Wednesday
Jan152014
The Commentariat -- Jan, 16, 2014
Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times: "A stinging report by the Senate Intelligence Committee released Wednesday concluded that the attacks 16 months ago that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, could have been prevented, and blames both American diplomats and the C.I.A. for poor communication and lax security during the weeks leading up to the deadly episode." The report is here. ...
... Adam Goldman & Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: "The report found no evidence of the kind of political coverup that Republicans have long alleged.... The committee described the attacks as opportunistic and said there was no specific warning that they were about to be carried out." ...
... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post assesses how the report could affect Hillary Clinton's image. ...
... Peter Baker of the New York Times: How Obama Learned to Love the Surveillance State.
Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "The House voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday, 359 to 67, to approve a $1.1 trillion spending bill for the current fiscal year, shrugging off the angry threats of Tea Party activists and conservative groups.... The legislation, 1,582 pages in length and unveiled only two nights ago, embodies precisely what many House Republicans have railed against since the Tea Party movement began, a huge bill dropped in the cover of darkness and voted on before lawmakers could possibly have read it." ...
... Greg Miller of the Washington Post: "Congress has moved to block President Obama's plan to shift control of the U.S. drone campaign from the CIA to the Defense Department, inserting a secret provision in the massive government spending bill introduced this week that would preserve the spy agency's role in lethal counterterrorism operations, U.S. officials said. The measure, included in a classified annex to the $1.1 trillion federal budget plan, would restrict the use of any funding to transfer unmanned aircraft or the authority to carry out drone strikes from the CIA to the Pentagon, officials said." ...
... CW: Wait a minute. As Jonathan Weisman wrote (see yesterday's Commentariat), "The legislation, 1,582 pages in length and unveiled only two nights ago, embodies precisely what many House Republicans have railed against since the Tea Party movement began, a huge bill dropped in the cover of darkness and voted on before lawmakers could possibly have read it." If they didn't have time to read the public part, do you think they had time to read the "secret" part? I don't think "Congress has moved to block" moving the drone program to the Pentagon; I think certain elite members of Congress have done so. In short, we have no idea what the sense of the Congress is because, as is common, members had no idea they what they were voting on. ...
... CW: Depending on how the townfolk vote on a proposed ordinance, you may be able to get your drone-hunting license in Deer Trail, Colorado, a "no-drone zone." Deer Trail is not in one of the Colorado counties that voted to secede.
White House: "At North Carolina State University, President Obama announces new steps with the private sector to strengthen the manufacturing sector, boost advanced manufacturing, and attract good jobs with good wages that a growing middle class requires":
... Dana Milbank can't figure out why Obama was in North Carolina talking about "wide bandgap semiconductors, whatever they are.... We've seen this before on health-care reform, gun control and other subjects: Obama will speak about a topic (as he did last week on unemployment benefits) and then move on before the job is done. But unemployment benefits should be a particularly easy sell for Obama, because Republican opposition to helping job-seekers (unless the money is taken from somewhere else) makes them sound heartless."
Matt Miller has an excellent piece in the Washington Post that at least partially explains why -- despite growing inequality -- the unwashed masses aren't marching on Washington bearing pitchforks. We've previously covered his second point -- that Americans have no idea how unequally income & wealth are distributed. But his first point -- that there is "a narrowing difference in the actual consumption experiences of the rich and the rest of us" -- is something I've never really thought thru. It also explains why wingers think it's appropriate to claim the poor are lucky duckies because they own $20 coffeemakers & used refrigerators.
Oliver Knox of Yahoo! News: "It's a coincidence, White House aides say. President Barack Obama did not deliberately schedule his big NSA speech for Friday to mark the anniversary of Dwight Eisenhower's warning that the 'military-industrial complex' posed a potential threat to American democracy." As Knox characterizes it, "In 1961, Eisenhower tried to make Americans more mistrustful of the encroachments of a national-security state. In 2014, Obama is trying to win back their faith...."
Jad Mouawad of the New York Times: "The National Labor Relations Board, in a sweeping complaint filed on Wednesday, said that Walmart illegally disciplined and fired employees after strikes and protests for better pay. The complaint listed violations of federal law in 14 states involving more than 60 workers and 34 stores. It said Walmart fired 19 employees for taking part in strikes and demonstrations against the company. Other employees were given verbal warnings or faced other disciplinary action. In some cases, according to the complaint, the company spied on employees."
David Ingram of Reuters: "A judge on Wednesday upheld subsidies at the heart of President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul, rejecting one of the main legal challenges to the policy by conservatives opposed to an expansion of the federal government. A ruling in favor of a lawsuit brought by individuals and businesses in Texas, Kansas, Missouri, Tennessee, West Virginia and Virginia would have crippled the implementation of the law by making health insurance unaffordable for many people. In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman in Washington D.C. wrote that Congress clearly intended to make the subsidies available nationwide under the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act." CW: One of the nastiest suits ever: the plaintiffs want to deprive residents of states that don't have insurance exchanges of federal tax subsidies.
Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "The Justice Department will significantly expand its definition of racial profiling to prohibit federal agents from considering religion, national origin, gender and sexual orientation in their investigations.... The move addresses a decade of criticism from civil rights groups that say federal authorities have in particular singled out Muslims in counterterrorism investigations and Latinos for immigration investigations."
Thanks to Kate M. for sending the artwork.
... Janet Reitman in Rolling Stone: "While more Americans support upholding 'Roe v. Wade' than ever, the Tea Party and the Christian right have teamed up to pass hundreds of restrictions eviscerating abortion rights in GOP-controlled state legislatures across the country."
** Zack Kopplin in Slate: A Texas-based charter school system called Responsive Education Solutions "has a secular veneer and is funded by public money, but it has been connected from its inception to the creationist movement and to far-right fundamentalists who seek to undermine the separation of church and state.... Operating more than 65 campuses in Texas, Arkansas, and Indiana, Responsive Ed receives more than $82 million in taxpayer money annually, and it is expanding, with 20 more Texas campuses opening in 2014.... When it's not directly quoting the Bible, Responsive Ed's curriculum showcases the current creationist strategy to compromise science education, which the National Center for Science Education terms 'stealth creationism.' ... The movement also undermines the study of history." Like, "anti-Christian bias" was a cause of World War I. And the New Deal didn't help the economy; it "ushered in an era of dependency...."
Nick Cumming-Bruce of the New York Times: "In an unusual appearance before a United Nations committee, Vatican officials faced questions on Thursday about the Holy See's handling of sexual abuse of children by the clergy.... Human rights organizations and groups representing victims of clerical abuse welcomed the hearing as the first occasion the Vatican has had to publicly defend its record."
Congressional Race
Richard Simon of the Los Angeles Times: "Rep. Howard 'Buck' McKeon (R-Santa Clarita), a onetime western wear haberdasher who rose to become chairman of the powerful House Armed Services Committee, is announcing Thursday that he will retire after more than two decades in Congress. His departure at the close of the current term will further diminish California's clout on Capitol Hill, at least in the short term, and set the stage for a competitive race to choose his successor."
Local News
"A 'Free' Press isn't That Kind of Free." Rachel Maddow, in the Washington Post: "Be inspired by the beleaguered but unintimidated reporters of Chris Christie's New Jersey: Whatever your partisan affiliation, or lack thereof, subscribe to your local paper today. It's an act of civic virtue." ...
... CW: Maddow mentions some of the dirty tricks Christie's henchmen have played on local reporters. She does not mention the time Christie shut down New Jersey's only public television station, ostensibly because one of NJN's reporters wrote a story about Christie's under-the-table loan to a subordinate at the U.S. attorney's office. (The same subordinate, as it happens, Christie later rewarded with two better jobs. She is currently head of the state's economic development team, now being audited for a questionable Christie-starring, federally-funded "visit New Jersey" ad campaign.)
Right Wing World
"Invincible Ignorance" of the Right, Ctd. Jonathan Chait: "While I'd agree that a completely state-dominated economy would probably have less innovation on the whole, it's pretty obvious that the simplistic libertarian caricature -- government can only stifle innovation -- bears little resemblance to observed reality." Chait gives a bunch of examples. You can probably think of more.
News Ledes
Reuters: "The U.S. government on Thursday provided merchants with information gleaned from its confidential investigation into the massive data breach at Target Corp, in a move aimed at identifying and thwarting similar attacks that may be ongoing."
AP: "An attorney for the family of a killer whose Ohio execution by lethal injection was marked by several minutes of unprecedented gasping and unusual sounds plans to sue the state over what happened. Dayton defense lawyer Jon Paul Rion says Dennis McGuire's family is deeply disturbed by his execution and believes it violated his constitutional rights."
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Reader Comments (19)
Wonderful work by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Personally I cannot name a single terrorist attack that was not, in retrospect, preventable. In history.
@cowichan: I am still awaiting a response to my question re: your comment on "Bill Keller's Bully Pulpit." You wrote, in part,
"I've read Keller's NY Times article, Sullivan's take and the following post which is a must read before commenting.
www.medium.com/technology-and-society/4d811b45840d ,,,"
I responded:
"@cowichan: A curious comment re: Tufekci's post, since I link it twice in the body of my post, cite it extensively & urge readers to read it to understand what-all the Kellers get wrong. Not sure why you're linking it a third time & suggesting (others commenters &) I should not have commented on the Kellers' posts without reading Tufekci.
"I don't see how you can infer I didn't read something I cited. Is there something in my post that conflicts with Tufekci's post? Do tell."
In addition, I can see no reason one cannot comment on Keller's post without having read Tufekci's reply. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people have read & commented on one or the other of the Kellers' columns but have not read Tufekci. Many readers have related their own trying experiences with cancer. Are their comments really not valid because they didn't read Tufekci's excellent response? You're doing almost exactly what the Kellers are doing: they're telling people how to respond to cancer; you're telling them they're not qualified to respond to a column about cancer.
Seriously, I want a response.
Marie
I'm reposting Diane's comment on "Bill Keller's Bully Pulpit":
I'm quite late to this discussion. I've had that ugly flu and haven't been among the world for a few days. Talking about cancer is something I rarely do in a group or in written form. I tend to offer an ear to individuals who may see me as understanding their feelings, which I can tell you are mostly just plain terrified. I had ovarian and uterine cancer at age 33, which was successfully treated. My son was 3 years old.
Everyone manages illness and especially cancer, on their own terms. People, whether they survive or are terminal, can share that experience or not. Each person finds his or her stride, publically or privately. To judge, in such a pathetically arrogant way, how others must conduct themselves in their personal situation is truly disgusting. I am struck by the thought that Emma Keller's "existential anxieties" are raw terror about a possible reoccurrence. There is no shame in that part, I'm pretty sure we all feel it. Perhaps the disdain she expresses for Adams is the way she puts some distance to her terror. At any rate, those Keller pieces were profane.
Diane
Akhilleus, yesterday you asked "Is anyone else feeling a little pissed that a resource (the internet) developed and originally created with taxpayer money is on the verge of being turned over to Wall Street corporations who can then gouge those same taxpayers for their use of the system they already paid to develop?"
Yes, and no. Pissed about gouging, yes, but not about a taxpayer-developed resource being put on the market for private gain. That happens all the time, and is a successful part of our economy. Government grants and projects often provide scientific and technical benefits which the government cannot really directly exploit on behalf of the public, but which are commercially viable. It gets really complicated, but the basic model of having the USG invest in R&D, and allowing the private sector to exploit the commercial applications, is useful. Much of that basic R&D could not be accomplished without USG stimulus; how the USG licenses or grants patents to the resulting useful processes is where the potential for gouging comes in, and that's politics. But I don't think any of us would want to go to a USG-owned grocery store to buy our Tang.
@Ak and Patrick; look up the recent article in "Mother Jones" about how start-ups love social capitalism when they need the dough and how fast the now-rich owners convert to libertarians.
@JJG. How 'bout providing a better link than that.
Marie
Re: You know; I fed the dogs, let the cat in then out again, did the dishes, took out the garbage, had a cup of coffee; turned to my favorite news source; read what I could and said; "Sweet baby Jesus, Am I running late, wish I could find that copy of Mother Jones that had a great article about start-ups and government funding to relate to Ak and Patrick but I can't. So instead I will risk the wrath of Marie and just mention the article and because she is so busy I will slip under her radar and I will dash off to work and none will be the wiser.
But No.
The title of the article is "Free Ride"; the author is Josh Harkinson, it was published in the September -October issue of "Mother Jones" of this year. Pages 20 through 25
I knew I wasn't flying low enough.
@Patrick & @Akhilleus. You're both right. But as this Congressional Research Service study points out, it's sometimes impossible to say how much of a particular patentable invention is beholden to underlying government research. For instance, "... it is often particularly difficult to exactly identify the government’s contribution to a new drug, particularly since a product typically embodies more than one patent. Generally, there are multiple sources of input from multiple parties in drug development...."
What taxpayers expect is that industries that the government supports should be subject to heavy regulation of price-of-product. I would add that the regulation should extend across all products, not just the ones that the government helped develop. Here's why. (a) Merck develops all by itself a zits treatment. (b) It develops, with the help of NIH-funded university research, a better zits treatment. However, if it can charge whatever it wants (say, $20) for a tube of (a), but can only charge $1.73 for a tube of (b), Merck is only going to produce (a).
In addition, the government should heavily regulate monopolies & oligopolies. To me, it doesn't matter much if those companies developed their products in their own garages or if they took advantage of government R&D. Obviously, every company wants to make "a decent profit," whatever that is, but you don't have to be Paul Krugman or Henry Ford to realize that if the CEOs & investors "gouge" their consumers (as Akhilleus puts it), they aren't really helping the economy.
If a person wants to gouge customers, s/he should go into the luxury products business. Who cares if Tiffany's diamonds or Vera Wang's bridal dresses are overpriced? People who want diamonds & bride's gowns can go to Zales & Weddinz R Us. Companies that sell necessities or commonly-used products, from drugs to cars to computers, should be willing/forced to sell their products at reasonable profits & share those profits with the workers who make the products, not just company executive & investors. Would this curb innovation? Not much.
Marie
@JJG: And here's the article online. I haven't read it yet, but I'd like to.
Marie
Patrick,
Quite so. And I'm fully aware of the nature of such complicated enterprises. I do realize that there are pages of examples that could be brought to bear and I also realize that private innovations are often required to make the originally funded idea marketable and have no problem with companies making a profit off those innovations. What irks me is the way these projects seem to morph into a totally private sector ownership model with no respect for their origins.
A good example would be what used to be called the "public airwaves". When radio began, it was a mess. The government, through the FCC, under the Communications Act of 1934, began regulating and licensing companies and groups wishing to broadcast over what were considered the public airwaves.
This is a natural resource for which private entities pay nothing. Not a cent. But licenses are worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the private sector, none of which ever ends up in the pockets of the public.
Their only payback is to provide programming in the public interest. The Reagan Administration, at the behest of what had become media behemoths, changed the rules in 1996 and said bollocks to all that. Private media companies never liked doing public programming but they did it. Now they don't even have to pretend.
Even things they're still obliged to do, such as provide information during states of emergency, they only do if they feel like it. ClearChannel, the far right-wing media giant owned by Mitt Romney's old company Bain Capital (1,200 stations nation wide), during Hurricane Katrina yawned at the thought of providing emergency information to citizens of New Orleans as many were dying and being swept out of their homes. ClearChannel owns 6 radio stations in the city. SIX. And for days not a one of them saw fit to act in the public interest and offer their own reporting and information on the unfolding tragedy. One of them, after the storm had hit, deigned to retransmit audio from a local TV station. The others after a week or so, allowed some transmission of emergency information coordinated by other non-ClearChannel stations.
Heckuva job, ClearChannel!
So much for the public interest.
But if you read industry and trade journals, broadcasters scoff at the idea that the public owns the airwaves and has some rights. As far as they're concerned, the airwaves belong to them and they decide who gets to use them. What do you think Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch think of the public interest?
Okay, this has gone on long enough. You get the point. And I know the government didn't "invent" the airwaves, but they are no different than any other resource such as rivers, which, in the hands of private businesses have often become transmitters of death.
So I have no problem with the concept of private sector investors making money on ideas developed with taxpayer money, I have a problem with institutional arrogance and amnesia which acts to protect the investors while cutting the public totally out of the picture, except as a source of further enrichment.
An old problem, this public and private thing and it warms my cockles to see it resurrected, as I have recently, far beyond the RC sphere. I've even heard hoary Henry George's name mentioned in connection with his single tax proposal from the late 1800's, when he said those things given to us by nature (land, the airwaves as Akhilleus says), should never be considered private. Hence his single tax on land...
George was reacting to something he noticed about the railroads; once public right of ways became private by the stroke a a well greased Congressional pen, the few were inevitably enriched at the expense of the many, and he thought that wrong. I don't know how his single tax proposal would have fixed the problem he saw, but in his writing and speaking the public/private discussion did take center stage. Wikipedia tells me Stiglitz has continued it.
Now more than one hundred years later we see the same argument about publicly financed research leading to private gain. I would go a step farther and suggest that it's only another instance of the larger struggle over the concept of ownership and what it does and should mean. The trend toward privatizing any number of what were once commonly assumed to be public services is certainly related to that discussion, and now that I think of it, where better to have it than here in the good ole USA, which has to qualify as history's premier laboratory for such experiments.
Only one question: Once we have established exactly the right mix of public and private interests, should we patent and sell it or give it away?
I know I shouldn't get too worked up anymore about the raft of imbeciles out there on the right but, okay, I do.
Marie's link to the Chait piece introduced me to another piece. The shit kind. One Conn Carroll.
Mother of mercy, is this guy a moron. I had never heard of him before but I clicked on a link to some of his dreck and scanned some articles that have leaked out of his head, the mere act of which caused me to lose 50 IQ points,
Every second article is about Obamacare if that tells you anything. It sucks, it's a failure, people hate it, it's corporatist (whatever the fuck that means--it seems to be a favorite word for Carroll, which is perfect; a vague, obfuscating word used by a vague, barely sentient winger hack whose sole existence rests on the premise that his readers are idiots and he can just make shit up and still have a job).
But the whole point of this comment is to respond to Marie's suggestion that although Chait mentions three (pretty big) areas in which innovation has been funded and carried out under government auspices, there are plenty more.
And there are, as we've ascertained in earlier posts about money making projects starting with the government and ending up as private companies who "built it all themselves".
But I'm not gonna do a long listy thing here, well, not much of one. I've done that before and everyone pretty much knows the bounty good government has bestowed on us over the last couple of centuries, things that would, with enormous probability, never have emerged from the private sector.
The cretinous Mr. Carroll chooses to shoot back a very clever riposte suggesting that Chait's three selections for demonstrating government's efficacy at research and innovation, defense, aerospace, and biotechnology, are reduced by the dysfunctional right-wing mind to European Aerobuses and expensive toilet seats.
Laugh? I thought I'd die.
Carroll is a textbook example of the kind of willfully ignorant blowhard Isaac Asimov referred to when describing them as the kind who believe "My ignorance is as good as your knowledge".
The Republican antipathy to science is a bit weird considering one of the founders, a minor sort of a guy (George Washington) who himself was, if not a scientist on a par with Jefferson, no slouch, having invented a number of farming devices and spent considerable time studying botany and animal husbandry. In his first annual message to Congress, the big guy, rather than endorsing the sort of witch doctor voodoo so beloved by current conservatives, suggested "... that there is nothing which can better deserve your patronage, than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness. " Notice he didn't say "Crap you make up in a fever dream and belief in invisible beings in the sky is the road to happiness."
Anyway, the government began investing in knowledge. What did it come up with? The telegraph, which developed an infrastructure for worldwide communication, a system to help with the census of 1890 that created early computer technology. The man who worked for four years with the government, Herman Hollerith, left to found a company that would become IBM.
They began a Marine research hospital that would become the NIH and founded the National Bureau of Standards which in turn funded research on things like aviation instrumentation. Defense projects, as Chait mentions, are responsible for considerably more than toilet seats (why are Republicans always thinking about their asses?), including technologies that have immeasurably improved the modern world.
Federally funded research centers account for a fair share of innovation coming out of places like Los Alamos, Lincoln Labs, Lawrence Livermore, National Cancer Institute, Renewable Energy Lab, and plenty more.
The point is that there are a plethora of reasons the tired, trite, entirely false right-wing trope about government stifling innovation is so far up their asses as to perhaps account for that anatomical obsession.
The truly sad thing is how engrained this bullshit has become. It's gospel on the right and anyone who tries to say different can expect the same result that befell a gun supporting pundit who suggested that perhaps some regulation on deadly weapons might not be so bad.
And the morons continue to march.
Here we go again, gettin' all gun crazy.
I like how this last string of senseless (attempted) murders have come from all public spaces of society: the supermarket, the cinema, the school...nowhere is safe from America's lunatics.
During weeks like these I can never decide whether we're experiencing an increase of murderous behavior or if it just becomes the mass media's crème du jour from time to time and when gun murders lose their flavor for the national discourse they continue apace but disappear from the spotlight. I'm guessing the latter. If the mass media actually gave significant time to every senseless gun murder in the US every week, maybe popular opinion could finally produce a significant movement to overcome the barricades built by the NRAs bloodmoney. I hold the media largely responsible for this national illness, and it can't be called anything but that, for their sensationalizing of these acts without any prolonged debate. Coverage consists of kids crying and running out of the school hands up, parents crying, then the nightly vigil that's become so banal it's lost all true meaning. It's sick.
Reading about the latest youngin' barreling into his school shotgun blazing, the article provided a link to the new gun training programs that some states have been organizing for their teachers since Newtown.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/15/guns-in-schools-firearms-_n_2482168.html
These ridiculous images of ordinary teachers blazing their pistols down range or practicing form tackling of the potential student armed with his AR15 assault rifle is just insanity. I got to wondering where else in the world would we see similar scenes of such an absurd situation organized on a national scale. Do these kind of shenanigans go down in Russia? Some European countries? Australia? I'd have to assume no. So it appears this just goes into the infamous list of "American Exceptionalism" I suppose.
Thinking about the politicians callousness to this grave situation, I was semi-inspired by some of the GOPs proposals over their extremist anti-abortion fight. Their proposal to have every woman get an ultrasound and say hello to the tiny fetus in order to find God and change faith or whatever its supposed to do could be adopted in our arduous fight against guns. Maybe we should propose that each murderer, regardless of circumstances, has to deliver the news personally to the unsuspecting family. Yet for the truly heartless, a false confession could only make it hurt worse I imagine. However it happens, their actions must be humanized, making them see the human side of their actions. Humanize the lost neighbor that got gunned down without reason. Humanize Trayvon Martin. Humanize the dad texting during the fucking commercials...
But this only enters into the system AFTER the fact. After blood has been spilled, lives lost. How can we humanize these actions BEFORE the act? Maybe we can require each gun lover to shoot a whole in their own body, a little like taser training in the police force. See how it feels. Think twice. Think in general.
Ken,
Your question might be rhetorical but I'll bet someone will show up with a plan for making money on it if it's possible. Now if we can only arrange for those profits to be shared....
And speaking of Henry George and the connections between one person's research and another's profits, I notice, on that same Wikipedia entry, that one of George's theories on property value and assets was developed into a demonstration called the Landlord's Game which in turn became the Parker Brothers' game Monopoly, which has no doubt piled up many mountains of shekels over the years.
An interesting historical turn of events. The idea of a 19th century economist who tried to add some egalitarianism to the economic mix becomes a game of a winner who takes all and owns everything.
I'm guessing George's heirs are not living on Boardwalk or Park Place.
Akhilleus: Some more to the Monopoly story (from the NYTimes) that you might not have seen:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/25/sunday-review/monopoly-goes-corporate.html?_r=0
Used the game's history as part of our local radio show some time ago. As you can see, it does have its creepy elements. I'm guessing the Kochs funded its latest incarnation.
JJG (and Marie),
Thanks for the nod to that Mother Jones article. Two ideas stand out in a piece about how one guy got rich from a government grant but now wants to deny anyone else that same chance:
The Market will fix everything (oh god...that old saw again?), and I got nothin' from the guv'mint. Nothin'.
What happens to these people? Is there some genetic switch that goes off after they've made their first $100 million that causes their egos to burst blood vessels in the part of the brain reserved for memory and rationality?
Sounds like Musk re-reads his own press notices every night before dreaming about himself.
Just got back from the long drive into town and heard on NPR that Harvey Weinstein is planning to make a "huge movie" (his words) about gun violence and the complicit NSA--starring Meryl Streep! Wow. He said it would be on the level of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." Can't wait!
@ Marie: Whoa!!
Just read your post above, went back and read your reply to my post of 15th for the first time. You will note that that posting is NOT headed @Marie or @Constant Weader or @CW. It was just a comment emphasizing your reference to or in addition to or in support of your article. Not addressed to you but to the ether. I feel as though I was walking down the street and was blind sided by a pit bull which sank its teeth into my right calf and is now munching its way to my crotch. Whenever I make a comment on another posting I always head my posting with @+ the name of whoever I am addressing. My post of yesterday does NOT reflect on you in any way. But I think your hypersensitive response does. I am not 100% in agreement with you in all things. I'm sure you know I think you too receptive to statements from institutions like the military, the NSA and Obama and grant the US an entitlement to a freedom of action I think dangerous to world peace and you think of me as a naive loon. Fair enough. Your reaction to my posts seems to me to be saying that you wish I would just go but are just short of finding justification. I'll grant you a new year gift and cease posting on your site.
@cowichan: Apparently we do not agree on the meaning of "is a must read before commenting."
Also no chance I will be munching your crotch.
Marie