The news once again fails to ask the right question. It asks, regarding the data breach of Capital One why it’s the company that pays for the breach and not the poor, unemployed, person who took the credit card data.
The question should be, why does Capital One have personal information? Why are their credit cards, and why is a an employed person forced to take other people’s data to try to have money? Indeed, why do have value employment as a necessity for survival?
Why does Capital One exist as a credit card company, and why does does it collect personal information? Ignore the fact that in our current system, in order to have credit, some personal information is required. But why are their credit cards? The only rational reason is to drive people into poverty (that again begets the question of why money is a requirement for existence.).
That’s not rational at all. It’s irrational that people are required to spend more than they have in order to have things required to exist in the modern world.
It’s irrational that we have to give a company our personal information in order to survive.
Hallel Yaffa Ariel, a 13 year old US citizen died in 2016 while sleeping during a stabbing attack. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict reaches far beyond the borders of mandate Palestine and affect people across the globe.
The administration of Trump has gone extremely vile. As the meme says “2016: Come on, you’re talking like Trump’s going to put people in concentration camps” // “2018: First of all, I think it’s offensive that you refer to them as ‘concentration camps'”.
The administration – it’s not just Trump, he just happens to approve and encourage – is now putting refugees in overcrowded “holding facilities” (concentration camps where work doesn’t set you free). A good number of these held refugees are children (two months to 17 years, 11 months, 29 days).
Here’s where we get to the daily news. This detention / separation camp is not unique to the United States. With U.S. support this also happens in Israel. On June 21, 2018 a tweet read: “But for decades Israel’s been kidnapping innumerable Palestinian children, separating them from families, mentally and physically torturing them, & yes, even locking them in outdoor cages during the winter. All funded, at least in part, by consecutive US regimes.” (This comes from an article titled: Before Trump, Israel put Palestinian Children in Cages).
Several hundred Palestinians – and a couple Israelis – are held in administration detention in Israel. They are jailed indefinitely without being charged with a crime. Several are political prisoners – some are members of the Knesset.
In other treatment-of-Palestinian news from June 21 there are articles about house demolitions, raids on refugee camps, “mistaken” killing of teenage Palestinians, “mistaken” killing of a Palestinian man who had a heart attack while driving, and an article about the harassment of U.S. Jewish activists who stand up for Palestinian rights (in this case while staffing a J Street table) by other American Jews.
While all of these are interesting and deserve a look, at the present time I think it’s most relevant to note the parallels between U.S. treatment of refugees – and other groups it wants to oppress – and the Israeli treatment of the oppressed Palestinians.
Article II, Section 4. of the U.S. Constitution: The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
Article IV, Section 3: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.
Article I, Section 3: (in part) The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two thirds of the members present.
Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States: but the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to law.
When is enough treason enough? When it is treason enough to cry “treason” and to act on it? Is there honor enough left to the Chief Justice and sitting members of the Senate that they will act on oath an affirmation?
America must now contemplate such questions (or bury their heads down rabbit holes). We have an person leading the executive office of the United States Government that is difficult to address as Mr. President, a title that should both be earned through votes and respect.
One could argue that Donald Trump successfully received the electoral votes – perhaps because most electors are were dissuaded to vote against a person already under federal investigation by the hefty fines states levy against electors who vote against the recipient of the most votes in that state.
It seems that the Trump has set out to destroy governmental agencies. Not fix, modify, reform, or improve them. Destroy them. Education, Environment, Financial, even the State Department. It seems he tries to destroy international institutions, at least though lack of funding, and foreign governments through threats, bombastic statements, or decrease in funding.
This alone is not treason. Treason is conspiring with a foreign government against your own, and Trump has been under investigation for this since before he was elected president.
I’ve seen many liberals and progressives online pushing Article II Section 4 of the Constitution – “The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” – and have seen none pushing the other relevant Aritcles and Sections quoted above – “No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court,” AND “The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two thirds of the members present.”
To date one person has stated in open court that the president ordered him to break the law (some time just shortly before he was elected president), but the order was to cover up a financial payment (a high crime or misdemeanor perhaps) but not treason.
There’s undoubtedly more out wrongdoings out there, and many have already surfaced. Leading de facto the Grand Old Party, Trump has pulled the party – if it wasn’t already there – into a Russian fetishism ranging from usurpation in Ukraine to love of a Russian infiltrator. During his candidacy for high office several of Trump’s team met with a Russian lawyer at one of Trump’s glorious hotels. The list goes on.
We know what the facts are if we have rejected all reality.
It comes down to this. House Representatives must file an article of impeachment for an officer – yes, the president is merely an officer of the executive branch of a democratic government that answers to the people – to be removed from office. At first glance, and at second glance and all the glances thereafter, it seems that these Congressional Representatives are weenies more interested in their temporary careers than in carrying out their oath of office to serve the Constitution of the United States.
That is to say, my Congressman, and many others, simply hem and haw at the idea of filing an article of impeachment. Such an act should not be taken lightly – cries of treason and impeachment are common, and acting on such cries is thankfully uncommon – but attempts to join with a foreign country to destroy our own (that is what Trump is doing) must be addressed as such.
I try to stay engaged as a citizen. I try to write my representatives. They actually usually get back to me (!). I know there’s a suggestion to flood representative phone-lines with comments, but I believe in the written word, because having received a response it’s on the record.
Today I was inspired to write the State Department. , specifically about Palestine. I know the State Dept represents the current administration and is only somewhat culpable for the policies that are carried out over seas (the congratulations of blame fall on the chief of the executive branch). Nonetheless, I wrote. I wrote
Dear State Department,
I write to you with the reminder that the policies that are being pursued in the Middle East, especially with regards to financial cuts the UNRWA and the unilateral negotiations, is the opposite of peace. To create peace the needs of all parties must be listened to and met with full fairness and an effort to make all people feel that they feel secure in the present and the future.
I encourage you to include the Palestinians as a partner in the negotiations of their future without first making demands of them, and to restore all humanitarian funding for people until such time as they are able and allowed to provide for their own well-being.
Please work to end the siege of Gaza and to restore socio-economic opportunities for all people.
Although the conflict in Israel is based on culture and dispossession, religion plays a part and as an American Jew recognizing the centuries of racism against Jews and other people I find it especially important that my government works to end oppression and to stand for liberty and justice for all both home and abroad.
Thank you for your tireless work,
[NAME]
It’s a representative democracy. Make your views known.
This day will live in infamy. No, wait, that’s not quite right. We attacked with nuclear weapons to end the war, not to start it.
For the first time and the last time. Yes, that’s it. But they still exist. Some madman might use them in his theory. Translation: On Aug. 6 and again on Aug 9, 1945, the United States dropped nuclear bombs on Japan; although this was the only two times (two times too many) that nuclear weapons were used in war the most destructive kind of weapon ever made has increased in number throughout the world. Nine countries have nuclear weapons, some of which are led by people (men, mainly) promoting a not-so-nouveau version of the madman theory of international politics.
Nuclear deterrence is not a viable policy. I’m not a fan of deterrence at all – weapons do not lead to peace – but the use or misuse of a nuclear weapon is frequent and a danger to everyone.
The list of nuclear weapons ‘mishaps’ that might have led to war or other destruction is numerous. A list of lost weapons or almost-accidentally-fired over the last 60 years by the United State is here.
Agencies and organizations that work to end nuclear weapons and nuclear power capability should be commended. It’s time to save ourselves.
With little imagination it could assumed that Shakespeare was writing of Donald Trump. In Henry V, preceding the memorable St. Crispin’s Day speech by several scenes, King Henry finds three traitorous men “hired to kill him here in Hampton”. At least as the story goes, the noblemen were hired by France to kill their king. “Vasty Tartar back,” is Russia.
May it be possible, that foreign hire
Could out of thee extract one spark of evil
That might annoy my finger? ’tis so strange,
That, though the truth of it stands off as gross
As black and white, my eye will scarcely see it.
Treason and murder ever kept together,
As two yoke-devils sworn to either’s purpose,
Working so grossly in a natural cause,
That admiration did not whoop at them:
But thou, ‘gainst all proportion, didst bring in
Wonder to wait on treason and on murder:
And whatsoever cunning fiend it was
That wrought upon thee so preposterously
Hath got the voice in hell for excellence:
All other devils that suggest by treasons
Do botch and bungle up damnation
With patches, colours, and with forms being fetch’d
From glistering semblances of piety;
But he that temper’d thee bade thee stand up,
Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason,
Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.
If that same demon that hath gull’d thee thus
Should with his lion gait walk the whole world,
He might return to vasty Tartar back,
And tell the legions ‘I can never win
A soul so easy as that Englishman’s.’
Today would be Nelson Mandela’s 100 birthday He died in 2013. Born July 18, 1918, Nelson Mandela became an inspiration for justice in its best form – that of forgiveness and transcendence of all our woes into a better world.
Thanks for the (Facebook) article below:
One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.
On July 22, 1946 Irgun terrorists (one could say activists because they acted but they also terrorized) blew up the King David Hotel, Britain’s administrative headquarters in Mandate Palestine.
See Anonymous Soldiers or an article about an Irgun member and a worker in the Hotel, among others.
Sadly, we remember people in death perhaps as much as in life.
This day is the anniversary of the death of Jo Cox, Membeer of Parliament, who was killed at too young an age.
She both advocated for Britain to remain in the EU and for Palestinian rights.
The Dole Blog 