Renee Parsons
As the House Republican caucus has successfully resisted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s return to power although he lurks in the shadows, as it wisely denied Majority Leader Steve Scalise the Speaker seat, Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan achieved a closed door secret-ballot 152 – 55 vote on Friday. That vote is within range of the 217 required for a final floor vote that would put Jordan in the Speaker’s seat.
Although the House was recessed until Tuesday afternoon in an outrageous attempt for recalcitrant holdouts to engineer a deal with House Democrats, the struggle continues as cartel Representatives in the House caucus refuse to relinquish their hold on power. As the earth-shaking crisis in Israel continue to escalate, there is a distinct failure to grasp that there is a new world aborning, with or without the United States and I don’t mean the appalling Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum.
After a week of private harangues, the public has been denied any privy to candidate speeches, no record of roll call votes which were held in secret and no record of any debate or its closed door proceedings. This is not how America First voters expect the Republican caucus to behave. It is time for those fifty five votes to step forward into the public sphere as they have protected themselves from public purview; those most associated with the cartel work best in the shadows.
For wont of confirmation, let’s assume that the majority of the fifty five are, if not old-timers, are entrenched members of the Appropriation, Foreign Affairs or Armed Services Committee whose members believe their committees carry the legislative burden – veterans who believe their decisions are beyond reproach, with a sacred agenda upon which the Republic depends, beyond question or doubt; and that those in discord are interlopers genetically unable to understand or participate as partners. Also a fair assumption that the majority of those House Members are from Red States.
Based on past history, it may be fair to say that those Members with longevity have lacked fiscal discipline as they have demanded control of all elements of government funding process including ad nauseum Continuing Resolutions and Omnibuses, the bigger the better. The country is in a spiritual battle; not merely a left versus right paradigm but a true battle for the soul of the country, for the soul of its people.
It is also fair to say that those Members more connected to the MIC adequately reciprocate that support with the Ukraine war and other assorted military adventures like Yemen and Syria and most likely will be gung-ho for the utter disaster that is coming to Israel with no interest in ceasefires or peace negotiations. War in Israel promises to be exceedingly controversial, extremely expensive and divisive within the US as the conflict promises to reach a height of inhumanity rarely exceeded since the US dropped multiple nuclear bombs on civilian populations in Japan. With some exceptions, these fifty fivers may represent an antiquated world view beholden to their benefactors which can be better identified in a review of Open Secrets or FEC Filings.
With some exceptions, these are the folks who may be expected to stubbornly take the country into the next ‘forever’ war despite substantial global opposition as IMF warning that the $33T debt is unsustainable as corporate defaults rise. Tucker predicted recently that the globalists will do anything to win including precipitating a hot war with Russia which, for the time being, may include stonewalling Jordan which argues for public confrontation as the fifty five club reveal themselves
It may be that 2023 goes down in American history on a par with 1775 as it has become a launching point when millions of Americans awoke to the depth of the federal government’s political corruption and influence of the cartel’s deceit in creating an unsustainable economic strategy and a military juggernaut that never saw a war it did not own as well as recognizing that a decayed Republican party once stood for historic principles of non-intervention in WW I and fiscal conservativism.
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Chronologically speaking, with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after WW I, it is essential to understand the history of the Zionists in Palestine as the Brits Balfour Agreement created a second class citizenry dominated by cruel and sadistic treatment of Palestinian children.
It was eerily coincidental that as the House went into isolation to select a Speaker, the Hamas attack on Israel became a frightening event which continues on the edge of spinning out of control. In addition to misinformation, Israel’s response has been steady air attacks and threaten a massive ground attack delayed due to inclement weather. Its purpose according to corrupt sleazebag President Benjamin Netanyahu who is under indictment and facing prison, is to totally destroy the Gaza strip and its entire community of inhabitants.
What you will not read about in most western publications is that three days before the Hamas attack, IDF and Israeli citizens attacked Palestinians in prayer at the al Aqsa mosque, the second (or third) oldest and holiest mosque in Islam also known as the Temple Mount which resulted in the killing one man. The long standing conflict surrounds the dismantling of the mosque by fundamentalist jews.
Living restrictions imposed by the Israelis in 2008, Gaza is the third mostly densely populated area in the world, 141 square miles, 25 miles long with 2.2 million residents, half of which are less than 15 years old. The explanation of the Hamas attack, vicious and tragic with 1200 deaths, can only be understood in recognizing the history of the last seventy years. With no water, no food, no electricity including its hospitals is typical behavior by Israel who routinely, prior to the attack, turned all utilities in Gaza on and off at will.
As the unipolar world continues to collapse under the weight of all its sordid corruptions, BRICS continues to consolidate its alliance around the world with trade agreements and offering humanitarian aid to Palestine.
The first international leader to speak out on the Hamas-Israeli conflict was UN Security Council President, BRICS Member and Brazilian President Luiz Lula DaSilva who immediately called for a ‘ceasefire,’ humanitarian intervention as well as protecting the “Palestinian children.” Lula went on to say Hamas should release Israeli children who were “kidnapped from their families“.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that “We will never accept the massacre of innocent people in Gaza through indiscriminate bombing leading to a serious disproportionate attack on Gaza.”
While Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Israel had a right to defend itself, he cautioned Israel against a siege at Gaza comparing it to the Nazi siege at Leningrad in 1941-42. Putin added a ground attack would have “serious consequences for all sides” and ‘most importantly, the civilian casualties will be absolutely unacceptable. Now the main thing is to stop the bloodshed,” he said.
Egypt, another BRICS country, is erroneously being blamed for preventing a civilian exit from Gaza through the Rafah Gate as hundreds of Egyptian citizens walk the Sinai desert carrying water and food with hundreds of Egyptian trucks lined up at the Gate full of water and food for Gaza residents The only existing exit, Israel bombed the Gate three times to destroy all access in or out of Gaza. In addition, Israel has denied the Red Cross entry into Gaza.
The weekend of the Hamas attack, the US sent Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Austin as well as a bevy of second rate European and EU foreign policy types, none of whom had a constructive solution to deal with the crisis. With no lobbying of other middle eastern countries or any proposal to propose, the US response was to send white phosphorus shells for bombardment onto Gaza residents as they foundered in search for a military option.
Congratulations to the US for driving more countries into the arms of the BRICS 11 as two of its newest members Saudi Arabia and Iran were in direct communication working on a diplomatic initiative about the need to ”end war crimes against Palestine” as Israeli continued bombing attacks in Gaza for the fourth day. The Saudi crown prince said his country was ‘exerting maximum pressure to halt the ongoing escalation” while Iran had previously warned Israel to ‘halt its war crimes before it is too late.”
With creation of a peace initiative led by Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for an unconditional immediate ceasefire and negotiations to establish a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capitol being circulated, a proposal that may end up at the UN since Israel has always opposed a two-state solution.
In addition, diplomatic activity was intense with the UAE, Kuwait, Iraq, Turkey and Egypt, most likely coordinated by Lavrov who identified the problem that Palestine was never allowed to establish itself as a separate state as the US monopolized diplomacy with Israel and offered no coherent approach to Palestinian concerns.
Maria Zakarova spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Office concluded with it was “now the job outside the west to clean up the mess created by the US..”
During a significant international crisis, it seems incomprehensible that the US Congress allows dual-citizenships as if a questionable divided loyalty to the US or another country is perfectly permissible = just another example of dismantling US sovereignty.
Renee Parsons served on the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and as president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, staff in the Office of the Colorado State Public Defender, an environmental lobbyist for Friends of the Earth and a staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC.