sop
sop's Journal'We're Tired of Marco Rubio Speaking for Us: A New Cuban-American Movement'
"There has long been a particular image, a particular idea, of what it means to be Cuban American. You know it well: 'The Miami Cuban.' The man who’s opposed the communist policies in Cuba so much that he’s willing to go to war with the island, that he’s willing to bomb, and destroy. And this hyper-machismo image, along with intergenerational trauma in Cuban families, has been used for decades to push US policies against Cuba that do nothing but harm the people of the island. That harm our family, our friends, and a country that we deeply love."
"I’m tired of the extremist 'Miami Cuban' propaganda machine. I’m tired of the Marco Rubios and Ted Cruzes of this country claiming to speak for Cuban-Americans."
"I know, however varied our politics, what my family wants is this: We want the embargo to end. We want the cruel, inhumane oil blockade by the Trump regime to end. We want the current administration’s posturing toward war games and invasion to end. We want engagement, not escalation. We want friendship. We want trade. We want to gather with our families, watch béisbol, and drink cafecitos by the Malecón."
"Despite what the Marco Rubios, Maria Salazars, and Carlos Giménezes of the world try to tell people, this is what most Cubans in America want."
More at link:
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/new-cuban-american-movement
'This Should Be Illegal': Senate GOP Uses AI Deepfake to Attack Talarico
"In the latest example of Republicans using artificially generated deepfakes to attack their opponents, the Senate GOP’s official social media account has posted an attack ad depicting a synthetic version of Texas Democrat James Talarico, a state representative and US Senate candidate."
"The video, posted on Wednesday to the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) page on X, portrays a frighteningly realistic approximation of Talarico’s (D-50) appearance and voice."
"The state representative, who won the Democratic nomination for Texas’ US Senate seat in a primary earlier this month, is depicted reading an array of old social media posts that the NRSC described as 'extreme statements praising transgenderism, twisting Christian beliefs, and advocating for open borders.' "
Continued at link:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/gop-talarico-deepfake
'Officers who defended Capitol on Jan. 6 call plaque installation illegal'
(MS NOW) "You don’t have to be a lawyer to see why a plaque honoring officers who defended the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 was installed only after years of delay, at around 4 a.m. over the weekend. The Donald Trump-led Republican Party has no interest in promptly or fully honoring those who fought to repel the Trump-backed mob that day in 2021."
"Quite the opposite: A priority of Trump’s second term has been trying to erase that history...Yet the memorial’s belated, shady installation wasn’t only morally insufficient...It was legally insufficient, too."
"In the response to Friedrich’s question, Dunn and Hodges said the plaque’s installation — in the interior of a ground-floor entrance, where the public isn’t allowed — violated both the letter and the spirit of the law."
"As to the letter, they pointed out that the law requires the memorial to be displayed on the 'western front' of the Capitol, which, they maintained, means an exterior part of the building. Therefore, they argued, the installation 'in a part of the Capitol hidden from the public fails to comply' with the law. 'That Congress intended to install the plaque on the western exterior of the Capitol makes sense: that is both an area accessible to the general public, and the site of the most violent attacks on January 6, 2021,' they wrote."
More at link:
https://www.ms.now/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/jan-6-plaque-capitol-officers-lawsuit-dunn-hodges
'Of Course It Did: Trump Tantrum Led to Reversal on Law Firm Appeals'
(TPM) "In the madcap world of the Trump II White House, you knew that President Trump had to be the cause of last week’s humiliating DOJ reversal of its appeal in the law firm executive order cases. And now it’s confirmed."
"Within 24 hours, Pam Bondi’s Justice Department went from moving to drop its appeal of the four law firms cases it had lost to telling the appeals court … never mind."
"The reversal came after Trump blew his top upon learning from news reports that the administration would be dropping its appeals, according to the Wall Street Journal."
“ "I never signed off on that,' the WSJ quotes the president as saying in an Oval Office outburst over his displeasure with DOJ leaders."
"Trump then directed White House officials to tell the Justice Department to reverse itself, which White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed: 'At the president’s direction, the Department of Justice quickly amended this filing.' "
More at link:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo/of-course-it-did-trump-tantrum-led-to-reversal-on-law-firm-appeals
'A Sweaty Trump Gets No Applause'
"Donald Trump traveled to Kentucky to attack Rep. Thomas Massie - the Republican pushing for the release of the Epstein files."
"The rally was supposed to be a show of strength."
"Instead, it turned awkward. Fast."
"When Trump tried to rally the crowd about the Iran war and asked, 'We don’t want to leave early, do we?'
That’s when it happened. Silence. Groans."
Continued at link:
https://open.substack.com/pub/calltoactivism/p/a-sweaty-trump-gets-no-applause?r=r38w4&utm_medium=ios
Trump Makes 'Most Blase Admission of a War Crime by a US President in History'
"President Donald Trump said the US Navy chose to sink an Iranian frigate, killing more than 100 sailors last week, because it was 'more fun' than capturing the vessel, even though the ship posed no threat."
"Though death tolls vary, Iran’s state media organization, the Islamic Republic News Organization, reported on Sunday that 104 crew members were killed in the attack and that 32 others were injured when a US submarine torpedoed the Iranian warship IRIS Dena in the Indian Ocean on March 4 as it departed from the Milan Peace 2026 naval drills hosted in India."
"The Dena was more than 2,000 miles away from the Persian Gulf when it was attacked, far from the hostilities unleashed last weekend when the US and Israel launched a war against Iran. Contradicting US claims, Iranian and Indian officials have said it was not armed."
"In what political commentator Adam Schwarz described as 'the most blasé admission of a war crime by a US president in history,' Trump on Monday casually recounted the US Navy’s decision to attack the ship before a gathering of Republicans at a Congressional Institute event, a GOP-aligned nonprofit retreat organizer."
Continued at link:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-iran-ship-sunk-for-fun
'Government By Monsters' - Tom Hartmann
"Across Iran and the Caribbean, President Donald Trump and his lickspittles delight in killing as if people were expendable scenery, not human beings with loved ones and families. Meanwhile, they ignore the death and destruction their fellow psychopath, Russian President Vladimir Putin, rains down on Ukraine every night."
"India and America invite Iran to send an UNARMED ship to the Indian Ocean to participate in military exercises, and Trump and Whiskey Pete decided it would be fun to blow it out of the water, leaving over 100 sailors miles from shore, desperate for a rescue. Instead of saving them, as international law requires, we simply left them to drown."
"Whiskey Pete called it 'quiet death.' In fact, there was a lot of screaming and sobbing, although the bombers couldn’t hear it from 20,000 feet any more than Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth could in his drunken haze."
"Just like they blew up a boat in the Caribbean and then, when two fishermen survived clinging to a piece of debris and were desperately waving for help, came back with an illegally unmarked plane and blew them into bits of blood and gristle. Another clear violation of international and American law."
Continued at link:
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-administration-monsters
'How the Epstein Files Reveal the Final Failure of QAnon'
(TPM) "The most enduring conspiracy theories often contain kernels of truth, though it is debatable whether any popularly theorized conspiracy has later been proven as real by unassailable facts. But if one popular conspiracy theory seems to have been promoted from 'theory' to fact, it would appear to be QAnon. What started as a far-right prophecy scam using codes and ciphers on 4chan to 'reveal' the horrors of a pedophile cabal ruling the world has taken on a distinct tinge of truth thanks to millions of newly-released files involving fixer and child abuser Jeffrey Epstein."
"It’s easy to look at Epstein’s communications with billionaires and royals, famous directors and scions of old money, and see the dealings of a cabal. In those countless emails, we seem to have a notorious sex offender and lover of 'young women' exchanging messages with some of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful people. Some of them appear innocuous, and some of them are deeply weird and extremely disturbing."
"Like QAnon’s accusations, at least some of these messages are written in what many researchers have theorized is a code for truly unspeakable things, such as powerful people trafficking their own children, or hunting and eating human beings. And just like with QAnon, it’s fallen to 'citizen researchers'to dig through the 'drops' from the Department of Justice, as unpaid truth crusaders churn through millions of messages full of noise to find the bits of signal that 'they' were hiding from us."
"Naturally, the Epstein revelations have resulted in some QAnon believers claiming that the Epstein releases validate their years of hard work and research into the 'pedo elite' running the west. It’s also resulted in a number of stories, podcasts, and social media threads essentially saying that QAnon was right this whole time. Essentially, we all thought these Q people were crazy, but there really was a pedophile cabal running things, and the Q believers knew the whole time."
Continued at link:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/how-the-epstein-files-reveal-the-final-failure-of-qanon
'Oh Come on,' Says Senate Democrat After Jake Tapper Plays Voting-Against-the-Troops Card
"Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut offered immediate push back on Sunday when CNN anchorJake Tapper said a vote against an expected $50 billion request by President Donald Trump to fund his attack on Iran would be seen as 'voting against the troops.' "
“ 'Oh come on,' said Murphy, incredulous. 'I mean, the American people don’t want this war. They don’t want this war—they have seen what happens when American troops go into places like Iraq, places like Afghanistan. Ultimately we get a lot of people killed, we waste a lot of dollars. The one thing the people of the American people have been clear about is that they don’t want the United States dragged into another long-term war in the Middle East.' "
"Polling has shown that Murphy is correct, with only one out of four people—a mere 25%—in a Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week showing any kind of support for Trump’s war of choice against Iran."
“ 'If you support the troops,' said Murphy, 'then you should vote against this war so that we get our troops out of harm’s way. Virtually nothing good happened from sending thousands of Americans to die in Iraq in the 2000s and if we don’t learn that lesson then shame on every single one of us.' "
Continued at link:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/support-the-troops-iran-war
'Iran: It's Hard to Know How To Exit When You Don't Know Why You're There'
(TPM) "In discussions of modern wars Americans obsess about 'exit strategies.' How do you avoid getting 'bogged down'? How do you know when the mission is finished? How do you avoid 'mission creep'? These are very much Great Power questions. They’re all questions you ask about what are fundamentally wars of choice. They’re framed as questions of duration and sustainability, questions a Great Power asks when there are likely multiple draws on blood or treasure in various parts of the world, fears of over-extension and over-commitment. Other countries don’t have the luxury of these kinds of questions; it’s built into the Great Power equation. Ukraine has no 'exit strategy.' They’re being invaded. They’re fighting to control their own territory and sovereignty. In a way, at least if you place yourself in the world of Greater Russian nationalism where Vladimir Putin and his entourage live, Russia doesn’t have one either. They’re trying to reclaim 'their' territory or something between a national and imperial possession. They’ll fight until they get it."
"But talk of 'exit strategies' is really a way of asking what the goals are that led you to start a war in the first place. If the goal of your military action is clear, your exit strategies should be straightforward. Indeed, you shouldn’t need a ‘strategy’ at all. When your goals or met you’re done and you leave. Or at least you stop using military force. If you know what your goal is you fight until you’ve a) achieved your goal or b) realized through battlefield reverses that your goal is unattainable. If your goal is unclear all the inherent forward momentum of superior military force drives you forward."
"There are few modern wars where the US has launched an all out war, which this certainly is, with so little clarity about what it is we are even trying to accomplish. The Iraq War of 2003 is certainly a pretty good example of that. But what we were trying to achieve in Iraq was pretty clear: we wanted to topple the government of Saddam Hussein and replace it with another one. When the moment of invasion came in March 2003 really no one had any question that this was the only outcome the United States would accept. Just why that was so important was much, much fuzzier and what kind of government we’d put in its place even more so. But the immediate goal of the war was clear: there was no way the US would allow Saddam Hussein to remain in power."
"How about here? We’re demanding now 'unconditional surrender.' That appears to be our current war aim. But we’ve also said it’s eliminating Iran’s nuclear program, degrading its missile armory, creating an opening for a domestic opposition to take power, reacting to an imminent threat. Most notably, the US doesn’t appear to be deploying the kind of force that has much chance of achieving this goal."
Continued at link:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/iran-its-hard-to-know-how-exit-when-you-dont-know-why-youre-there
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Member since: Tue Sep 9, 2008, 10:02 AMNumber of posts: 18,389