This is serious folks…as we speak – Israel is unleashing holy hell on the Gaza strip

December 31, 2008 · Posted in Featured, Government, Social Issues, The World, Things to think about, Topic Blogs · Comment 

This is one of those new topics that is so steeped in history and the subject of so many diplomatic shortfalls and small victorys, I don’t know where to begin.  The region and this conflict has become saturated into our very being over the last 30 years.  If there is one lasting reminder of the ongoing struggle to co-exist peacefully in the world, it’s the Israeli and Palestinian struggle.  A struggle that seems to be ever resilient to peace dealings, treaties, ceasefires, and international law.

The modern day Israeli- Palestinian conflict that we know has been active since right after WWI.  To keep this short and sweet, essentially the area known as Gaza was ruled by the Ottomans, or the present day Turks for centuries.   The British defeated the Ottoman army and freed up this entire region.  In a nutshell again, land was promised to the Jews and to the Arabs in a series of agreements, treaties, orders, declarations, all of which obviously don’t hold merit.  So we have two rival factions of Arabs and Jews staking their claim to an area of land seen sacred in both of their people’s history.  Trust me, this is an entire semester of history wrapped into like three sentences.

No matter the history, I think it’s safe to say that Israel has reached a point of no return.   I really have no desire to dig deeper into this issue as it gets way to complicated.  We are dealing with militants, rival factions within the Palestinian people themselves, international peace accords that have no bearing on the region, agreements reached between PLO and Israeli leaders over 15 years ago that have not held strong, basically it’s a horrible situation that no one or two super power governments can remedy. 

The US is just a part of this conflict as those directly involved, we provide billions of dollars in military and civilian aid to Israel, and we have taken very strong stances against those countries who seek out the anniliation of Israel.  All in all, I hate to see the year end with the tension building momemtum as it has in the last week or so.  Israel is a very powerful nation who is loathed by most Arab Middle Eastern countries…this is a scary situation that Americans need to pay some mind too.   The region has been at war for years but we have never seen such a barrage of non-stop devastion by the Israelis like this in recent years.  This is a planned, strategic based offensive which needs to be taken seriously.  The Israeli goverment means business this time and we need to be well aware of the outcome.  At least keep yourself abreast of the daily situation.

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I am really not sure what to do now, Turd Blossom and I agree on something

October 31, 2008 · Posted in Personal Blogs, Political Figures, Political Issues, Politics, RNC, Things to think about · 1 Comment 

I think its really spooky and could just be a Halloween trick, but I just watched a video that relates to another post about Sarah Palin going over the edge and I was making all kinds of bullet points that help prove my point when I saw it.

Karl Rove agreed with me.  At 2:23 it happens. He says sure it might be a good tactic but its way too late in the process to try to Obama’s ‘known associations’ against him now. I’m in a state of shock and denial.

Oh yeah, and that latest known associate Palin tried to turn into a rally point? McCain helped fund an organization for which Khalidi was a (known) founder.  I wonder if someone forgot to tell her or she just thought it was good to get Obama’s known relationship out there. That again goes to my point to stick to the talking point this late in the game.

For reference on McCain’s known involvement with this questionable person of interest, check out the group, on which McCain sat on the Board of Directors, The International Republican Institute’s financial statement, page 14, line item West Bank, CPRS. Yes, that is over $400,000 given to that group.



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Grasping at straws or going down swinging?

October 29, 2008 · Posted in People in the news, Political Figures, Political Issues · 4 Comments 

Over the course of this week, I have read several articles that describe the Republican candidate for Vice President as ‘going rogue’, ‘going off topic’, or ‘pushing her own agenda’.  I’ve read many of these reports and perhaps because I’ve never seen one her stump speeches in its entirety, I’ve fallen victim to the media’s ability to provide selective reporting, but I’ve been given the impression that Mrs. Palin is pushing the envelope on maturity.

Today she accused Obama of having ties to an extremist professor who she says was a high-ranking PLO spokesperson.  Her quote:

“It seems that there is yet another radical professor from the neighborhood who spent a lot of time with Barack Obama going back several years,” Palin said at an event in Bowling Green, Ohio.

“This is important because his associate, Rashid Khalidi … in addition to being a political ally of Barack Obama, he’s a former spokesperson for the Palestinian Liberation Organization.”

From CNN’s FactCheck: The Verdict: Misleading. While Khalidi eight years ago hosted a political fund-raiser for Obama, the two men strongly disagree over the Israeli-Palestinian issue and there’s no evidence of a continuing political relationship.

Of course we all remember a few weeks ago, she brought up Obama’s acquaintance William Ayers, claiming that he ‘pals around with known terrorists’.

She seems to be choosing some pretty strong language to get across a moot point. Being this late in the campaign process, spouting off these types of not-even-half-truths, to me,  seems less of an educational ’so you know’ discussion and more of a ten year old’s approach when caught doing bad. “Oh yeah!? Well he hangs out with the bad kids!”  Give us some credit, please. We’ve just endured YEARS of campaign rhetoric from both parties really going at their own during the primaries, and now here we are in the homestretch – we’re over the childish tactics. The undecided voters need to hear how her team is going to be better than the other guys and she’s surely not giving them that.

These seem to be such cheap, unvetted thoughts that, in my opinion are taking away any credibility she had earned through her short time on the campaign. I’m afraid she’s hurting herself, maybe not so much crying wolf, but just plain distracted. From the quotes being given to the news outlets, many of the McCain campaign staffers are not happy with the way she has been going off topic and getting fast and loose with the talking points.

I understand that she has to play the politics, but I think she would do her campaign more good by sticking to her team of Mavericks and keeping her hockey team inline.

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