A list of CNN (TV) Headlines, 8/4/16

This is not scientific in any way, shape or form. But it is an attempt to show what On-Air CNN Television personalities talk about.

Are they critical of the President? Or only of Trump? Is it critical of government? Or are the headlines mainly approving of government? Or -- are the headlines deflective of government malfeasance? Does it omit stories critical of those in power? Do the headlines tend to come from a liberal angle, conservative angle, a libertarian angle, a communist angle, or is it balanced? Are they critical of mostly Republicans? Or are they critical of mostly Democrats? Is the channel generally pro-religion or anti-religion? Pro-Christianity or anti-Christianity? Pro-Islam or anti-Islam? Pro-atheist or anti-atheist?

I want to know.

Given that I was creating this list while busy, I couldn't catch every single headline that flashed across the TV screen. However, I do think it is very representative as I probably looked at the television screen every other minute or so from about 12 PM to 4 PM.

What I found is that CNN focused on Trump at least 22 times; President Barack Obama 10 times; House Speaker Paul Ryan 10 times; and Hillary 2 times.

Now, as I said, this wasn't scientific. However, I did look at the screen a lot from that time. I did not keep my eyes glued to the screen....

...but I really don't think I missed Hillary Clinton that many times.

Looking at the headlines we see that....

1. RYAN NOT READY TO PULL TRUMP ENDORSEMENT
2. RUSSIA: WE BELIEVE 270 OF OUR ATHLETES CLEARED TO COMPETE
3. NEW BATTLEGROUND STATE POLLS GIVE CLINTON THE EDGE
4. CNN/ORC POLL SHOWS OBAMA WITH 54% JOB APPROVAL
5. POLL: OBAMA APPROVAL RATING ON THE RISE
6. NEW BATTLEGROUND STATE POLLS GIVE CLINTON THE EDGE
7. NORTH CAROLINA MAN ACCUSED OF SUPPORTING ISIS
8. TRUMP MEETS WITH FAMILIES OF 6 FALLEN SOLDIERS
9. OP-ED: TRUMP SUPPORTING IS "INDEFENSIBLE"
10. CLINT EASTWOOD TALKS RACISM AND TRUMP
11. SOON: OBAMA FACES QUESTIONS ON $400 IRAN PAYMENT
12. WHITE HOUSE: $400M CASH TO IR
13. OBAMA GETS POST-CONVENTION BUMP IN POLLS
14. CAN A RISING OBAMA HELP HILLARY CLINTON?
15. EASTWOOD: 2012 "EMPTY CHAIR" STUNT "WAS SILLY"
16. CLINT EASTWOOD APPLAUDS TRUMP'S RHETORIC
17. PREGNANT WOMEN IN MIAMI RUSH TO GET ZIKA TESTS
18. EXPECTANT MOTHERS IN MIAMI SCRAMBLE TO GET ZIKA TESTS
19. SOON: DONALD TRUMP SPEAKS LIVE AT RALLY SOON (?)
20. CHARLESTON CHURCH SUSPECT ASSAULTED IN JAIL
21. YOUNG GYMNAST RETURNS TO SPORT AFTER LEUKEMIA
22. GYMNAST CONTRACTS LEUKEMIA, FACES COMPLICATIONS
23. ANY MOMENT: TRUMP SPEAKS AFTER RYAN RETURNS FIRE
24. RYAN WON'T RULE OUT YANKING TRUMP ENDORSEMENT
25. PAUL RYAN ON TRUMP: MY "DUTY" TO DEFEND GOP
26. NEW POLL: CLINTON TOPS TRUMP IN 3 KEY STATES
27. SOON: HILLARY CLINTON HOLDS RALLY IN LAS VEGAS ***
28. CLINTON SLAMS TRUMP DURING TOUR IN LAS VEGAS
29. NEW POLL: CLINTON TOPS TRUMP IN 3 KEY STATES
30. RYAN WON'T RULE OUT YANKING TRUMP ENDORSEMENT
31. POLLS: CLINTON TOPS TRUMP IN THREE KEY STATES
32. ANY MOMENT: TRUMP SPEAKS AFTER RYAN RETURNS FIRE
33. RYAN (AGAIN) USES “BEYOND THE PALE” REACTING TO TRUMP
34. OBAMA GETS POST-CONVENTION BUMP IN POLLS
35. SOON: TRUMP, CLINTON HOLD COMPETING EVENTS
36. U.S. OFFICIALS: NO IRAN “ULTIMATUM” TO SEND $400M CASH
37. TRUMP COMMENTS ON U.S. PAYMENT TO IRAN
38. TRUMP AGAIN CLAIMS HE SAW VIDEO OF IRAN PAYMENT
39. TRUMP SPEAKS AFTER RYAN SLAM POST-RNC CAMPAIGN
40. TRUMP: “HOW STUPID ARE WE” TO PAY IRAN
41. BRAZILIAN COUPLES DELAY PREGNANCY DUE TO ZIKA
42. OBAMA: MY DAUGHTERS DESERVE A FEMINIST DAD
43. CLINTON REPEATS FALSE CLAIM FBI DIRECTOR SAID SHE WAS “TRUTHFUL”
44. OBAMA: IRAN NUCLEAR AGREEMENT IS WORKING
45. OBAMA: WE DO NOT PAY RANSOM FOR HOSTAGES
46. OBAMA UPS ATTACK ON TRUMP AS APPROVAL RATING RISES

Where is the focus on the issues? A few comments.

#46 OBAMA UPS ATTACK ON TRUMP AS APPROVAL RATING RISES

First of all. I think this is a made-up connection here. I really don't think Obama is consciously taking advantage of this approval ratings here. But the headline gives the connection that he is.

# 42 OBAMA: MY DAUGHTERS DESERVE A FEMINIST DAD

Why is this national news? This doesn't belong on national television, but on niche sites, cultural sites. 

#14 CAN A RISING OBAMA HELP HILLARY CLINTON?

Can a discussion of the platforms that she and Donald Trump are running on help their campaigns. Can a substantial report on Donald Trump's sane position on Russia hurt Hillary Clinton? Can we discuss their ideas? Can we hold politicians accountable? Can we move away from "He said, She Said" stories? Can we #bringbackjournalism? 

I'm not going to go on. But I am biased towards stories that highlight government corruption, and I really don't like celebrity stories, or stories that advance the "conversation" in a destructive way.

Matt Drudge and I agree: Globalists freak out over Trump

Snapshot of the August 2, 2016 Drudge Report

President Obama is no revolutionary.

Rather he is of the status quo.

Today he played the role of gatekeeper of that status quo: Donald Trump absolutely cannot become president. He is unfit. Blah. Blah. Blah.

This morning when I saw the headlines about President Obama, referencing the above activity, I immediately thought that the globalists were freaking out.

This afternoon I went on the Drudge Report and I found agreement there.

Matt Drudge calls Obama out for his globalist gatekeeping on August 2, 2016.

Obama Proposes $0.24 Gas Tax Last Year in Office

What every American will be doing if this nonsense passes.

Per this press release from the Institute for Energy Research:

Obama Proposes a New Tax on Every American Driver

 WASHINGTON – Institute for Energy Research President Thomas Pyle issued the following statement about the Obama administration’s plan to propose a $10/barrel tax on oil:

"The president is proposing a nearly 24 cent per gallon tax on the very energy source that keeps Americans and our economy moving. This is a tax on every American driver, and it would have the harshest impact on those who can least afford it. For a president who claims to care about helping the poor, he sure doesn't show it in his policies. Fortunately, this proposal is dead on arrival in Congress. However, the president is clearly trying to lay the groundwork for a future carbon tax.

"The administration is claiming the purpose of this tax is to raise revenue for some grand transportation plan, but it’s really about taxing the energy they don’t like to make President Obama’s favored energy sources and companies more profitable. The revenue generated from a new energy tax is peanuts compared to the revenue, jobs, wages, and economic activity that could be created by simply opening federal lands to energy development. Now that he has nothing to lose politically, the president is showing us his true stripes by trying to impose an energy tax on American families."

Read more at POLITICO here

In the past 30 years, the U.S. Federal Government Seized $51 Trillion from its citizens

The U.S. Federal government has taken in $51 Trillion (or $51,000,000,000,000) from its citizens over the past 30 years, official White House numbers show.

According to "Table 1.1—Summary of Receipts, Outlays, and Surpluses or Deficits (-): 1789–2020" on the White House's Office of Budget and Management website, from the years 1985, when Ronald Reagan was president, to 2014, under our current President Obama, the Federal government took in $51,784,162,000,000 -- to be exact.

In other words, five presidents -- President Reagan (Republican), one-term President George H.W. Bush (Republican), two-term President Bill Clinton (Democrat), two-term President George W. Bush (Republican), and two-term President Barack Obama (Democrat) -- presided over the biggest private-to-public wealth transfer in American history.

Nearly every year federal spending went up.

In total, from 1985 to 2014, the U.S. Federal Government outspent more than they took in, spending $62,039,599,000,000 over the 30 year span.

This blog post comes at a time where a constantly resurfacing blog post (true or not) about black Christian churches voluntarily receiving hundreds of billions of dollars over a similar 30 year time span keeps grabbing people's attention on social media.

This blog post attempts to put that in context, if not set it straight altogether.

Despite multiple websites such as AllChristianNews and Urban Intellectuals posting the article, the original source of both posts is a 2009 blog post by HarlemWorldMagazine. The current link is broken. But the original post was archived thanks to the Wayback Machine.

Such blog posts talk about a so-called "return on investment" that black communities are receiving from their churches...

...but one has to wonder what is the real return on "investment" -- because we all know taxes are for investments -- that the black communities are receiving from the U.S. Federal Government.

So black churches have received $420 billion over 30 years (on average $14.3 billion per year) according to the 2009 blog post.  The government took $420 billion over seven times in 2014, or 7.194016 to be more precise.

Over seven times.

Does anyone care?

In fact, the last time the Federal Government took less than $420 billion in a year from its citizens (and remember, this is still by force; non-compliant citizens will go to jail) was 1978.

The HarlemWorldMagazine blog post notes:

“The church has gotten caught up in materialism and greed, a lifestyle. Many ministers today want to live like celebrities and they want to be treated like celebrities. In other words, instead of the church standing with the community, the church has become self-serving. It has strayed away from its mission” according to Dr.Love Henry Whelchel, professor of church history at The Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta.

Ahh yes, materialism....greed...things the Federal government is not guilty of.

It goes on:

LiveSteez’s investigative series will take a forensic editorial approach to quantifying the return to Black America for the $350 billion in tax-favored donations it has given to the Black Church, examining the arguments on both sides of the pulpit. In this series we will seek answers and advisory to the following questions:

- How often and how much do church leaders take advantage of the faith of poor black people?

-We will investigate and indentify (sic) the churches they are showing a strong return on investment that goes beyond inspiration.

- What does the black community have to show for the $350 billion in tax free dollars?

- Expert analysis on what could potentially be done with such a huge amount of money and how it could improve the state of our communities.

- Why do some church leaders refuse to participate in the Grassley congressional Investigation, which requested the financial records of several mega-churches.

And as a counter investigation, the Goins Report will investigate the return of "investment" to all of the United States for prying $51 trillion out of the hands of its citizenry.

We will ask the following questions:

A) How often and how much do politicians take advantage of the faith of poor black people?

B)We will investigate and identify the communities that are showing a strong return on investment that goes beyond inspiration.

C) What does the black community have to show for the $51 trillion in private wealth stolen from them and their fellow non-black citizens?

D) Expert analysis on what could potentially be done with such a huge amount of money and how it could improve the state of our communities.

E) Why do some political institutions, such as the Department of Defense and the U.S. Federal Reserve, refuse to participate in an audit?

Answer Key:

A) All the time.

B) Washington DC and the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs, according to a 2013 report. According to a 2011 report,  Washington DC was the Richest city in the country. Could that be because there is a buzzing bureaucratic state surrounded by tons of lobbyists and workers in the defense and security industries? 

C) Twice as much unemployment as whites.

D) The African-American community would be so rich that they could spend their money on their own education, food, healthcare, etc. 

E) The Fed would claim that an audit interferes with their allegedly politically independent nature. But Rand Paul provides a better answer. And I don't know where to start with the Pentagon, but there is trans-partisan support for an "Audit the Pentagon" bill. Rand Paul supports that too.

 In the end, all of the hysteria over churches is about comparatively nothing. Comparatively.

The author still has serious exegetical problems (scriptural interpretations) of the prosperity preaching. But however "fruitful" misguided prosperity preaching is in convincing people to voluntarily give their income to religious institutions, it pales in comparison to the against the sophistry and use of force by the Federal Government to take money from its citizens.

Not a single person went to jail for not paying their tithes.

But try not paying your taxes and watch what happens.

Secondly, look at how much of a stretch the biased anti-Christian blog posts have to take. They have to go back 30 years to make the Black Church try to resemble anything that looks bad.

On a year-by-year basis, the Black Church on average voluntarily received $14.3 billion, or 14,333,333,333.33 per year.

But one only has to look back to last quarter to make the government look monstrous. In fact, the more you look back at how much the government spends, the more you question. The more you put the church numbers in perspective, the less you feel bad about it.

Religion, in this case, is a red herring -- a distraction -- from the larger issue of state power. In fact, if you want to keep religion involved, then I would say it is the false religion of the state that is at issue here; not true religion; not Christianity.

LiveSteez, by the way, is defunct.

Angelo Codevilla on America's Ruling Class

This one is a throwback...

But I kept forgetting the name of the author and so I finally decided to publish this on my site (if I haven't done so already), so I wouldn't forget again.

I actually saw the author in person, when he was speaking on a foreign policy panel, at the 2013 CPAC conference at the Gaylord National Convention Center in National Harbor, Md.

Anyway...

This is an important essay.  It's always good to revisit from time to time.

Here's an excerpt:

Although after the election of 2008 most Republican office holders argued against the Troubled Asset Relief Program, against the subsequent bailouts of the auto industry, against the several "stimulus" bills and further summary expansions of government power to benefit clients of government at the expense of ordinary citizens, the American people had every reason to believe that many Republican politicians were doing so simply by the logic of partisan opposition. After all, Republicans had been happy enough to approve of similar things under Republican administrations. Differences between Bushes, Clintons, and Obamas are of degree, not kind.

Read the rest.

America’s Ruling Class — And The Perils Of Revolution

By Angelo Codevilla

Good job, Mr. President

Photo courtesy of the Associated Press. President Obama on Thursday, April 2, 2015 in the Rose Garden at the White House.

[Editor's Note: This was supposed to have been published on April 3, 2015. I never published it] If Phyllis Bennis, Justin Raimondo, David Stockman and Paul Craig Roberts -- four of my favorite independent foreign policy thinkers (a progressive, two libertarians, and the third hard to classify) -- are all celebrating the Iran deal (the latter believes the neocons have been defeated, and Raimondo even said the president sounded like a "true statesmen" in his articulation the deals details), then so am I.

Good job Mr. President!

Now, all we have to do is remain vigilant against possible Republican efforts to repeal the deal.

And while this is an unarguably good thing, we must realize that the Obama administration is still economically Keynesian, and we will always be in the economic doldrums until those Keynesian policies are reversed.

Click here to read David Stockman's April review of the deal.

[Editor's Note: August 4, 2015 Update] David Stockman again weighs in on the deal. He nearly says what I say above in the last paragraph:

I have rarely found anything President Obama has done to be praiseworthy, and believe his domestic policies of Keynesian borrow and spend and incessant statist intervention in capitalist enterprise to be especially deplorable. But finally he has stood up to the War Party——and that could mark a decisive turning point in rolling back Washington’s destructive interventionism and imperial pretensions in the Middle East and, indeed, around the world.

Click here to read David Stockman's July assessment of the Iran Deal. 

Yvette Carnell: Were drones flying while Obama eulogized in Charleston?

"Even as Obama gathered with mourners today, there is probably a drone buzzing above the heads of brown people in some Middle Eastern country, as they too, like the nine lost in Charleston, wonder what they did to deserve their fate." ~Yvette Carnell

15 years of Economic Policy: What do we have to show for it?

In a recent article, David Stockman sets up the American Economic Scene since 2000 quickly:

Indeed, during that span we have encompassed several business cycles, two financial crises/meltdowns and nearly a non-stop blitz of “extraordinary” policy interventions. To wit, a $700 billion TARP, an $800 billion fiscal stimulus, upwards of $4.0 trillion of money printing and 165 months out of 180 months in which interests rates were being cut or held at rock bottom levels.

You’d think with all that help from Washington that American capitalism would be booming with prosperity. No it’s not. On the measures which count when it comes to sustainable growth and real wealth creation, the trends are slipping backwards—– not leaping higher.

The kinds of breadwinner jobs that we need the most -- those that provide the most productivity and output -- are slipping behind. He explains:

Moreover, within the 70 million breadwinner jobs category, the highest paying jobs which add the most to national productivity and growth——goods production—-have slipped backwards even more dramatically. As shown below, there were actually 21% fewer payroll jobs in manufacturing, construction and mining/energy production reported last Friday than existed in early 2000.

Takeaways:

• Non financial business productivity has grown 1.1 percent annually since the 2007 peak. 
• This is only half of the productivity from 1953 until 2000.
• So despite 15 years of stimulus there is little to show for it.
• During the Eisenhower years, which saw balanced budgets, this growth rate was two and one half times what it is now.
• The number breadwinners jobs in the economy is still 2 million lower than it was in 2000.
• Breadwinner jobs are defined as "construction, white collar, manufacturing, FIRE, transport, information, trade."
• Breadwinner jobs are jobs that pay around $50K. 
• There are about 70 million of these breadwinner jobs.
• $50K is enough to support a household without government assistance.
• Editor's Commentary: I make much less than $50K. While I am not on government assistance, I am on parental assistance.
• The part-time economy -- $14/hour or $20K/year jobs -- is booming.
• This is the second part-time job boom of this century.
• This means that all of the job growth that occurred in the first boom -- the Bush II years -- were also part-time jobs. 
• The top 10% of income earners account for 40% of the spending in an economy.
• We are in the middle of the third financial bubble of this century.
• This bubble will pop too.
• The part-time jobs that were created as a result of wealthy people spending more will vanish in the next bust.
• As Stockman puts it, "On a net basis, the only jobs created during this entire century are in the HES Complex (health, education and social services)."
• But why? Well, again, as Stockman puts it, "they are a function of the entitlement state and the massive $200 billion per year of tax subsidies which support employer-funded health benefits."

There's more information that I did not summarize. See the rest by clicking the link below.

Read David Stockman's 15 Years Of Stimulus—–Nothing To Show

Lil Wayne Disses President Obama on "Sorry 4 The Wait 2" mixtape

"These crooked a** cops still winning

Black man family still mourning

Black president ain't do nothing

Need a real n*gga up in that office"

"Trap House" Lil Wayne, Sorry 4 The Wait 2

New Orleans MC Lil Wayne rapped the above lyrics in a song off of his new "Sorry 4 The Wait 2" mixtape. The song "Trap House" is the second track.

The lyrics were a shot at President Obama for not doing enough in response to the deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice and countless other black men, teens and boys who were killed at the hands of police officers in the United States.

President Obama briefly referenced the issue of police brutality directed towards African-Americans as "the events of Ferguson and New York" in his 2015 State of the Union address Monday night.

See: http://rt.com/usa/224615-obama-sotu-glossed-ferguson/

Additionally, last December the president proposed a $263 million spending package that will "increase the use of body-worn cameras, expand training for law enforcement agencies (LEAs), add more resources for police department reform, and multiply the number of cities where DOJ facilitates community and local LEA engagement," according to a White House press release.

Critics are skeptical that body cameras will work, citing the non-indictment of NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who put 43-year old Eric Garner in a chokehold on camera.

Lil Wayne released the mixtape Tuesday. The screenshot above is from an MTV2 article.

The Onion gets the 2014 elections -- and all elections -- right

The Onion gets the 2014 elections -- and all elections -- right:

WASHINGTON—Expressing dissatisfaction with the current course the country is taking, voters across the nation told reporters Monday that they are eager to use next month’s midterm elections to help put the United States back on a different wrong track. “We’ve been going down the wrong path for the past few years, and now it’s time to get some new people in there who can lead our country astray in a different direction,” said North Carolina voter Lisa Berkland, adding that Washington D.C. needed an influx of new misguided politicians with their own terrible visions for the country to change the manner in which the nation is veering off course. “It will take a lot of work to turn the country around and ensure a different type of horrible future, but I believe there are candidates out there who have the awful principles and ideologies to march into Washington and do it.” According to recent polls, the majority of Americans believe they can have the biggest influence over changing the wrong direction of the country by not voting.

Voters Excited To Use Midterms To Put Country Back On Different Wrong Track 

How President Obama Can Be Elected a Third Time

President Obama can be elected a third time in one sense: if enough people who promote his deleterious agenda -- both his maintenance and expansion of the Keynesian status quo in economic policy and the Bush foreign policy -- are elected, then the current president will "in effect" be re-elected.

In other words, George W. Bush could be elected a fifth time if not much changes in the upcoming elections in this year and the years ahead.

But now that I think about it, this might actually be encouragement to the wrong people.

Think Obamacare, Think Trabant

The Obamacare rollout, with the dysfunctional "Healthcare.gov" as the star of the show, reminds me of another service a government tried to roll out in competition with the private sector: transportation.

Specifically, the 1975 Trabant.

No, I was not around back then and definitely not in Germany (nor have I been east of the Atlantic Ocean), but everything I've read about Obamacare reminds me of Communism's answer to the Volkswagen Beetle.

The car has been on numerous "all time worst lists." It was also created under a communist regime.

Like free healthcare in socialist countries, you couldn't outright buy a Trabant. You had to apply for one and get put on a wait list:

For all its shortcomings, the Trabant 601 became highly sought-after in Eastern Europe, and buying one (prospective owners did not order their new Trabant; they applied for it) involved joining a waiting list that could last up to 18 years.

Not all things related to the Trabant are bad. But neither are all things related to Obamacare. The bad, as always, outweighed the good. The Trabant has symbolic value. So will Obamacare.

As Wikipedia puts it, "the Trabant is often cited as an example of the disadvantages of centralized planning; on the other hand, it is also regarded with derisive affection as a symbol of the failed former East Germany and of the fall of communism (in former West Germany, as many East Germans streamed into West Berlin and West Germany in their Trabants after the opening of the Berlin Wall in 1989). 

The open-source entry continues: "It was in production without any significant changes for nearly 30 years, with 3,096,099 Trabants produced in total."

Talk about a lack of innovation.

 Here is what a Time writer wrote about the Trabant in Time's 50 Worst Cars of All Time feature:

This is the car that gave Communism a bad name. Powered by a two-stroke pollution generator that maxed out at an ear-splitting 18 hp, the Trabant was a hollow lie of a car constructed of recycled worthlessness (actually, the body was made of a fiberglass-like Duroplast, reinforced with recycled fibers like cotton and wood). A virtual antique when it was designed in the 1950s, the Trabant was East Germany's answer to the VW Beetle — a "people's car," as if the people didn't have enough to worry about. Trabants smoked like an Iraqi oil fire, when they ran at all, and often lacked even the most basic of amenities, like brake lights or turn signals. But history has been kind to the Trabi. Thousands of East Germans drove their Trabants over the border when the Wall fell, which made it a kind of automotive liberator. Once across the border, the none-too-sentimental Ostdeutschlanders immediately abandoned their cars. Ich bin Junk!

Schiff: Obama's wrong when he says we have to raise the debt ceiling because we have to pay our bills

President Obama has often repeated that not raising the debt ceiling is an acknowledgement that the United States (Government) can't pay its bills.

What's the contrary position?

"When President Obama says that have to raise the debt ceiling, because America always pays its bills, he's wrong. The reason we have so much debt, is because we never pay our bills. And the reason that we have to raise the debt ceiling is because we can't pay the bills. So we want to borrow more money instead. If we leave the debt ceiling alone, then we finally actually have to deal with the bills. And the problem is, we borrowed so much money, it's impossible to pay it back. And that's what president Obama doesn't want our creditors figuring out." Peter Schiff on The Street (Video)

Glenn Greenwald on Obama's virtual pledge to ignore Congress

Always insightful, Glenn Greenwald from The Guardian explains:

 To the contrary, there is substantial evidence for the proposition that the White House sees the vote as purely advisory, i.e., meaningless.

Recall how - in one of most overlooked bad acts of the Obama administration - the House of Representatives actually voted, overwhelmingly, against authorizing the US war in Libya, and yet Obama simply ignored the vote and proceeded to prosecute the war anyway (just as Clinton did when the House rejected the authorization he wanted to bomb Kosovo, though, at least there, Congress later voted to allocate funds for the bombing campaign). 

And then he gives us this nugget:

There are few things more bizarre than watching people advocate that another country be bombed even while acknowledging that it will achieve no good outcomes other than safeguarding the "credibility" of those doing the bombing. Relatedly, it's hard to imagine a more potent sign of a weak, declining empire than having one's national "credibility" depend upon periodically bombing other countries. 

Palestinian Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church on Syria and U.S. intervention

Via the Catholic Herald:

In a statement published on the patriarchate’s website, Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal pleaded with the United States and its allies to be cautious and think again before taking any military action. 

“Our friends in the West and the United States have not been attacked by Syria,” he said. “With what legitimacy do they dare attack a country? Who appointed them as ‘policemen of democracy’ in the Middle East?” 

“Why declare war when UN experts have not yet delivered the definitive findings on the chemical nature of the attack and the formal identity of its agents?” the patriarch asked. “We witness here a logic reminiscent of the Iraq war preparation in 2003. Do not repeat the ‘comedy’ of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq when there were none.”

So add Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal to the list of moral leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and former Congressman Ron Paul who have recognized the United States Government as some sort of international "policeman." (click italics for videos)

The Nation's Phyllis Bennis on the pending illegal U.S. military action in Syria

Via Phyllis Bennis of The Nation:

But what we’re hearing now is that the model under consideration for a US military strike on Syria would be that of Kosovo. Remember that one, back in 1999, at the end of the Bosnia war? That time, knowing it was impossible to get Security Council agreement for an air war against Serbia over the disputed enclave of Kosovo, the US and its allies simply announced that they would get their international permission slip somewhere else. That would be the NATO high command. What a surprise, the NATO generals agreed with their respective presidents and prime ministers, and said, sure, we think it’s a great idea. The problem is, the UN Charter is very clear on what constitutes a legal use of military force—and permission from NATO isn’t on that very short list. If the Security Council does not say yes, and there is no legal claim of immediate self-defense (which even the US isn’t claiming regarding Syria), any use or threat of use of military force is illegal. Period. Full stop. Claiming that NATO or someone else said it was okay isn’t part of international law—the air war was illegal in Kosovo, and it would be illegal in Syria.

Video: Obama's Syrian rebels are practicing cannibalism

Remember, Mitt Romney said he would work to organize and arm Syrian rebels 'who share our values' back in 2012 when he was running for President.

Terence P. Jeffrey on the role of secular, messianic foreign policies in pushing Christians out of Middle East

Via Terry Jeffrey of CNSNews.com:

.....In our time, Christianity could be driven from some of the lands where it first took root.

If that dark and epochal moment comes, some of the blame for it must be pinned on the messianic foreign policies pursued by our most recent two presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
.....[Bush] expressed his evangelical zeal for this secular cause in his second inaugural address.

Video: Woman in Irish Parliament takes Obama to the woodshed

She criticizes the American president for wanting to arm Syrian rebels which have terrorist elements in them.

Question of Principle: How Does Obama's Statement on Israel Square With the Drone Policy?

Which version do  you like better? I couldn't decide.

Version 1:

On November 18, 2012 President Obama said: "And there’s no country on Earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders." So how does that square with President Obama's policy of drone strikes in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen especially since U.S. drone strikes have killed innocent civilians in those countries alongside militant? Does the white house think that Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen should tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from the U.S.?

Version 2:

On November 18, 2012 President Obama said:"And there’s no country on Earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders. So we are fully supportive of Israel’s right to defend itself from missiles landing on people’s homes and workplaces and potentially killing civilians. " So how does that square with President Obama's policy of drone strikes in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen especially since U.S. drone strikes have killed innocent civilians in those countries alongside militant? Does the white house think that Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen should tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from the U.S.?