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DTomlinson
DTomlinson's Journal
DTomlinson's Journal
February 1, 2021
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/31/opinion/trans-rights-biden-states.html
Republicans in state legislatures to transgender youth: drop dead.
Excellent op-ed in the NYT by Jennifer Finney Boylan.
With the coronavirus raging, the economy shattered and white supremacy on the rise, Republican legislators have pushed to the top of their agenda young queer people trying to live their lives safely, and in peace.
Transgender youth — surely the most vulnerable of the already vulnerable L.G.B.T.Q. community — are the target. On the day after the election, Ryan T. Anderson, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, lamented to The Washington Post, “On the same day he called for healing and unity, President Joe Biden signed a radical divisive transgender executive order that threatens the privacy and safety of women in single-sex facilities, equality and fairness in single-sex sports, and good medicine based on the reality that males and females are biologically different.”
This would be the now-familiar conservative canard that granting equal rights to queer people somehow endangers the womenfolk. Is now a good moment to point out, once again, that more Republican congressmen have been busted for inappropriate behavior in public restrooms than trans women?
Transgender youth — surely the most vulnerable of the already vulnerable L.G.B.T.Q. community — are the target. On the day after the election, Ryan T. Anderson, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, lamented to The Washington Post, “On the same day he called for healing and unity, President Joe Biden signed a radical divisive transgender executive order that threatens the privacy and safety of women in single-sex facilities, equality and fairness in single-sex sports, and good medicine based on the reality that males and females are biologically different.”
This would be the now-familiar conservative canard that granting equal rights to queer people somehow endangers the womenfolk. Is now a good moment to point out, once again, that more Republican congressmen have been busted for inappropriate behavior in public restrooms than trans women?
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/31/opinion/trans-rights-biden-states.html
February 1, 2021
Here's what those patriotic, pro-Constitution Republicans think of our system of government.
January 27, 2021
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/aramroston/mercenaries-assassination-us-yemen-uae-spear-golan-dahlan
Remember, the UAE, and specifically Mohammed Bin Zayed, is close to MBS. Jared Kushner and Trump were close to both. Were any of them "in on it" re: the premeditated murder of Khashoggi? What did they know and when?
UAE hired former US soldiers to kill its political enemies (Buzzfeed, October 16, 2018).
The operation against (Islah leader Anssaf Ali Mayo) — which was reported at the time but until now was not known to have been carried out by American mercenaries — marked a pivot point in the war in Yemen, a brutal conflict that has seen children starved, villages bombed, and epidemics of cholera roll through the civilian population. The bombing was the first salvo in a string of unsolved assassinations that killed more than two dozen of the group’s leaders.
The company that hired the soldiers and carried out the attack is Spear Operations Group, incorporated in Delaware and founded by Abraham Golan, a charismatic Hungarian Israeli security contractor who lives outside of Pittsburgh. He led the team’s strike against Mayo.
“There was a targeted assassination program in Yemen,” he told BuzzFeed News. “I was running it. We did it. It was sanctioned by the UAE within the coalition.”
The company that hired the soldiers and carried out the attack is Spear Operations Group, incorporated in Delaware and founded by Abraham Golan, a charismatic Hungarian Israeli security contractor who lives outside of Pittsburgh. He led the team’s strike against Mayo.
“There was a targeted assassination program in Yemen,” he told BuzzFeed News. “I was running it. We did it. It was sanctioned by the UAE within the coalition.”
The revelations that a Middle East monarchy hired Americans to carry out assassinations comes at a moment when the world is focused on the alleged murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi Arabia, an autocratic regime that has close ties to both the US and the UAE. (The Saudi Embassy in the US did not respond to a request for comment. Riyadh has denied it killed Khashoggi, though news reports suggest it is considering blaming his death on a botched interrogation.)
Golan said that during his company’s months-long engagement in Yemen, his team was responsible for a number of the war’s high-profile assassinations, though he declined to specify which ones. He argued that the US needs an assassination program similar to the model he deployed. “I just want there to be a debate,” he said. “Maybe I’m a monster. Maybe I should be in jail. Maybe I’m a bad guy. But I’m right.”
Golan said that during his company’s months-long engagement in Yemen, his team was responsible for a number of the war’s high-profile assassinations, though he declined to specify which ones. He argued that the US needs an assassination program similar to the model he deployed. “I just want there to be a debate,” he said. “Maybe I’m a monster. Maybe I should be in jail. Maybe I’m a bad guy. But I’m right.”
The deal that brought American mercenaries to the streets of Aden was hashed out over a lunch in Abu Dhabi, at an Italian restaurant in the officers’ club of a UAE military base. Golan and a chiseled former US Navy SEAL named Isaac Gilmore had flown in from the US to make their pitch. It did not, as Gilmore recalled, begin well.
Their host was Mohammed Dahlan, the fearsome former security chief for the Palestinian Authority. In a well-tailored suit, he eyed his mercenary guests coldly and told Golan that in another context they’d be trying to kill each other.
Their host was Mohammed Dahlan, the fearsome former security chief for the Palestinian Authority. In a well-tailored suit, he eyed his mercenary guests coldly and told Golan that in another context they’d be trying to kill each other.
BuzzFeed News was unable to verify parts of Golan’s biography, including his military service, but Gilmore and another US special operations veteran who has been with him in the field said it’s clear he has soldiering experience. He is considered competent, ruthless, and calculating, said the former CIA official. He’s “prone to exaggeration,” said another former CIA officer, but “for crazy shit he’s the kind of guy you hire.”
Dahlan, who did not respond to multiple messages sent through associates, grew up in a refugee camp in Gaza, and during the 1980s intifada he became a major political player. In the ’90s he was named the Palestinian Authority’s head of security in Gaza, overseeing a harsh crackdown on Hamas in 1995 and 1996. He later met President George W. Bush and developed strong ties to the CIA, meeting the agency’s director, George Tenet, several times. Dahlan was once touted as a possible leader of the Palestinian Authority, but in 2007 he fell from grace, accused by the Palestinian Authority of corruption and by Hamas of cooperating with the CIA and Israel.
A man without a country, he fled to the UAE. There he reportedly remade himself as a key adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, or MBZ, known as the true ruler of Abu Dhabi. The former CIA officer who knows Dahlan said, “The UAE took him in as their pit bull.”
A man without a country, he fled to the UAE. There he reportedly remade himself as a key adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, or MBZ, known as the true ruler of Abu Dhabi. The former CIA officer who knows Dahlan said, “The UAE took him in as their pit bull.”
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/aramroston/mercenaries-assassination-us-yemen-uae-spear-golan-dahlan
Remember, the UAE, and specifically Mohammed Bin Zayed, is close to MBS. Jared Kushner and Trump were close to both. Were any of them "in on it" re: the premeditated murder of Khashoggi? What did they know and when?
January 6, 2021
Thank you Georgia!
January 3, 2021
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-admin-offered-700m-911-victims-save-sudan/story?id=74672919
Trump admin offered to pay off 9/11 families suing foreign governments - with US tax dollars.
So brazen! The NERVE!
In a last-minute pitch to save President Donald Trump's deal with Sudan, the Trump administration offered to pay victims of the Sept. 11 attacks $700 million of U.S. funds to drop their pursuit of claims against the African country, according to two sources familiar with the negotiations.
In response, lawyers for the 9/11 claimants said they wanted as much as $4 billion, a steep price the administration and Senate Republicans rejected, sources said.
.........
Sudan has been found liable for harboring the al Qaeda operatives responsible for the embassy attacks in Kenya and Tanzania. But it has not been found to have a role in 9/11, making the administration offer of hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars more extraordinary.
...Schumer and Menendez offered two changes to U.S. law that would strengthen 9/11 claims under either the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, or FSIA, or the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, or JASTA.
"All our 9/11 clients are asking for is preservation of their ability to prove their claims in court and, when they receive judgments, to be able to enforce those judgments under the law," said Dennis Pantazis, the lead attorney for a group of 9/11 widows.
But the Trump administration rejected those because they would violate the Sudan deal....
The administration has also opposed Menendez and Schumer's proposal because it would strengthen 9/11 claims against Saudi Arabia, a key partner on Trump foreign policy that the administration is still lobbying to recognize Israel in some way, joining the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.
That effort, known as the Abraham Accords, has been driving Trump foreign policy, with Trump trading Israeli recognition for his unprecedented sale of armed drones and F-35 elite fighter jets to the United Arab Emirates and...U.S. recognition of Morocco's control of the disputed territory Western Sahara.
In response, lawyers for the 9/11 claimants said they wanted as much as $4 billion, a steep price the administration and Senate Republicans rejected, sources said.
.........
Sudan has been found liable for harboring the al Qaeda operatives responsible for the embassy attacks in Kenya and Tanzania. But it has not been found to have a role in 9/11, making the administration offer of hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars more extraordinary.
...Schumer and Menendez offered two changes to U.S. law that would strengthen 9/11 claims under either the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, or FSIA, or the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, or JASTA.
"All our 9/11 clients are asking for is preservation of their ability to prove their claims in court and, when they receive judgments, to be able to enforce those judgments under the law," said Dennis Pantazis, the lead attorney for a group of 9/11 widows.
But the Trump administration rejected those because they would violate the Sudan deal....
The administration has also opposed Menendez and Schumer's proposal because it would strengthen 9/11 claims against Saudi Arabia, a key partner on Trump foreign policy that the administration is still lobbying to recognize Israel in some way, joining the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.
That effort, known as the Abraham Accords, has been driving Trump foreign policy, with Trump trading Israeli recognition for his unprecedented sale of armed drones and F-35 elite fighter jets to the United Arab Emirates and...U.S. recognition of Morocco's control of the disputed territory Western Sahara.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-admin-offered-700m-911-victims-save-sudan/story?id=74672919
January 2, 2021
Trump is a LOSER. One-term. Lost the popular vote both times.
Fucking LOSER. He’s always been, and he always will be.
If Republicans want to keep defending Donald Trump the LOSER, then they are LOSERS too.
January 2, 2021
Because there was so much justified opposition to him.
That’s what they - and he, of course - can’t stand.
He got fewer votes than Hillary and Joe. He won because of very narrow margins in key swing states with the help of Russian interference, the Comey Letter, third party votes, and Republican voter suppression. The legitimacy of Trump’s Presidency was obviously tainted and suspect.
And worst of all, from their point of view..
Americans (and the world) as a whole still love two-term President Barack Obama far more than they’ll ever love the one-term, forever impeached criminal fraud. That drives them absolutely mad.
January 2, 2021
They see everything as zero-sum.
If Black people and other POC benefit from anything,
whites have to lose out.
If poor and working class people benefit from anything, rich people and upper middle class people have to lose out.
If immigrants benefit from anything, native-born citizens have to lose out.
If women benefit from anything, men have to lose out.
If gay and lesbian folks benefit from anything, straight folks have to lose out.
If trans people benefit from anything, cis people have to lose out.
And on and fucking on.
Conservatives can’t possibly imagine a world in which everyone benefits. It’s always either/or, Us or Them, good God-fearing conservatives vs evil liberals and lefties. Obviously, that’s an incredibly toxic mentality.
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