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JOE BIDEN BRUSHES OFF SANDERS’ CRITICISM OVER IRAQ WAR: ‘BERNIE’S GOT ENOUGH BAGGAGE’

Former Vice President Joe Biden took his latest jab at Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders Friday, dismissing criticism about his 2002 vote in favor of the Iraq War by simply replying: “Bernie’s got enough baggage.”

Speaking with reporters in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Biden attempted to brush off several of Sanders’ recent critical comments. For instance, Sanders has repeatedly stated that Biden’s long Senate voting record will be held against him in the general election, including the then-Delaware senator’s vote for NAFTA and in favor of invading Iraq in the United States’ failed search for weapons of mass destruction. The two presidential rivals have taken increasingly snippy swipes at each other in recent weeks, culminating with Biden telling reporters Friday they won’t get the two to fight.

Sanders told The Washington Post last week that Biden has “a lot of baggage” — a phrase the former vice president then threw back at Sanders when asked for a response.

“I don’t respond to Bernie’s ridiculous comments,” Biden said when asked why Sanders is questioning his judgment about Iraq and foreign policy.

“You’re not going to get me in a fight with Bernie,” Biden continued. “Bernie’s got enough baggage.”

Sanders recently told both the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post that Biden’s record on trade deals and Iraq will hurt him in the same way Hillary Clinton’s past was used against her in the 2016 general election. Speaking with the Post last week, Sanders said: “It’s just a lot of baggage that Joe takes into a campaign, which isn’t going to create energy and excitement. He brings a record which is so weak that it just cannot create the kind of excitement and energy that is going to be needed to defeat Donald Trump.”

Ocasio-Cortez Says Trump Is a ‘Monster’ for ‘Threatening to Target and Kill Innocent Families, Women, and Children’ in Iran

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Saturday night called President Donald Trump a “monster” for threatening to target more than 50 Iranian sites—including some he said are ” important to Iran and the Iranian culture”—if Tehran retaliates for the U.S. assassination of General Qasem Soleimani.

“This is a war crime,” Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, tweeted in response to the president’s warning. “Threatening to target and kill innocent families, women, and children—which is what you’re doing by targeting cultural sites—does not make you a ‘tough guy.’ It does not make you ‘strategic.’ It makes you a monster.”

In a series of tweets Saturday night after thousands across the U.S. rallied against war with Iran, Trump said the U.S. is prepared to strike “52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level and important to Iran and the Iranian culture,” if Tehran targets any Americans or “American assets” in response to Soleimani’s assassination.

Intentionally targeting cultural and non-military sites is a war crime under international law, as observers hastened to point out in response to the president’s threat.

Trump’s tweet came hours after the White House formally notified Congress Saturday of the strike on Soleimani, as required by the War Powers Act of 1973.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a statement that the classified document delivered by the Trump administration “raises more questions than it answers.” As Common Dreams reported, the White House has yet to provide any evidence for its assertion that the strike against Soleimani was aimed at preventing “imminent” attacks against Americans in the Middle East.

Soleimani’s Assassination: The Mafia Would Have Been Proud

Trump may now have the war with Iran he so obviously craves and that Israel and Saudi Arabia want.

The Mainstream Media Is a Cheerleader for War With Iran

n the aftermath of the United States’ latest war crime — the assassination-by-drone strike in Baghdad of Qassem Soleimani, head of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — Fox News decided to educate its audience on the proper takeaway from the episode.

The upshot was not, of course, that the illegal killing was kind of a big deal or that the person who authorized it — Donald Trump — had potentially set the stage for calamity and bloodshed of untold proportions. Rather, the crucial point to focus on was the “polarized reaction by American news outlets.”

Trotted out to confirm the severity of the situation was one William A. Jacobson of Cornell Law School, who bemoaned the sad state of the “liberal media”: “Take any topic and they portray Trump as irresponsible and ignorant. This time those portrayals are on steroids, with Trump being portrayed as a warmonger surrounded by sycophants isolated from reality.”

Well, yeah.

In reality, the oft-invoked allegation of “polarization” in the media and the broader political establishment hardly holds water; it’s like arguing that 21 degrees Fahrenheit and 22 degrees Fahrenheit are polar opposites. Just recall, for example, that time Trump fired cruise missiles at Syria and the liberal media thought it was pretty much the most exciting thing to have ever happened.

A glance at media coverage of the Soleimani assassination also fails to produce much evidence of a fanatical anti-Trump campaign. The lead paragraph of a New York Times article about the “Master of Iran’s Intrigue” is devoted to establishing how Soleimani was “behind hundreds of American deaths in Iraq and waves of militia attacks against Israel.” The second paragraph reiterates that he was a “powerful and shadowy . . . spymaster at the head of Iran’s security machinery.”

In other words: he deserved it. And never mind that the United States has been behind countless thousands of Iraqi deaths in Iraq or that — as the article later reveals — the “waves of militia attacks” took place during the brutal twenty-two-year military occupation of south Lebanon by Israel, which also boasts the distinction of having slaughtered tens of thousands of people in that country.

When you’re not actually in the business of speaking truth to power, some things are better left unsaid.

Tech Companies Owe Us Billions of Dollars

Google and other giant corporations still aren’t paying their fair share of taxes. We need to demand policies that redistribute our collectively generated wealth.

Jagmeet Singh Uses AOC, Bernie Sanders To Explain The NDP To Americans

Jagmeet Singh highlighted NDP policies such as universal drug coverage and dental care in introducing himself to an American audience, and name-dropped high-profile Democrats in the process.

The NDP leader was a guest on the New Year’s Eve episode of New York-based “The Breakfast Club,” which regularly draws eight million monthly listeners. In a wide-ranging conversation with hosts of the popular radio show, Charlamagne tha God, Angela Yee and DJ Envy, Singh explained the NDP to Americans and repeated criticism of U.S. President Donald Trump.

When asked to explain his role in Canada to the show’s mostly American audience, Singh likened himself to U.S. congresswoman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

“It would be the AOC, Bernie Sanders kind of Democrat,” Singh explained. “We’re the progressive, left party of Canada.”

Ocasio-Cortez’s first piece of legislation was the Green New Deal, social and economic reforms to address climate change and economic inequality, issues that are also core to the NDP platform. Sanders, a U.S. senator, has made public health care a core part of his campaigning.

Singh made his alignment clear during the half-hour interview, by clearing up misconceptions of Canadian liberalism and calling out Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“He says a lot of the right things, and I give him credit for that, he says nice things,” said Singh. “It’s very different what he says publicly and what he does privately, in terms of his policies versus what he says.”