from Moscow’s sway. The autocratic Putin made clear earlier this week that he sees no reason for Ukraine to exist, raising fears of possible broader conflict in the vast space that the Soviet Union once ruled. Putin denied plans to occupy Ukraine, but his ultimate goals remain hazy.
Ukrainians who had long braced for the prospect of an assault were urged to stay home and not to panic despite the dire warnings.
With social media amplifying a torrent of military claims and counter-claims, it was difficult to determine exactly what was happening on the ground.
Associated Press reporters saw or confirmed explosions in the capital, in Mariupol on the Azov Sea, and Kharkiv in the east. AP confirmed video showing Russian military vehicles crossing into Ukrainian-held territory in the north from Belarus and from Russian-annexed Crimea in the south.
“We are facing a war and horror. What could be worse?” 64-year-old Liudmila Gireyeva said in Kyiv. She planned to flee the city and try to eventually get to Poland to join her daughter. Putin “will be damned by history, and Ukrainians are damning him.”
Governments from the U.S. to Asia and Europe readied new sanctions after weeks of failed efforts for a diplomatic solution. But global powers have said they will not intervene militarily to defend Ukraine, though NATO mobilized more troops to move toward eastern Europe.
Alliance member Lithuania, which borders Russian ally Belarus and a Russian exclave, declared a state of emergency, and the president of Moldova pushed to do the same.
“We woke up in a different world today,” Germany’s foreign minister said.
After weeks of denying plans to invade, Putin justified his actions in an overnight televised address, asserting that the attack was needed to protect civilians in eastern Ukraine — a false claim the U.S. had predicted he would make as a pretext for an invasion. He accused the U.S. and its allies of ignoring Russia’s demands to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO and for security guarantees.
The attacks came first from the air. Later Ukrainian authorities described ground invasions in multiple regions, and border guards released security camera footage Thursday showing a line of Russian military vehicles crossing into Ukraine’s government-held territory from Russian-annexed Crimea.
The Russian military claimed to have wiped out Ukraine’s entire air defenses in a matter of hours, and European authorities declared the country’s air space an active conflict zone. Russia’s claims could not immediately be verified, nor could Ukrainian ones that they had shot down several Russian aircraft. The Ukrainian air defense system and air force date back to the Soviet era and are dwarfed by Russia’s massive air power and precision weapons.
U.S. President Joe Biden pledged new sanctions to punish Russia for the “unprovoked and unjustified attack.” The president said he planned to speak to Americans on Thursday after a meeting of the Group of Seven leaders. More sanctions against Russia were expected to be announced.
Zelenskyy urged global leaders to provide defense assistance to Ukraine and help protect its airspace, and urged his compatriots to defend the nation. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba pleaded: “The world can and must stop Putin. The time to act is now.”
In the capital, Mayor Vitaly Klitschko advised residents to stay home unless they are involved in critical work and urged them to prepare go-bags with necessities and documents if they need to evacuate.
Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said on Facebook that the Russian military had launched missile strikes on Ukrainian military command facilities, air bases and military depots in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipro.
The Russian Defense Ministry said it was not targeting cities, but using precision weapons and claimed that “there is no threat to civilian population.”
The consequences of the conflict and resulting sanctions on Russia started reverberating throughout the world.
World stock markets plunged and oil prices surged by nearly $8 per barrel. Market benchmarks tumbled in Europe and Asia and U.S. stocks pointed toward a sharply lower open. Brent crude oil jumped to over $100 per barrel Thursday on unease about possible disruption of Russian supplies. The ruble sank.
Anticipating international condemnation and countermeasures, Putin issued a stark warning to other countries not to meddle.
In a reminder of Russia’s nuclear power, Putin warned that “no one should have any doubts that a direct attack on our country will lead to the destruction and horrible consequences for any potential aggressor.”
Among Putin’s pledges was to “denazify” Ukraine. World War II looms large in Russia, after the Soviet Union suffered more deaths than any country while fighting Adolf Hitler’s forces. Kremlin propaganda sometimes paints Ukrainian nationalists as neo-Nazis seeking revenge — a charge historians call disinformation. Ukraine is now led by a Jewish president who lost relatives in the Holocaust.
Putin’s announcement came just hours after the Ukrainian president rejected Moscow’s claims that his country poses a threat to Russia and made a passionate, last-minute plea for peace.
“The people of Ukraine and the government of Ukraine want peace,” Zelenskyy said in an emotional overnight address, speaking in Russian in a direct appeal to Russian citizens.
Zelenskyy said he asked to arrange a call with Putin late Wednesday, but the Kremlin did not respond.
The attack began even as the U.N. Security Council was meeting to hold off an invasion. Members still unaware of Putin’s announcement of the operation appealed to him to stand down. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opened the emergency meeting, telling Putin: “Give peace a chance.”
But hours later, NATO’s Jens Stoltenberg indicated it was too late: “Peace on our continent has been shattered.”
House panel backs requiring women to register for the draft
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/01/women-register-military-draft-house-panel-508781
House panel backs requiring women to register for the draft
The House Armed Services Committee vote follows a similar vote in the Senate to expand the Selective Service System to include women.
By Connor O’Brien
September 1, 2021
The House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday voted to require women to register for the military draft, making the change one step closer to becoming law after senators endorsed the move this summer.
During late night deliberations on the committee’s annual defense policy bill, lawmakers voted 35-24 to adopt an amendment from Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) to expand registration for the Selective Service System beyond men.
The move caps off a contentious debate and could stir up conservative opposition to the National Defense Authorization Act, which authorizes defense spending and lays out military policy.
Several Republicans broke ranks to help Democrats to adopt the amendment.
Calls to broaden the pool for a potential draft to all Americans, not just men, have grown as the Pentagon opened all military combat roles to women in 2015. Advocates of the change also contend the current system is discriminatory.
“It’s past time,” said Houlahan, an Air Force veteran. “Women make up over 50 percent of our population, and not including them in the Selective Service is not only a disservice to these women, but also to our nation as a whole.”
If the provision remains in the defense bill and passes on the House floor, the change has a high chance of becoming law. The Senate Armed Services Committee adopted a similar provision in its defense bill, which awaits a floor vote.
Current law requires that American men register for the Selective Service when they turn 18, though there hasn’t been a military draft in more than four decades. The law, however, remains on the books should the U.S. need to conscript men into the service in a time of war.
One Republican supporter, Rep. Michael Waltz of Florida, a former Army Green Beret, warned that the military would need a much broader pool of recruits in the event of “a national emergency so grave” that it requires a draft.
“If it’s so grave that we have to go to a draft, we need everybody,” Waltz said. “We need man, woman, gay, straight, any religion, Black, white, brown. We need everybody, all hands on deck.”
Despite bipartisan support, conservative lawmakers and advocacy groups have nonetheless assailed efforts to expand the draft to include women.
“We don’t need to draft women in order for women to have equality in this nation,” said Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.). “Women are of worth and of value right now and we are equal with men without having to pass a new law that would require 50 percent of this country — our daughters and our sisters and our wives — to have to be drafted.”
The Senate Armed Services Committee in July approved in a bipartisan vote a similar expansion of the draft. The change, offered by Armed Services Chair Jack Reed (D-R.I.), fired up conservative senators, though the bill still passed out of the committee with a wide bipartisan vote.
The full Senate is slated to debate the defense bill this fall.
An independent commission tasked by Congress with examining military and public service recommended requiring women to register for Selective Service last year, among other changes.
Several lawsuits have challenged the current law, alleging it’s discriminatory and unconstitutional. The Supreme Court declined to hear a suit brought by the National Coalition for Men challenging the male-only draft in June.
Planes, guns, night-vision goggles: The Taliban’s new U.S.-made war chest
Planes, guns, night-vision goggles: The Taliban’s new U.S.-made war chest
By Idrees Ali, Patricia Zengerle, and Jonathan Landay
August 19, 2021
WASHINGTON, Aug 19 (Reuters) – About a month ago, Afghanistan’s ministry of defense posted on social media photographs of seven brand new helicopters arriving in Kabul delivered by the United States.
“They’ll continue to see a steady drumbeat of that kind of support, going forward,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters a few days later at the Pentagon.
In a matter of weeks, however, the Taliban had seized most of the country, as well as any weapons and equipment left behind by fleeing Afghan forces.
Video showed the advancing insurgents inspecting long lines of vehicles and opening crates of new firearms, communications gear and even military drones.
“Everything that hasn’t been destroyed is the Taliban’s now,” one U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Reuters.
Current and former U.S. officials say there is concern those weapons could be used to kill civilians, be seized by other militant groups such as Islamic State to attack U.S.-interests in the region, or even potentially be handed over to adversaries including China and Russia.
President Joe Biden’s administration is so concerned about the weapons that it is considering a number of options to pursue.
The officials said launching airstrikes against the larger equipment, such as helicopters, has not been ruled out, but there is concern that would antagonize the Taliban at a time the United States’ main goal is evacuating people.
Another official said that while there are no definitive numbers yet, the current intelligence assessment was that the Taliban are believed to control more than 2,000 armored vehicles, including U.S. Humvees, and up to 40 aircraft potentially including UH-60 Black Hawks, scout attack helicopters, and ScanEagle military drones.
“We have already seen Taliban fighters armed with U.S.-made weapons they seized from the Afghan forces. This poses a significant threat to the United States and our allies,” Representative Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, told Reuters in an email.
‘MORE LIKE TROPHIES’
The speed with which the Taliban swept across Afghanistan is reminiscent of Islamic State militants taking weapons from U.S.-supplied Iraqi forces who offered little resistance in 2014.
Between 2002 and 2017, the United States gave the Afghan military an estimated $28 billion in weaponry, including guns, rockets, night-vision goggles and even small drones for intelligence gathering.
But aircraft like the Blackhawk helicopters have been the most visible sign of U.S. military assistance, and were supposed to be the Afghan military’ biggest advantage over the Taliban.
Between 2003 and 2016 the United States provided Afghan forces with 208 aircraft, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).
In the last week, many of those aircraft were most useful for Afghan pilots to escape the Taliban.
One of the U.S. officials said that between 40 and 50 aircraft had been flown to Uzbekistan by Afghan pilots seeking refuge. Even before taking power in Kabul over the weekend, the Taliban had started a campaign of assassinating pilots.
Some planes were in the United States for maintenance and will stay. Those en route to Afghan forces will instead be used by the U.S. military to help in the evacuation from Kabul.
Current and former officials say that while they are concerned about the Taliban having access to the helicopters, the aircraft require frequent maintenance and many are complicated to fly without extensive training.
“Ironically, the fact that our equipment breaks down so often is a life-saver here,” a third official said.
Retired U.S. Army General Joseph Votel, who oversaw U.S. military operations in Afghanistan as head of U.S. Central Command from 2016 to 2019, said most of the high-end hardware captured by the Taliban, including the aircraft, was not equipped with sensitive U.S. technology.
“In some cases, some of these will be more like trophies,” Votel said.
FIGHTING AT NIGHT
There is a more immediate concern about some of the easier- to-use weapons and equipment, such as night-vision goggles.
Since 2003 the United States has provided Afghan forces with at least 600,000 infantry weapons including M16 assault rifles, 162,000 pieces of communication equipment, and 16,000 night-vision goggle devices.
“The ability to operate at night is a real game-changer,” one congressional aide told Reuters.
Votel and others said smalls arms seized by the insurgents such as machine guns, mortars, as well as artillery pieces including howitzers, could give the Taliban an advantage against any resistance that could surface in historic anti-Taliban strongholds such as the Panjshir Valley northeast of Kabul.
U.S. officials said the expectation was that most of the weapons would be used by the Taliban themselves, but it was far too early to tell what they planned to do – including possibly sharing the equipment with rival states such as China.
Andrew Small, a Chinese foreign policy expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said the Taliban was likely to grant Beijing access to any U.S. weapons they may now have control over.
One of the U.S. officials said it was not likely China would gain much, because Beijing likely already has access to the weapons and equipment.
The situation, experts say, shows the United States needs a better way to monitor equipment it gives to allies. It could have done much more to ensure those supplies to Afghan forces were closely monitored and inventoried, said Justine Fleischner of UK-based Conflict Armament Research.
“But the time has passed for these efforts to have any impact in Afghanistan,” Fleischner said.
After these troops protected Biden during his inauguration, they were forced to sleep on the concrete floor of an unheated parking garage. Trump has just offered them free hotel rooms.
Trump comes through for the troops, offers up Trump Hotel after banishment to parking garage
By Terresa Monroe-Hamilton
January 22, 2021
Following President Biden’s inauguration, 5,000 National Guard troops were moved to a parking garage to rest and sleep. This drew the outrage of several states when they saw their troops having to sleep on the garage floor. The troops have now been allowed back into the Capitol and former President Trump has offered them rooms at the Trump Hotel D.C.
The Guard will now reportedly be allowed to rest in the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center. The change comes after thousands of National Guardsmen were moved to a parking garage after they were told they could no longer use space within the U.S. Capitol Complex, including areas such as the cafeteria of a Senate office building, as a rest area, multiple Guardsmen told CNN.
One Guardsman told Politico that on the day of the inauguration dozens of lawmakers had taken photos with them, shook their hands, and thanked them for their service. He added, “Within 24 hours, they had no further use for us and banished us to the corner of a parking garage. We feel incredibly betrayed.”
Enter former President Trump who has now offered his Trump Hotel D.C. to the National Guardsmen so they will have a comfortable place to stay and rest. Even after leaving office, he has not forgotten those who serve this nation. Many found the gesture to be very touching and selfless, not to mention patriotic.
The garage where the 5,000 troops were banished to had one restroom with two stalls. There was also only one power outlet. That doesn’t even address the cold concrete floor the troops were forced to sleep on in January while politicians nestled all comfy in their soft, warm beds.
The Guardsmen, who had been resting inside the Capitol between 12-hour shifts, were moved to a nearby parking garage where photos obtained by Politico and other outlets showed members crowded together on the ground. Some of them resting their heads against cement pillars.
Governor Abbott (R-TX) was furious when he saw the pictures. “I have instructed General Norris to order the return of the Texas National Guard to our state,” the Republican governor wrote on Twitter, referring to Major Gen. Tracy Norris of the Texas National Guard. He had already taken great offense to the fact that the Guard was being vetted over a possible “inside” attack during the Biden inauguration.
Even Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) pretended outrage and tweeted about the parking garage reports, “If this is true, it’s outrageous. I will get to the bottom of this.”
Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) visited the troops and tweeted that he brought them pizza. “No soldier will ever, ever sleep on a garage floor in the US Capitol while I work in Congress.”
U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) also voiced her anger via Twitter, “This is absolutely unacceptable and despicable treatment of our brave and dedicated National Guard who answered the call to serve. We need to demand answers now and this needs to be fixed immediately.”
Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, wrote, “Very upset by this story but I have been in touch with the Utah National Guard and they are taken care of. My staff and I are investigating what happened here and will continue working to fix this situation.”
A number of lawmakers offered their offices to the Guardsmen after hearing of the garage incident.
Politico reported the unit that had been using space in the Dirksen Senate Office building were asked to move to the garage by the Capitol Police.
CBS reporter Kris Van Cleave reported early Friday the National Guard said the troops are out of the garage and will take their breaks in Emancipation Hall at the Capitol Visitors Center from now on.
“After significant outcry, it seems like there is movement right now to get Guard members back inside the Capitol, into the visitors center,” Politico reporter Natasha Bertrand, tweeted.
Politico reporter Lara Seligman said a Guard source told her “all units at the Thurgood Marshall parking garage are ordered to relocate to the CVC (Capitol Visitors Center) immediately.”
The Maduro diet: How most Venezuelans lost an average of 43 pounds in two years
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
July 15, 2020
In May 2017, the Washington Post reported:
In a recent survey of 6,500 Venezuelan families by the country’s leading universities, three-quarters of adults said they lost weight in 2016 — an average of 19 pounds… a level of hunger almost unheard-of outside war zones or areas ravaged by hurricane, drought or plague.
In February 2018, Reuters reported:
Venezuelans reported losing on average 11 kilograms (24 lbs) in body weight last year… according to a new university study…
That’s 43 pounds in two years.
Before I explain how this came to happen, I want to start out by explaining what did not cause this to happen.
(more…)
Dershowitz: Trump Had Even More Legal Justification Eliminating Soleimani than Obama Had with Osama Bin Laden
Dershowitz: Trump Had Even More Legal Justification Eliminating Soleimani than Obama Had with Osama Bin Laden
January 3, 2020
Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Thursday evening that President Donald Trump had even more legal authority to eliminate Qassem Soleimani than former President Barack Obama had to take out Osama bin Laden in 2011.
Dershowitz, speaking with host Joel Pollak and guest host John Hayward on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight, dismissed arguments that Trump lacked constitutional authority to act against General Soleimani, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force.
Presidents have lawful authority to direct the killing of enemy combatants, explained Dershowitz.
“[Soleimani] was a combatant,” explained Dershowitz. “There’s no doubt that he fit the description of ‘combatant.’ He [was] a uniformed member of an enemy military who was actively planning to kill Americans; American soldiers and probably, as well, American civilians.”
“It was the right thing to do,” he added. “It was legally justified, and I think we should applaud the president for his decision. We send a very powerful message to the Iranian government that we will not stand by as the American embassy is attacked — which is an act of war — and we will not stand by as plans are being made to attack and kill American soldiers.
Dershowitz continued, “I think every president who had any degree of courage would do the same thing, and I applaud our president for doing it, and the members of the military who carried it out, risking their own lives and safety. I think this is an action that will have saved lives in the end.”
“President Obama would have done the same thing if the shoe were on the other foot, if he could prevent the killing of American soldiers by killing a combatant,” estimated Dershowitz. “[The president doesn’t] need congressional authorization, or any legal authorization … The president, as the commander-in-chief of the army is entitled to take preventative actions to save the lives of the American military. [Donald Trump] didn’t threaten a war. He didn’t start a war.”
Asked to respond to criticism of the attack by the likes of former Obama national security aide Ben Rhodes, Dershowitz said, “This is very similar to what Barack Obama did with Ben Rhodes’s authorization and approval — without Congress’s authorization — in killing Osama bin Laden.
“In fact, that was worse, in some ways, because that was a revenge act. There was no real threat that Osama bin Laden would carry out any future terrorist acts. Moreover, he was not a member of an official armed forces in uniform, so it’s a fortiori from what [Barack Obama] did and Ben Rhodes did that President Trump has complete legal authority in a much more compelling way to have taken the military action that was taken today.”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez exposes her extreme ignorance by falsely claiming, “Just last year we gave the military a $700 billion budget increase”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just said:
“Just last year we gave the military a $700 billion budget increase”
I immediately knew that couldn’t possibly be true, because the entire budget of the military is approximately that amount.
So I did some googling, and came up with this CNBC article from last year, which is titled
“Senate passes $700 billion defense policy bill, backing Trump call for steep increase in military spending”
So it’s just as I had thought. The $700 billion does not represent the increase. Instead, it represents the total military budget.
Ocasio-Cortez was either deliberately lying when she said the $700 billion was an increase, or she has an incredibly extreme ignorance of the federal budget.
I don’t think she was deliberately lying.
Instead, I think she is extremely ignorant about the numbers in the federal budget.
And this is the person that the Democrats nominated to run for the U.S. Congress, in a district which is so heavily blue that she is almost guaranteed to win?
Hilarious!
Slaughterbots: a weapon of the future
This fictional video was created as a warning about what may be real in the near future: tiny little drones with artificial intelligence, facial recognition, and enough explosive to destroy a person’s head. One drone can kill one specific person. A big group of drones can kill a large number of specific people, or an entire city for that matter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA
Video: Woman yells at disabled veteran for bringing his well behaved service dog to restaurant
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtZKD9U5ypw
Sen. Rand Paul: Syria, Trump and another unconstitutional rush to war
Sen. Rand Paul: Syria, Trump and another unconstitutional rush to war
By Sen. Rand Paul
April 7, 2017
Every American condemns the atrocities in Syria, and we cannot help but be shaken by the images of innocent women and children dying. It is also true that often in foreign policy, things are not as simple as they appear, and actions often have consequences well beyond the obvious.
It is for this very reason that the Founders wanted a deliberate, thoughtful foreign policy, and when military action was needed, they wanted it debated and authorized by Congress.
Make no mistake, no matter who is president or what their party is, it is my firm belief that the president needs congressional authorization for military action, as required by the Constitution. I call on this president to come to Congress for a proper debate over our role in Syria, just as I did in 2013 when President Obama contemplated acting in Syria.
I believe that nothing about this situation has changed. Military action is not in our national security interest and should not be authorized. Our prior interventions in this region have done nothing to make us safer, and Syria will be no different.
There is no doubt Assad is a brutal dictator. But if we seek to remove him, we must ask what comes next. Assad is fighting radical Islamic rebels, including large parts of ISIS. Who would take over Syria if Assad is deposed? Experience in Libya tells us chaos could reign, and radical Islamists could control large parts of the country.
Make no mistake, bombing Assad means the United States is fighting on the same side as ISIS and other radical Islamists in Syria. This is a dangerous and morally wrong policy.
But no matter your view of the merits of engaging in Syria, every member of Congress should stand up today and reclaim our Constitutional authority over war.
The Constitution clearly states that it is Congress that has the power to declare war, not the president. Even the War Powers Resolution, shoved forward by hawks as justification, clearly states criteria under which the president may act – a declaration of war, a specific statutory authorization, or a national emergency created by an attack on the United States.
That’s it. Absent those criteria, the president has no authority to act without congressional authorization. Congress must stand up and assert its authority here and now.
No president is above the law or the Constitution. I said so when it was Barack Obama, and I will say so when it is Donald Trump.
Our Founding Fathers had this right, and we should heed their wisdom about allowing the president to have war powers. They were concerned the president could rule like a king.
Madison wrote that the Constitution supposes what history demonstrates – that the executive is the branch most interested in war and most prone to it. The Constitution, therefore, with studied care, vested that power in the legislature.
Before any act of war, we should have a serious and thoughtful debate over the ramifications.
In Syria – what is our goal? What happens if we depose Assad? Will the Islamist rebels, as they have threatened, turn their weapons and attention elsewhere, including Israel next door?
I will hold accountable and oppose the actions of any president who takes military action without proper legal authority and congressional consent.
Thank goodness for the electoral college, which prevented Hillary Clinton from starting World War III
Hillary Clinton admitted in 2013 that a no-fly zone would “kill a lot of Syrians” — but still wants one
A no-fly zone in Syria could lead to a U.S. war with Russia — but Hillary Clinton keeps on calling for one
October 21, 2016
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton continues to call for a no-fly zone in Syria, insisting it would save lives. Yet, just three years ago, she acknowledged in a private paid speech to Goldman Sachs that a no-fly zone would “kill a lot of Syrians” and lead to “American and NATO involvement where you take a lot of civilians.”
In numerous presidential debates, Clinton has proposed creating a no-fly zone or so-called safe zones in Syria, areas in which planes piloted by the Syrian government or by its Russian allies could not operate. If planes were to fly in these zones, they would be shot down.
Clinton repeated her call for a no-fly zone in the final presidential debate on Wednesday night. “I’m going to continue to push for a no-fly zone and safe havens within Syria,” she said, adding that it would be “not only to help protect the Syrians and prevent the constant outflow of refugees, but to, frankly, gain some leverage on both the Syrian government and the Russians.”
What Clinton did not acknowledge is that a no-fly zone would likely lead to war with Russia — the world’s largest nuclear power.
Chris Wallace, the moderator for the debate, alluded to this in a follow-up question. He noted that, while Clinton has called for no-fly zones in multiple debates, Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has warned that imposing a no-fly zone could potentially kick off a war with Russia.
Moreover, “President Obama has refused to do that because he fears it’s going to draw us closer or deeper into the conflict,” Wallace added. “How do you respond to their concerns?” he asked. “If you impose a no-fly zone and a Russian plane violates that, does President Clinton shoot that plane down?”
Clinton conceded that she is “well aware of the really legitimate concerns that you have expressed from both the president and the general,” yet avoided directly answering the question, doubling down on her policy. Instead of identifying a no-fly zone as a military strategy, she spoke of it as a diplomatic one, claiming, “I think a no-fly zone could save lives and could hasten the end of the conflict.”
This argument, however, is undermined by what Clinton herself privately acknowledged just three years ago. An excerpt of a June 2013 paid speech Clinton delivered to Goldman Sachs, recently released by the WikiLeaks, shows that Clinton is well aware of how dangerous a no-fly zone could be.
“To have a no-fly zone you have to take out all of the air defense, many of which are located in populated areas,” the former secretary of state explained in the 2013 speech. “So our missiles, even if they are standoff missiles so we’re not putting our pilots at risk — you’re going to kill a lot of Syrians.”
“So all of a sudden this intervention that people talk about so glibly becomes an American and NATO involvement where you take a lot of civilians,” she added.
Clinton also noted that Syria had “the fourth-biggest army in the world,” along with “very sophisticated air defense systems” that had gotten even more sophisticated because of Russian imports.
The quotes from this speech were included in a list of excerpts of Clinton’s paid speeches to Wall Street, which was attached to a January 2016 email to John Podesta, a close Clinton ally who now serves as the chair for Clinton’s presidential campaign. WikiLeaks has published thousands of emails to and from Podesta.
In the same 2013 Goldman Sachs speech included in this document, Clinton pointed out that a no-fly zone in Syria would be different from the no-fly zone that was imposed in Libya in 2011, which ultimately led to the violent overthrow of the government.
“The air defenses were not that sophisticated” in Libya, she said. Clinton also noted that there would be many more civilian casualties in Syria than there had been in Libya.
“And then you add on to it [that] a lot of the air defenses are not only in civilian population centers but near some of their chemical stockpiles,” Clinton added, referencing Syria. “You do not want a missile hitting a chemical stockpile.”
The no-fly zone imposed in Libya paved the way for the toppling, and brutal killing, of former leader Muammar Qadhafi. The U.N. Security Council first established the zone ostensibly to protect civilians, yet it quickly led to a NATO bombing campaign.
In fact, every time a no-fly zone has been imposed, it has led to regime change.
Micah Zenko, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, used NATO’s own materials to show that, despite the humanitarian rhetoric behind the call for a no-fly zone in Libya, Western governments planned to pursue regime change in the oil-rich North African country from the very beginning.
A September 2016 report by the U.K. House of Commons’ Foreign Affairs Committee also detailed how the war in Libya was based on an array of lies.
Thehill.com: “Poll: Libertarian Johnson beating Trump, Clinton among active troops”
Poll: Libertarian Johnson beating Trump, Clinton among active troops
July 20, 2016
Military troops favor Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson for president over Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, according to a new survey.
Johnson garnered 38.7 percent of the active duty vote, versus 30.9 for Trump, and 14.1 for Clinton, according to the survey, which was conducted via the popular military personality Doctrine Man.
Although the survey was not a scientific poll with a margin of error, it provides a snapshot of the preferences of about 3,500 active duty, reservists, retired and former members of the military and their family members, 95.7 percent of which were registered voters.
Among all services except for the Navy, Johnson performed better than Trump and Clinton.
Current, reserve and former members of the Army preferred Johnson at 35.4 percent. Trump, the Republican nominee, came in second at 31.4 percent, and Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee, at 15.3 percent.
Among the Marine community, an overwhelming 44.1 percent chose Johnson, while 27.1 percent chose Trump, and 12.7 percent chose Clinton.
The majority of the Air Force respondents chose Johnson at 39 percent, but Trump next at 29.9 percent and Clinton at 12.9 percent.
Trump ranked the top choice for the Navy community, at 32.4 percent, versus 31.7 percent for Johnson and 22.9 percent for Clinton.
Despite Clinton’s underwhelming performance among active duty troops in the poll, their family members preferred Clinton at 29.4 percent to 27.5 percent for Trump. Johnson came in third, at 24.5 percent.
Trump came out on top among members of the military who retired after serving at least 20 years.
Retirees preferred Trump at 37.4 percent, compared to 32.2 percent for Johnson and only 11 percent for Hillary Clinton.
However, when former members of the military who served fewer than 20 years were included, Johnson came in first, at 36.1 percent, while Hillary Clinton garnered 12.6 percent.
The new survey underscores the unpopularity of both Trump and Clinton, something that was also reflected in a recent Military Times survey.
Troops have found themselves at the center of several heated campaign debates, many of them sparked by Trump.
Trump has said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who was held captive during the Vietnam War, is “not a war hero” and has said that if he ordered troops to re-institute waterboarding, they would do it. Trump has also called for killing terrorists’ families.
Trump has also railed against the Department of Veteran Affairs and suggested Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl should be executed for leaving his post.
The attention to troops this campaign cycle has prompted the nation’s top military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, to remind troops not to politicize the military during the elections.
“What we must collectively guard against is allowing our institution to become politicized, or even perceived as being politicized, by how we conduct ourselves during engagements with the media, the public, or in open or social forums,” he wrote in the July issue of Joint Force Quarterly, a military academic journal.
Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog 