The many ways in which the United States financially props up Israel

According to Antiwar.com, the American taxpayers are financially propping up Israel in ways downplayed by the media of both the U.S. and Israel:

In the past 10 years alone, Americans have given Israel the equivalent of approximately $200,000 per Israeli family of five. In addition, there have been weapons subsidies, loan forgiveness programs, special trade preferences, and other generous gifts from American taxpayers to Israel. In fact, despite being one of the world’ smallest nations, Israel receives more U.S. tax money than any other country.

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Republican Eric Cantor is dishonest and heartless

Republican US House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) has made his position absolutely clear on aid to the stricken victims of Hurricane Irene; any funds spent on disaster relief will have to be offset by cuts from other areas of federal spending. In an absolutely alien way, Mr. Cantor has claimed that the current budget and debt “crisis” requires that any monies spent for disaster relief must be offset by cuts in the budget elsewhere. I suggest any aid to Virginia’s 7th Congressional District, which spawned Mr. Cantor, be moved to the top of that list. Just because the media in Virginia’s 7th have described the disaster as the worst ever to hit the area is no reason to have any sympathy for any of Mr. Cantor’s constituents, eh? Oops, that would make me a heartless bastard like Cantor! Even the banksters that have screwed the economic pooch with their sub-prime mortgage greed have more of a heart than Mr. Cantor and are waiving some fees and charges after Irene. And see here and here. Now Mr. Cantor says he never suggested that disaster relief funds be delayed because of any debt or budget concerns! NJ Republican Governor Chris Christie is having none of that; “Our people are suffering now and they need help now. And they can all go back down there and get back to work and figure out budget cuts later.” Clearly, for a small minority of the US House Republican majority, the political goals of long term deficit reduction outweigh any other concerns, even life threatening concerns. There will not be an end to the political gridlock and conflict in Washington until those elected officials in Washington who are more dedicated to narrow ideology than the well being of all Americans are gone.

Continue ReadingRepublican Eric Cantor is dishonest and heartless

Alan Grayson reports on U.S. waste and fraud in the Middle East

I received this mass-email today from Alan Grayson. Within this email you will find numbers that are staggering, numbers that make a compelling argument that the U.S. military presence in the Middle East is utterly immoral:

Dear Erich: Yesterday, the Commission on Wartime Contracting released itsfinal report. The Commission reported that between $31 billion and $62 billion of the tax money spent on contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan has been wasted.  It also said that between $10 billion and $19 billion of what contractors billed and received was fraudulent.  In fact, $360 million of our tax dollars went straight to . . . the Taliban. Wow.  Who could have imagined that? Well . . . me. When I saw that the Bush Administration was doing nothing about fraud in Iraq, I revived a law going back to the Civil War that allowed whistleblowers to bring lawsuits in the name of the U.S. Government.  I filed case after case, which were promptly greeted by the Bush Administration with gag orders – gag orders that they kept in place for years.  They didn’t want any more bad news coming out of Iraq. So I went on CNN, spoke to the New York Times and the Washington Post, and told America whatever I could say without violating those gag orders.  And when the Bush Administration finally let one case out from under those gag orders – and declined to prosecute it – I took that case to trial, and won a $14 million judgment.  It was the third-largest judgment for whistleblowers in the 143-year history of that law. Those contractors built bases without hooking up the plumbing.  A general testified that when he went there, he felt like throwing up. The Wall Street Journal reported in a front-page article that I was “waging a one-man war against contractor fraud in Iraq.” The national organization Taxpayers Against Fraud named me “Lawyer of the Year.”  And people started to think, “what is going on over there?” [More . . . ]

Continue ReadingAlan Grayson reports on U.S. waste and fraud in the Middle East

Republican candidates beckon us to the gloomy future

"Vote for Me because we are in the End Times!" That is the battle cry of several prominent Republican candidates. Matt Taibbi comments:

The Christian candidates are also influenced by rapture theology. Both Bachmann (who once led a Rapture-ready “We are in the last days” prayer ) and Perry (who famously has a relationship with my old pal John Hagee Perhaps America’s most powerful Rapture/End Times preacher) have dabbled seriously in Left Behind belief systems, under which the righteous will be whisked away to heaven just before God comes down to earth to kick ass and dispense justice to unbelievers via End-of-World troubles like wars and natural disasters. All of this helps explain why Republican rhetoric in this election season often coincides with eerie frequency with End-Times preachery. If you want to see what either of the two apocalypse-merchant wings of the Republican Party will be squawking about tomorrow, all you have to do is check to see what End Times fanatics are freaking out about today.
Rapture-talk is nothing new for conservatives, many of whom flock to gatherings where they are warned that the end of the world is imminent; I attended one of these gatherings myself--led by conservative radio talk show host "Doctor" Larry Bates. And as Max Blumenthal revealed a few years ago, prominent Republicans have long worked hard to formulate U.S. foreign policy relating to the Middle East based on End Times theology. If you're having trouble understanding the fine points of what the End Times will be, review this diagram. Or this one from Truth in Love. Or this one. It's apparently more complicated than pro football offensive play diagrams. Did I hear someone say church and state?  Amen to that!  We might not be living in the End Times, but we do seem to be living in Crazy times.

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Is it Spam or is it Poe?

I came back from a weekend getaway, and my inbox had a large number of messages from some group I'd never heard of, the Nation of Change. I was suspicious, especially given my recent unsolicited addition to the Christian Coalition mailing list. Also they were using an email contact that has been dormant for a decade that they could only have found by scanning whois data or buying some old spammer contact lists. I was curious enough to read one of their messages. It appeared to be some sort of addled parody of a liberal call to action newsletter. I immediately did some Googling to try to confirm my suspicion that it was a conservative group attempting to make liberals seem a) Loonier than thou, and b) Abrasive and annoying by pushing subscriptions on undesiring readers. The clearest description I found was, "Nation of Change", who are you and why are you spamming me? at the Daily KOS. In essence, this organization is a fairly new web site with stealthed contact information. They claim to be a legitimate registered not-for-profit, but one cannot look up their bona fides anywhere to confirm it. Although they don't appear to break any laws in their published documents, they do violate several BBB standards. Read the KOS article for more details. But I could not actually confirm that this is a conservative group posing as liberal in order to sow dissension and disaffection. As with religion and Poe's Law, it can be hard to tell sincere political extremism from parody. But this one trips my irony meter.

Continue ReadingIs it Spam or is it Poe?