Coordinated attacks ongoing in France

Rubio misses Paris hearing for fundraising; did attend classified briefing Tuesday

At 10 a.m. Wednesday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee went behind closed doors for a briefing titled, “The Aftermath of Paris: America’s Role.” But Sen. Marco Rubio was not there. The Florida Republican is on his way to California for fundraising.

The absence illustrates how Rubio is not just missing floor votes but also key hearings on national security and foreign policy -- issues he has presented as chief credentials of his presidential campaign. He's also skipping a Paris briefing this afternoon for all senators. His office said he attended an Intelligence Committee meeting on Paris held Tuesday.

In recent months Rubio has missed a slew of Foreign Relations hearings and classified briefings, records show, aiding his critics.

http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/rubio-misses-briefing-on-paris-attacks-for-fundraising/2254468

In January, Rubio missed an intelligence briefing on ISIS and two other classified briefings because he was fundraising in California. In April he missed a closed Intelligence Committee briefing while in Texas raising money. And in September he missed a Foreign Relations hearing on the humanitarian crisis in the Middle East.

Records show Rubio missed numerous hearings in the years before he announced for president. Those meetings covered a range of issues, from Al Qaeda to Iran and embassy security.

Rubio has said that he gets regular briefings from staff and sends surrogates to meetings he cannot attend. His office said Wednesday that a day earlier he attended an Intelligence Committee meeting on the Paris attacks. Such meetings typically are more in-depth and contain higher classified information than other briefings, such as the one for all senators today.

But he has exposed himself to criticism from all sides.

“While the rest of the world is focused on the terror attacks in Paris, Rubio is skipping critical briefings on national security to focus on high-dollar fundraisers,” said Christina Freundlich, a DNC spokeswoman. “Marco Rubio has a responsibility to do his job for his constituents and the nation as a United State Senator. If he doesn’t have time to be a senator while running for president, he should resign and give the job to someone who can actually focus on the threats we face. He excuses his poor voting record by saying the votes he misses don’t matter, but it’s especially galling when he’s missing national security briefings in order to attend ritzy West Coast fundraisers.”

El Jefe, your Hillary/vet rant was silly. She'll be a strong advocate for our veterans.

So Gary, why should we take in these Syrian refugees that are a result of an ongoing civil war that we have absolutely NOTHING to do with? Why.

And do you agree with Obama that ASSAD should go and a regime change is necessary in order to achieve peace there?

"1 in 4 Swedish Women Will Be Raped as Sexual Assaults Increase 500%
Sweden now has the second highest number of rapes in the world, after South Africa, which at 53.2 per 100,000 is six times higher than the United States. Statistics now suggest that 1 out of every 4 Swedish women will be raped. "

chief: So Gary, why should we take in these Syrian refugees that are a result of an ongoing civil war that we have absolutely NOTHING to do with? Why.

Our women avoid them, not just because they are unattractive and slightly primitive in their ways, but it has become well known that rapes have been occurring in peripheral roads when our women come home from their jobs. Our governments have been too welcoming and lax at our borders, especially when it comes to filtering those individuals that come to our country to work from those that expect to live here without doing anything, or even worse as criminals”.

healyje

Trad climber
Portland, Oregon

Nov 18, 2015 - 09:14pm PT


We have absolutely EVERYTHING to do with it.

The Syrian Civil War (Arabic: الحرب الأهلية السورية‎) is an ongoing international armed conflict taking place in Syria. The unrest began in the early spring of 2011 within the context of Arab Spring protests, with nationwide protests against President Bashar al-Assad's government, whose forces responded with violent crackdowns. The conflict gradually morphed from prominent protests to an armed rebellion after months of military sieges.

More than four million refugees of the Syrian Civil War have left the country during the course of the war. Most of them fled to neighboring Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq, while thousands also ended up in more distant countries of the Caucasus, the Persian Gulf, North Africa and Europe. As of February 2015, Turkey has become the world's biggest refugee hosting country with 2.1 million Syrian refugees and had spent more than US$6 billion on direct assistance to refugees.

The refugee crisis began in 2011, when thousands of Syrian citizens fled across the border to neighboring Turkey and Lebanon.

It's you. You the US citizen. The US citizen who turns a blind eye to all evil as long as "I got mine."

What is the Brookings Institute exactly and why do suggestions from this think tank and others like it, matter?

The Brookings Institute is an influential think tank that has a revolving door of personnel with the US government and major corporations. All that one needs to do is look at its trustees and executives, which include interlocked directorships with the Carlyle Group, Goldman Sachs, and JP Morgan Chase.

Brookings also has ties to Israel and a full branch dedicated to Washington’s Middle East strategies and policies called the Saban Centre for Middle East Policy. Martin Indyk – the former US ambassador to Israel, a former high-level lobbyist for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and the founder of AIPAC’s research arm (the Washington Institute for Near East Policy) – is the Director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings. Like Indyk, Kenneth Pollack was involved in shaping the Middle East policies of the Clinton Administration.

It is also worth noting that the Brookings Institute’s Saban Center is named after US-Israeli businessman and media mogul Haim Saban. Saban himself is on the board of trustees for Brookings.

There is a Qatari connection too. One may remember that Washington was hostile towards Al Jazeera when it first emerged as a news broadcaster, because of its coverage of US actions in the Middle East.

Saban tried to buy half of the Al Jazeera network from Qatar in 2004 and 2009, but failed. In the same timeframe as the 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, the first set of negotiations happened when he went to Qatar with Bill Clinton in 2003.

It is possible that Brookings may have played a role in pacifying Al Jazeera. In 2009, the Institute setup an overseas branch in Qatar called the Brookings Doha Center. The new chapter in Doha included Qatar’s ruling Al-Thani family alongside people like Madeleine Albright, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Fareed Zakaria as chairs and advisors.

It was in the same year that the Brookings Institute published a report, which included Pollack and Indyk as authors, called Which Path to Persia? The report outlined a map for confronting Iran and alluded to the neutralization of Syria, in one way or another (including the procurement of a peace agreement with Damascus by Israel), to “mitigate blowback” from Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Palestinians, specifically Hamas, as a prerequisite for an enabling an attack on Iran.

All in all, the ideas that come out of the Brookings Institute are discussed at the highest levels within policymaking and corporate circles.

healyje

Trad climber
Portland, Oregon

Nov 18, 2015 - 10:39pm PT
Seriously? You may bite, but if you haven't figured it out on your own by now then I question your ability to chew. Now if only all wars could be fought in neat isolation and without messy downstream consequences as you seem to believe happened in Iraq. Tidy, if not surgical, in a word because we're just that damn good.

Ah, wtf does that matter Spiny? Seriously?

"Home grown ISIS Jihadists are no different than Syrian based ISIS Jihadists as this recent Paris attack clearly shows. This new revelation just makes it more concurring to be suspicious of all Muslim Young Men that may have been influenced by this ISIS Caliphate mania."