NEW YORK — Senator John McCain took what was widely perceived as a jab at President Trump during an interview that aired Sunday, as he condemned the ways in which wealthier Americans avoided serving in the Vietnam War.
Speaking on C-SPAN, the Arizona Republican used bone spurs as an example of the kind of condition that allowed some to avoid being drafted during the conflict. Trump was exempted from military service after receiving a diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels.
“One aspect of the conflict, by the way, that I will never, ever countenance is that we drafted the lowest-income level of America and the highest-income level found a doctor that would say that they had a bone spur,” McCain said. “That is wrong.”
McCain did not mention Trump directly in the interview. But his choice to use bone spurs as an example, when Americans received exemptions for manifold other conditions, seemed an unlikely coincidence.
On Monday, McCain appeared on “The View,” where his daughter, Meghan, is a host, and repeated his comments. He said that while he did not consider Trump a draft dodger, the system had been so broken that “certain Americans could evade their responsibilities.”
He did not deny that he had been talking about Trump, and was critical of the president for his past comments about prisoners of war.
In an interview in 2016, Trump recalled the spurs as “temporary” and “minor,” saying that they had not meaningfully affected him.
So how did McCain feel about W Bush hiding out at an air base or Billy C attending college in Europe?
My print copy ended there.
The senator’s comments to C-SPAN followed a week of difficult questions for the White House over Trump’s attitude toward military service, after a call from the president to the widow of a slain soldier ignited a firestorm. The controversy threatened to overshadow the president’s agenda for a second week after the soldier’s widow spoke out publicly Monday morning.
Yes, the widow of one of four soldiers killed in Niger went on television Monday to criticize President Donald Trump and the Globe is already calling it a scandal (did they speak out in such a way for Cindy Sheehan?).
He's literally between a rock and a hard place:
"A Massachusetts elementary school principal says it was disrespectful and inappropriate that a game brought in for a student Halloween party featured a tombstone with the name Don Trump on it. The tombstone was one of several on a game brought in by a parent for the party at West Parish Elementary on Friday. The others had joke names, like Seymour Butts and Gull E. Bull on them. In a letter to parents Sunday, West Parish Principal Telena Imel wrote that the game was intended to be humorous but ‘‘inappropriately brought a political agenda into what was designed to be a fun family affair.’’ She wrote that some people felt uncomfortable and school is not the place for politics....."
Wow, no more civics as the Nazi-like Zionists controlling this culture are shutting it all down. The censorship and politically correct thought control is not only frightening, it is baffling in this age of information. The woman that complained said "Donald Trump is our president and he deserves respect. We should teach our children that the office of the president ALWAYS deserves respect."
Given his medical condition, they should have put the name McCain on it, 'eh?
McCain tends to vote in line with Trump’s positions. But his remarks were a reminder of the simmering conflict between an unorthodox president and a senator who was shot down during the Vietnam War and subjected to abuse and torture for more than five years as a prisoner in Hanoi.....
Yeah, about those times.....
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How uncivil and damn near ‘treasonous’ even if he is everybody's grandfather.
His timing is awful:
"Trump presents Medal of Honor to retired Army medic" Associated Press October 24, 2017
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Monday turned a Medal of Honor ceremony for a Vietnam-era Army medic who risked his life to help wounded comrades into a mini tutorial for the boy and girl who came to watch their grandfather be enshrined ‘‘into the history of our nation.’’
‘‘It’s the award given to America’s bravest heroes who earn our freedom with their sacrifice,’’ Trump said. ‘‘Those who receive the Medal of Honor went above and beyond the call of duty to protect their fellow service members and defend our nation.’’
A military aide read a citation recounting the acts of heroism the now 70-year-old retired Army Captain Gary M. Rose performed on Sept. 11, 1970, as the only medic for 136 men who embarked on a mission designed to keep the North Vietnamese from funneling weapons along the Ho Chi Minh trail.
How interesting.
After two decades in the Army and a post-military career as an industrial designer, Rose now volunteers with the American Legion and a soup kitchen. He fixes broken appliances for his elderly and disabled neighbors, donates his hair for people with cancer, makes lunches for children who don’t have enough to eat. He also organizes community gatherings ‘‘to bring people together, which is something we need all over the world and certainly in our country,’’ Trump said.....
We need more men like him.
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The new tax plan is now front and center and they are scrounging around for any loot they can get their hands on. Good thing we have a curmudgeonly Grandpa looking after things.
Judge blasts suit seeking reinstatement of federal health subsidies
At least my state is immune, but what's with the drug prices?
More the rule than the exception. The drug war is literally going to the dogs. Hard enough getting around Bo$ton as it is. Good luck in New York, too, as the nuclear and coal plants get fired up the prices at the pump continue to drop.
Senate presses ahead on $36.5b disaster relief package
The exodus continues and all are welcome in Groton.
*********
Just wondering why Spain is the top story in the World today.
"The Islamic State militants came into the Syrian town with a hit list. By the time they left three weeks later, more than 70 civilians had been killed — shot or beheaded, their bodies dumped in farms and ditches. The apparent revenge killings in the town of Qaryatayn underscore the ability of the extremists to inflict heavy losses even when they’re in retreat — and portend more violence as they fight to hang on to their last strongholds in Syria. News of the gruesome slayings began to emerge late Sunday, after Islamic State militants were driven out by advancing government troops. Terrified residents said they watched the slaughter from their windows or in the streets....."
If you care about the vote in Kenya.....
What was missing there but in print was the ending of combat operations in Malawi:
"The siege had sparked fears the Islamic State would influence, fund, and strengthen local militant groups as it was losing ground in Syria and Iraq. The length of the siege and the difficulty the military had in stamping it out has raised questions about the preparedness of the Philippines armed forces....."
Looks like those questions have been answered.
"Japanese defense minister sounds alarm on North Korea" by Robert Burns Associated Press October 24, 2017
CLARK, Philippines — Japan’s defense minister asserted Monday that North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities have grown to an ‘‘unprecedented, critical, and imminent’’ level, requiring ‘‘different responses’’ to the threat.
The minister, Itsunori Odonera, said this rising threat compels his country to endorse the US view that ‘‘all options’’ must be considered, which President Trump says includes possible military action.
Odonera’s comments, made through an interpreter, came at the outset of a so-called trilateral meeting in the Philippines with US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and South Korea’s defense minister, Song Young-moo. Each made statements about North Korea before a group of reporters and news cameras, but none took questions.
Fresh off a decisive election victory, Japanese Prime Minister Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged Monday to tackle what he called two national crises: the military threat from North Korea and an aging and shrinking population.
Abe said at a Tokyo news conference that he is committed to protect the Japanese people’s prosperity and peace from any contingency. He also referred to Japanese people who were abducted years ago and are believed to still be held by North Korea.
Abe’s ruling coalition got voters’ endorsement to stay in power in Sunday’s elections for Japan’s more powerful lower house of Parliament.
Well, it was far from an endorsement. I was told only yesterday that Abe’s victory did not represent an endorsement of his platform so much as a lack of strong alternatives because “people have no other choices, really,” in what stinks to high heaven of a rigged vote with Koike as some sort of Kabuki agent.
No follow up regarding the typhoon, huh?
Mattis was in the Philippines to attend portions of a two-day meeting of defense ministers from the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations. He used the occasion to hold a three-way meeting with his counterparts from Japan and South Korea.
He is scheduled later in the week to travel to Seoul to attend annual consultative talks with the South Korean government, which are expected to focus mostly on North Korea.
In remarks that were notably explicit about the North Korean threat, Odonera said its most recent underground nuclear test could have been a hydrogen bomb, which is vastly more powerful than an atomic bomb.
‘‘The country has steadfastly improved its nuclear and missiles capability,’’ said Odonera. He added: ‘‘The threat posed by North Korea has grown to the unprecedented, critical and imminent level.’’
‘‘Therefore, we have to take calibrated and different responses to meet that level of threat,’’ he said, without elaborating on what ‘‘different’’ responses Japan favors.
Trump has said he will resolve the North Korea problem alone if necessary, to prevent the North from gaining the capability to attack the United States with a nuclear-armed missile.
Mattis was somewhat more reserved in his remarks than Odonera, although he did slam Pyongyang for defying UN Security Council resolutions against its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. But the US defense secretary did not mention any potential military action.
Mattis instead emphasized a unified US-Japan-South Korea position in pressuring the North to give up its nuclear program.
‘‘North Korea’s provocations threaten regional and global security,’’ he said.
Earlier in the day, Mattis used the opportunity to personally apologize to his Indonesia counterpart for an unexplained move by the US government to prevent the top Indonesian general traveling to Washington over the weekend.
Erin McKee, deputy US ambassador to Indonesia, did not explain why General Gatot Nurmantyo was prevented from boarding a flight to the United States to attend a conference of military chiefs, but said the matter had been resolved.
Did they get an apology for the mass murder fomented by the CIA?
South Korea’s defense minister, Song, said that North Korea’s behavior is ‘‘becoming worse and worse.’’
He said defense ministers bring a special perspective that cautions against an early use of force.
‘‘As defense ministers we will make all the efforts necessary to resolve the issue in a diplomatic and economic way . . . However, if we are attacked then we will have to take firm actions.’’
OMG, defense ministers are greatest antiwar advocates, and that however has me worried about a false flag.
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Related:
"Abe’s public approval ratings dipped below 30 percent over the summer as he was dogged by a series of scandals, and opinion polls taken during the campaign found that more voters disapproved of Abe’s hawkish strategy toward North Korea than approved of it. “There is an Abe conundrum,” said Jeff Kingston, director of Asian studies at Temple University in Tokyo. Abe is a candidate “who is basically unpopular with voters, whose policies are not particularly popular, who doesn’t get high marks for leadership, and yet he keeps winning in elections,” he said....."
Where is China in all this?
Or Russia, for that matter?
Donors pledge $228m in new funds for Rohingya
Looks like Myanmar has so far fended off Western efforts to carve out a Kosovo-like enclave.
"Israeli president decries government assault on civic institutions" by Aron Heller Associated Press October 23, 2017
JERUSALEM — In an unusually blunt address to Parliament, Israel’s president accused the government Monday of delegitimizing vital democratic institutions as part of a campaign of stifling opposition.
Like the schools?
President Reuven Rivlin opened the winter session of Parliament with a critique of his former political home, the Likud Party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel’s president fills a mostly ceremonial role and rarely delves into partisan bickering. But Rivlin chose to focus on the growing divisions in Israeli society, pinning much of the blame on the country’s leaders — and its embattled prime minister.
That politically corrupt and evil sh*t is "embattled."
Netanyahu has responded to various corruption investigations by attacking Israel’s media, law enforcement officials, judiciary, and other so-called ‘‘elites’’ he believes are bent on his removal.
He began his reply by listing his accomplishments, before again ripping into critics, whom he called ‘‘sourpusses.’’
:-(
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"Tillerson pays secretive visit to Afghanistan as Taliban threat lingers" by Gardiner Harris New York Times October 23, 2017
BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — Secretary of State Rex Tillerson made a secret two-hour visit to the main US air base in Afghanistan on Monday, arriving in a military transport plane to meet top Afghan officials inside a massive bunker.
Nearly 20,000 military personnel, contractors, and others live and work at the base, Bagram Airfield, north of Kabul. Many were on high alert as the secretary arrived, fearing the kind of rocket or mortar attack that has become common.
That top US officials must sneak into this country after 16 years of war, thousands of lives lost, and hundreds of billions of dollars spent was testimony to the stalemate confronting the United States because of a stubborn and effective Taliban foe that is increasingly ascendant.
Tillerson would not even risk the short trip to Kabul to visit the heavily fortified US Embassy or Afghan presidential palace, as his predecessors have done.
The change reflects the increasingly uncertain security situation in Kabul and the fact that the United States’ presence is now surrounded by vast Taliban-controlled areas.
Oh, NO!
The war is a lost cause but Trump went against his instincts and is sending a token force of 4,000 that will be nothing but targets.
Tillerson flew to the air base on a C-17 transport plane from Qatar for a meeting with President Ashraf Ghani and other officials.
What were the greenhouse gas emissions on that anyway?
After returning to Qatar, he flew to Baghdad for talks with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi for the second time in as many days.
Got a long way to go to catch Kerry.
Among the issues they discussed were how to resolve the dispute over independence for the Kurdish region in northern Iraq, and ways to accelerate post-Islamic State reconstruction projects for Iraq’s liberated towns and cities. While Iraq has made military gains against the Islamic State in recent months, it is still challenged by ethnic and religious divisions.
How ironic that the very forces that destroyed Iraq want to now rebuild it (along with Syria).
President Barack Obama paid a secret visit to the Afghan air base in May 2014. Afghanistan’s president at the time, Hamid Karzai, declined an invitation from US officials to meet Obama at the base, saying that doing so would be a breach of protocol, although the two leaders spoke by telephone.
Tillerson’s visit was his first to Afghanistan as secretary of state, and like nearly every other top US official to visit during the previous two decades, he said the country’s predicament was not nearly as dire as his own security precautions suggested.
Okay.
Tillerson brought with him a six-person media contingent that was taken aside late the night before and sworn to secrecy about the trip until his plane returned to Doha, Qatar, where the trip had originated.
Embedded, if you will.
After eight months of internal discussions, President Trump in August announced his policy for Afghanistan, an effort to prevent an obvious loss in the country. Commanders will be allowed to request troops as needed, and the administration emphasized that it would increasingly rely on regional partners like India to improve stability.
Oh, so who knows how many they are really sending.
Trump also promised to pressure Pakistan, which US officials have long accused of playing a double game in Afghanistan — publicly supporting the US mission here while secretly bankrolling and giving shelter to the Taliban and other insurgent groups.
If that isn't the pot calling the kettle black!
But the massive air base here demonstrates why the administration cannot get too tough with Pakistan, since nearly all of the supplies for this fortress city are transported by air or land through Pakistani territory. Soldiers can order supplies and gifts from Amazon, which delivers daily to the base.
How about that, huh?
The WARS are GOOD for AMAZON!
Tillerson will visit Islamabad, Pakistan, on Tuesday for his first talks with Pakistani leaders since he delivered a speech last week in which he called for improved ties with India, Pakistan’s rival.
What is with all the flying back and forth, Rex?
He is a believer in global warming, too!
Tillerson said the United States would remain in Afghanistan until peace is restored. Or perhaps until things get much worse.
How many more brave young men have to die for that, sir?
How many posthumous medals will be awarded for deaths that could have been avoided?
“The president has made it clear that we’re here to stay until we can secure a process of reconciliation and peace,” he said. “It’s not an unlimited commitment. He’s also made it clear it’s not a blank-check commitment. It’s a conditions-based commitment.”
Translation: they are never leaving (like with Korea).
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Did he bring any CIA hit teams with him?
