Immoral Senate votes down resolutions to end US weapons fueling Israel’s genocide in Gaza

 

Immoral Senate votes down resolutions to end US weapons fueling Israel’s genocide in Gaza

 

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) tried but failed to pass his 3 Joint Resolutions of Disapproval (JRD) aimed ending billions in US weapons used by Israel to obliterate habitable life for 2,300,000 Palestinians in Gaza.

 

Sanders and fellow Independent Angus King of Maine were joined by 17 Democrats hoping to persuade President Biden to stop violating the Leahy Law which forbids sending US weapons to states or groups committing war crimes, human rights violations and ghoulishly, genocide. The vote was engineered by a small contingent of moral Democrats to send a message to Biden they’re growing weary of shoveling over $20 billion in weaponry to assist Israel committing the worst genocide this century. They also heeded the 77% of pre-election Democratic voters who want an end to all US weapons to Israel.

 

Republican senators wanted no part of following the Leahy Law to extinguish the flames of genocide devouring Gaza. They all voted the resolutions down.

 

Kudos to my Illinois Senator Dick Durbin who voted for all 3 resolutions. Raspberries to my Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth who voted to keep the weapons train rolling into Israel in spite of opposition from virtually the entire civilized world save for Israel and America.

 

Biden worked feverishly to defeat the resolutions. He’s determined to end his presidency an unabashed, morally degraded enabler of genocide. Trump may be even more ravenous is supplying weaponry to Israel come January 20. But at the rate Biden is going, all the Palestinians in Gaza may be dead and gone by then.

US one shy of becoming an Ace in blocking genocide ceasefire resolutions in UN

 

US one shy of becoming an Ace in blocking genocide ceasefire resolutions in UN

For the fourth time since the US enabled Israeli genocide in Gaza, the US vetoed a genocide ceasefire resolution in the UN Security Council.

 

The resolution passed overwhelmingly 14-1 as Uncle Sam enticed no Security Council partners to help him continue the genocide.

 

But he didn’t need any since the US, as one of 5 permanent members, has veto power to prevent any such resolution from passing.

 

Algerian Ambassador Amar Bendjama who voted for the ceasefire, blasted the US veto: “Today’s message is clear to the Israeli occupying power: First you may continue your genocide. You may continue your collective punishment of the Palestinian people with complete impunity. In this chamber, you enjoy immunity.” 

 

 In aerial combat, a pilot who downs 5 enemy planes is called an Ace of the Air. With America’s fifth soon to occur veto , America can be called an Ace…of Genocide.

Cubs hold MLB record for most players shot by disturbed women

 

Cubs hold MLB record for most players shot by disturbed women

Could this have happened in any other city but Chicago?

The Cubs have had 2 players (one ex) shot by young women in hotel rooms near Wrigley Field in the space of 17 years. That’s just one less than Cubs’ 3 World Series Wins.

On July 6, 1932, 21 year old Violet Popovich, a burlesque, performer, shot star Cub shortstop Billy Jurges. Popovich, apparently upset Billy was breaking up with her, barged into his Hotel Carlos room and pulled out a .25 caliber pistol. In the struggle both were wounded and wound up in Illinois Masonic Hospital…but not in the same room. Violet’s wound was superficial but Jurges was lucky to be alive. The bullet bounced off a rib, just missing his liver.

Arrested for attempted murder, Violet walked as the noble Billy refused to press charges. He claimed she was going to shoot herself in grief when he grabbed the gun from her setting off the fireworks. But a letter Violet penned shortly before implied murder-suicide.

Jurges recovered quickly, rejoining the Cubbies just 16 days later. He even got to see another shot….Babe Ruth’s ‘Called Shot’ in the ’32 World Series. He went on to a lifelong baseball career becoming in instructor and Boston Red Sox manager after his 17 year career. He died in 1997 at 88, largely unaffected by shooting 65 years earlier.

Fast forward 17 years. Former Cub star Eddie Waitkus, who’d been traded to the Phillies after the 1948 season, arrived back in Chi Town on June 14, 1949, to face his former teammates. Late that night he was given a note by the bellboy to visit the room of a woman on an “urgent matter.” Waitkus was greeted by 19 year Ruth Ann Stein Hagen, who plugged Eddie in the chest with a .22 caliber rifle. Then she called the desk clerk to report “I’ve shot a man.”

 Steinhagen was no jilted lover. She was a mentally deranged groupie, who had developed an obsession with Waitkus over the past 3 years when a Cub. She turned her room into a shrine for him with wall to wall photos and news stories, some even on the ceiling. Seeing him play frequently as a Cub appeared to keep her obsession in check. But his departure to Philly may have ignited an imaginary jilted lover syndrome like Violet’s real one.

Steinhagen was never prosecuted due to obvious mental illness. After 3 years of electroshock and hydrotherapy she was deemed cured, spending her last 60 years in obscurity in her parents’ Chicago home.

Waitkus wasn’t as lucky as Jurges. He nearly died on the operating table and missed the rest of the ’49 season. He did win the Comeback of the Year Award in ‘his stellar 1950 return, but quickly went downhill emotionally after his 1955 retirement, dying at just 53 in 1973.

The Waitkus shooting gained immortality, serving as the inspiration for Bernard Malamud’s 1952 novel ‘The Natural’ and even more so by the 1964 Robert Redford film version.

The Jurges shooting was quickly forgotten and largely ignored in any Cubs history discussion. Popovich actually exploited her notoriety, assuming the stage name Violet Lilly, ‘The girl who shot for love.’ Her new burlesque review appearing in the Loop was ‘Bare Cub Follies ‘

You cannot make that up.

1923, not 1933, a better Hitler reference for Trump’s return to power

 

1923, not 1933, a better Hitler reference for Trump’s return to power

 

Trump is no Hitler. Not even close.

 

But many are viewing his second presidency with alarm, saying it hearkens back to the rule of Adolph Hitler.

 

They say he’s consolidating his reelection power to usher in unprecedented authoritarian, anti-democratic rule beginning January 20. Selecting cabinet members without confirmation using recess appointments, threatening to rescind non-profit status of unfavorable groups, hinting at using military to fling 11 million undocumented souls back over the southern border, are but a few they mention.

 

They claim Trump is mimicking Hitler’s ascension as German Chancellor in 1933, after which he systematically purged Germany its Democratic institutions to consolidate total power.

Believe it’s more helpful in understanding Trump’s appeal to go back 10 years earlier to Hitler’s first foray into taking over government: his 1923 Beer Hall Putsch.

 

Hitler and Trump both sought power and failed thru an attempted coup. Big difference was Hitler, an outsider, used his attempted coup to gain power in Bavaria, while Trump instigated his to overthrow his election defeat to remain in power.

 

Both riled up their respective mobs, promising to lead them to victory. But only Hitler marched into the melee with his while Trump retreated to White House safety. 14 of Hitler’s thugs were shot to death including a huge bodyguard protecting Hitler. 4 cops also died.

 

Trumps coup killed 4 rioters that day, 3 from health issues, 1 from lead poisoning, trying to get at congresspersons conducting their most sacred governmental duty. But over 100 cops were injured with one dying the next day from injuries. 4 more committed suicide in the weeks and months following.

 

Hitler fled the failed coup hiding out for 2 days before being arrested for treason. Trump, remained safely ensconced in the White House for 2 weeks then for two and a half years at Mar-a Lago before being indicted on 4 counts of seeking to overturn his election defeat.

 

But the courts intervened for both to keep them alive politically to rule again. In January 1924 Germany issued the Emminger Reform, an emergency decree that abolished the jury, replacing it with a judge and lay judges. The lay judges, all Hitler supporters, called for his immediate release but were overruled by the presiding judge. ,

 

Found guilty, Hitler could have received a life sentence, possibly even execution. But pro Hitler sentiment garnered him just five years of which he served a measly 8 months in a country club prison with no work and countless Nazi visitors.

 

Trump got off even easier. Backed by a favorable Supreme Court he packed in his first term, Trump became essentially immune from prosecution, likely never to spend a day in the clink for committing the worst crime any citizen, much less leader can commit.

 

Both exploited their attempted jailing to rev up their idolatrous base to achieve power. Hitler used his opportunity to defend himself at trial charging “The Weimar Republic has given the German people nothing but misery and despair. It is time for new order to save the nation from utter ruin.” Trump echoed Hitler’s “misery and despair” as brilliantly as Hitler 101 years earlier to win reelection.

 

History may not repeat itself but sometimes rhymes. Case in point: Hitler 1923, Trump 2021.

Is Biden approaching his Cody Jarrett moment?

 

Is Biden approaching his Cody Jarrett moment?

President Joe Biden, with 63 days to go till retirement, just made a decision possibly worse than any made by his 45 predecessors. He greenlighted Ukraine to use long range US missiles to strike deep into Russia. The Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), which have a range of up to 190 miles, are fired by US-made multiple rocket launch systems, including the HIMARS.

But Ukraine military cannot fire the ATACMS without the US providing target coordinates. That would represent direct US attacks on Russia using Ukraine proxies to fire them. President Putin make clear this risks nuclear war. He went further and revised Russian nuclear strategy to declare that any nuclear power supplying and supporting attacks on Russian soil by a non-nuclear state as putting that nuclear state at war with Russia.

Knowing his proxy war against Russia is a lost cause, Biden has apparently become delusionally reckless with Mother Earth. A month ago Biden blinked when UK PM Starmer came calling to greenlight direct Ukraine strikes on Russia with long range UK missiles. He heeded Putin’s warnings, likely avoiding nuclear war then.

What’s changed? Has he become so mentally degraded he cannot comprehend the enormity of his destructive decision? Is he terrified about losing another war in his last year after Afghanistan in his first year?

Biden has spent his entire 52 year public career promoting America’s self-proclaimed role as the world’s only indispensable nation. Biden’s lifelong credo is: America…top of the world.

 

That calls to mind Jimmy Cagney playing psychotic killer Cody Jarret in the 1950 crime classic ‘White Heat.’ Jarrett, who was always seeking to get ‘top of the world, ended up screaming “Top of the world, Ma” as he fired a bullet into the gas tank he was standing on, blowing up himself and everyone around.

If the nukes do go off from Biden’s descent into madness, I can imagine his last words being ‘Top of the world, America.’

This is one time we should all hope life does not imitate art.