Tuesday, July 09, 2019

Tom Steyer?

Tom Steyer has announced he's running for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.  From WIKIPEDIA:

On January 8, 2018, Steyer announced he would not run in the 2018 California gubernatorial election.[82]
Steyer has considered running for president of the United States in the 2020 election. In January 2019, Steyer traveled to Iowa to announce that he was not running for president.[83]
On July 9, 2019, Steyer announced in a video posted on Twitter that he would run for President of the United States.[3]

Also from WIKIPEDIA:

In August 1986, he married Kathryn Ann Taylor. She is a graduate of Harvard College and earned a J.D./M.B.A. from Stanford University. The Reverend Richard Thayer, a Presbyterian minister, and Rabbi Charles Familant performed the ceremony.[8] Steyer and his wife have four children, Samuel Taylor ("Sam"), Charles Augustus ("Gus"), Evelyn Hoover ("Evi"), and Henry Hume ("Henry").[14] His wife was on the President's Council for the United Religions Initiative whose purpose is to "promote enduring, daily interfaith cooperation, to end religiously motivated violence, and to create cultures of peace, justice and healing for the Earth and all living beings."[107]
Steyer has two brothers: Hume Steyer, an attorney in New York City, and Jim Steyer, an attorney, author, and Stanford University professor.[108][7]
Steyer has a net worth of $1.6 billion.[1] Men's Journal mentioned the modest aspects of his lifestyle, noting that he owns an "outdated hybrid Honda Accord" and eschews luxury items such as expensive watches.[7]
In his late 30s, Steyer had "a revelation" and began an involvement in the Episcopal Church, the religion of his mother (his father was a non-practicing Jew).[7] He has stated that during this time he became much more interested in religion and theology. This new interest reportedly galvanized his political advocacy.[21]


He is the Big Money corruption we are supposed to be against on the left:

Steyer contributed $87,057,853 in funds exclusively to Democratic Party candidates during the 2016 election cycle.[69][70]

I'm willing to watch him make his case and to consider him.  But he better have something better, in 2019, to offer than impeachment.  He's been a broken record on the topic and it's really time he moves on -- especially if he's going to run for the presidency.

Molly Jong-Fast (INDEPENDENT) offers:

I remember a few months ago watching a Tom Steyer impeachment ad and thinking: this very boring white guy is going to run for president, isn’t he?  But then he kept promising that he wasn’t going to run for president. In January, Steyer went to Iowa and said, “Most people come to Iowa around this time to announce a campaign for president,” but instead “I am proud to be here to announce that I will do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, to remove a president.”
But it didn’t smell right. After all, why was this man doing the ads himself if he wasn’t trying to build a presidential-feeling brand? People who aren’t running for president don’t generally feature themselves prominently in the ads they pay for. So I wasn’t much surprised this week when Steyer decided that 23 candidates aren’t enough. That what the Democratic primary contest really needs is yet another white guy.
Perhaps Matt Ford put it best when he wrote in the New Republic: “Though he’s mirroring the language of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and other candidates who are running on themes of inequality and corruption, it’s unclear whether a hedge-fund manager with no experience in elected office is the best evangelist of that message.” In fact, a hedge-fund manger running on the idea of taking money out of politics and committing to use $100m of his own money to get there sort of reminds me of a real-estate “billionaire” who ran for president to represent the forgotten men and women of West Virginia.   
He better make a really strong argument.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
Tuesday, July 9, 2019.  Corruption and spin continue -- and new questions for Joe Biden about ethics.


The Iraq army, along with the Popular Mobilization Units that includes the , tribal groups and U.S.-led Coalition warplanes, began phase one of the ‘Will of Victory’ Operation against ISIS on Sunday to secure the provinces of Nineveh, Salahaddin and Anbar.
 
 


Sunday, Iraq launched Will of Victory.  How do we know it's accomplishing nothing?  Due to the lies of success already being made.



Significant progress made by ’s Armed Forces during the first 24 hours of Operation ‘Will of Victory’ in the desert regions of Anbar, Ninawa and Salahuddin. Around 30 villages have been cleared & upwards of 50 [ISIS] camp sites, “guesthouses” and arms caches destroyed.
 
 



Noted Shi'ite propagandist H. Sumeri is our source for claims of success?

Yea, they're in trouble.

How long did H. Sumeri proclaim success with regards to 'liberating' Ramadi?  Or Mosul?  Yes, they're in trouble.

Or, alternative option, they're just not really accomplishing anything.

They're apparently trying that glorious 'clear and hold' strategy that everyone's been after since David Petraeus was the top US commander in Iraq.  Clear and hold has never really worked.

Can it ever work?

If they want to invest in hundreds of thousands troops and to attempt it only in a very tiny region (say one province), it might.  It might not.

The issue is one of legitimacy and these efforts have never had legitimacy.

The Iraqi government is not a government that serves the Iraqi people.  There has been no buy-in.  It is a corrupt government installed by the US government.  It's interests are not the well being of the Iraqi people.  Corruption is rampant.  Mosul, for example, two years after liberation there is still no rebuilding worth noting.  Where did that money go?

The Iraqi government was really good at forcing some people out of camps in the hopes that they could make them return to Mosul.  They just weren't very good about rebuilding Mosul.

Or much of anything.  Remember when THE NEW YORK TIMES, under Bully Boy Bush, used to report on the 'progress' in Iraq's judicial system?  Even they had to throw in the towel on that nonsense.  And it remains a problem to this day.


Camp on steroids. 1,000s of suspects languish in squalid, overcrowded facilities in that amount to inhuman treatment. A "ticking time bomb."
 
 
 




And speaking of Iraq and corruption, a new charge has emerged regarding former Vice President Joe Biden who is currently seeking the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.



Did you know: Joe Biden's brother, James Biden was given a $1.5 Billion dollar government contract to build homes in Iraq during the Obama Administration How many billion dollar deals were given to the Biden family while he was VP? Why is this getting no coverage? RT!
 
 


True?  October 22, 2012, Joel Gehrke (WASHINGTON EXAMINER) reported:

HillStone International won a coveted government contract in part because the company has “the little brother of the vice president as a partner,” as David Richter, president of HillStone’s parent company explained to investors in a recent meeting reported on by Fox Business today.
“Since November 2010, James Biden has been the executive vice president of Hill International’s housing subsidiary despite little if any documented work history in residential construction,” Fox explains. “And if the company’s projections are accurate, both Hill and Biden are on the verge of a huge payday, beneficiaries, some analysts believe, of James Biden’s connections to the Obama Administration through his older brother.”

True?  I still don't know.  I want a stronger source on the issue.

We have already seen Hunter Biden getting employment and windfalls as he followed his father around.  Did James Biden also make it onto the gravy train and is this a question that the press intends to explore?

It matters.  The Iraqi people were not helped by James Biden or HillStone International.  The American people were not helped by millions of their tax dollars being turned over to this inept company.

Joe Biden record: Iraq, banks, crime, and more -
 
 



Joe Biden's record?  With regards to Iraq, his record is obscene and, therefore, none of his family should have been involved in anything to do with Iraq -- certainly nothing to do with profiting off of Iraq.

Joe is one of the most hated Americans in Iraq.  He earned that after the illegal war started.  How?  By repeatedly insisting that Iraq should be split up.  This played to the Kurds but did not play to the Shia and the Sunni.  As we said repeatedly in real time as Joe proposed this over and over, if this is an idea that comes from the Iraqi people, fine -- but if not, it needs to be tossed aside.

As late as 2008, while he ran for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination (he'd bow out after the Iowa caucus), Joe was still proposing this.  He had no understanding of Iraq.  He would hector Ayad Allawi and others in the fall of 2010 that Iraq was like Ireland and no one -- including US military personnel present -- could figure out what the hell Joe Biden was attempting to say this time.

As for the Kurds, he sold them out.  They were tricked by him repeatedly and had Jalal Talabani remained healthy and in power, Joe could have continued to trick them because Jalal was an idiot.  But Jalal's stroke took him out of power.  And the Kurds started connecting Joe's failed promises (lies) to a history of promises made by the US government but never kept -- going back to the administration of Richard Nixon.

When Joe became Vice President, he had strong ties to the Kurds.  But the Kurds noticed that these ties did not help them from that moment forward.  Instead, Joe used the 'friendship' to get the Kurds to back down on this or settle for that, time and again, their own interests were destroyed by Joe.  Hero Talabani, Jalal's widow, has been stating that the friendship cost the Kurds and when even Hero is slamming you, you're no longer a friend of the Kurds.

Joe is one of 24 candidates seeking the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.

24?  Yes, one of the male candidates has withdrawn from the race.


This is SHOCKING!!! I mean with his total lack of charisma & personality it’s a wonder even he thought he could be a contender. Every soundbite basically needed to end with “PLEASE CLAP” Swalwell Becomes First Democrat to Drop Out of Presidential Race
 
 



Despite Donald Trump Jr.'s claim, Eric Swalwell actually does have personality and chemistry.

Of all the men on the stage during the first two debates last month, Eric's the last one who should have dropped out.

It's a crowded field and it is hard for anyone to stand out unless you are the press favorite -- like Joe has been.  There are many candidates who are polling low but are building up a base and if they continue to work at it, we're still over a year away from the election, they should see their polling increase.

Eric has stated he wants to focus on his re-election (to the US House of Representatives) and that's his right.  But Donald Trump Jr. is not the last word and, based on his remarks regarding Eric, DTJ is also not a very astute critic.

Rep. Eric Swalwell on endorsing: "I'm really impressed with the field. I'm not going to make any decisions right now."
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It's way too soon for an endorsement but if and when he makes one, he should get some promise on an issue he campaigned on.


24 candidates remain currently.  All six women remain in the race.


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