https://crooksandliars.com/2021/09/iraq-war-vet-confronts-bush-demands

9/21/21 5:32am
Iraq War Vet Confronts Bush, Demands Apology For War Lies
“Mr. Bush, when are you going to apologize for the million Iraqis that are dead because you lied?” he asked.
By Susie Madrak


Whew. I didn't realize just how cathartic it would be, to finally see someone publicly call out war criminal George W. Bush at a red-carpet event in Beverly Hills. Via The Daily Sabah:




As Joan Walsh pointed out in the Nation, it was pretty hard to watch Bush take part in the September 11th observances as an honored guest.



He'll never tell the truth. He'll never apologize. And that's why he should be hounded until the day he dies.

Haitian refugees test the measure of our nation’s humanity
Immigration rules should be clear and the playing field even.
By Jesse Jackson Sep 20, 2021, 5:24pm CDT



In one of the largest, fastest, most abrupt mass expulsions of refugees in modern U.S. history, the United States has begun flying some 12,000 Haitians camped in a Texas border town back to Haiti. Invoking executive authority asserted by Donald Trump, the Biden administration is enforcing the Donald Trump immigration policy when it comes to Haitians.

The first 320 migrants flown to Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, arrived dazed and distressed. Most were returned to a country that they had left years ago, migrating to Brazil or to Chile to find work — and then risking the dangerous trip to the U.S. border in the hope of improving their lives. On arrival in Haiti, they were given $100, tested for Covid-19, and left on their own.

They arrive in a country ravaged by natural disaster and political chaos. The former president was assassinated. Only last month, the island was struck by a devastating earthquake that killed more than 2,200 people and destroyed more than 137,500 homes and some 900 schools. According to Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency, fewer than half of the 83,000 families affected have received the food rations they need.

Jean Negot Bonheur Delva, the head of Haiti’s national migration office, admitted that the Haitian state is unable to provide security or food for the deportees and pleaded for a “humanitarian moratorium.”

What is the measure of our humanity? The Biden administration inherited an immigration policy shredded by Donald Trump, who fanned fears of immigrants as part of his race-bait politics. He illegally banned immigrants from Muslim countries. He scorned what he called “s**thole countries,” saying he only wanted immigrants from affluent white countries like Norway. He slandered Haitian immigrants as all having AIDS. And, of course, he made building The Wall a metaphor for America closing in on itself.

more...

https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2021/9/20/22684960/haitian-refugees-u-s-immigration-jesse-jackson

Obama, Bush and Clinton join forces with new organization helping Afghan evacuees
By Melissa Quinn
September 14, 2021 / 10:20 AM / CBS News


Washington — Three of the nation's four most recent former presidents are coming together to offer their support to a new organization that aims to assist Afghan evacuees who are resettling in the United States after fleeing Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

Former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, as well as former first ladies Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush and Michelle Obama, are joining Welcome.US as honorary co-chairs "to lift up everyone else involved and remind us that this is our opportunity, in a time of all too much division, for common purpose," the group's website states.

The organization, which launched Tuesday, also boasts a welcome council composed of former and current government officials from both parties, military and business leaders, and activists. It brings together a coalition of organizations helping Afghan allies as they arrive in the U.S. and businesses making financial or in-kind contributions to resettlement efforts.

more...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-bush-clinton-afghan-refugees-welcome-us/

https://prospect.org/blogs/tap/some-hopeful-news/

Some Hopeful News
by Robert Kuttner
September 20, 2021


Feeling down about Joe Manchin, the Kabul debacle, the lingering pandemic, and Biden’s sinking approval ratings? Here’s a little good news:

The Republican abortion laws in Texas, Mississippi, and elsewhere are likely to drive independent voters, especially suburban women, into the arms of Democrats. Likewise the games Republican governors are playing with people’s lives around masks.

With every passing day, as a larger fraction of Americans are vaccinated and disgusted with those who aren’t (and their Republican enablers), the more the sane people’s majority grows.

And even though the reconciliation process will be Perils of Pauline right down to the wire, there is no way we won’t get a bill. It may be hundreds of billions less than we want and need, but benefits will soon begin helping ordinary Americans. And we can come back for more in the next budget reconciliation.

Also, FiveThirtyEight has been keeping track of the likely partisan gains and losses from redistricting, which once looked as if it would cost several Democratic House seats. According to their latest tally, we are almost at break-even, with four likely Republican pickups and two likely Democratic pickups.

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https://prospect.org/blogs/tap/some-hopeful-news/

The lie at the heart of Ted Cruz's dangerous debt-ceiling strategy
Ted Cruz plans to filibuster an extension of the debt ceiling. His rationale is based on a rather obvious lie.
Sept. 21, 2021, 8:00 AM EDT
By Steve Benen

snip//

There are plenty of members of Congress who are badly confused about the substantive details of governing. As a rule, Cruz isn't one of them. I've long argued that the Texas Republican's principle political problem is not that he's dumb, but rather, that he assumes everyone else is dumb.

His comments on the debt ceiling capture the problem nicely. As Cruz surely knows, raising the debt ceiling allows the United States to pay its bills, not to clear the way for new spending. The process is about paying for the stuff Congress already bought in the past, not giving lawmakers approval to buy new stuff in the future.

The GOP senator, in other words, is preparing to block important legislation — a bill that would prevent the United States from defaulting on its obligations for the first time in our history — based on a rather obvious lie.

If Cruz follows through on his gambit and his effort succeeds, the results would be catastrophic. As The Washington Post's Catherine Rampell explained in her new column:



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https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/lie-heart-ted-cruz-s-dangerous-debt-ceiling-strategy-n1279708

https://www.politicususa.com/2021/09/20/former-white-house-counsel-richard-painter-calls-for-a-special-prosecutor-to-hold-trump-accountable-for-1-6.html


Posted on Mon, Sep 20th, 2021 by Alan Ryland
Former White House Counsel Richard Painter Calls for a Special Prosecutor to Hold Trump Accountable for 1/6


Writing in a column for MSNBC, former White House Counsel Richard Painter called for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to appoint a special prosecutor to hold former President Donald Trump accountable for the events of January 6, the day a group of Trump’s supporters attacked the United States Capitol on the false premise that the election had been stolen.

Painter writes that Trump violated 18 USC 610 of the federal code, which makes it a federal crime for “any person to intimidate, threaten, command, or coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, command, or coerce, any employee of the Federal Government … to engage in, or not to engage in, any political activity.”

“More than 30 years ago, then-Sen. Joe Biden argued persuasively that special prosecutors are needed when high-ranking officials shatter the public’s faith in the government’s integrity,” Painter writes. “He’s president now, and his attorney general, Merrick Garland, has the authority to appoint a special counsel to investigate and prosecute allegations of crimes by Trump and others, including violations of the political coercion statute.”

Painter goes on to add that Garland “not only has that authority, but he also has the obligation” to prosecute crimes committed by the former president.

Politico shames WashPost columnist for calling out crummy Biden coverage
Beltway critiques not allowed
Eric Boehlert
59 min ago


snip//

The gotcha attack also featured Politico’s decision to print an email response Rubin had sent to its reporters, which she indicated was off the record. That move created lots of online chatter about what the guidelines surrounding “off the record” are and if the outlet went out of its way to try to burn Rubin.

For me though, the clear take-away was that a Beltway columnist who writes unapologetically about how the political press often produces awful journalism while covering Biden — the way it hugs the Both Sides narrative and gets played by the GOP — she was thrown a high-and-tight brush-back pitch. Politico sent a message to Beltway insiders that it’s not okay to question the collective Biden coverage. It’s not okay, as Rubin has done, to call out the media’s completely over-the-top and borderline hysterical Afghanistan coverage. And it’s not okay to deride Politico’s brand of click bait journalism, as Rubin likes to do.

Forget about the silly “symbiosis” nonsense that Politico was pushing, since it’s quite normal for an administration to try to boost its advocates in the press when engaging in public debate. The point of the attack piece was to diminish an important voice who has been making Beltway insiders look bad by highlighting media malpractice during Biden??s first eight months in office.

In short, Rubin’s guilty of breaking a DC cardinal rule for the press: Don’t hold each other accountable. And certainly don’t hold journalists accountable when doing it from the left. There’s a reason why there was so little self-reflection after the 2016 election, when the male-dominated political press created an ugly double standard for the first woman nominee.

A long-standing Beltway tradition is that the elite media do not have to answer to progressive critics, and certainly do not have to concede mistakes. Instead, a defensive posture is struck and newsrooms defend their own, even when they come under fire for obvious blunders. But that’s harder to do when voices from inside, like Rubin’s, are the ones calling for accountability. If a columnist for the Washington Post can so clearly find fault with the Biden coverage, that makes it difficult for the Beltway press to claim its coverage is fine and that only fringe voices are being critical.

more...

https://pressrun.media/p/washpost-columnist-attacked-for-calling

9/18/21 5:00am
Kushner Firm Will Launch 'Eviction Wave'
"Kushner is the poster child for ultra-rich landlords clamoring to boost their bottom line by kicking families to the curb, even if it comes at the expense of public health."
By Common Dreams


Properties owned by former White House adviser Jared Kushner's family company have filed at least 590 eviction lawsuits since the start of the coronavirus pandemic and more than 200 in 2021 alone, putting "countless tenants" at risk of losing their homes in parts of the U.S. where Covid-19 transmission levels remain dangerously high.

snip//

The analysis comes less than a month after the conservative-dominated U.S. Supreme Court struck down a nationwide moratorium that protected millions of people from eviction for non-payment of rent—a decision that housing advocates warned could spark a devastating wave of evictions and worsen the pandemic.




more...

https://crooksandliars.com/2021/09/kushner-firm-will-launch-eviction-wave

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/9/18/2053071/-Leading-evangelical-rabid-Trumper-Robert-Jeffress-comes-out-in-favor-of-COVID-vaccination

Leading evangelical & rabid Trumper, Robert Jeffress, comes out in favor of COVID vaccination.
TheCriticalMind
Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)
Saturday September 18, 2021 · 7:24 PM EDT


Robert Jeffress, the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, has announced that he and his staff “are neither offering nor encouraging members to seek religious exemptions from the vaccine mandates.” At first blush, this would seem to be swimming against the tide of evangelical opinion that the COVID vaccine is a mortal sin because they say it contains fetal cells. So why has Jeffress taken the stand he has? First, a little background.

There are two kinds of conservative evangelical leaders. Those who have a deep and abiding faith in God and do their level best to lead lives that would make Jesus proud. And those who cynically use Christianity as a tool to amass power and wealth. The vast majority of American conservative evangelicals are the second kind. And Jeffress is among their number.

He is a long-time backer of Trump. Even after the January 6th Capitol insurrection, he was tweeting his support for the now ex-President. Jeffress is an advocate of Trump as a modern-day Cyrus — the Persian Emperor who, although not Jewish himself, freed the C.6th BCE Jews from their captivity in Babylon and allowed them to build a temple in Israel.

The point of Jeffress's argument is that, although Trump was personally a moral pig, he was enabling Jeffress to pursue his misogynistic, homophobic, anti-immigrant crusade. “An enemy of my enemy is my friend”, if you will. This enthusiasm for Trump was instrumental in whipping his congregation into ecstatic support for the serial failure. It was a scene repeated in megachurches from coast to coast. Which raises the question, why is Jeffress advocating for something so disturbing to his base?

The answer has nothing to do with moral clarity or doing the right thing. It comes from a sense that the right is losing control of the vaccine mandate. COVID is becoming a political millstone for them. And most importantly it is losing them the political support to enact their hateful agenda.

more...

That's a lot of people.

Thousands of Haitian migrants fleeing disaster and unrest seek asylum at Del Rio bridge
With an estimated 12,000 migrants already crowded under the international bridge and thousands more expected, Del Rio’s mayor declared an emergency Friday and requested state assistance.
by Uriel J. García and Jolie McCullough Sept. 17, 2021 Updated: 7 PM Central


DEL RIO — Five days after Haitian President Jovenel Moise was assassinated by a group of foreign mercenaries on July 7, 29-year-old Stelin Jean decided to flee the country with his wife and two children — traveling to Bolivia, where many Haitians have arrived recently before starting an arduous overland trek to the United States.

The family was in Panama last month when a 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, destroying thousands of homes and killing more than 2,000 people. Jean said some of his family members were injured in the earthquake, which only increased their sense of urgency to make it to the United States.



The family has joined an estimated 12,000 migrants who in recent days have arrived at the border and are now waiting under the Del Rio international bridge, about 150 miles west of San Antonio, to be processed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Most are from Haiti and are seeking asylum in the U.S.

more...

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/09/17/texas-border-del-rio-migrants/