Booker whiffs on most important right or wrong moment of his life

 

 

Booker whiffs on most important right or wrong moment of his life

On Monday, NJ Senator Cory Booker filibustered the Trump assault on American democracy for 25 hours. He’s being lauded by Democrats, progressives and those terrified by the deranged Trump agenda.

One of Booker’s soundbites being heralded is “This isn’t about a left or right moment. It’s about a right and wrong moment.”

Alas, Booker didn’t spend 25 minutes, not even 25 seconds on the critically important right or wrong moment he got to vote on 3 days later. Like he did last November, Booker joined all but 15 of his Democratic colleagues to vote down Bernie Sanders 2 Senate Joint Resolutions to quash the latest tranche of $8.8 billion in genocide weapons the US is sending to Israel.

In so doing Booker destroyed every vestige of his claim to represent responsible governance. Booker knows Israel is committing genocide in Gaza in their quest to kill or remove every one of the 2,300,000 Palestinians (less the hundred thousand or so already dead) from Gaza to add to Greater Israel. He knows the genocide would be impossible without the roughly $30 billion in US weapons Israel uses to wipe out every vestige of life in Gaza.

Senator Booker’s astonishing filibuster has likely vaulted him near the top of potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidates. And to remain viable, Booker has booked support from the most critical element of US electoral viability…the Israel Lobby.

DuPage County completes Red to Blue revolution

 

DuPage County completes Red to Blue revolution 

 

It used to be when there were contested races in DuPage County local elections, Republicans would win nearly very one if not everyone.

 

But it’s not an April Fool’s joke that on April 1, Democrats won 49 of 49 contested local races in DuPage County. That puts an astonishing period on the statement launched 19 years ago by the tiny DuPage Democratic Party: Turn DuPage Blue.

 

How did this happen? Several reasons. Highly qualified, highly motivated candidates. Millions of steps engaging voters at the door on issues of urgent concern. Possibly 2 unintended allies….Donald J. Trump and Elon Musk.

Miclaucic’s “Cognitive War” is simply renaming ‘Propaganda War’

 

Miclaucic’s “Cognitive War” is simply renaming ‘Propaganda War’

Michael Miclaucic’s Chicago Tribune op-ed “The West is losing the cognitive war with Russia and China” is hyperbolic nonsense

Ask a hundred folks who study US foreign relations what ‘cognitive war’ is and you’ll likely draw a hundred blanks.

Yet, esteemed foreign policy educator/journalist Michael Miclaucic spends nearly a thousand words trying to convince Trib readers there is such a thing as cognitive war and that America is ominously losing this war to China and Russia in the real war for world domination.

Miclaucic defines it as “the strategic manipulation of information and redirection of perception for the purpose of waging war and achieving war goals.” That is simply propaganda, a nation putting its best foot forward in defining its actions and goals in the world stage. And it has been around since the first peoples began waring with each other thousands of years ago.

Miclaucic posits US foreign policy is just fine but that we’re losing this propaganda war to “sworn enemies Russia and China.”

He’s wrong on both points. US foreign policy is not fine, it’s a mess. Enabling Israeli genocide in Gaza. Making the Russian invasion of Ukraine inevitable thru 23 years of NATO expansion onto Russia’s borders. Publicly proclaiming getting prepared for war with China. Sanctioning dozens of countries and likely thousands of foreign individuals simply for not buckling to our foreign policy demands.

Nor are Russia and China America’s sworn enemies. The former is pushing back against US adventurism with NATO expansion in Europe. The latter is responding to US ramping up possible war over Taiwan. Neither entanglement is connected to America’s true national security interests.

It’s not better messaging from China and Russia that has caused much of the world to withdraw from US unipolar dominance to join BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organization. It’s America’s bullying and belligerence worldwide marking the end of America as the world’s sole superpower.

Michael Miclaucic’s ominous warning of US decline harkens back 70 years ago when commentators screamed ‘The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming.’ Nothing much has changed for Miclaucic except now it’s ‘The Russians and Chinese are coming, the Russians and Chinese are coming.’  

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL

Why do so many leaders remain stupid about Ukraine war?

 

Why do so many leaders remain stupid about Ukraine war?

 

The 3 year long destruction of Ukraine should never have occurred.

 

Had leaders in the US, NATO and Ukraine simply used common sense, Ukraine would not be a shell of its former self before the February 24, 2022 Russian invasion that has largely destroyed it. Ukraine economy shattered. Hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded. Over 10 million fled. Over 45,000 square miles lost to Russia forever.

 

This occurred from massive stupidity by all the leaders in the countries involved.

The stupidity starts with US presidents going back to Bill Clinton. In 1999 he broke the deal with USSR/Russia that he would not expand NATO eastward to their borders. From 1999 thru 2023 US relentlessly doubled NATO from 16 to 32 members.

 

Reasons likely many but all stupid. Smart diplomats, historians and political scientists were aghast, declaring this would inevitably lead to a US Russian confrontation. It took 23 years but stupid presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden all stupidly succeeded into provoking Russia to attack.

 

Odd, but only Trump was not stupid enough to add to NATO during his first term. He was however incredibly stupid to begin arming the Kyiv neofascists to wipe out the Russian leaning Ukrainian separatists in Donbas. That, along with NATO expansion, ensured Russia would intervene.

 

Western European NATO giants England, France and Germany also took their stupidity cue from Uncle Sam. They were getting cheap energy from Russia but stupidly bowed to US demands to weaken, isolate Russia thru NATO expansion and Kyiv warfare on Donbas Ukrainians. They were cool with replacing cheap Russian gas with exorbitant US LNG. Now they’re economies are crumbing, allowing inroads from MAGA like political opponents. Incredibly, instead of telling Uncle Sam to take a hike, they’re stupidly planning to squander hundreds of billions of their vanishing treasure to keep the war going till they all collapse.

 

If we were awarding a Stupid Prize, it must go to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. The comedian turned politician campaigned for the Ukraine presidency on a platform of peace with the Donbas Ukrainians being brutalized by the Kyiv government. It got him elected with big majority of Donbas voters. Alas, Zelensky was too stupid to realize the Kyiv neofascists would never allow him to make peace with Donbas separatists they sought to destroy. To save his presidency, possibly even his life, Zelensky abandoned his voting base.

 

Zelensky even stupidly amassed 60,000 elite troops on the Donbas border in early 2022 to finish off his constituents there

 

All that achieved, along with stupidly begging NATO for membership, was to provoke the Russian invasion.

 

Once started, Zelensky became stupider and stupider. He wisely prepared to sign a peace deal with Russia in the first 2 months which would have ended the war without Ukraine losing a single square mile of territory. But Zelensky stupidly caved to stupid US and UK leaders who told him he could win with US/NATO weapons…but no troops. That stupidity sent Ukraine into failed state status.

 

Ukraine is now on the cusp of peace being negotiated 2 leaders, Trump and Putin, employing common sense instead of stupidity. But the US Democratic Party, Ukraine, UK, French, German and other NATO leadership remain mired in stupidity that this senseless war must continue till the last Ukrainian soldier is dead.

 

They all forget the first rule of sane, peaceful governance: Don’t do stupid.