++Willard Romney lashed out at The Donald for criticizing John McCain. None of the Romneys have ever served in the military. The Donald admitted he had student deferments and a bone spur. The Donald then went off on John McCain's poor record in helping veterans , which is true,and then said what did we get out of Vietnam but alot of death.
++Ben Carson at the same Iowa forum said he didn't know whether John McCain was a war hero. Ted Cruz said the refused to go down into the sewer. The RNC decided the Donald criticized the wrong person for nice and said that Republicans never criticized veterans. Tell that to John Kerry whom they mocked with fake purple hearts at the 2004 convention.
++Jeb! hasn't been heard from because his draft number was 26 and no one knows how he got out of the draft.
++The Imperial Post was crowing that this will do in The Donald. The Fact he has monopolized all media coverage of the Republicans this week indicates we may see a bounce yet again in his polls. The Donald won't let go. He claims John McCain just appears on Sunday shows and talks, talk, talks but does nothing.
++Meanwhile tomorrow is the big Bibi showdown with war hero John Kerry. They appear on three talk shows in a row. Bibi is revving up the AIPAC machine to votes against the Iran deal.
++Today President Obama spoke in detail about the critiques of the Iran deal. He will be visiting the VFW convention to talk about it.
++Pat Buchanan came out his fog and wrote a very sensible piece about the difficulties the Republicans will have in rejecting the agreement. Pat argues this would leave the United States isolated,Iran free to pursue a nuclear weapon, and the whole word not trusting the United States whose Secretary of State negotiated the whole thing.
++The Saudis , according to the Christian Science Monitor, will act against Iran before the money flows to tehran from the release of the first tranche of sanctions money.
++My e-mails from conservative military types are hoping that the Saudis and Israelis will form an alliance to do away with the Palestinian issue and then form a collation to fight the Shia and Persians. Oh Happy Day. Anyone saying that the deal is not a choice between peace and war is lying.
++Scott Walker didn't have a good week. The Progressive magazine did a great TV ad showing what Scott has done to Wisconsin--destroyed it. Word out of New Hampshire has residents reacting to Walker's refusal to have town hall meetings. Walker wants pre scripted venues and wants to avoid any questioning . For his announcement he wore a Kevlar vest and is surrounded by heavy security throughout his campaign. Ed Kilgore at the Washington Monthly is beginning to pay attention to this creature.
Showing posts with label Pat Buchanan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pat Buchanan. Show all posts
Saturday, July 18, 2015
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Who's George Takei to tell Arizona What to Do?
++Pat Robertson said it was un-American not to have the Arizona law go into effect. Other Christian radio broadcasters are saying that if Jan Brewer vetoes, then Christian will become second-class citizens. So I guess it's better to legalize the LBGT community as second-class citizens.
++Pat Buchanan has an even better idea. Eliminate all civil rights laws and get rid of all bureaucrats who have to enforce them.
++Since Ted Nugent says the Obama Administration acts like Nazis, Phyllis Schafly has another solution Americans should revolt like the Ukrainians.
++These people bring shame on white people.
++Pat Buchanan has an even better idea. Eliminate all civil rights laws and get rid of all bureaucrats who have to enforce them.
++Since Ted Nugent says the Obama Administration acts like Nazis, Phyllis Schafly has another solution Americans should revolt like the Ukrainians.
++These people bring shame on white people.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Political Notes On A Rainy Day
One more time on Cy Twombly. The New York Times had a wonderful long review of his work today as promised. He was nicknamed Cy after Cy Young and was in cryptography during his military service, which probably explains his fascination with coded writing in his paintings. While he lived in Italy most of his adult life,a woman here in Virginia talked on the radio about having dinner with him recently in Lexington, Virginia where he grew up. In the past couple of years, he alluded to his staying in Lexington for months a time.
If you want a good book on his work, including color plates of details of his paintings, Richard Leeman's Cy Twombly, A Monograph (Flammarion) fills the bill. Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish today highlighted Twombly's work approvingly quoting art critic David Sylvester saying that his paintings recalled the marks on one's bed after making love. Interesting observation or fixation as the case may be.
Steve Benen at Washington Monthly had a power outage today so he couldn't keep the heat on Williard Romney. At the appropriate time, the Obama campaign should make Steve the head of opposition research of Mitt--he has him down pat. Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune picked up the slack today criticizing Romney's meanderings on the economy. Think Progressive nails him for his statements that the Dodd-Franks financial reform bill went too far but then he couldn't say what was in it. This seems to be a regular pattern with the GOP. They don't even know what's in the Health Care bill for instance.
Benen's writing on Romney reminded me that I find Mitt somewhat creepy and can't put my finger on why. Maybe it's the story of him tying his labrador retriever to the roof of the car when the family went on vacation. Or his recent remark that he loves to read L.Ron Hubbard sci-fi. Maybe it is his Mormonism. One of the more interesting stories coming out of Mormonland is the dislike of the Huntsman clan for the Romneys. Is any reporter going to ask either man how much of the Book of Mormon they believe?
To reacquaint myself with the orgins of Mormonism, I am currently reading Fawn Brodie's "No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith", who also declared he was running for President. This book allegedly got Fawn Brodie thrown out of the Mormon religion. But reading it, I was struck how much Glenn Beck with his conspiracy theories resembles Joseph Smith, whose work of fiction/divine revelation contains all the conroversies of the time--anti-Catholicism, the whole Masonic conspiracy and the religious fights within the protestant movement. Smith was literally someone who dug for treasure in Vermont and New York State,reminding us that Beck sold gold on his show. Later he even created a bank and printed his own money. It's actually perfect Beck is a Mormon. His embrace of David Barton makes sense also as Joseph Smith was for a theocracy and didn't believe in the separation of church and state, much like Barton.
President Obama had his first tweeter on-line townhall meeting. He's good at it. He's mastered the form in responding to questions. John Boehner even tried to sneak into the act by asking "Where are the jobs?" He's a good one to ask. At the present rate, the current Congress will go down as the least productive in modern history,surpassing the record of Harry Truman's famous "Do Nothing Congress" of 1948. Compare it with the first two years of Obama's presidency. Which do you prefer?
The Obama Administration would like to play down the possibility of invoking the 14th amendment to resolve the debt ceiling issue. He even avoided the question today in his townhall meeting. But the legal community is beginning to write about this. The question then becomes what is the national debt. According to Republicans, it is what is owed bond holders. To normal Americans, it's everything owed by the government, including Social Security and pension payments. A teabagger in the House vowed that the House would impeach Obama if he invoked the 14th amendment. That would be interesting. The last two Democratic Presidents impeached. Think that wouldn't be a story.
Talk shows are commenting that Wall Street simply is not acting as if there will be a problem. Financial analysts have said they expect the Republicans won't give on tax hikes so the budget cuts will be lower than has been discussed in the negotiations, the ceiling will be raised and we go on from there.
The Washington punditry has finally caught on that the GOP might actually be mad. It's taken them over a year to realize this. Richard Cohen wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post the other day about how the GOP has become the Grand Old Cult. He remarked about the penchant of Republicans to sign on to strange lists like a pledge not to raise taxes, a pledge to prohibit abortion even in cases like incest and rape. Previous positions on climate change have gone by the board. But this town seems genuinely worried that the GOP will continue their hostage-taking because none of the GOP leadership will stand up against the teabaggers. Rand Paul has turned out to be even more unruly than his father,vowing to filibuster the debt ceiling vote until he gets his way on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. I don't have the time or inclination to explain why that is an absolutely insane idea.
David Brooks must have just gotten off his book tour and finally realized that the GOP was actually nuttier than he believed. Brooks noted what Michael Steele said last year that the GOP is not fit to govern. Steele had warned Republicans in 2010 that they might win the by-election but they were not ready to lead. Brooks finally woke up to the fact that his party has no regard for academics, scholars and policy analysis of any sort.
What put him over the edge was that the budget deal offered by Obama was a no-brainer to "normal" Republicans--minimal tax hikes and massive spending cuts. David Frum weighed in that President Obama should never have gotten himself into this situation in the first place, offering to negotiate with hostage takers. I actually agree. But Brooks' remarks actually generated push-back from conservative talk show hosts and resident Very Serious Person, Paul Ryan, who touted head Wahhabist Grover Norquist's line about no tax increases. Bloggers have begun to question whether Republicans who take his pledge not to raise taxes are violating their oath of office by pledging their allegiance to a private citizen. Interesting question.
The Willard juggernaut released his fund-raising figures. We were told to expect between $25 and $30 million but the number came in at $18.5 million, less than Romney's take in the first quarter of 2007. Although this puts him light years ahead of anyone else in the field, it underlines how the Romney people play fast and loose with numbers. I guess they got the hang of the new GOP.
A 14-year old blogger going under the tag "Youngprogressive" posted his experience of asking a question of Romney in New Hampshire. He could give Steve Benen a run for his money. The blogger wanted to find out whether there was any moderate left in Romney. He said he hesitated to ask his question in the public forum because Romney was trying to imitate a teabagger. But after the presentation he went up to the candidate and asked him about his statements on repealing "Obamacare" when he had passed a similar program for Massachusetts.
Romney gave his state waiver answer but the youngster started asking him whether he would repeal the section on prohibiting exclusive of insurance for preconditions. Romney said he didn't think so and then the blogger asked about repealing life time caps, which would penalize senior citizens. Romney couldn't give him a straight answer and that's what made the boy conclude Romney was a phoney because he was too afraid of his own party to give a straight answer. Sharp judge of character. It's going to be interesting to see where Romney goes as he has to articulate real answers to real questions.
The Newt is having money woes--the campaign seems to be running a deficit at this stage of the game. I browsed through his American Exceptionalism tonight and just couldn't buy it. Alot of it is just rehashed arguments about how liberals crushed America and that Obama doesn't appreciate the uniqueness of America and basically that we must recapture our sense of our unique destiny as a nation. It's basically an update on his Obama book that criticizes the President for trying to create a socialist, secular society. With assaults on every part of our social safety nets, we might need more socialism at this time.
Pat Buchanan on Morning Joe said that the American Empire is stretched too thin and that it is going down. He gave his pithy isolationist chant that we are borrowing from Japan to defend Japan, we're borrowing from the Middle East to defend the Middle East, we're borrowing from Europe to defend Europe. Actually there is alot of truth in his sentiments. When Eisenhower faced large deficits, he cut defense dramatically. It's being suggested that this is what Panetta's mandate will be . But already the defense industries are mounting an attack against defense cuts, even though the defense budget has tripled since 1999.
Zbig showed up on Morning Joe and because his daughter is co-host, he doesn't get guff. Zbig is the first well-known figure that I can recall that has said that the enormous disparity in wealth in this country is potentially destabilizing. His point was that this glaring social fact raises questions about social justice, fairness and the nature of our society. Failure to address this creates very bad optics that lead people to question other elements of our society. He neglected to say when the tipping point would be but he suggested other such societies experience political violence. I'm glad he said it because outside the Beltway one can sense the deep frustration and anger that is building about the economy and the failure of our political system to respond to the current economic challenges. Poll after poll shows people think that the wealthy must pay a greater share than they do today.
Maybe these right-wing governors elected in 2010 know something about today's American I don't. But how long will people put up with something like Scott Walker in Wisconsin using prisoners to perform jobs once performed by public workers? How long can people tolerate Rick Scott's various give-aways to the private sector when public education in Florida is being eviscerated? And John Kasich's crimes in Ohio are too numerous to list. Does the average American continue to be rolled by these guys or will there be more than just political pushback?
Francis Fukuyama continues on his political rehabilitation. In his latest book, he describes how under the Han dynasty the wealthy actually went so far to protect their privilege and riches as to cause the collapse of China. This chapter is being dissected on the political blogs as a lesson for today's America.
Not helping his momentary rehabilitation, David Stockman, who had been approvingly quoted for challenging current GOP orthodoxy on tax cuts, appeared on the Diane Rheim show and gave a bloodless position on why a debt default might not be too bad a thing. He said that the only way Obama could overcome our economic situation is to eliminate the tax cuts for everyone,including the middle class, and convening the military to say he wanted $250 billion cut over the next five years. In the meantime, Stockman argued that a default would raise interest rates and screw those on Wall Street holding Treasury Bonds but tough. In his scenario, it was just a matter vof math, not human beings.
A book that has nice parallels today is Scott Miller's "The President and the Assassin--McKinley, Terror, and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century"(Random House). Aside from the Lincoln assassination, we tend to forget other political assassinations. The book covers the election of William McKinley over William Jennings Bryan as the first election where American corporations poured money straight from their business into the campaign because of their fear of Bryan's populism. Miller reports on the 100,000 person rally in New York organized by business--the first Freedomworks Teaparty--to rally against Bryan's assault on the gold standard. The financial backing and corporations coming right out and suggesting they would layoff their workers if Bryan won overcame Bryan's lead. If 30,000 votes had switched in key states, McKinley would have lost.
But the other side of the story was that corporations were so dominant in American society that the average American faced little mobility and faced sweeping changes threatening their livelihood. One such man was the assassin Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist who was inspired by the anarchist killing of the King of Italy. The assasssination did little but bring Theodore Roosevelt to power, who did embark on efforts to change the situation. The campaign funding laws restricting corporate financing of political campaigns came to past a few years later. Those were the laws overturned by the Roberts Court and we have seen the results.
If you want a good book on his work, including color plates of details of his paintings, Richard Leeman's Cy Twombly, A Monograph (Flammarion) fills the bill. Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish today highlighted Twombly's work approvingly quoting art critic David Sylvester saying that his paintings recalled the marks on one's bed after making love. Interesting observation or fixation as the case may be.
Steve Benen at Washington Monthly had a power outage today so he couldn't keep the heat on Williard Romney. At the appropriate time, the Obama campaign should make Steve the head of opposition research of Mitt--he has him down pat. Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune picked up the slack today criticizing Romney's meanderings on the economy. Think Progressive nails him for his statements that the Dodd-Franks financial reform bill went too far but then he couldn't say what was in it. This seems to be a regular pattern with the GOP. They don't even know what's in the Health Care bill for instance.
Benen's writing on Romney reminded me that I find Mitt somewhat creepy and can't put my finger on why. Maybe it's the story of him tying his labrador retriever to the roof of the car when the family went on vacation. Or his recent remark that he loves to read L.Ron Hubbard sci-fi. Maybe it is his Mormonism. One of the more interesting stories coming out of Mormonland is the dislike of the Huntsman clan for the Romneys. Is any reporter going to ask either man how much of the Book of Mormon they believe?
To reacquaint myself with the orgins of Mormonism, I am currently reading Fawn Brodie's "No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith", who also declared he was running for President. This book allegedly got Fawn Brodie thrown out of the Mormon religion. But reading it, I was struck how much Glenn Beck with his conspiracy theories resembles Joseph Smith, whose work of fiction/divine revelation contains all the conroversies of the time--anti-Catholicism, the whole Masonic conspiracy and the religious fights within the protestant movement. Smith was literally someone who dug for treasure in Vermont and New York State,reminding us that Beck sold gold on his show. Later he even created a bank and printed his own money. It's actually perfect Beck is a Mormon. His embrace of David Barton makes sense also as Joseph Smith was for a theocracy and didn't believe in the separation of church and state, much like Barton.
President Obama had his first tweeter on-line townhall meeting. He's good at it. He's mastered the form in responding to questions. John Boehner even tried to sneak into the act by asking "Where are the jobs?" He's a good one to ask. At the present rate, the current Congress will go down as the least productive in modern history,surpassing the record of Harry Truman's famous "Do Nothing Congress" of 1948. Compare it with the first two years of Obama's presidency. Which do you prefer?
The Obama Administration would like to play down the possibility of invoking the 14th amendment to resolve the debt ceiling issue. He even avoided the question today in his townhall meeting. But the legal community is beginning to write about this. The question then becomes what is the national debt. According to Republicans, it is what is owed bond holders. To normal Americans, it's everything owed by the government, including Social Security and pension payments. A teabagger in the House vowed that the House would impeach Obama if he invoked the 14th amendment. That would be interesting. The last two Democratic Presidents impeached. Think that wouldn't be a story.
Talk shows are commenting that Wall Street simply is not acting as if there will be a problem. Financial analysts have said they expect the Republicans won't give on tax hikes so the budget cuts will be lower than has been discussed in the negotiations, the ceiling will be raised and we go on from there.
The Washington punditry has finally caught on that the GOP might actually be mad. It's taken them over a year to realize this. Richard Cohen wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post the other day about how the GOP has become the Grand Old Cult. He remarked about the penchant of Republicans to sign on to strange lists like a pledge not to raise taxes, a pledge to prohibit abortion even in cases like incest and rape. Previous positions on climate change have gone by the board. But this town seems genuinely worried that the GOP will continue their hostage-taking because none of the GOP leadership will stand up against the teabaggers. Rand Paul has turned out to be even more unruly than his father,vowing to filibuster the debt ceiling vote until he gets his way on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. I don't have the time or inclination to explain why that is an absolutely insane idea.
David Brooks must have just gotten off his book tour and finally realized that the GOP was actually nuttier than he believed. Brooks noted what Michael Steele said last year that the GOP is not fit to govern. Steele had warned Republicans in 2010 that they might win the by-election but they were not ready to lead. Brooks finally woke up to the fact that his party has no regard for academics, scholars and policy analysis of any sort.
What put him over the edge was that the budget deal offered by Obama was a no-brainer to "normal" Republicans--minimal tax hikes and massive spending cuts. David Frum weighed in that President Obama should never have gotten himself into this situation in the first place, offering to negotiate with hostage takers. I actually agree. But Brooks' remarks actually generated push-back from conservative talk show hosts and resident Very Serious Person, Paul Ryan, who touted head Wahhabist Grover Norquist's line about no tax increases. Bloggers have begun to question whether Republicans who take his pledge not to raise taxes are violating their oath of office by pledging their allegiance to a private citizen. Interesting question.
The Willard juggernaut released his fund-raising figures. We were told to expect between $25 and $30 million but the number came in at $18.5 million, less than Romney's take in the first quarter of 2007. Although this puts him light years ahead of anyone else in the field, it underlines how the Romney people play fast and loose with numbers. I guess they got the hang of the new GOP.
A 14-year old blogger going under the tag "Youngprogressive" posted his experience of asking a question of Romney in New Hampshire. He could give Steve Benen a run for his money. The blogger wanted to find out whether there was any moderate left in Romney. He said he hesitated to ask his question in the public forum because Romney was trying to imitate a teabagger. But after the presentation he went up to the candidate and asked him about his statements on repealing "Obamacare" when he had passed a similar program for Massachusetts.
Romney gave his state waiver answer but the youngster started asking him whether he would repeal the section on prohibiting exclusive of insurance for preconditions. Romney said he didn't think so and then the blogger asked about repealing life time caps, which would penalize senior citizens. Romney couldn't give him a straight answer and that's what made the boy conclude Romney was a phoney because he was too afraid of his own party to give a straight answer. Sharp judge of character. It's going to be interesting to see where Romney goes as he has to articulate real answers to real questions.
The Newt is having money woes--the campaign seems to be running a deficit at this stage of the game. I browsed through his American Exceptionalism tonight and just couldn't buy it. Alot of it is just rehashed arguments about how liberals crushed America and that Obama doesn't appreciate the uniqueness of America and basically that we must recapture our sense of our unique destiny as a nation. It's basically an update on his Obama book that criticizes the President for trying to create a socialist, secular society. With assaults on every part of our social safety nets, we might need more socialism at this time.
Pat Buchanan on Morning Joe said that the American Empire is stretched too thin and that it is going down. He gave his pithy isolationist chant that we are borrowing from Japan to defend Japan, we're borrowing from the Middle East to defend the Middle East, we're borrowing from Europe to defend Europe. Actually there is alot of truth in his sentiments. When Eisenhower faced large deficits, he cut defense dramatically. It's being suggested that this is what Panetta's mandate will be . But already the defense industries are mounting an attack against defense cuts, even though the defense budget has tripled since 1999.
Zbig showed up on Morning Joe and because his daughter is co-host, he doesn't get guff. Zbig is the first well-known figure that I can recall that has said that the enormous disparity in wealth in this country is potentially destabilizing. His point was that this glaring social fact raises questions about social justice, fairness and the nature of our society. Failure to address this creates very bad optics that lead people to question other elements of our society. He neglected to say when the tipping point would be but he suggested other such societies experience political violence. I'm glad he said it because outside the Beltway one can sense the deep frustration and anger that is building about the economy and the failure of our political system to respond to the current economic challenges. Poll after poll shows people think that the wealthy must pay a greater share than they do today.
Maybe these right-wing governors elected in 2010 know something about today's American I don't. But how long will people put up with something like Scott Walker in Wisconsin using prisoners to perform jobs once performed by public workers? How long can people tolerate Rick Scott's various give-aways to the private sector when public education in Florida is being eviscerated? And John Kasich's crimes in Ohio are too numerous to list. Does the average American continue to be rolled by these guys or will there be more than just political pushback?
Francis Fukuyama continues on his political rehabilitation. In his latest book, he describes how under the Han dynasty the wealthy actually went so far to protect their privilege and riches as to cause the collapse of China. This chapter is being dissected on the political blogs as a lesson for today's America.
Not helping his momentary rehabilitation, David Stockman, who had been approvingly quoted for challenging current GOP orthodoxy on tax cuts, appeared on the Diane Rheim show and gave a bloodless position on why a debt default might not be too bad a thing. He said that the only way Obama could overcome our economic situation is to eliminate the tax cuts for everyone,including the middle class, and convening the military to say he wanted $250 billion cut over the next five years. In the meantime, Stockman argued that a default would raise interest rates and screw those on Wall Street holding Treasury Bonds but tough. In his scenario, it was just a matter vof math, not human beings.
A book that has nice parallels today is Scott Miller's "The President and the Assassin--McKinley, Terror, and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century"(Random House). Aside from the Lincoln assassination, we tend to forget other political assassinations. The book covers the election of William McKinley over William Jennings Bryan as the first election where American corporations poured money straight from their business into the campaign because of their fear of Bryan's populism. Miller reports on the 100,000 person rally in New York organized by business--the first Freedomworks Teaparty--to rally against Bryan's assault on the gold standard. The financial backing and corporations coming right out and suggesting they would layoff their workers if Bryan won overcame Bryan's lead. If 30,000 votes had switched in key states, McKinley would have lost.
But the other side of the story was that corporations were so dominant in American society that the average American faced little mobility and faced sweeping changes threatening their livelihood. One such man was the assassin Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist who was inspired by the anarchist killing of the King of Italy. The assasssination did little but bring Theodore Roosevelt to power, who did embark on efforts to change the situation. The campaign funding laws restricting corporate financing of political campaigns came to past a few years later. Those were the laws overturned by the Roberts Court and we have seen the results.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
More Reactions to Obama's Israel Flap
The Sunday Washington Post's lead editorial laments President Obama's relationship with Netanyahu and believes the President undercut his own diplomatic efforts by formulating his position on negotiations between Israel and Palestine the way he did. The Post claims that Netanyahu only found out about the precise wording of the section on Israel only a few hours before the President delivered it.
The Post's editorial in my opinion is woefully wrong in its conclusions, blaming Palestinian President Abbas for not wanting a negotiated peace. They never raised the issue of Netanyahu's sincerity on the subject. And also questioned whether President Obama's initiatives on the Arab Spring are now in doubt.
Since we're supposed to think there is only the United States and the country upon which we act out our policy,it might be interesting to consider that there is something called the Quartet chosen by the international community to foster a peaceful solution between Israel and Palestine. The Quartet consists of the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia. The rest of the Quartet is on the record as agreeing with President Obama's parameters for a peace settlement and saying that they especially stress the urgent need for negotiations.
Angela Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister Cameron of the United Kingdom were quick off the block openly agreeing with President Obama, especially on the 1967 borders as being the starting point for negotiations, something Prime Minister Netanyahu has so far denied.
Tzipi Livni, the leader of the Kadima coalition in Israel, went on record backing Obama's plan and his tone. But she let loose on Netanyahu, saying: "The Prime Minister has violated relations between israel and the United States. He has endangered the security of Israel and its power of deterrence."
The sight of Netanyahu lecturing the President of the United States at their joint press conference has been the cause celebre in the Middle East and has drawn criticism here in the States. Pat Buchanan, not your most philo-semitic person, donned his commentator hat to say that he was bewildered by Republican criticism of Obama's position since it was the exact same as that of George W. Bush. But he also said that he personally resented having Netanyahu, who is totally dependent on America, to be publically lecturing President Obama like a schoolkid at the press conference.
Defense Minister Ehud Barack tried to downplay the PR fiasco for Israel, saying that the meeting didn't go all that badly and people were over-reacting.
In Ramallah on the West Bank, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas instructed all his advisers to avoid any comment so as to keep the attention on Netanyahu's behavior and his collision course with Obama. Palestinian authorities privately said that the chance of renewing the talks seem rather remote after the Israeli Prime Minister's visit to the United States.
Unless Obama can change Netanyahu's mind before he leaves the United States, the odds are great that the Palestinians will again look to renew the United Nations Resolution. President Obama has openly warned the Palestinians that they would not achieve their goal of a state through this method.
Palestinians well aware that the United States has vowed to veto such a measure are now looking either to have a United Nations trusteeship declared for Palestine or to acquire observer status at the United Nations.
During this time, President Abbas has been consulting Arab foreign ministers by phone and is heading to Jordan for consultations with the King. He has requested a meeting with the Arab league next month.
We look forward to both President Obama's and Netanyahu's speeches to AIPAC this coming week. President Obama's words that the "Dream of a Jewish democratic state can not be built on permanent occupation" resonates with the better angels in Israel but the ruling coalition knows it's doomed if it openly talks about a two-state solution.
Everyone's ambulance chaser, Glenn Beck has used the occasion to announce his wonderous "Restore Courage" tour of Israel. For just a few thousand dollars, you can travel to the Holy Land and walk in the footsteps of the Savior. And get to hear Glenn Beck defend Israel. He has said he will be willing to die there if God wants it. Beck says that all of Western civilization will end if Israel is destroyed. He badgered Bill O'Reilly the other night about his attitudes toward Jews. And like many evangelicals, he invokes the name of Dietrich Bonhoffer, who died in prison after trying to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
What Beck doesn't confess to is how Hitler allowed Mormons to proselytize in Nazi Germany and how the American evangelicals, who love to talk about Bonhoffer, in fact shamefully supported Hitler's programs for Germany. Accompanied on his trip to Israel by the religious Right's favorite fake historian David Barton, Beck might have inquired about American fundamentalists strange history in their relationship with Hitler's Germany. But irony isn't allowed here.
Glenn Beck said that he hoped his trip would ruin American foreign policy toward the region. Any bets on whether he is greeted by Netanyahu. After all the Prime Minister stiffed one of America's strongest allies of Israel, Vice President Biden, for an event hosted by Pastor Hagee, who was extolling the Jewish settlements.
There is real bad juju going on here and anyone really concerned about the security of Israel has to be tremendously bothered.
As with the Republicans, I remember meeting Bibi Netanyahu with Bayard Rustin when Bibi was relatively sane and intelligent. What bothers me know about him is his fixation on Masada.
The Post's editorial in my opinion is woefully wrong in its conclusions, blaming Palestinian President Abbas for not wanting a negotiated peace. They never raised the issue of Netanyahu's sincerity on the subject. And also questioned whether President Obama's initiatives on the Arab Spring are now in doubt.
Since we're supposed to think there is only the United States and the country upon which we act out our policy,it might be interesting to consider that there is something called the Quartet chosen by the international community to foster a peaceful solution between Israel and Palestine. The Quartet consists of the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia. The rest of the Quartet is on the record as agreeing with President Obama's parameters for a peace settlement and saying that they especially stress the urgent need for negotiations.
Angela Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister Cameron of the United Kingdom were quick off the block openly agreeing with President Obama, especially on the 1967 borders as being the starting point for negotiations, something Prime Minister Netanyahu has so far denied.
Tzipi Livni, the leader of the Kadima coalition in Israel, went on record backing Obama's plan and his tone. But she let loose on Netanyahu, saying: "The Prime Minister has violated relations between israel and the United States. He has endangered the security of Israel and its power of deterrence."
The sight of Netanyahu lecturing the President of the United States at their joint press conference has been the cause celebre in the Middle East and has drawn criticism here in the States. Pat Buchanan, not your most philo-semitic person, donned his commentator hat to say that he was bewildered by Republican criticism of Obama's position since it was the exact same as that of George W. Bush. But he also said that he personally resented having Netanyahu, who is totally dependent on America, to be publically lecturing President Obama like a schoolkid at the press conference.
Defense Minister Ehud Barack tried to downplay the PR fiasco for Israel, saying that the meeting didn't go all that badly and people were over-reacting.
In Ramallah on the West Bank, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas instructed all his advisers to avoid any comment so as to keep the attention on Netanyahu's behavior and his collision course with Obama. Palestinian authorities privately said that the chance of renewing the talks seem rather remote after the Israeli Prime Minister's visit to the United States.
Unless Obama can change Netanyahu's mind before he leaves the United States, the odds are great that the Palestinians will again look to renew the United Nations Resolution. President Obama has openly warned the Palestinians that they would not achieve their goal of a state through this method.
Palestinians well aware that the United States has vowed to veto such a measure are now looking either to have a United Nations trusteeship declared for Palestine or to acquire observer status at the United Nations.
During this time, President Abbas has been consulting Arab foreign ministers by phone and is heading to Jordan for consultations with the King. He has requested a meeting with the Arab league next month.
We look forward to both President Obama's and Netanyahu's speeches to AIPAC this coming week. President Obama's words that the "Dream of a Jewish democratic state can not be built on permanent occupation" resonates with the better angels in Israel but the ruling coalition knows it's doomed if it openly talks about a two-state solution.
Everyone's ambulance chaser, Glenn Beck has used the occasion to announce his wonderous "Restore Courage" tour of Israel. For just a few thousand dollars, you can travel to the Holy Land and walk in the footsteps of the Savior. And get to hear Glenn Beck defend Israel. He has said he will be willing to die there if God wants it. Beck says that all of Western civilization will end if Israel is destroyed. He badgered Bill O'Reilly the other night about his attitudes toward Jews. And like many evangelicals, he invokes the name of Dietrich Bonhoffer, who died in prison after trying to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
What Beck doesn't confess to is how Hitler allowed Mormons to proselytize in Nazi Germany and how the American evangelicals, who love to talk about Bonhoffer, in fact shamefully supported Hitler's programs for Germany. Accompanied on his trip to Israel by the religious Right's favorite fake historian David Barton, Beck might have inquired about American fundamentalists strange history in their relationship with Hitler's Germany. But irony isn't allowed here.
Glenn Beck said that he hoped his trip would ruin American foreign policy toward the region. Any bets on whether he is greeted by Netanyahu. After all the Prime Minister stiffed one of America's strongest allies of Israel, Vice President Biden, for an event hosted by Pastor Hagee, who was extolling the Jewish settlements.
There is real bad juju going on here and anyone really concerned about the security of Israel has to be tremendously bothered.
As with the Republicans, I remember meeting Bibi Netanyahu with Bayard Rustin when Bibi was relatively sane and intelligent. What bothers me know about him is his fixation on Masada.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Egrets, I've had a few.* Lazy Sunday at the Last Manatee
* shamelessly ripped off from DailyKos blogger "Kestrel".
The tension is mounting here as the Psychic Octopus is one away from a perfect World Cup. Germany has won and we are only hours away from Netherlands versus Barcelona (let's be honest here). Does the Octopus win a fish prize?
Remember the Hutaree Militia out of Michigan? It seems one of their members was arrested yesterday for plotting to kill President Obama, during his trip to the Midwest.
Amitai Etzioni has a new proposal for small government conservatives. He proposes that the Department of Justice prepare legal opt-out forms where you can have your taxes decreased by 2/3rds if you agree not to partake of any government services, with the exception of the military. My objection is that Etzioni calculates the cost of the military wrong--it's 40% of discretionary spending. So you get a 60% reduction on your taxes instead.
Ezra Klein, policy wonk at the Washington Post, saved us $4 trillion on our national debt this past week. So instead of going on a roll, he decides to play the party pooper. You know all the hype about elections, the media coverage, the campaign expenditures and the like. Well, it doesn't matter. Ezra found some geeks who have played around with their computers and says the results of the elections within 2% error depends on the state of the economy and that specifically means how much money people feel they have in their pockets. Forget everything else. Of course, this year that's bad news for Democrats. If this catches on, it may be bad news for all the political hired hands.
The American Psychological Association wants Dr. James Mitchell stripped of his license for his participation in overseeing the 2002 torture of Abu Zubayah,who was thought to be the Number 3 of Al Qaeda. The APA warned members from participating in all programs that were considered torture during the last eight years. Since the proceedings are in Texas, it's anyone's guess about the result. For the record, classified documents have come out within the past month from the Government which indicate Abu Zubayah may not even had been a member of Al Qaeda, let alone number 3.
Richard Minter, writing in the Daily Beast, says that some of us who are making fun of the gonad bomber and the Times Square bomber are missing the point about Al Qaeda. Since the end of the Bush Administration and the first 18 months of the Obama Administration, Al Qaeda has suffered crippling blows to their middle-level managers and can not maintain the basic organizational ability to mount sophisticated operations anymore. They are stuck with buying local cell phones, which are easily followed by intelligence, and their front businesses and mechanisms for laundering money have been closed down through international cooperation. With the constant assassinations of their number 3s and other high-ranking operatives, they lack the experience of developing backup plans and fielding supportive manpower to cover the primary actors in any given action. They are in their third generation, which lacks the military experience and spycraft of the previous plotters.
But never fear, Ryan Mauro of the Christian Action Network posts a piece on David Horowitz' www.frontpagemagazine.com "Muslim Enclaves U.S.A." Building on Daniel Pipes' 2004 work documenting how Muslims are creating seperate enclaves based on sharia law in the United States, Mauro outlines several groups in the United States who are creating little Muslim enclaves in Baltimore and Philadelphia. He claims Muslims of America, a group Homeland Security links to the Pakistan terrorist group Jamaat Ul-Fugra, owns 22 villages sporting such names as "Islamberg", "Holy Islamville" and "Aliville". While interesting, the article neglects the threat of rampaging Mexican Muslims. Perhaps, that's in the follow-up piece. I thought the caliphate ended in Cordoba.
Following up on Hillary Clinton's defense in Poland of the struggling civil society around the world, Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum wrote a defense of democracy promotion, admitting the whole idea got a little abused during the Bush Administration with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But she argued that President Obama should speak on the subject more frequently.
Not having any of this, Pat Buchanan in "The Democracy Obsession" at www.amconmag.com says that the United States blew the opportunity to adopt a policy of non-intervention right after the Cold War. He then blames the superfluous foreign policy elites for conjuring up the intervention in Panama, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, the Persian Gulf War, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He accuses the National Endowment for Democracy and Freedom House of subverting regimes in Belgrade,Caracas, Kiev, Tbilisi, Beirut and Bishkek. He argues that democratic states don't make us any secure and are not our friends. He slams W for pushing democracy in the Middle East. Pointing out that pressuring Egypt, Lebanon and Palestine to have elections yielded us the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbullah and Hamas. He points to South Africa, Brazil, India and Turkey as prime examples of democracies going their own way--away from the United States. He points to both India and Brazil lining up with China to fight caps on carbon emissions and Turkey drifting toward Iran and Syria because of its reactions to Israeli actions.
Coming off his book on World War II, where he blames Churchill, he gets his digs in at the Brits again. He points out that the British sided with Mexico during the Mexican War and with the South in our Civil War. He points out that democratic governments such as Sweden and Ireland were neutral during WWII but that the Soviet Union and Chang Kai Shek sided with the U.S. He says that France denied Reagan airspace for his attack on Libya but that Salazar's Portugal gave Nixon the use of the Azores during the Yom Kippur War. He also has to throw in his plug for Pinochet in Chile.
With the fade of the Third Wave of Democratization, democracy advocates will have to answer Buchanan on the merits of his case and not slam him as an isolationist , anti-semite as we used to. America's engagement with the world will have to be re-thought and the advantages and limits of democracy promotion will have to be honestly addressed. My reservations these days are about the corporatization of democracy promotion programs. Those involved literally constitute multi-million dollar industries. Democracy promotion became institutionalized during the Clinton Administration when USAID committed billions to the effort, spurring the creation of democracy programs in every NGO known to man and then some. At the time, I was proud of my small role in pushing this development but sometimes it seems we neglected the other issues of development and we sold people on what democracy promotion really wasn't. Even during George W. Bush, democracy promotion was heralded as conflict resolution and as a tool of peace, not war. Today, major defense contractors reap the benefits of democracy funding, pulling down contracts of $50 million or more to implement just small segments of a democracy program. And under few cirumstances can the development of democracies in previously underdeveloped countries yield automatic allies in foreign policy.
What is ruinous to democracy promotion is its militarization and integration into war efforts. Take the slogan of democracy advocates, "Democracies don't start wars." We just got through an American administration which adopted a strategic policy of pre-emptive war. Or the idea during the W administration that democracies don't create terrorists. Throughout the 1970s, we had the alienated young in Western Europe create the Baader Mienhoff Brigade, the Red Brigade and in the United States the Weathermen. On the Left, there is the notion that it is poverty that creates the terrorism of the Middle East. But the profile of Al Qaeda and others are of upper-middle-class , college educated young people, disgusted at the discrepancy of wealth in their countries and repulsed by Western policies, who reconstitute themselves with religion and react violently to their conditions. That's why I am dubious about efforts in Afghanistan about nation-building. While they can ameliorate the local conditions, they don't address the heart of the problem.
And, finally, Glenn Beck says that Woodrow Wilson is America's most evil President. Reading Pat Buchanan's article, he might agree since Wilson started the whole American thrust toward democracy promotion and self-determination. But I gather Beck suggests that Wilson kicked off the whole "progressive" agenda to bring about socialism in our time. It's an interesting topic to consider--evil American Presidents. One of the nice things about the United States is that we really only have nincompoops, mediocrities, inadequate and sometimes corrupt Presidents. But do we get to evil?
For my generation, Richard Nixon ranks high on the ugly scale but can we even suggest this maudlin, insecure man, who actually had to rehearse walking like a President, was evil? Corrupt, cynical and Machivellian, sure. Did he commit evil acts? Yes. But he doesn't rank with Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot and the others in the evil pantheon. He envied them. That's for sure.
Even W, whom I would rank as one of and maybe the worst President of the United States, given the extensive damage he did in every area of our life, just didn't have the heart to implement Dick Cheney's scheme for an all-powerful President. I think this accounts for why he was absent for the last two years of his Administration.
So Woodrow Wilson? Wilson was a racist and embarked on a domestic crackdown on strikers and dissenters, but he also tried to embrace a reform agenda. For years, Wilson ranked about 16 in the Siena College rankings of Presidents. He too was crippled for the last years of his Administration by strokes and illness. But Woodrow Wilson as evil? C'mon.
The tension is mounting here as the Psychic Octopus is one away from a perfect World Cup. Germany has won and we are only hours away from Netherlands versus Barcelona (let's be honest here). Does the Octopus win a fish prize?
Remember the Hutaree Militia out of Michigan? It seems one of their members was arrested yesterday for plotting to kill President Obama, during his trip to the Midwest.
Amitai Etzioni has a new proposal for small government conservatives. He proposes that the Department of Justice prepare legal opt-out forms where you can have your taxes decreased by 2/3rds if you agree not to partake of any government services, with the exception of the military. My objection is that Etzioni calculates the cost of the military wrong--it's 40% of discretionary spending. So you get a 60% reduction on your taxes instead.
Ezra Klein, policy wonk at the Washington Post, saved us $4 trillion on our national debt this past week. So instead of going on a roll, he decides to play the party pooper. You know all the hype about elections, the media coverage, the campaign expenditures and the like. Well, it doesn't matter. Ezra found some geeks who have played around with their computers and says the results of the elections within 2% error depends on the state of the economy and that specifically means how much money people feel they have in their pockets. Forget everything else. Of course, this year that's bad news for Democrats. If this catches on, it may be bad news for all the political hired hands.
The American Psychological Association wants Dr. James Mitchell stripped of his license for his participation in overseeing the 2002 torture of Abu Zubayah,who was thought to be the Number 3 of Al Qaeda. The APA warned members from participating in all programs that were considered torture during the last eight years. Since the proceedings are in Texas, it's anyone's guess about the result. For the record, classified documents have come out within the past month from the Government which indicate Abu Zubayah may not even had been a member of Al Qaeda, let alone number 3.
Richard Minter, writing in the Daily Beast, says that some of us who are making fun of the gonad bomber and the Times Square bomber are missing the point about Al Qaeda. Since the end of the Bush Administration and the first 18 months of the Obama Administration, Al Qaeda has suffered crippling blows to their middle-level managers and can not maintain the basic organizational ability to mount sophisticated operations anymore. They are stuck with buying local cell phones, which are easily followed by intelligence, and their front businesses and mechanisms for laundering money have been closed down through international cooperation. With the constant assassinations of their number 3s and other high-ranking operatives, they lack the experience of developing backup plans and fielding supportive manpower to cover the primary actors in any given action. They are in their third generation, which lacks the military experience and spycraft of the previous plotters.
But never fear, Ryan Mauro of the Christian Action Network posts a piece on David Horowitz' www.frontpagemagazine.com "Muslim Enclaves U.S.A." Building on Daniel Pipes' 2004 work documenting how Muslims are creating seperate enclaves based on sharia law in the United States, Mauro outlines several groups in the United States who are creating little Muslim enclaves in Baltimore and Philadelphia. He claims Muslims of America, a group Homeland Security links to the Pakistan terrorist group Jamaat Ul-Fugra, owns 22 villages sporting such names as "Islamberg", "Holy Islamville" and "Aliville". While interesting, the article neglects the threat of rampaging Mexican Muslims. Perhaps, that's in the follow-up piece. I thought the caliphate ended in Cordoba.
Following up on Hillary Clinton's defense in Poland of the struggling civil society around the world, Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum wrote a defense of democracy promotion, admitting the whole idea got a little abused during the Bush Administration with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But she argued that President Obama should speak on the subject more frequently.
Not having any of this, Pat Buchanan in "The Democracy Obsession" at www.amconmag.com says that the United States blew the opportunity to adopt a policy of non-intervention right after the Cold War. He then blames the superfluous foreign policy elites for conjuring up the intervention in Panama, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, the Persian Gulf War, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He accuses the National Endowment for Democracy and Freedom House of subverting regimes in Belgrade,Caracas, Kiev, Tbilisi, Beirut and Bishkek. He argues that democratic states don't make us any secure and are not our friends. He slams W for pushing democracy in the Middle East. Pointing out that pressuring Egypt, Lebanon and Palestine to have elections yielded us the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbullah and Hamas. He points to South Africa, Brazil, India and Turkey as prime examples of democracies going their own way--away from the United States. He points to both India and Brazil lining up with China to fight caps on carbon emissions and Turkey drifting toward Iran and Syria because of its reactions to Israeli actions.
Coming off his book on World War II, where he blames Churchill, he gets his digs in at the Brits again. He points out that the British sided with Mexico during the Mexican War and with the South in our Civil War. He points out that democratic governments such as Sweden and Ireland were neutral during WWII but that the Soviet Union and Chang Kai Shek sided with the U.S. He says that France denied Reagan airspace for his attack on Libya but that Salazar's Portugal gave Nixon the use of the Azores during the Yom Kippur War. He also has to throw in his plug for Pinochet in Chile.
With the fade of the Third Wave of Democratization, democracy advocates will have to answer Buchanan on the merits of his case and not slam him as an isolationist , anti-semite as we used to. America's engagement with the world will have to be re-thought and the advantages and limits of democracy promotion will have to be honestly addressed. My reservations these days are about the corporatization of democracy promotion programs. Those involved literally constitute multi-million dollar industries. Democracy promotion became institutionalized during the Clinton Administration when USAID committed billions to the effort, spurring the creation of democracy programs in every NGO known to man and then some. At the time, I was proud of my small role in pushing this development but sometimes it seems we neglected the other issues of development and we sold people on what democracy promotion really wasn't. Even during George W. Bush, democracy promotion was heralded as conflict resolution and as a tool of peace, not war. Today, major defense contractors reap the benefits of democracy funding, pulling down contracts of $50 million or more to implement just small segments of a democracy program. And under few cirumstances can the development of democracies in previously underdeveloped countries yield automatic allies in foreign policy.
What is ruinous to democracy promotion is its militarization and integration into war efforts. Take the slogan of democracy advocates, "Democracies don't start wars." We just got through an American administration which adopted a strategic policy of pre-emptive war. Or the idea during the W administration that democracies don't create terrorists. Throughout the 1970s, we had the alienated young in Western Europe create the Baader Mienhoff Brigade, the Red Brigade and in the United States the Weathermen. On the Left, there is the notion that it is poverty that creates the terrorism of the Middle East. But the profile of Al Qaeda and others are of upper-middle-class , college educated young people, disgusted at the discrepancy of wealth in their countries and repulsed by Western policies, who reconstitute themselves with religion and react violently to their conditions. That's why I am dubious about efforts in Afghanistan about nation-building. While they can ameliorate the local conditions, they don't address the heart of the problem.
And, finally, Glenn Beck says that Woodrow Wilson is America's most evil President. Reading Pat Buchanan's article, he might agree since Wilson started the whole American thrust toward democracy promotion and self-determination. But I gather Beck suggests that Wilson kicked off the whole "progressive" agenda to bring about socialism in our time. It's an interesting topic to consider--evil American Presidents. One of the nice things about the United States is that we really only have nincompoops, mediocrities, inadequate and sometimes corrupt Presidents. But do we get to evil?
For my generation, Richard Nixon ranks high on the ugly scale but can we even suggest this maudlin, insecure man, who actually had to rehearse walking like a President, was evil? Corrupt, cynical and Machivellian, sure. Did he commit evil acts? Yes. But he doesn't rank with Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot and the others in the evil pantheon. He envied them. That's for sure.
Even W, whom I would rank as one of and maybe the worst President of the United States, given the extensive damage he did in every area of our life, just didn't have the heart to implement Dick Cheney's scheme for an all-powerful President. I think this accounts for why he was absent for the last two years of his Administration.
So Woodrow Wilson? Wilson was a racist and embarked on a domestic crackdown on strikers and dissenters, but he also tried to embrace a reform agenda. For years, Wilson ranked about 16 in the Siena College rankings of Presidents. He too was crippled for the last years of his Administration by strokes and illness. But Woodrow Wilson as evil? C'mon.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Morning Coffee--New Guinea Dark Roast
Yesterday Drudge ran a piece headlined "Obama Plays Race Card". Anytime you read something like that watch the other side because that's what they're doing. The Race Card is question was the video sent by David Plouffe with Obama appealing to Organizing for America people that for such high takes mid-term elections there must be an effort to get out the Black, Latino and Women vote. In short, everyone Republicans are counting on not to show up. But I thought the one interesting twist to Obama's statement was his assertion that he wants first-time voters--in this case a 29-year old woman--to cast their second vote in the mid-term elections. This follows the Obama strategy to enlarge the voting base--which is diametrically opposed to the decades old strategy of Karl Rove to shrink the voting base by using wedge issues. This is the President who went out of his way to campaign on Indian reservations.
Meanwhile, the Arizona immigration law has spurred a wild array of responses. Civil rights leader and Hitler-admirer Pat Buchanan writes in "Whose country is this?" that illegal Hispanics are taking jobs away from blacks. He then goes on to say Barack Obama is failing his constitutional duties of upholding the law--which Pat says requires sending the 12-20 million illegals back home. He accuses Obama of being too beholden to the Hispanic lobby to uphold the law and condemning black Americans to poverty. Pat quotes Ronald Reagan as saying "a country that can not control its borders is not a country anymore." He laments the Balkanization of the country into ethnic enclaves like say white gated communities (no, he did say that.).
Governor Brewer of Arizona claims that the state will not suffer any economic consequences from boycotts. San Francisco passed a resolution to sever all business contracts with firms based in Arizona. The Arizona Republican opined that the real damage is done to the public's belief that the law is color-blind and you have a presumption of innocence. New York Times Supreme Court report Linda Greenhouse is so infuriated with the law that she claims she is not going to back to Arizona as long as it's not a "police state".
I received an e-mail from a rightwing Arizonan who wrote his friends that La Raza is pouring people into the state to protest and they're even bringing in Koreans! He protests that the media coverage of the law deflects attention away from the tea party movement and the huge national deficit. He also worries that the state will be sued and suffer financially. He hopes the law will be ruled unconstitutional since it really is bad. I guess so La Raza will stop busing people in from California.
The Arizona Indian nations have weighed in led by the Navahos. "So the squatters are trying to kick out the foreigners, how ironic?"
Some Latinos are reacting with good humor. One car read "I'm Mexican. Pull Me Over." Some vandals drew swastikas on government offices with refried beans.
Rachel Maddow gets kudos for tracking down the authors of the bill and establishing that they were funded by a New York C,Milton Eisenhowity foundation that encourages eugenics and the preservation of the bloodlines of early American settlers. The group is another one of these front organizations claiming to argue for immigration reform.
Kudos again to Rachel Maddow for her segment on the rehabilitated John Birch Society. Unfortunately, it seems that like Scott Brown the John Birch Society is using her name in vain to raise money. But Rachel solved one of the longest outstanding mysteries in American history. No, not flouride in the water. Who was Dwight David Eisenhower's Communist control officer? After all the John Birch Society maintained that Ike was an overt Communist agent. The answer is--none other than his brother Milton. Another mysterty solved--the anti-Christ is Javier Solana and Ike's control officer was brother Milton.
One aspect of the segment was new to me. The John Birch Society was created in 1958 for the expressed purpose of carrying on the legacy of Joe McCarthy. What Rachel doesn't mention is how the John Birch Society got rehabilitated. She had on as a guest Sam Tenenhaus, author of The Death of Conservatism ( random House, 2009), who suggested that conservatives no longer had any major thinkers to keep the movement honest and that the fringes dominated because there are no enemies on the Right. For a follow-up, she should have on Frank Schaeffer who can tell her that the John Birch Society came back through the Religious Right, especially Tim Lahaye and his Left Behind series. LaHaye was a long-time, high-ranking member of the John Birch Society.
Barack Obama almost went black on us at the memorial service for the coalminers in West Virginia. He even got some call-backs from the all white audience as he started to get into his preaching rhythmn when he talked about God. In mid-eulogy, he started into his preaching cadence and came back to it at his finale. I still believe one of his best speeches during the campiagn was at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Georgia when he preached about the Walls of Jericho. I wish he would do more of this but then he would only invite more angry reactions.
The real non-news story is about Obama's own poll numbers. He's been clocking about 50-51% in Gallup's tracking poll, some 20 points above any other person in our political system. What's interesting is that going back to last April, he's consistently maintained the same approval rating.
In the breakouts of the polling data, there are no great surprises. Obama has large approval ratings across the country, except in the South where he is about 40%. The Northeast continues to love him at about 67%. His approval rating among women far outstrips that among men. Everybody under 60 give him above 50% approval ratings; the youth most of all. But over 60, he slips, particularly among white males. Among whites in general, he is at 44% and among white males of the teabagger movement he drops dramatically. But remember he won only about the same 44% among white males last time--which correlates with past Democratic nominees.
Now in Sunday New York Times Democrats admitted they could lose the House this year. This piece was followed up by various talking head reports and the usual woe is us. The House changing back so soon? Hasn't happened in quite some time. If we were in a normal situation where one party was Center-Left and another Center-Right, I could see it as a reaction to keep the system in check. But Center-Left and Radical Right, I'm skeptical. As we've seen, the situations in states are galvanizing voters, especially among the demographics who usually don't vote in by-elections.
But let's say it happens. Bless Michael Steele. He's recruited over 20 African-Americans to run for the House. Some of these candidates admit it's opportunism because they would be farther up in line than their Democratic counterparts for committee positions. Now, let's say 15 of these candidates win and the margin for Republican control in the House rests with these new members. Can anyone believe that with their Democratic Black Caucus members nagging them that they could go along with "Hell No" John Boehner? Could the Republicans really maintain their authoritarian discipline in this situation? They had to have two people stand next to Rep. Cao the last session to make sure he didn't vote for healthcare reform. Things could get interesting.
Over the weekend another potential assassin was arrested in North Carolina. A nerdy white male with rifles and diagrams of scopes was apprehended at the airport because he wanted "to meet President Obama." He had police emergency lights in his car and scanners to monitor police radios. His website showed he was a music technician and a member of A Million Republicans, a group created by Tom DeLay. He had driven from Ohio to North Carolina for the occasion. All of this is giving white people a bad name. I wish they would cut it out.
Meanwhile, the Arizona immigration law has spurred a wild array of responses. Civil rights leader and Hitler-admirer Pat Buchanan writes in "Whose country is this?" that illegal Hispanics are taking jobs away from blacks. He then goes on to say Barack Obama is failing his constitutional duties of upholding the law--which Pat says requires sending the 12-20 million illegals back home. He accuses Obama of being too beholden to the Hispanic lobby to uphold the law and condemning black Americans to poverty. Pat quotes Ronald Reagan as saying "a country that can not control its borders is not a country anymore." He laments the Balkanization of the country into ethnic enclaves like say white gated communities (no, he did say that.).
Governor Brewer of Arizona claims that the state will not suffer any economic consequences from boycotts. San Francisco passed a resolution to sever all business contracts with firms based in Arizona. The Arizona Republican opined that the real damage is done to the public's belief that the law is color-blind and you have a presumption of innocence. New York Times Supreme Court report Linda Greenhouse is so infuriated with the law that she claims she is not going to back to Arizona as long as it's not a "police state".
I received an e-mail from a rightwing Arizonan who wrote his friends that La Raza is pouring people into the state to protest and they're even bringing in Koreans! He protests that the media coverage of the law deflects attention away from the tea party movement and the huge national deficit. He also worries that the state will be sued and suffer financially. He hopes the law will be ruled unconstitutional since it really is bad. I guess so La Raza will stop busing people in from California.
The Arizona Indian nations have weighed in led by the Navahos. "So the squatters are trying to kick out the foreigners, how ironic?"
Some Latinos are reacting with good humor. One car read "I'm Mexican. Pull Me Over." Some vandals drew swastikas on government offices with refried beans.
Rachel Maddow gets kudos for tracking down the authors of the bill and establishing that they were funded by a New York C,Milton Eisenhowity foundation that encourages eugenics and the preservation of the bloodlines of early American settlers. The group is another one of these front organizations claiming to argue for immigration reform.
Kudos again to Rachel Maddow for her segment on the rehabilitated John Birch Society. Unfortunately, it seems that like Scott Brown the John Birch Society is using her name in vain to raise money. But Rachel solved one of the longest outstanding mysteries in American history. No, not flouride in the water. Who was Dwight David Eisenhower's Communist control officer? After all the John Birch Society maintained that Ike was an overt Communist agent. The answer is--none other than his brother Milton. Another mysterty solved--the anti-Christ is Javier Solana and Ike's control officer was brother Milton.
One aspect of the segment was new to me. The John Birch Society was created in 1958 for the expressed purpose of carrying on the legacy of Joe McCarthy. What Rachel doesn't mention is how the John Birch Society got rehabilitated. She had on as a guest Sam Tenenhaus, author of The Death of Conservatism ( random House, 2009), who suggested that conservatives no longer had any major thinkers to keep the movement honest and that the fringes dominated because there are no enemies on the Right. For a follow-up, she should have on Frank Schaeffer who can tell her that the John Birch Society came back through the Religious Right, especially Tim Lahaye and his Left Behind series. LaHaye was a long-time, high-ranking member of the John Birch Society.
Barack Obama almost went black on us at the memorial service for the coalminers in West Virginia. He even got some call-backs from the all white audience as he started to get into his preaching rhythmn when he talked about God. In mid-eulogy, he started into his preaching cadence and came back to it at his finale. I still believe one of his best speeches during the campiagn was at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Georgia when he preached about the Walls of Jericho. I wish he would do more of this but then he would only invite more angry reactions.
The real non-news story is about Obama's own poll numbers. He's been clocking about 50-51% in Gallup's tracking poll, some 20 points above any other person in our political system. What's interesting is that going back to last April, he's consistently maintained the same approval rating.
In the breakouts of the polling data, there are no great surprises. Obama has large approval ratings across the country, except in the South where he is about 40%. The Northeast continues to love him at about 67%. His approval rating among women far outstrips that among men. Everybody under 60 give him above 50% approval ratings; the youth most of all. But over 60, he slips, particularly among white males. Among whites in general, he is at 44% and among white males of the teabagger movement he drops dramatically. But remember he won only about the same 44% among white males last time--which correlates with past Democratic nominees.
Now in Sunday New York Times Democrats admitted they could lose the House this year. This piece was followed up by various talking head reports and the usual woe is us. The House changing back so soon? Hasn't happened in quite some time. If we were in a normal situation where one party was Center-Left and another Center-Right, I could see it as a reaction to keep the system in check. But Center-Left and Radical Right, I'm skeptical. As we've seen, the situations in states are galvanizing voters, especially among the demographics who usually don't vote in by-elections.
But let's say it happens. Bless Michael Steele. He's recruited over 20 African-Americans to run for the House. Some of these candidates admit it's opportunism because they would be farther up in line than their Democratic counterparts for committee positions. Now, let's say 15 of these candidates win and the margin for Republican control in the House rests with these new members. Can anyone believe that with their Democratic Black Caucus members nagging them that they could go along with "Hell No" John Boehner? Could the Republicans really maintain their authoritarian discipline in this situation? They had to have two people stand next to Rep. Cao the last session to make sure he didn't vote for healthcare reform. Things could get interesting.
Over the weekend another potential assassin was arrested in North Carolina. A nerdy white male with rifles and diagrams of scopes was apprehended at the airport because he wanted "to meet President Obama." He had police emergency lights in his car and scanners to monitor police radios. His website showed he was a music technician and a member of A Million Republicans, a group created by Tom DeLay. He had driven from Ohio to North Carolina for the occasion. All of this is giving white people a bad name. I wish they would cut it out.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
You can run a red light*
* Johnny Lang "Live at Ryman's"
Many moons ago a teenager from Fargo, North Dakota captured the ears of rock critics, playing a blistering guitar. For years Johnny Lang played clubs accompanied by his parents. When I first heard him, I thought he was one of the most stunning rock guitar players I had heard. Still in his teens he recorded the album "Lie to Me" and then went in and out of the scene as his school required. I heard him here in Washington only a few years ago and he didn't disappoint but the audience was a drag, rich yuppies out for a night drinking. Sometimes his Stevie Wonder vocalizing gets in the way of his guitar but this white boy can rock. Live at Ryman's is album recorded in 2008 and only released now. Backed by his friends from Minneapolis, Lang lets loose with his standards from his past albums. There are only a few new songs but he has transformed his others. The guitar work on "Quitters Never Win" is just masterful. Sometimes I hear hints of another great rocker Stevie Ray Vaughn. Still only in his mid-20s, Lang is another reason why America is great. My son and I have gone up and down over the years about Johnny Lang. We've been disappointed by the production value and some of the material. But across the Plains, he just wrote me ,"Wow."
Another thing that made America great is Good Humor ice cream. Its celebrating its 90th anniversary. If you buy their toasted almond bar, you get a chance to win $10,000. Three down and I still get "try again".
Americans now believe for the first time in eons that American cars are the best. The Toyota and Honda recalls may have helped. Today, General Motors announced its paying back the government loans early and also hiring more workers in Detroit and Kansas. Imagine if the Republicans had gotten their way--16% of our economy would have vanished with no chance to recover.
The great Commonwealth of Virginia is trying to slip mandatory gun safety lessons into the grammar school curriculum. Naturally, the lessons are an NRA program.
Eleanor Holmes Norton , the DC representative in the House, pulled her DC voting bill after Republicans attached an NRA-written amendment that would have allowed people to openly carry assault rifles in the city, a city which currently has the highest murder per capita. Democrats had figured a tamer amendment would have been acceptable. Holmes refused to buy the insane language of the NRA.
Arizona is competing with Virginia for the most insane state. Arizona has passed in one chamber a "birther" bill, which would demand that presidential candidates--read Obama--would have to furnish birth certificates to justify their qualifying for the ballot. Then the Secretary of State would use his "discretion" to determine whether the candidate qualified.
The state also passed a law to require police to check on the immigration status of anyone they suspect of criminal behavior. Although this theoretically applies to anyone, it will be applied to the large Hispanic community in the state. The newly appointed Catholic bishop of Los Angeles said the bill encouraged "Nazi-like and Stalinist police tactics". And he's Opus Dei so he should know. John McCain supports the bill because "illegal immigrants are deliberately causing car accidents." Arizona Democrats are urging a national boycott of the state that is heavily dependent on tourism and the convention trade. The Southwest is beautiful so travel to New Mexico.
Polls are showing horse races in the California, Florida and Texas governor races. All three are held by Republicans.
Charlie Crist anounced today he would run for the Senate in Florida as an independent. Polls show he would win a three-way race against Meeks and Rubio by a slim margin. Marco Rubio is being investigated by both the FBI and IRS for his misuse of the Republican Party's credit cards.
Georgia has imitated Virginia by passing a "Mark of the Beast" law, which would prevent government agents from implanting electronic devices in your body. The key witness claimed agents of the military inserted beeping devices in and around her anus and vaginal areas. Her ID number has been sent around the internet and people can access these devices, which she finds annoying because the devices beep.
Glenn Beck, who is promising us all his Plan for America, says that God has been speaking to him. He prays and then selects bible passages and the Plan becomes clear. The Left has picked up on his direct communication with God but I picked up his explanation of how he reads the Bible like a Ouiji board or a horoscope. And why did I go to Harvard Divinity to study biblical hermaneutics when this is all you have to do? What if he stumbles on Leviticus' prohibition about eating shell fish and crustaceans? Will the Plan call for the death penalty of everyone that eats crab cakes and lobster? It is one way to eliminate the people around the Beltway.
When will Glenn Beck throw the Mormans under the bus and become a "born-again" Christian?
By the way, I have to disappoint everyone but there is literally no evidence whatsoever in any of the Bibles you choose for the Rapture. In fact,the Christian version of Hell itself was a fifth century creation. If you love the Book of Revelations, rent Ingmar Berman's The Seventh seal and if you like Hell read Dante's Inferno.
The Muslim Revolution website has threatened the producers of South Park because they created an episode making fun of the dispute of whether one can portray Muhammed. And, here, I have to disappoint everyone but yes you can and the Muslim world has repeatedly done so through centuries.
Pat Buchanan, the author of a recent revisionist history of World War II, which blames Churchill for causing the conflict, has re-entered the culture war sweepstakes with a column in Human Events. Pat is claiming that the tea parties represent an embryonic form of ethnonationalism, which brought such delightful results in the Balkans. He claims these people are not the guilty country club Republicans of yore but unapologetic whites, who embrace the great lost causes like the Confederacy and are linked to America's noble past. He says that Blacks are united now, but the Whites will soon become so.
I believe the tea party crowd are more like the Ghost Dances of the Plains Indians. A revivalist cult that marked the extinction of a culture.
And, yes, as Johnny Lang sings, "You can run a red light."
Many moons ago a teenager from Fargo, North Dakota captured the ears of rock critics, playing a blistering guitar. For years Johnny Lang played clubs accompanied by his parents. When I first heard him, I thought he was one of the most stunning rock guitar players I had heard. Still in his teens he recorded the album "Lie to Me" and then went in and out of the scene as his school required. I heard him here in Washington only a few years ago and he didn't disappoint but the audience was a drag, rich yuppies out for a night drinking. Sometimes his Stevie Wonder vocalizing gets in the way of his guitar but this white boy can rock. Live at Ryman's is album recorded in 2008 and only released now. Backed by his friends from Minneapolis, Lang lets loose with his standards from his past albums. There are only a few new songs but he has transformed his others. The guitar work on "Quitters Never Win" is just masterful. Sometimes I hear hints of another great rocker Stevie Ray Vaughn. Still only in his mid-20s, Lang is another reason why America is great. My son and I have gone up and down over the years about Johnny Lang. We've been disappointed by the production value and some of the material. But across the Plains, he just wrote me ,"Wow."
Another thing that made America great is Good Humor ice cream. Its celebrating its 90th anniversary. If you buy their toasted almond bar, you get a chance to win $10,000. Three down and I still get "try again".
Americans now believe for the first time in eons that American cars are the best. The Toyota and Honda recalls may have helped. Today, General Motors announced its paying back the government loans early and also hiring more workers in Detroit and Kansas. Imagine if the Republicans had gotten their way--16% of our economy would have vanished with no chance to recover.
The great Commonwealth of Virginia is trying to slip mandatory gun safety lessons into the grammar school curriculum. Naturally, the lessons are an NRA program.
Eleanor Holmes Norton , the DC representative in the House, pulled her DC voting bill after Republicans attached an NRA-written amendment that would have allowed people to openly carry assault rifles in the city, a city which currently has the highest murder per capita. Democrats had figured a tamer amendment would have been acceptable. Holmes refused to buy the insane language of the NRA.
Arizona is competing with Virginia for the most insane state. Arizona has passed in one chamber a "birther" bill, which would demand that presidential candidates--read Obama--would have to furnish birth certificates to justify their qualifying for the ballot. Then the Secretary of State would use his "discretion" to determine whether the candidate qualified.
The state also passed a law to require police to check on the immigration status of anyone they suspect of criminal behavior. Although this theoretically applies to anyone, it will be applied to the large Hispanic community in the state. The newly appointed Catholic bishop of Los Angeles said the bill encouraged "Nazi-like and Stalinist police tactics". And he's Opus Dei so he should know. John McCain supports the bill because "illegal immigrants are deliberately causing car accidents." Arizona Democrats are urging a national boycott of the state that is heavily dependent on tourism and the convention trade. The Southwest is beautiful so travel to New Mexico.
Polls are showing horse races in the California, Florida and Texas governor races. All three are held by Republicans.
Charlie Crist anounced today he would run for the Senate in Florida as an independent. Polls show he would win a three-way race against Meeks and Rubio by a slim margin. Marco Rubio is being investigated by both the FBI and IRS for his misuse of the Republican Party's credit cards.
Georgia has imitated Virginia by passing a "Mark of the Beast" law, which would prevent government agents from implanting electronic devices in your body. The key witness claimed agents of the military inserted beeping devices in and around her anus and vaginal areas. Her ID number has been sent around the internet and people can access these devices, which she finds annoying because the devices beep.
Glenn Beck, who is promising us all his Plan for America, says that God has been speaking to him. He prays and then selects bible passages and the Plan becomes clear. The Left has picked up on his direct communication with God but I picked up his explanation of how he reads the Bible like a Ouiji board or a horoscope. And why did I go to Harvard Divinity to study biblical hermaneutics when this is all you have to do? What if he stumbles on Leviticus' prohibition about eating shell fish and crustaceans? Will the Plan call for the death penalty of everyone that eats crab cakes and lobster? It is one way to eliminate the people around the Beltway.
When will Glenn Beck throw the Mormans under the bus and become a "born-again" Christian?
By the way, I have to disappoint everyone but there is literally no evidence whatsoever in any of the Bibles you choose for the Rapture. In fact,the Christian version of Hell itself was a fifth century creation. If you love the Book of Revelations, rent Ingmar Berman's The Seventh seal and if you like Hell read Dante's Inferno.
The Muslim Revolution website has threatened the producers of South Park because they created an episode making fun of the dispute of whether one can portray Muhammed. And, here, I have to disappoint everyone but yes you can and the Muslim world has repeatedly done so through centuries.
Pat Buchanan, the author of a recent revisionist history of World War II, which blames Churchill for causing the conflict, has re-entered the culture war sweepstakes with a column in Human Events. Pat is claiming that the tea parties represent an embryonic form of ethnonationalism, which brought such delightful results in the Balkans. He claims these people are not the guilty country club Republicans of yore but unapologetic whites, who embrace the great lost causes like the Confederacy and are linked to America's noble past. He says that Blacks are united now, but the Whites will soon become so.
I believe the tea party crowd are more like the Ghost Dances of the Plains Indians. A revivalist cult that marked the extinction of a culture.
And, yes, as Johnny Lang sings, "You can run a red light."
Friday, July 17, 2009
Fired Up. Ready To Go
As we head to the dog days of summer, at least one public official seems to enjoy his job--President Barack Obama. Missing for the first six m0nths has been some of the heat of his campaign. Yesterday in New Jersey, at a campaign rally for Governor Jon Corzine President Obama was in total campaign mode with some of the fire we've been missing lately. I wish he would give one of these speeches per week. Later he addressed the centennial of the NAACP and delivered a masterful speech on racism, prejudice and the enduring problems of inequality in the United States. The MSM basically covered the speech as calling for a new mindset for blacks--which it did--but he also talked at length at the "structural inequalities" within American society--something conveniently left out of the press coverage.
From there we went straight to Pat Buchanan appearing on the Rachel Maddow Show remindingeveryone that white males wrote the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and built everything ( with the help of slave labor) died at Gettysburg (a cause Pat would reject today), died on the beaches of Normandy and naturally deserve to have been 108 of the last 112 SupremeCourt Judges. Pat attacked Sotomayor as an affirmative action nominee. He also asserted that everyone graduates from Ivy league school these days cum laude--he didn't mention her graduating summa cum laude--which might strain the affirmative action theory. She also was her high school's valedictorian.But no matter--she hasn't demonstrated the type of intellect of Anthony Scalia or a Bob Bork. Instead of my idea of an Indian justice, let's finally put Laurence Tribe on the Court the next time to assuage the white males and see whether the Republicans will ooh and aah about his brilliance.
Pat went off on reverse discrimination faced by white males. But he didn't say that the white male problem is one of unemployment and the transfer of jobs abroad as facilitated by the white guys Bush and Cheney.
For the past week, we have been treated to the strange kibuki world of the hearings on confirming Judge Sotomayor by the Senate. Again, the Senate didn't disappoint in the clueless department. The Republican assault on the Judge was incomprehensible from a political point of view. Republican favorable ratings among Hispanics plunged to 7%. The cretinist level of questioning ranged from Sen. Coburn's imitation of Ricky Ricardo ( a Cuban, not Puerto Rican) to Sessions' whining about the "wise Latina". Some blogger remarked that the Republicans treated Judge Sotomayor as if she were a maid asking for a raise. The best blogging for the whole proceeding was Andrew Pincus over at www.talkingpointsmemo.com who actually tried to explain those rare moments when actual legal matters were discussed.
The Republicans tried out all their talking points from her alleged racism, her membership on a Puerto Rican civil rights group, to ruling against a white firefighter. In my mind, they only scored at the end when Sessions commented that she couldn't afford to be a Supreme Court judge--which might literally be true. He would know because he's filthy rich like most of the Senate. The process itself has been so degraded that a friend of Judge Sotomayor lamented that we didn't see the vibrant and intellectually engaging personality she knows. After the Bork debacle, the judges appearing for nomination have all been anodyne in their answers causing the head of the University of Virginia Law School to say we have lost a wonderful teaching moment about our Constitution and the art of law. In the end, Judge Sotomayor will be confirmed with 70+ votes.
Which raises the issue of why the Republican Party allowed Southerners to lead the charge against her and what strategy they had in alienating the growing Hispanic population. In a fight they knew they would not win, they should have backed off in my opinion. But then again, I've felt their total resistance to anything suggested by President Obama is suicidal. Pat Buchanan, the first culture warrior, has been espousing a return to the Nixon strategy of fueling white resentment against both minorities and those elites who graduate cum laude from Ivy League colleges. Pat's not alone. The American Spectator is predicting a "political earthquake" in the 2010 elections as a response to the Obama Administration. I'm afraid it's still true that you have to beat something with something. Republicans are counting on low turnouts of minorities in off-year elections so they can ramp up the white turnout for Republicans. Maybe that will succeed but they came off as assholes during the Sotomayor hearings.
My favorite moment was the exchange between Orrin Hatch and Sotomayor over her ruling in a case that involved nunchuks. Clearly Hatch had been prepped this was a staright Second Amenment case involving something to do with gun rights when it was nothing of the sort. Sotomayor at least could go "street" by explaining what nunchuks could do.
Another great moment was the discussion of our "god-given right of self-defense", terminology right out of the NRA presented by Senator Coburn. Obama's friendship with the reactionary Senator still amazes me.
This has also been the week when all of the Republican adulterers have been linked to the C Street refuge of the Family, a secretive Christianist cult where boarders share confidences that get them off the hook because they are "elected by God", a theme we will be seeing more in the next few years. Senator Ensign lodged there and Gov Sanford was given spiritual advice there. Senator Coburn, who knew of both men's infidelities, claims patient doctor confidentiality as well as some implied oath of silence since he is an ordained deacon--not minister--of his church. Yesterday, another former Republican Congressman from Mississippi was also exposed as having an affair, who lived there. The big winner of this was Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family, a book detailing the role of the Family in American politics and explaining the present state of fundamentalism and politics in the country. He lucked out because the affairs hit as his book was released in paperback.
I still am checking into www.themudflats.net --great Eagle shot the other day. They are reporting that the feds are in Alaska checking out the state's woeful medical situation. The week has seen Chief Evangelist Sarah Palin drifting out of the limelight despite tweeting about Bears. Apparently, the Alaska legislature is being called back into emergency session to deal with the succession, not secession issue and to overturn the Palin's veto on the stimulus funds.
Finally, kudos to Bob Costasfor the best interview with President Obama--twenty minutes solely on baseball. Obama admitted his first favorites were the old Oakland A's with Vida Blue and Reggie Jackson. A favorite team of mine. Remember when Charles Finley tried to get Vida to change his name to "True Blue.
From there we went straight to Pat Buchanan appearing on the Rachel Maddow Show remindingeveryone that white males wrote the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and built everything ( with the help of slave labor) died at Gettysburg (a cause Pat would reject today), died on the beaches of Normandy and naturally deserve to have been 108 of the last 112 SupremeCourt Judges. Pat attacked Sotomayor as an affirmative action nominee. He also asserted that everyone graduates from Ivy league school these days cum laude--he didn't mention her graduating summa cum laude--which might strain the affirmative action theory. She also was her high school's valedictorian.But no matter--she hasn't demonstrated the type of intellect of Anthony Scalia or a Bob Bork. Instead of my idea of an Indian justice, let's finally put Laurence Tribe on the Court the next time to assuage the white males and see whether the Republicans will ooh and aah about his brilliance.
Pat went off on reverse discrimination faced by white males. But he didn't say that the white male problem is one of unemployment and the transfer of jobs abroad as facilitated by the white guys Bush and Cheney.
For the past week, we have been treated to the strange kibuki world of the hearings on confirming Judge Sotomayor by the Senate. Again, the Senate didn't disappoint in the clueless department. The Republican assault on the Judge was incomprehensible from a political point of view. Republican favorable ratings among Hispanics plunged to 7%. The cretinist level of questioning ranged from Sen. Coburn's imitation of Ricky Ricardo ( a Cuban, not Puerto Rican) to Sessions' whining about the "wise Latina". Some blogger remarked that the Republicans treated Judge Sotomayor as if she were a maid asking for a raise. The best blogging for the whole proceeding was Andrew Pincus over at www.talkingpointsmemo.com who actually tried to explain those rare moments when actual legal matters were discussed.
The Republicans tried out all their talking points from her alleged racism, her membership on a Puerto Rican civil rights group, to ruling against a white firefighter. In my mind, they only scored at the end when Sessions commented that she couldn't afford to be a Supreme Court judge--which might literally be true. He would know because he's filthy rich like most of the Senate. The process itself has been so degraded that a friend of Judge Sotomayor lamented that we didn't see the vibrant and intellectually engaging personality she knows. After the Bork debacle, the judges appearing for nomination have all been anodyne in their answers causing the head of the University of Virginia Law School to say we have lost a wonderful teaching moment about our Constitution and the art of law. In the end, Judge Sotomayor will be confirmed with 70+ votes.
Which raises the issue of why the Republican Party allowed Southerners to lead the charge against her and what strategy they had in alienating the growing Hispanic population. In a fight they knew they would not win, they should have backed off in my opinion. But then again, I've felt their total resistance to anything suggested by President Obama is suicidal. Pat Buchanan, the first culture warrior, has been espousing a return to the Nixon strategy of fueling white resentment against both minorities and those elites who graduate cum laude from Ivy League colleges. Pat's not alone. The American Spectator is predicting a "political earthquake" in the 2010 elections as a response to the Obama Administration. I'm afraid it's still true that you have to beat something with something. Republicans are counting on low turnouts of minorities in off-year elections so they can ramp up the white turnout for Republicans. Maybe that will succeed but they came off as assholes during the Sotomayor hearings.
My favorite moment was the exchange between Orrin Hatch and Sotomayor over her ruling in a case that involved nunchuks. Clearly Hatch had been prepped this was a staright Second Amenment case involving something to do with gun rights when it was nothing of the sort. Sotomayor at least could go "street" by explaining what nunchuks could do.
Another great moment was the discussion of our "god-given right of self-defense", terminology right out of the NRA presented by Senator Coburn. Obama's friendship with the reactionary Senator still amazes me.
This has also been the week when all of the Republican adulterers have been linked to the C Street refuge of the Family, a secretive Christianist cult where boarders share confidences that get them off the hook because they are "elected by God", a theme we will be seeing more in the next few years. Senator Ensign lodged there and Gov Sanford was given spiritual advice there. Senator Coburn, who knew of both men's infidelities, claims patient doctor confidentiality as well as some implied oath of silence since he is an ordained deacon--not minister--of his church. Yesterday, another former Republican Congressman from Mississippi was also exposed as having an affair, who lived there. The big winner of this was Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family, a book detailing the role of the Family in American politics and explaining the present state of fundamentalism and politics in the country. He lucked out because the affairs hit as his book was released in paperback.
I still am checking into www.themudflats.net --great Eagle shot the other day. They are reporting that the feds are in Alaska checking out the state's woeful medical situation. The week has seen Chief Evangelist Sarah Palin drifting out of the limelight despite tweeting about Bears. Apparently, the Alaska legislature is being called back into emergency session to deal with the succession, not secession issue and to overturn the Palin's veto on the stimulus funds.
Finally, kudos to Bob Costasfor the best interview with President Obama--twenty minutes solely on baseball. Obama admitted his first favorites were the old Oakland A's with Vida Blue and Reggie Jackson. A favorite team of mine. Remember when Charles Finley tried to get Vida to change his name to "True Blue.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Cheney Death March Continues
Greta van Cistern looked absolutely destroyed when Dick Cheney told her there was absolutely no evidence that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11. He also reminded us there were no WMDs in Iraq but that was the fault of the intelligence comunity ( notice it's always "community" not the more menacing "services"). 9/11 itself was the result of failures by Richard Clarke and the same intelligence community because they didn't pound on his door enough. Well, the two memos that prove he was right all the time--well, they really talk about the success of the "interrogation program in general" like, I presume, the FBI agent who coaxed information out of an Al Qaeda operative by giving the diabetic man a sugar-free cookie. Apparently, the two memos are not the ode to torture Cheney had previously claimed. Now he says that invading Iraq has saved thousands of lives--torture is gone now from the lexicon and now the real life-saver is the Iraq War. So, is there anything else he would like to get off his chest? Today's papers report that Cheney was involved in the briefings on the Hill, where torture was ok'd.
Pat Buchanan is right,"White guys can't seem to catch a break." I believe it dates to the time the Lil' Rascals let Darla into their clubhouse. At least we had the Raccoons, while the "Honeymooners" was on television. Now it looks like seven men on the Supreme Court might be tied by the apron strings of two women. Lindsey Graham wants to know what Sotomayor thinks about "America". Where does he think she came from? Even the MSM refer to her parents migrated from Puerto Rico? If you move within the United States, does that make you an immigrant?
Mitt Romney has always been awkward. His speech on national security at the Heritage Foundation was an inopportune attack on President Obama as he departed the U.S. for his Middle Eastern tour. Mitt argues that Obama must spend more on defense--even though he's spending more than George W--because we face China, Russia and the jihadis as enemies. The bigger price tag is because China pays their army less and can make things cheaper than in the United States. Now that we spend more on defense than the entire earth combined, how much more? Are there any other enemies we can conjure so that as we re-militarize we can pay trillions in interest to the Chinese to foot the bill? To me the speech was a incoherent patchwork of the old, the used and the preposterous.
Pat Buchanan is right,"White guys can't seem to catch a break." I believe it dates to the time the Lil' Rascals let Darla into their clubhouse. At least we had the Raccoons, while the "Honeymooners" was on television. Now it looks like seven men on the Supreme Court might be tied by the apron strings of two women. Lindsey Graham wants to know what Sotomayor thinks about "America". Where does he think she came from? Even the MSM refer to her parents migrated from Puerto Rico? If you move within the United States, does that make you an immigrant?
Mitt Romney has always been awkward. His speech on national security at the Heritage Foundation was an inopportune attack on President Obama as he departed the U.S. for his Middle Eastern tour. Mitt argues that Obama must spend more on defense--even though he's spending more than George W--because we face China, Russia and the jihadis as enemies. The bigger price tag is because China pays their army less and can make things cheaper than in the United States. Now that we spend more on defense than the entire earth combined, how much more? Are there any other enemies we can conjure so that as we re-militarize we can pay trillions in interest to the Chinese to foot the bill? To me the speech was a incoherent patchwork of the old, the used and the preposterous.
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