Tag Archives: John Boehner

Watchdog Argues Obama Admin’s Cave on White Supremacy Helped Pave Way for Jacksonville Shooting

“We must not be fooled into treating each massacre as its own tragedy,” said one civil rights advocate. “The tragedy first lies in the unchecked proliferation of the violent racist ideology coupled with the unchecked access to weapons of war.”

By Julia Conley. Published 8-30-2023 by Common Dreams

Neo-Nazis demonstrating outside a Turning Point USA conference in Tampa on July 23, 2022. Photo: @Freeyourmindkid/Twitter

As the community of Jacksonville, Florida reeled from the killing of three Black Americans by a white supremacist at a Dollar General store last Saturday, a government watchdog said that the “lion’s share” of blame for the proliferation of racist, white nationalist violence in the U.S. can be placed on Republican politicians including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump—but noted that the Obama administration helped allow white supremacy to fester by caving to the GOP at a crucial moment more than a decade ago.

Chris Lewis, a senior researcher at the Revolving Door Projectpointed to the Democratic administration’s response when Republican lawmakers complained about a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report in 2009 that warned of the growth of right-wing extremism, including the white supremacist movement, and the danger it posed to communities across the United States.

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Not A Nuke Nuke Joke

Senator Tom Cotton. Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Senator Tom Cotton. Photo via Wikimedia Commons

We at Occupy World Writes try to be apolitical as much as possible. We find both parties to be hypocritical to a large degree, and we’d rather remain equal opportunity critics. However, the chuckleheads who have taken over conservative politics are especially worthy of our scorn.

We could talk about their fiscal irresponsibility or their tone deafness in their statements about women, minorities and unions. We could talk about their denial of science, or their demonizing of intelligence. We could name many, many more examples why the Republican party of today is the most inept and derision worthy group of clowns we’ve seen in our lifetimes. However, their most obvious fault (and the most dangerous one at the moment) is their willingness to put party before the good and safety of their country. Continue reading

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Bibi’s Blunders

Next Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to speak before a joint session of Congress. We wrote a piece the day after his speech was announced.

Benjamin Netanyahu. Photo by U.S. Department of State [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Benjamin Netanyahu. Photo by U.S. Department of State [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

In it, we discussed what made this speech different. From the breach of protocol with the end run around the White House in arranging and announcing the speech to the very real concerns over the House of Representatives essentially outsourcing our foreign policy and giving an international stage to Netanyahu right before elections in his own country, we explained why this was a terrible idea.

We followed that with a second piece a couple weeks later, asking how Congress could invite a leader to speak before them as a friend and trusted ally, when that leader’s military and police killed over 500 innocent children in Gaza over a period of 50 days.

With the speech now less than a week away, we thought we’d take a look at what else has happened with the “Republican Senator from Israel” recently. Continue reading

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Israel Needs A Change of Address

Gaza 2014. Photo via Facebook

Gaza 2014. Photo via Facebook

On March 3, 2015, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address the United States Congress less than two weeks before his re-election campaign in Israel. The invitation from Speaker of the House John Boehner, was extended as a means of creating political divide between the two major US political parties, and has become successful not only in that regard, but also in causing another nation’s leader to become a pawn in America’s political games. Continue reading

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Outsourcing Our Foreign Policy

Speaker of the House John Boehner (public domain) via Wikimedia Commons

Speaker of the House John Boehner (public domain) via Wikimedia Commons

Yesterday morning, Speaker of the House John Boehner announced that he had invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress.

Now, inviting foreign leaders to address Congress is nothing new; for example, this is Netanyahu’s third time speaking in front of Congress (the first foreign leader since Winston Churchill to appear that many times). However, this time the background story’s rather interesting, not to mention troubling.

First of all, there’s the breach of protocol. Usually, if the leader of a foreign country is going to 1) visit another country, and 2) speak in front of the country’s legislative body, the visiting leader would contact the other country’s leader and tell him/her that a visit and an address was planned, and only then after the other leader’s acknowledgment, announce the visit. This didn’t happen in this case; Speaker Boehner notified the White House just before the announcement.

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