Jeb Bush in Full Damage Control Mode After James Baker Remarks on Israel

Republican establishment 2016 front runner Jeb Bush is already having to go into damage control mode over comments made by Bush family consigliere James Baker that were critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Baker, a former Secretary of State and White House Chief of Staff who is widely touted as one of America’s most respected elder statesman came under fire for blasting Netanyahu during a speech in front of liberal Jewish group J-Street on Monday. Baker ripped Bibi over “diplomatic missteps and political gamesmanship” and his pre-election declaration that there would never be a Palestinian State on his watch.

According to the Washington Post in the story “Jeb Bush stresses support for Israel in wake of James Baker’s comments”:

Presumed Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush says he disagrees with critical comments about Israel made Monday by former Secretary of State James Baker, according to his campaign team.

Baker, a longtime friend of the Bush family and an unpaid adviser to Jeb Bush's expected presidential campaign, has been an outspoken advocate for the former Florida governor's possible White House bid. Bush touted Baker's support last month when he announced a 21-member foreign policy advisory team that is counseling him as he prepares to run for president.

-And-

Baker spoke Monday night at a conference hosted by the left-leaning J Street Group, an Israeli advocacy organization comprised mostly of Democrats. During his keynote address, Baker recounted decades of tensions between American and Israeli leaders and expressed support for the Obama administration's ongoing talks with Iran.

Baker was notably critical of comments Netanyahu made in the closing hours of his reelection campaign last week, when the prime minister suggested that he no longer supported a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

While Netanyahu’s bombastic statements have been in some quarters attributed to nothing more than political rhetoric and Israel’s leader has himself backed off on them, they have further contributed to the toxic relationship between him and Emperor Barack Obama. Baker also dared to defend Barry during the speech as well as to chastise Republicans for turning Israel – America’s most critical Middle Eastern ally – into a political football.  Much controversy over his lack of fealty towards Israel has dogged Baker in the past when he was once said to have remarked “fuck the Jews, they don’t vote for us anyway”. He also has bragged about having Bibi banned from the State Department during Poppy Bush's presidency.

Aspiring Republican candidates will no doubt pounce on Baker’s remarks to attack Jeb Bush as not being sufficiently loyal to Israeli policies which is already being set up as a key litmus test by many strategists. It may possibly even be a chink in Jebba the Hutt’s armor that can be exploited. He will inevitably face negative comparisons to his younger brother Dubya and his wimpy father but the Baker affiliation may actually stick to the Teflon candidate. With the right kind of political operation the expressed anti-Israel sentiment of Baker – an integral member of that foreign policy dream team that Jeb was hailing – could be a dagger. This would especially be the case if combined with the inconvenient fact that Jeb’s grandfather Prescott Bush’s Union Banking Corporation was actually shut down for doing business with Hitler's Nazis during WW II.

If the third installment of the Bush Supremacy is to be avoided it needs to be attacked with hammer and tong before the big money really starts rolling in and the juggernaut becomes unstoppable. I hope that someone within the Ted Cruz and/or Rand Paul campaign organizations is paying attention because this is a golden opportunity to capitalize on anti-Bush sentiment.

Florida Group Gets Message Out About Israeli War Crimes in Gaza

A central Florida based activist group, St. Pete for Peacehas taken the initiative to circumvent a corrupt and biased media in order to spread awareness about the ongoing Israeli ethnic cleansing operation in Gaza. Despite the long-term consequences of the unconditional backing of the right-wing government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the unspeakable truth that their tax money is being used to finance the murders of unarmed civilians (including children) Americans are ill-served by a media and political class that has a vested interest in maintaining a particular narrative. That narrative is that Israel is the victim rather than the oppressor and that Israel is the only "democracy" in the Middle East, despite an increasing trend towards racism, suppression of critics of official government policy and most of all extreme violence.

On Saturday, the group posted a series of signs at high traffic locations -including the placement of a banner on a bridge over a high volume St. Petersburg intersection in the vicinity of a major shopping mall and an assortment of national brand discount stores and chain restaurants. The obvious hope being that the seeds of awareness be planted given the complete absence of any semblance of honest media coverage. 

The story line of choice is that Israel is always the victim, a scruffy little underdog facing an existential crisis and surrounded by enemies devoted to exterminate the Jewish state. Nothing could be farther than the truth though as Israel has continually proven to be the aggressor and enjoys a vast military superiority as well as a propaganda machine that is second to none. Activist Dina Formentini of St. Pete for Peace states that "Israel frequently plays the victim role in order to justify its violence. But you can't be an aggressor and a victim at the same time". Americans will never be allowed any glimpse at the factual basis of this oft-repeated big lie which is what makes grass roots efforts like that undertaken by St. Pete for Peace all the more important.

The Fruits of U.S. Taxpayer Military Aid to Israel

The largest of the messages of the group's "banner drop" read "You Gave 3.2 Billion to Israel Last Year & All You Got Was Lousy Genocide". This being a reference to the ongoing U.S. taxpayer subsidizing of human rights abuses and war crimes including the bombinof hospitals, schools and the shelling of children playing soccer on a beach.

The U.S. annually sends over an estimated $3 billion dollars in military aid to Israel. An emergency approval of an additional $225 million was just pushed through right before the most worthless Congress in U.S. history slithered out of Washington for their latest five week vacation on the taxpayer dole. Other smaller signs strategically placed by St. Pete for Peace read: "Gaza Strip the New Warsaw Ghetto", "U.S. Politicians are Israel's b*tch", "Israel Couldn't Act Like Punks Without U.S. Support", "Israel Can't Be Victim And Aggressor" and "Anti-Occupation is Not Anti-Semitic". Some have likely already denounced the placing of the signs as "anti-Semitic" which has for too long been the sleazy and vile pejorative that critics of Israeli human rights abuses, war crimes and the astounding and dangerous servility of the U.S. political class to the Israel Lobby are routinely smeared as being. The very idea that any objections by American citizens having their tax money spent on bombs and bullets for Israel that are going to be used to kill women and children could be anti-Semitic flies in the face of the right to freedom of speech that at least theoretically still exists in this country.

Jeanie Toth, who as a member of St. Pete for Peace has faced such smears by pro-Israel activists stated that:

"For the past 6 years we've protested at the annual AIPAC meetings in Washington, where the world's most powerful pro-Israel supporters attend 3 days of meetings and pep talks. Invariably, AIPAC attendees bark the same words to us as they pass our protests: "You are a Holocaust denier and Arabs are trying to wipe Israel off the map, so we have to use force whenever necessary. We know the world hates us, but we'd rather be feared than liked." I always respond with, "I DO believe the Holocaust happened and it was wrong. But now Israel is the one carrying out a genocide. And much of the world despises Israel, not because it is a Jewish nation, but because of how violent it is"

In a very nasty bit of irony, hard right Israeli writers, clerics and bloggers have actually called for the eradication of the Palestinian people. Just days ago The Times of Israel ran an insane screed entitled "When Genocide is Permissable" by a writer named Yochanan Gordon but nearly immediately retracted it after social media outrage. Another piece by blogger Irwin E. Blank s imilarly advocated that Israel engage in genocide (although this one is couched in biblical justification) wasn't similarly flushed down the memory hole. When even some Israelis are calling for the slaughter of an entire race it is hard to take the the accusations of being critics of Israel being tantamount to being "Holocaust deniers" with a straight face. Ms. Toth says that"Jews lament that Palestinians don't believe Israel has the right to exist. But does Israel believe Palestine has the right to exist?. It sure doesn't behave as if it does."

Were Americans to be honestly informed as to the true nature of the ongoing and tragic story of Israel and Palestine there would likely be political pressure exerted to reign in Israel and force them to the table for good faith negotiations that would break the cycle of violence. This however is not in the best interest of the either the Israel Lobby nor the American political establishment, the majority of them in Congress who rely on the financial and election year support of American based Israeli front groups and fear their wrath if they don't bow to their relentless pressure.

Unwavering U.S. Support is Bad for Israel as well as America

"As I've said time and again, neither I nor the United States will ever waver in our commitment to the security of Israel and the Israeli people... Budgets in Washington are tight, but our commitment to Israel's security remains ironclad. The United States is committed to providing more than $3 billion each year to help finance Israel's security through 2018."

- President Barack Obama

There is a false belief that Democrats are better in terms of having a more moderate stance towards the Palestinians than strident and demagogic Republicans who must pander to their extremist Christian Zionist base. In reality, the opposite is true as there is lockstep support for the right-wing Netanyahu regime with the "lesser of two evils" party. When "Bibi" spoke before a joint session of Congress a few years ago he basked in the thunderous roar of no fewer than 29 standing ovations- it was a truly bipartisan orgy of adoration and no foreign leader outside of Sir Winston himself with his famous "Iron Curtain" speech has ever been elicited such a twisted love from the putative elected representatives of the American people.

Prominent Democrats, including former Secretary of State and likely next President of the United States, Hillary Clinton are among the most ardent defenders of the current policies of Netanyahu's bloodthirsty regime and yet are still criticized as being insufficiently pro-Israel by political opponents. President Barack Obama, despite an at times chilly personal relationship with "King Bibi"continues to promise more U.S. taxpayer money to continue to underwrite the murders of women and children which Chris Ernesto of St. Pete for Peace addresses in his recent column at Antiwar.com "Thank You President Obama, Love Israel".

Mr. Ernesto also addresses this bit of what passes for conventional wisdom:

"There's a huge misconception that Democrats are better for Palestinians (and other Arabs and/or Muslims) than the Republicans. But that's not supported by the facts. Indeed, the Obama administration has been the best friend Israel has had in years. And Obama has dropped bombs on 6 Muslim countries during his presidency - George W. Bush dropped bombs in 4 Muslim countries - so how are Democrats better for the Muslim world?"

Democrats aren't better for Palestinians and has been so far proven during the Obama era they aren't better for civil liberties, economic equality, holding the criminals in Wall Street gambling casinos accountable for their fraud, privacy rights or the protection of freedom of the press and the rights of whistleblowers. An old acquaintance friend of mine who was an avowed Marxist once told me that "both parties are killers, the Democrats are only better at pretending not to be" which given the overwhelming evidence is hard to argue with.

"There is only one solution to ending Israeli aggression - stop US support of their violence. The only way this could happen is if people who vote for Democrats tell their representatives to stop supporting Israel or never get their vote again" said Marianne Huber of St. Pete for Peace. Ms. Toth adds that:

"US politicians are Israel's b*tch. Many US politicians know the only way to get elected or re-elected is with money from the pro-Israel lobby. Once in power, those same politicians enthusiastically support the state of Israel's atrocities. In fact, just 12 hours after Obama's victory in the Democratic Presidential primaries, his very first stop was at AIPAC where he put on an Israel/US lapel pin, and told the crowd that he "understood the Zionist idea." The only way to counter this is for so-called liberals to tell their Democratic elected officials to shape up or never get their vote again. If groups like CAIR and news outlets like Democracy Now! pushed this idea, we'd see a change."

In the humble opinion of this blogger it would be a damned good start. The Israel Lobby is relentless, well-funded and impeccably organized but is largely allowed to get away with their bullying, boycotting and extortion tactics only because there is so little grass-roots opposition to act as a counter to them.

Members of Congress (both parties) enjoy thumping their chests about American exceptionalism and the moral high ground but there is nothing that is either exceptional nor moral about their support of the ongoing slaughter in Gaza. It is craven and cowardly and serves as yet another shining example of our broken political system. A system in which members of Congress routinely sell-out the long term interests of all of their own constituents as well as traditional American values in order to cater to the whims of moneyed special interest groups such as AIPAC.

In addition to their gaming the system in order to stay in office in the hope of one day landing one of the lucrative lobbying or consulting positions -thanks to Washington's revolving door - this most lamentable Congress plays right into the hands of those who resort to terrorism. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ongoing killing spree, conducted with the full support of your representatives in Congress, the Obama administration and aspiring Republican presidential candidates only serves as a recruiting campaign for those who seek to avenge Israel's criminal actions upon the country that sends them the military equipment that is then used on innocent women and children.

Osama bin Laden himself once stated that U.S. support of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the ongoing persecution of the Palestinians was a driving factor in attacking America on September 11, 2001. The mounting death toll in Gaza - in addition to being a crime against humanity - will only serve as an inspiration for another attack in the homeland. Former Vice President Dick Cheney is on record as predicting another terrorist attack "more deadly" than 9/11 will occur "this decade" and if it does, our elected representatives, particularly in the U.S. Congress will have blood on their hands. It is apparent that they don't care about dead Palestinian children and they will be the first to cry in outrage on the next day that the chickens come home to roost all thanks to their own enabling of Israeli war crimes.

Continuing to unconditionally support Israeli human rights abuses, war crimes and the looming Apartheid style of government, oncedemographics make Jews a minority in their own exclusionary "Jewish state" is a recipe for disaster and more violence against Americans. Thanks to the abrogation of their First Amendment responsibility of a free press, the corporate media is depriving Americans of the necessary information to make informed choices that their elected representatives are bound to carry out. This is the way that things are supposed to work in a real democracy, unfortunately due to the one sided coverage of Israel they are deprived of this despite its grave importance. You can find much more balanced reporting in the Israeli media - for example Haaretz - than you will ever find in the U.S. which provides an endless series of national platforms for Netanyahu and his fellow war criminals to sell their genocidal policies in America to the people who will ultimately be the ones who will reap the whirlwind.

St. Pete for Peace is a beacon of hope that with enough involvement and dedication at the grass-roots level that one day "hope and change" may be more than just a cynical campaign slogan.

Flip Flopper John Kerry Strikes Again

John "Skull and Bones" Kerry's tour de force as Obama's Secretary of State continues. Taking a break from his tirades against Russian leader Vladimir Putin and the refusal of Eastern Ukraine to fall into line to support the US installed, neo-Nazi infested puppet government in Kiev the esteemed Mr. Kerry stumbled into dangerous territory for a US establishment figure. In a speech at what has been described as a closed door meeting of The Trilateral Commission in a Daily Beast exclusive, Kerry bemoaned the demise of the latest round of Israel-Palestine peace talks and commented that Israel was on the way to becoming an "apartheid state", a similar accusation that had poor old Jimmy Carter nailed to a cross of anti-Semitism several years back when he wrote a book with the same dreaded A word in the title.

It was astounding, after racking up the frequent flyer miles and preaching falsehoods from everything on that now retracted New York Times story by Michael Gordon on the presence of Russian special forces troops in Ukraine that was bullshit to the trumped up case for war on Syria over a mysterious use of Sarin gas on civilians that Kerry would actually blurt out something that was true. It was like the movie Liar, Liar in which a serial fibber played by Jim Carrey was as a consequence of his young son's birthday wish forced to tell the truth for one whole day. I excerpt the following from the Daily Beast Story:

Senior American officials have rarely, if ever, used the term “apartheid” in reference to Israel, and President Obama has previously rejected the idea that the word should apply to the Jewish state. Kerry's use of the loaded term is already rankling Jewish leaders in America—and it could attract unwanted attention in Israel, as well.

It wasn't the only controversial comment on the Middle East that Kerry made during his remarks to the Trilateral Commission, a recording of which was obtained by The Daily Beast. Kerry also repeated his warning that a failure of Middle East peace talks could lead to a resumption of Palestinian violence against Israeli citizens. He suggested that a change in either the Israeli or Palestinian leadership could make achieving a peace deal more feasible. He lashed out against Israeli settlement-building. And Kerry said that both Israeli and Palestinian leaders share the blame for the current impasse in the talks.

Kerry also said that at some point, he might unveil his own peace deal and tell both sides to “take it or leave it.”

Kerry's comments in addition to his own "take it or leave it" deal immediately enraged people from Washington to Jerusalem and the backlash was severe. One of the few bipartisan things that the dysfunctional and corrupt pack of perverts, jackals, crooks, Birchers, Christian nutcases and reprobates in Congress can agree on besides wars and the increased power vested in the NSA Stasi surveillance machine is of course their slavering support for a foreign country that is Israel. Kerry was right this time too much like the common phrase about the broken clock but for this he is being vilified. Long known as a flip-flopper, an accusation that he was beaten to a pulp with in the 2004 presidential election Kerry did it again and has since issued an apology. This also was in The Daily Beast:

In a statement issued Monday evening, Kerry defended his record as a supporter of Israel but also said, "if I could rewind the tape, I would have chosen a different word to describe my firm belief that the only way in the long term to have a Jewish state and two nations and two peoples living side by side in peace and security is through a two state solution."

Jewish organizations in the United States like AIPAC and the Anti Defamation League quickly expressed their dismay at Kerry's private Apartheid remarks. In a statement, Abe Foxman, the president of the Anti Defamation League said ”it is startling and deeply disappointing that a diplomat so knowledgeable and experienced about democratic Israel chose to use such an inaccurate and incendiary term.” These remarks were echoed in a statement from AIPAC, the bipartisan pro-Israel lobby, which said “Any suggestion that Israel is, or is at risk of becoming, an apartheid state is offensive and inappropriate.”

Politicians also got involved in the brouhaha. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) urged Kerry to apologize, saying that the Secretary of State’s remarks "are extremely disappointing. The use of the word apartheid has routinely been dismissed as both offensive and inaccurate, and Secretary Kerry's use of it makes peace even harder to achieve." Florida Senator Marco Rubio, a possible 2016 presidential candidate, shared Cantor’s outrage, saying “these comments are outrageous and disappointing.”

While it is very amusing to see Kerry hoisted upon his own petard today I am curious as to where the denunciations are from AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League and other US domestic Israeli groups over the puppet government in Keiv's alliance with some of the most loathsome neo-Nazis in Europe. The hits from the Republicans are expected in an election year with both Eric Cantor and Marco Rubio being overly ambitious little shits trying to curry favor from the Israel Lobby. This could though provide a wonderful opportunity for Obama to jettison Kerry before the stupid bastard ends up starting World War III because the knives are now out for Kerry.

I am sure that Putin is kicking back with a bowl of popcorn laughing his ass off at Obama's pet buffoon at Foggy Bottom.

The Madness of King Bibi

To use one of those wonderful Hitler analogies that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu so cherishes the increasingly unstable leader of our most influential ally is now like Der Führer hunkered down in his Berlin bunker wailing at phantoms as the Russian army closed in. While the rumblings that plague Bibi aren’t so much the sound of tank treads pulverizing Berlin into rubble they are much more ominous, they are the sounds of shifting world opinion. With the state of Israel methodically being reduced to a racist, war addicted doppelganger of the very land whose heinous crimes allowed for its creation primarily due to the Netanyahu regime’s increasing reliability on the most fanatical religious right-wing elements of his society to hold onto power what he really fears is economic isolation. With the momentum building for the BDS Movement (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) which unlike the U.N. and the leaders of official governments (ours in particular) is pushing to hold Israel accountable for gross human rights abuses including the ongoing land theft from Palestinians to build settlements for religious zealots in a region that is incapable of discarding ancient hatred and superstition in favor of modern, progressive thinking.

With the economic pressure slowly being raised on Netanyahu's rogue regime and the cunning and manipulative strongman backed into a corner he has come out swinging. Netanyahu has now formally denounced the BDS movement and by extension ANY who question the repressive policies of his regime as "anti-Semites". This is the desperate act of a bully who is on the brink of getting his long-deserved comeuppance and only serves as one more example of how he is always willing to exploit the historical persecution of Jews, particularly those who were murdered by Hitler for political gain. Netanyahu's shtick is getting old and the playing of the at one time most kick ass club in the bag that is the "anti-Semitism" card has lost its power due to overuse as a standard smear term for any criticism of Israeli policy, particularly in the United States.  It jumped the shark about the time when the very inflammatory accusation was used to kick around poor old decrepit Jimmy Carter over his book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" and has been increasingly ineffective as anything but a badge of honor to legitimate critics of right-wing Israeli policies ever since.

The paranoid and ill-considered outbursts of King Bibi have contributed  and now rapidly declining star of King Bibi who is finding his iron-fisted rule now threatened by young turk Danny Danon who just made a power play to loosen his elder's control over the Likud party. While the crazed Netanyahu was busily denouncing BDS and supporters as though they personally were in charge of running the showers at Auschwitz and meeting with the Mossad  in order to formulate a strategy for retaliation Danon was sizing up the Prime Minister's chair just as top domestic lickspittle Eric Cantor has been doing as he has plotted his overthrow of Republican Speaker John Boehner. Cantor is leading the charge to push anew for a war with Iran - something not in the best interests of the country that he is supposedly elected to represent - as was evident in his red-meat filled speech at the Virginia Military Institute on Monday.

Bibi is now once again scrambling his winged monkeys in the U.S Congress (an institution that Pat Buchanan once referred to as "Israeli occupied territory") to save him from his own self-destructive tendencies. While the push for Iran sanctions has temporarily been derailed largely due to AIPAC getting squeamish over the overly partisan support of the Menendez-Kirk bill that would set the country on the course for yet another disastrous war there is a concerted effort within the Congress being made to deliver the bacon for Bibi. Israeli interests have spent millions to pander and manipulate the Christian Zionists in this country and our elected officials routinely are flown to the holy land on vacation/brainwashing junkets to secure their support for the Likudnik right-wing policies that have been so ruinous to the people of that land.

Israel is viewed with much positively by a majority of Americans according to a recent Jerusalem Post poll but what the poll omits is the extremely one-sided view of Middle East events that the domestic media offers up, choosing to self-censor in order to avoid boycotts and protests by it's embedded fifth-column. It is impossible to understand anything that comes out of the state-corporate media largely due to omission, the Palestinian side of the story is rarely if ever offered and if it were to be the offending entity would be set upon fiercely by the same sort of lunatics who were inspirations to Norwegian mass-murderer Anders Behring Breivik. The normal anti-Muslim bigots such as Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, David Horowitz and their ilk as well as the more 'respectable' enforcers of Israeli propaganda and institutional harassment such as Alan Dershowitz, Abe Foxman, Joe Lieberman, Jennifer Rubin etc. I find it ironically hilarious that Bibi is caterwauling over being force fed a nice big taste of his own medicine with the BDS movement but bullies never seem to have much of a taste for conflict then someone fights back.

The coming wave of official condemnation of the Israeli regime's repressive policies has already sparked Illinois congressmen Peter Roskam and Dan Lipinski to push a bill that will strip academic institutions of federal funding if they support in any way whatsoever the BDS Mmovement. The bill, with the obligatory Orwellian title of "The Protect Academic Freedom Act" shows just how much contempt that a good many members of the U.S. Congress have for the concept of freedom of speech and is in clear violation of the First Amendment. But it is after all an election year and nobody wants to find themselves targeted for removal from the publicly funded gravy train. I would personally like to see someone with a set of stones come up with legislation stripping for life federal funding and benefits from any member of Congress who puts the interests of a foreign country over those of his/her own constituents. The list can be compiled during Netanyahu's next visit to speak to Congress likely in March, according to the Times of Israel there is already a letter being circulated by nearly a hundred of the rats who should be rapidly divested from the taxpayer dole come November. 

While it would be too much to ask for our elected representatives who continue to prove daily that their loyalty lies elsewhere be it it the military industrial complex, Wall Street scammers, energy cartels and in this case foreign despots they would be wise to start looking past Netanyahu. With ambitious sorts like Danon already plotting against his old and tired ways he is a goner, it is only a matter of time and whose fingerprints will be on the hatchet that he will one day find embedded in his back. Our sanctimonious frauds in Congress would be well advised to save the standing ovations this time and keep an eye on the future as they break out their kneepads.

If Mr. Netanyahu wants to see who is truly responsible for "deligitimizing" Israel and turning it into a pariah as well as diminishing real anti-Semitism by his constant invocation of it as a political tool he needs only to look into his own mirror.

(Image: Israel Hayom)

Invoking Hitler Cantor Calls for Eternal War

With Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner now mortally wounded after once again throwing the so-called tea party caucus under the bus on the latest debt ceiling deal he will need to watch his back carefully as his ambitious underling Eric Cantor is readying the dagger.  Eric Ivan Cantor, the pride of Virginia’s 7th congressional district is ready to pounce now having just delivered a major foreign policy address which coincides with a renewed push for an attack on Iran that is picking up steam. The P5+1 talks to relax economic sanctions in return for concessions from Tehran on their alleged military nuclear program have amazingly not been sabotaged (at least yet) by a renegade Senate that not that long ago was working toward a veto-proof majority to hit the Iranians with a new wave of crushing sanctions and put the U.S. on the path to what will inevitably be a war that could escalate into a global conflagration.

It was less than two weeks ago that AIPAC, the dominant organization in the Israel Lobby actually backed down and stopped their full court press for the bill sponsored by Senators Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Mark Kirk of Illinois that would have set the nation on the course for war. The caveat being that efforts would resume once the political climate is able to ensures  "bipartisan" agreement on the next national disaster of a war.  The defection of several key Democrats would have looked bad and left the usual assortment of Republican warmongers, defense industry pimps and stone cold Armageddonists holding that particular flaming bag of dogshit. It is however an election year and with the GOP still far too dependent on the dregs of society that constitute the religious right there is nothing like the possibility of a war to end all wars, triggering The Rapture and sending the saved flying dirty, nasty, naked up into the sky to watch Jesus return to kick some serious ass to get voters mobilized.

Cantor is a cunning political animal, he knows that his window of opportunity is now open and in a President's Day speech at the Virginia Military Institute the House Majority Leader delivered chunks of bloody red meat by the shovelful. Picking up the torch for the American global hegemony and its enforcement by military might Cantor eagerly picked up the torch for the Neocons and the reestablishment of the PNAC/Clean Break doctrine. Peppering his stemwinder with the standard World War II references - Iran as Hitler and shamelessly invoking The Holocaust for political gain he made his move. Seizing the day to pummel Obama for not bowing to Israeli/Saudi pressure to sink more American blood and treasure into the Middle East Cantor had something for everyone with killer sound bites and crusading rhetoric. “Hope is not a strategy” is so dopey that it should be a winner with the Sarah Palin/Duck Dynasty demographic whose support he will badly need as he pursues his ambitions. Following that one up with a crowd pleaser that probably gave William Kristol a boner 'Iranium' Cantor decreed: “Instead, it should be driven by clear principles: protect the homeland, defend our allies, and advance freedom, democracy and human rights abroad, while maintaining a military superiority that cannot be matched” and  “Make no mistake: Iran is a brutal theocracy. Its leaders violently repress dissent at home and support conflict and chaos abroad”. Just once I would like to see the bloodthirsty war freaks just pick up a gun and march their own asses into harm's way rather than just feed others into the meatgrinders of their own creation. Perhaps a taste of actual combat and the horrors of it all would cause them to rethink their positions.

I suppose that being Bibi Netanyahu’s top lickspittle in Congress somehow qualifies a turd like Cantor as foreign policy guru, that and all of the military industrial complex money that sluices through his gerrymandered district like Subic Bay’s infamous “shit river”. Cantor’s speech was also aimed at the growing libertarian influence in his own party particularly Rand Paul and Justin Amash with his denouncement of WW II style "isolationism". With the 2016 Republican ticket wide open now that Porky Soprano in Jersey is up to his fat ass in an abuse of power scandal over the George Washington Bridge the serpentine Cantor has to be asking himself ‘why not me?’  Nothing would possibly make Netanyahu happier than having Cantor being the messiah who can once and all eliminate the stench of that terrible Shvartze from the White House so Americans can get back to business fighting the wars of the far right Israeli regime and their decadent cronies in Riyadh.

The timing of the great Cantor foreign policy speech nicely meshes with the latest escalation in Netanyahu's war rhetoric and lately the demagogic leader has been in rare form. The Iranians are fomenting unrest in Latin America plays nicely into the strange and likely U.S. orchestrated uprising in Venezuela, the Iranians are non compliant liars and critics of Israeli policy are anti-Semites (groan, not again). Throw in the recent change in language used by Secretary of Skull and Bones John Kerry that Iran and Russia are meddling in Syria along with the possibility that the U.S./E.U. are covertly funding the Ukranian insurgency and mix in Bibi's agitation and once again we are careening towards the brink of war.

The collapse can't be far behind.

(Image: J.Dashiell-WDBJ7)

With Economy Still in the Toilet there is Always Money for Another War

As the WW I era writer Randolph Bourne once summed it up "war is the health of the state" and the drums were beating over the week yet another one. This will be the granddaddy of them all, the long-promoted but oft-preempted attack on Iran, the country that represents the crown jewel for the Neocons.  With the French sabotage of the past weekend's Iranian talks about the hotly disputed nuclear program delivering yet another humiliation to the bumbling, bloviating fool that is Secretary of State John Kerry there is now an opening into which every effort will be poured on pushing an on the ropes, on the verge of bankruptcy country into yet another ruinous war. This one will be the big one, if there was a good possibility that the aborted Syrian attack of August would have turned into WW III it is a dead certainty that attacking Iran, one of China's top trade partners will do exactly that.

Keep in mind that China holds a good deal of U.S. debt and has the ability to pretty much destroy American dominance as well as the military machine by calling it in. If this happens there is nothing that either Helicopter Ben Bernanke nor Janet Yellen will be able to do to stop it, they can run the printing presses at the Marriner S. Eccles Building until the melt but the era of the dollar will be over. Hell, it's not like we aren't on the way there anyway because even the Fed's schemes have their eventual end point but living in a tent city and foraging for scraps to eat is one thing, doing it while basking in the nuclear fallout of a war to end all wars is another.

Kerry, a lifelong member of Yale's infamous Skull and Bones society was riding high last weekend as he arrived in Geneva to along with the rest of the P5+1 gang put the finishing touches on the deal with Iran to limit its nuclear program and begin lifting economic sanctions was knee capped as the French contingent led by Laurent Fabius after what was reported to be a Saudi bribe from Prince Bandar bin Sultan aka Bandar Bush led to the scuttling of the talks.  The buffoonish Kerry, his latest humiliation sealed his place as the most inept head of the State Department in recent memory, Kerry went into full retreat mode just like the guy who parlayed his opposition to the Vietnam War into a political career who went from antiwar icon to pusher of more wars.  The neocons and right-wing Israeli warmongers then poured it on, using what was announced to be a "delay" in talks to mount a relentless propaganda campaign that would mobilize the craven and bought on the cheap U.S. Congress, specifically the House which is chock a block with the type of lunatics who want a Middle Eastern conflagration so Jesus can come back. On the Sunday morning circuit while South Carolina's Lindsey Graham was pushing for even more crippling sanctions on Iran, at one point lisping "thank God for France" Kerry was being mocked by establishment lickspittle David Gregory.  Kerry at one point in his life dared to utter the blasphemy that Lee Harvey Oswald wasn't the lone nut that was able to circumvent the tight security of a presidential protection detail and deliver a shot to the head to President John F. Kennedy that crack snipers would have difficulty pulling off and then escaping before being cornered like a rat and eventually murdered by a mob connected loon before he could be tried. There are certain things in this land that just cannot be questioned if you are to remain a political figure of any influence.

But the talks were torpedoed and the march to war is once again on and with Barry in desperation mode after his historic debacle of an abomination of a health care reform program designed solely to keep the insurance parasites supplied with new bodies to milk for profit the man just may finally be ready to go along with it as a distraction. If if wasn't for Putin the lying bastards Obama and Kerry be into the third month of bombings of Damascus and Raytheon stock would be trading at an all time high but they just couldn't close the deal with the American sheeple. Now with the formerly vilified French "cheese eating surrender monkeys" being hailed by the neocons as though they were the second coming of Sir Winston himself, Netanyahu's mustering of his American shocktroops and Kerry's flip-flopping this could finally be the time when the stars are in alignment for what will be the mass suicide of the western world. Obama is clearly screwed now thanks to his own incompetence, the vilified community organizer who has been turned into a fake devil by on the payroll  right-wing stooges seeking to compare him to the great leftist manipulator  Saul Alinsky, a man who Barry isn't fit to carry his coffee cup.  Ironically Alinsky's tactics have been adopted by the right who in their typical asinine, self centered way pay the man no credit. Old Saul must be rolling over in his grave over Obama, he mocked such phonies as Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin as not being capable of organizing a lunch counter.

But I digress...

Obama's fraudulence has now brought us to a very dangerous point, with the House of representatives smelling the scent of blood as they haven't since Bubba Clinton made the critical error of blowing his wad onto Monica Lewinsky's  infamous blue dress the tribunals are looming. With Darrell Issa aka Congressman Grand Theft Auto convening his stupid little "kangaroo courts" over everything but the NSA Stasi's unconstitutional spying on Americans the subpoenas are already being printed for the Obama impeachment hearings. The furor of partisan vendettas and settling political scores  is now coalescing with the House Armageddon caucus, take for example the deranged freak that is Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois who is already shilling for Netanyahu's war as are many others in the corrupted and contemptible legislature where 30 pieces of silver buys loyalty to a country other than the one what they swore an oath to.  Justin Raimondo of the FBI targeted Antiwar.com pegged it in his latest column Showdown at the Geneva Corral:

Does Senator Mark Kirk know whom he is supposed to be representing?

One wonders. After an administration briefing to the Senate Banking Committee, held to persuade members to hold off on new Iran sanctions, Kirk had this to say:

"’It was fairly anti-Israeli. I was supposed to disbelieve everything the Israelis had just told me, and I think the Israelis probably have a pretty good intelligence service.’ He said the Israelis had told him that the ‘total changes proposed set back the program by 24 days.’ A Senate aide familiar with the meeting said that ‘every time anybody would say anything about ‘what would the Israelis say,’ they’d get cut off and Kerry would say, ‘You have to ignore what they’re telling you, stop listening to the Israelis on this. They had no details,’ the aide said. ‘They had no ability to verify anything, to describe anything, to answer basic questions.’"

Why is "what would the Israelis say" the first thing out of Sen. Kirk’s mouth? He is supposed to represent the state of Illinois in the US Senate – not the state of Israel. But you’d never know it from his public pronouncements on this issue. Yes, the Israelis do indeed "have a pretty good intelligence service," one devoted to relentlessly pursuing Israeli interests. Those interests are not always aligned with American policy objectives – indeed, these days the two are rather frequently in conflict. And it is telling that Sen. Kirk doesn’t recognize this, or, if he does, chooses to listen to the Israelis rather than what our own intelligence services have been telling us regarding Iran’s nuclear program.

The official National Intelligence Estimate states "with high confidence" Tehran gave up its weapons program way back in 2003. Yet Sen. Kirk chooses to take the Israeli side in an increasingly public and acrimonious dispute between the government of the United States and a foreign entity with a long history of crying wolf over the alleged imminence of Iranian nukes.

Now that Obama's balls are in a sling and the vultures are circling I would imagine that the coming days will bring a new willingness and an increased level of bellicosity towards the regime in Tehran.  It won't save him from the lynch mob that has been restful for the past five years but it could prove to doom us all once the Commander in Chief is able to channel his inane football metaphors from "fumbling" on Obamacare to a "Hail Mary" in the Middle East and lending U.S. backing to the doomsday strike on Iran.

The Chinese curse of "may you live in interesting times" is a bit of hysterical irony coming home to roost in The Homeland.