The Commentariat -- Feb. 10, 2015
Internal links removed.
Deb Reichmann of the AP: "President Barack Obama is expected -- as early as Tuesday -- to ask Congress for new war powers, sending Capitol Hill his blueprint for an updated authorization for the use of military force to fight the Islamic State group."
Michael Shear & Andrew Higgins of the New York Times: "President Obama said Monday that he would wait for the outcome of peace talks before deciding whether to provide lethal weapons to Ukraine. Such assistance would represent a striking break with European allies who say that arming the country against Russian aggression would make the conflict worse. In a joint White House news conference with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Mr. Obama said he was hopeful that economic sanctions would persuade President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to seize a diplomatic solution. But he said the United States would consider sending defensive weapons to Ukraine if European-led talks scheduled for this week did not produce peace."
Julie Davis & Isabel Kershner of the New York Times: "The latest conflict between President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel erupted into public view on Monday, as the two leaders clashed from afar over Mr. Netanyahu's plans to visit Washington next month and the direction of negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. At a White House news conference, Mr. Obama signaled his displeasure with the speech Mr. Netanyahu is scheduled to give in March.... But in Jerusalem, Mr. Netanyahu vowed that he would go forward with the speech, despite increasing pressure in Israel and the United States to cancel or alter his plans to use it to appeal directly to American lawmakers for a harder line against Iran." ...
... Mike Lillis of the Hill has put together a whip list of Democrats who have said they will & will not attend Netanyahu's speech.
Stephanie Mencimer of Mother Jones tracks down the four plaintiffs in the case of King v. Burwell. They're all nincompoops, but I guess my favorite is "Brenda Levy ... [who] will qualify for Medicare in June, around the same time the Supreme Court is likely to issue a decision in this case.... She didn't recall exactly how she had been selected as a plaintiff in the case.... [She's a substitute teacher & an anti-gay activist.] Levy said that she had never met the lawyers handling the case in person.... When I asked her if she realized that her lawsuit could potentially wipe out health coverage for millions, she looked befuddled. 'I don't want things to be more difficult for people,' she said. 'I don't like the idea of throwing people off their health insurance.'" ...
.. Greg Sargent reports that the Wall Street Journal is raising questions about the standing of the four plaintiffs in King v. Burwell in this story, by Louise Radnofsky & Brent Kendall, and in this one (Feb. 6), by Radnofsky, Kendall & Jess Bravin. However, as Sargent notes, "... the standing questions almost certainly won't be enough to disable the lawsuit. All it needs is one plaintiff with standing. And there are other people out there -- on other lawsuits, and beyond -- who can legitimately claim injury. This legal challenge will go forward one way or another." ...
... Be Careful What You Wish For. Brian Beutler on the consequences for Republicans, who are hoping the Supremes will rule for King, et al.: "The case ... is an unexploded ordnance lying in the middle of the 2016 presidential campaign field. An adverse King ruling wouldn't just introduce familiar, crisis-driven legislative politics. It would likely become the defining issue of the Republican primary and general election. It would leave Republicans strategically and substantively divided over how to contain the fallout. And it would transform Obamacare as an issue from a modest liability for the Democratic candidate, into a factor that unifies the entire party against Republicans and the Supreme Court." ...
... ** Robert Kirsch of the Roosevelt Institute, in the Hill: Under the GOP's latest "plan" to "replace" the ACA, "middle-class, seniors and low-income -- would pay more to get lousy insurance and many more working Americans would go without health coverage." ...
... If you wonder why the Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam's (R) effort to secure Medicaid expansion funds for Tennesseans failed in the state's legislator, blame it on David Koch. According to Perry Bacon of NBC News, "... the state's chapter of Americans for Prosperity..., whose foundation is chaired by controversial billionaire David Koch, argued Haslam was just trying to trick conservatives into implementing Obamacare in their state by giving it a new name. AFP campaigned aggressively Haslam's plans..., even running radio ads blasting GOP state legislators who said they might vote for it." Via Greg Sargent.
Alec MacGillis of Slate: Last week "... the Obama administration, spurred on by a stunning investigation by the Huffington Post, quietly took an important step in ... [fighting] heroin addiction.... The White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy announced that it would forbid drug courts that receive federal funding ... from barring defendants from going on Suboxone," a drug that "that has been shown to be highly effective in treating addiction to heroin and prescription painkillers" & can be taken at home because it is more difficult to abuse than methadone.
Hmm. Katie Valentine of Think Progress: "Federal agents have been contacting activists who have participated in anti-Keystone XL and anti-tar sands protests, according to the Canadian Press. The visits have been happening to activists in Oregon, Washington state, and Idaho, and a lawyer working with the activists told the Canadian Press that he has advised them not to talk to the agents."
Ben Protess & Jessica Silver-Greenberg of the New York Times: "The Justice Department is pushing some of the biggest banks on Wall Street -- including, for the first time in decades, American institutions -- to plead guilty to criminal charges that they manipulated the prices of foreign currencies. In the final stages of a long-running investigation into corruption in the world's largest financial market, federal prosecutors have recently informed Barclays, JPMorgan Chase, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Citigroup that they must enter guilty pleas to settle the cases, according to lawyers briefed on the matter....Yet ... a development that has not been previously reported -- additional currency misconduct has surfaced in a New York state investigation, confidential documents show."
GOP Jihad. William Saletan of Slate: Republicans & confederate pundits who have chided President Obama for noting historic acts of violence committed in the name of Christianity are making the same arguments today's Islamic jihadists make about the justifications for their violence. ...
... ** Bill Moyers vividly describes Americans gleefully burning another American alive in 1916. "Between 1882 and 1968 -- 1968! -- there were 4,743 recorded lynchings in the US. About a quarter of them were white people, many of whom had been killed for sympathizing with black folks.... Our own barbarians did not have to wait at any gate. They were insiders. Home grown. Godly. Our neighbors, friends, and kin. People like us." ...
... The Conferate Reign of Terror. Campbell Robertson of the New York Times: "On Tuesday..., the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Ala., released a report on the history of lynchings in the United States, the result of five years of research and 160 visits to sites around the South. The authors of the report compiled an inventory of 3,959 victims of 'racial terror lynchings' in 12 Southern states from 1877 to 1950.... The process is intended, [Bryan] Stevenson[, the organization's founder,] said, to force people to reckon with the narrative through-line of the country's vicious racial history, rather than thinking of that history in a short-range, piecemeal way. 'Lynching and the terror era shaped the geography, politics, economics and social characteristics of being black in America during the 20th century,' Mr. Stevenson said, arguing that many participants in the great migration from the South should be thought of as refugees fleeing terrorism rather than people simply seeking work." ...
... The organization provides a map of the sites of lynchings from 1877 to 1950, republished in the Times. The report, "Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror," is here (pdf).
Well, it's too late to ask for a recount. -- President-Elect Barack Obama, Late Fall 2008, upon reviewing the disastrous economic situation
Jonathan Chait reports on an effort -- to be continued, no doubt -- to assert that the Bush administration did not "lie us into" the Iraq War. Of course it is necessary to distort or ignore facts to proclaim this whopper, but the "goal here seems to be to make it impossible for journalists to treat this particular fact as if it were a fact."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.
Brendan James of TPM: "'Morning Joe' host Joe Scarborough embarked on a rant Monday morning when asked whether House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) made a mistake inviting the Israeli prime minister to address Congress. During his tirade, Scarborough railed against Democrats snubbing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he called 'a spokesperson for Jews worldwide,' and accused President Barack Obama of 'allowing the Iranians to roll over him' in negotiations over Iran's nuclear program." ...
.. CW: Hey, Joe. Who is the spokesperson for Christians worldwide? Pope Francis? Barack Obama?
Jon Stewart does a great job putting the Brian Williams in context.
... Update: Verizon has taken down the video, but you can still watch the segment here. ...
... Ouch! Emily Steel & Ravi Samoiya of the New York Times: "Before [Brian] Williams apologized for exaggerating an account of a forced helicopter landing during the Iraq war, he ranked as the 23rd-most-trusted person in the country.... On Monday, he ranked as No. 835." Another guy down there in the 830s?: Willie Robertson of "Duck Dynasty." CW: And I thought the public wasn't paying attention. ...
... Jordan Charitan of USA Today: "On Friday, preliminary ratings for Nightly NewsWith Brian Williams were down 36% in the coveted 25-to-54 demographic compared with the previous week's average as controversy swirled around the anchor.... Williams' competitors also dipped: ABC was down 16% and CBS down 17% compared with the previous week's average." ...
... Hadas Gold of Politico: "The first time Brian Williams heard that his helicopter was an hour behind the Chinook that got hit by an RPG -- and not directly behind it -- was last week, on Feb. 4, during an interview with Stars & Stripes. In that interview, that audio of which was published Monday, Williams acted surprised to hear that soldiers who were with him that day told Stars & Stripes that Williams' Chinook helicopter was not flying with the helicopters that were hit." Transcript & audio of the full interview, by Travis Tritten, is here. ...
... MEANWHILE, in the French Quarter. Jessica Williams of the Times-Picayune: "The former general manager of the Ritz-Carlton New Orleans, where embattled 'NBC Nightly News' anchor Brian Williams reportedly roomed during Hurricane Katrina, said Sunday (Feb. 8) that neither mass flooding nor floating human remains were near the hotel after the levees broke. Her statement raises questions about Williams' stated Katrina experiences and could add to a pool of public skepticism regarding his tale."
Jack Shafer in Politico Magazine: Ezra Klein & Matt Yglesias, who interviewed President Obama for Vox (linked here yesterday) are "less interested in interviewing Obama than they are in explaining his policies. Again and again, they serve him softball — no, make that Nerf ball -- questions and then insert infographics and footnotes that help advance White House positions. Vox has lavished such spectacular production values on the video version of the Obama interview -- swirling graphics and illustrations, background music (background music!?), aggressive editing, multiple camera angles that the clips end up looking and sounding like extended commercials for the Obama-in-2016 campaign. I've seen subtler Scientology recruitment films." ...
... ** David Dayen of Salon writes an excellent piece on what Obama didn't say (and what he did say) in the Vox interview about international trade deals. CW: AND yes, Matt Yglesias, who conducted the interview on international policy, let Obama get away with some pretty disingenuous spin, as Dayen illuminates. Still, the interview kind of boxes the President into a promise of transparency & protection of labor on the TPP. We'll see how that goes.
Presidential Race
Dana Milbank: Bobby Jindal came to Washington to tout his presidential creds, only to refuse to answer reporters' questions about his abysmal record as governor. Milbank has specifics of the Q&A, & they're funny. The Louisiana Sidestep turns out to be an awkward dance. "Some of the [Republican] party's most promising candidates are governors or former governors running on their executive experience. But their experience isn't always a good advertisement for the limited-government policies they promote." ...
... Well, gosh, James Hohmann of Politico describes Jindal as an "energized" candidate who "hit back at his critics on the right and left, dismissing them as elitist hacks who can't stand the idea of an Ivy League-educated, unapologetic conservative. He accused GOP bosses in Washington of trying to sanitize the nomination battle and 'get us to stop being so rude.' He blasted right-leaning writers who've criticized him, saying they're just out to curry favor with the editorial page of The New York Times and get booked on the Sunday shows. And the 43-year-old governor argued that some Republicans are fine with crony capitalism, as long as their pockets are being lined."
Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "... Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has hired Ethan Czahor, a Santa Monica-based techie who co-founded Hipster.com, to be chief technology officer for his political action committee.... After the story of his hiring broke, tweets on his Twitter account started disappearing.... Several of the deleted tweets refer to women as 'sluts'.... Some are about gay men at the gym.... 'Governor Bush believes the comments were inappropriate,' a Bush spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. 'They have been deleted at our request.'" CW: Kaczynski provides plenty of examples of the deleted tweets. Judging from their content & quality, Czahor must be an obnoxious 14-year-old in need of serious counselling. ...
... Update. Jonathan Easley of the Hill: "'Jeb Bush said the country needed "adult conversations" and then promptly hired a digital staffer who proudly shares misogynist views on women, homophobic views about the LGBT community, and mocks everyone from newborns to the McCain family,' said [Democratic National Committee] Deputy National Press Secretary Rebecca Chalif. 'I'm not sure what sort of conversations are going on with the adults Governor Bush knows, but these statements don't belong in a schoolyard screaming match, much less in our political discourse,' Chalif continued."
Gabriel Debenedetti of Politico: "The latest front in Republicans' anti-Clinton effort will launch on Tuesday morning, with the Republican National Committee's 'Hillary's Hiding' campaign designed to highlight the former secretary of state's recent lack of straightforward political activity despite her presumed pre-candidate status." CW: Yeah, because she's not out there making a complete fool of herself a la many GOP candidates, she's in hiding. ...
... OR, as Margaret Hartmann of New York puts it, "Republicans Are Pressuring Hillary Clinton to Enter the 2016 Race."
Ken Vogel of Politico: "David Brock on Monday abruptly resigned from the board of the super PAC Priorities USA Action, revealing rifts that threaten the big-money juggernaut being built to support Hillary Clinton's expected presidential campaign. In a resignation letter obtained by Politico, Brock, a close Clinton ally, accused Priorities officials of planting 'an orchestrated political hit job' against his own pro-Clinton groups, American Bridge and Media Matters."
Beyond the Beltway
Nullification, Ctd. Sandhya Somashekhar of the Washington Post: "On the day that same-sex unions became legal in Alabama, local officials in dozens of counties on Monday defied a federal judge's decision and refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, casting the state into judicial chaos.... In the majority of counties, officials said they would refuse to license same-sex marriages or stop providing licenses altogether, confronting couples -- gay and heterosexual -- with locked doors and drawn windows. Many of the state's 68 probate judges mounted their resistance to the federal decision at the urging of the firebrand chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Roy Moore." ...
Today's decision represents yet another example of this Court's increasingly cavalier attitude toward the States.... This acquiescence [to the lower federal court decision] may well be seen as a signal of the court's intended resolution of that question. -- Justice Thomas, dissent in Supreme Court's denial of Alabama's application for a stay; joined by Justice Scalia
... Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The most prominent sign that the Supreme Court is poised to recognize a constitutional right for same-sex couples to marry nationwide came Monday from an unlikely source: conservative Justice Clarence Thomas. The court is months away from hearing arguments in a landmark case about whether states are free to ban such unions. But Thomas said a majority of the justices may have already made up their minds, as reflected by the court's 'indecorous' decision Monday morning allowing same-sex marriages to proceed in Alabama." ...
... Thomas's dissent is here (pdf). CW: Looks as if it will be a 7-2 decision (although there is no telling how many Supremes voted not to lift the stay).
Monica Davey & Mitch Smith of the New York Times: "Gov. Bruce Rauner, the newly elected Republican who has often criticized public sector unions, took his first step toward curbing their power on Monday by announcing an executive order that would bar unions from requiring all state workers to pay the equivalent of dues. Mr. Rauner, who faces a Democratic-controlled legislature with strong ties to labor, took the unilateral step saying that he believed those fees violate the United States Constitution." CW: This is a good example of why you vote for the Democratic candidate, even if s/he's a jerk.
News Ledes
Hill: "The State Department is suspending embassy operations in Yemen amid concerns about the volatile security situation there, a significant blow to relations with a one-time key ally in the fight against al Qaeda. Embassy staff have been relocated out of the capital city of Sana'a, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said, adding that the political transition underway created a risk of renewed violence that threatened the diplomatic community."
Hill: "Newsweek's Twitter account was apparently hacked by Islamist extremist sympathizers, with a disturbing threat tweeted at first lady Michelle Obama and the first family."
Washington Post: "The FBI has notified the family of Kayla Mueller, the 26-year-old American woman held hostage by the Islamic State in Syria, that she is dead." ...
... New York Times UPDATE: "For one tortured weekend, the parents of Kayla Mueller refused to believe that their daughter was dead. From their home in Prescott, Ariz., they issued an impassioned plea to the Islamic State, which had held her captive since August 2013, and urged the extremist organization to contact them privately with proof of her death. The militants acquiesced and sent at least three photographs of her corpse."
New York: "TMZ is reporting that Bobby Brown and Houston's mother Cissy have agreed to take Bobbi Kristina [Brown] off life support on Wednesday, the three-year anniversary of her mother's death.... Twenty-one-year-old Brown has been in a medically induced coma since being found unresponsive in a bathtub on January 31. The cause is unknown, but police are reportedly investigating Brown's boyfriend Nick Gordon on suspicion of foul play."
AP: "A relentless storm that dumped more than two feet of snow on some parts of New England was finally expected to wind down on Tuesday but not before bringing the Boston-area public transit system to its knees and forcing some communities to consider dumping piles of snow into the ocean to help relieve clogged streets.... Forecasters said more snow was possible on Thursday."
New York Times: "Critical elements of Puerto Rico's plan to avert financial disaster are in jeopardy, after a federal judge struck down a law that allowed the government to restructure certain debts. The law, known as the Recovery Act, was meant to give Puerto Rico's public corporations protections similar to bankruptcy. Unlike American cities like Detroit, which used federal bankruptcy law to sort out its finances, Puerto Rico, a United States commonwealth, is not permitted to declare bankruptcy."
Guardian: "The Syrian government is being continually informed via Iraq and other countries about US-led air strikes against Islamic militants in Syria, Bashar al-Assad has said."
Los Angeles Times: "An upstart anti-corruption party swept to a landslide victory Tuesday in state elections in the Indian capital, dealing the first significant political setback to Prime Minister Narendra Modi."
Guardian: "A Cairo appeals judge has issued a damning appraisal of last year's trial of three al-Jazeera English journalists, a month after he quashed their convictions and sent their case to a retrial that will begin on Thursday. The initial trial failed to provide conclusive evidence that the defendants had helped the banned Muslim Brotherhood or promoted the group in the media, wrote Judge Anwar Gabry, the deputy head of the court of cassation, Egypt's highest court of appeal."
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Reader Comments (14)
Thank you Alabama for proving that the Civil War is still ongoing. I wonder what they will do when the Supremes make it final. This has nothing to do with any constitution. It is all about religion, that concept that gives you the right to treat other humans like shit.
'All men are created equal'. If you can't live with that, move to Russia.
The Guardian reports that the media arm of American Confederates, Faux Newz, has accepted the honor of serving as a major recruiter for ISIS. The video--all 22 minutes, unedited--of the captured Jordanian pilot being burned alive, is being gleefully linked by Islamic State supporters around the world, thrilled at Fox's cooperation
Terror organizations use such videos to recruit more and more bloodthirsty sociopaths in hopes of further murders. Now Rupert and Roger have come to their aid. Besides, they now have the opportunity to exploit murder for cash by upping their click rates, without having to worry about inconvenient and pesky complaints of savage insensitivity coming from whitebread western friends and families of previous victims.
Freedom!!
Re: Shafer's Vox take.
The portions of the Obama interview I read and listened to only confirmed my lazy opinion that the President is intelligent and thoughtful, tho' maybe not the kind of Decider some would like to see holding sway over the whole Free World. Even fell for the explanations and graphics, thinking they might for some be an aid to understanding.
Now I see the interview was empty, devoid of real content. Admit I heard nary a word about who we plan to bomb next.
Wonder what happened to my critical faculty? Snoozing, I guess.
May I recommend BBC Radio 4's Analysis programme, entitled "You can't say that"? I would have liked more discussion of the pernicious effects of self censorship. I think it also relates to our changing norms conversations.
I thought Margaret Warner's article in the PBS NewsHour on Ukraine/Russia/US was quietly fascinating. Whilst PBS deserves criticism, I enjoy listening to the elder stateswomen of this press, with their history, memory and experience. They, unlike lesser lights, were there, are there, and bring so much insight to their opinions. Except when some try to do "balance".
Patrick Cockburn wrote a pretty good analysis on Sunday about our good war ally Britain and their strategy (or lack thereof) for taking on ISIS. It's an eye-opener for sure: so much money and resources and so little strategy. Makes you wonder what is going on within the Pentagon's walls as strategies are copied and pasted from previous foreign adventures. I agree we need to act to contain the ISIS threat throughout the Middle and East and abroad but without a comprehensive international coalition of willing and competent partners, inadequacy will reign into the somber future.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/isis-in-iraq-britain-has-no-plan-for-tackling-the-militants-and-no-idea-whos-in-charge-10031274.html
However, IMO, keep the arming rhetoric out of the public Ukraine debate. Go about it through secret channels with untraceable supplies if it's deemed absolutely necessary, otherwise I don't see any good coming from us publicly arming soldiers meant to shoot Russian surrogates while diplomatic solutions still stand a chance. Throw the responsibility load on Merkel, and let the Europeans solve the problem themselves. The Germans need to prove their more than just an economic powerhouse within the EU.
@safari: This 2013 article by Erik Nelson for Time provides a pretty good explanation of Germany's reluctance to send its military on foreign adventures, especially in Europe. (Something about a couple of world wars.) If Germany were "publicly arming soldiers meant to shoot Russian surrogates," the same dynamic would apply, though perhaps to a slightly lesser extent.
Marie
@Ken Winkes: Apparent Shafer thinks the only purpose of an interview is to try to catch the interviewee in some error, gaffe or lie or else, as you suggest, announcing the invasion of a hapless foreign country. Maybe the only "interviews" he's ever caught are a Fox "News" White House correspondent asking President Obama a question during a press conference & Bill O'Reilly repeatedly interrupting President Obama in an "interview."
Obviously, interviewers have many other objectives, & it makes sense to me that Vox, whose primary schtick is to explain policies in the news, would use an interview with the President to explain some of his policies, which have complex reasons for being. The interviewer need not agree with those policies to dispassionately illuminate their raisons d'etre & effects. If I'm not mistaken, that's what news organizations do.
Marie
Today's definition of "disingenuous."
From the report on FBI interviews with Keystone protesters above, "The FBI told the Canadian Press that it doesn’t investigate political movements — instead, it focuses on crimes."
Yeah, right. This one doesn't even pass the "truthiness" test.
Just how much well documented history are we expected to forget or ignore?
Wanted: mustache twirling assholes to assist billionaires with further extension and propagation of Republican Nanny State policies designed to limit FREEDOM to whatever they determine it to be.
Apply with resume and list of recent hit jobs and political dirty tricks:
PO Box 666 Wichita, KS.
One of the most durable Confederate memes is that of the infamous Liberal Nanny State, that is, meddling liberal politicians who know what's best for everyone and try to interfere with local and national policies by insisting on everyone doing what they tell them to do.
Extremely little of this has ever actually been uncovered. Trying to rework programs like Medicare and Social Security to sound like nanny state ideas is laughable. And modest controls on the sales and ownership of deadly weapons is does not bespeak a nanny state, it's a responsible, grown up response to a horrific and long standing problem of preventable deaths in this country. Not to respond would be, well, infantile. Taxes are not proof of a nanny state either. They are the price of citizenship, that is, unless your goal is secession.
But that doesn't mean there is no nanny state. There most certainly is. But it originates in the Red.
Republicans are the most prolific and persistent Nanny Staters operating in the US. They put forth policies and try to pass laws that do exactly what they claim Democrats have always been doing, but of which they have trouble finding any actual examples.
Actual examples of Republican Nanny Stating are everywhere.
Do you want to get married to someone of the same sex? GOP Nanny Staters say "nay", and do so even if the Supreme Court says "yea". Do you want to control your own life and make your own decisions, especially if you are a woman? Nope, say the Nannies. They decide. How about being able to read any book you choose at the public library? Fie on that shit, say the Nannies, in many states, they decide what you can read and what you can't read. How about voting? Sure. If you have 27 individual documents showing proof of identity. Oh, and as long as you're going to vote Republican. Healthcare? Well, in certain states, especially red states that have seen the light, two of the biggest Nannies, the Koch brothers, will nail you to the wall if you so much as think about it.
And why? Because they can. Ideology isn't necessarily the prime mover in the Kochs meddling with Tennessee governor Bill Haslam's decision to take the money being offered by the federal government to help people in his state without health insurance.
But once the Kochs say no, that's it. The Nannies have spoken. No healthcare for you poor Volunteers, and you can all go to bed without your supper just for thinking about it.
And this isn't the first time the Kochs have interfered with Tennessee initiatives to make life better for its citizens. A few months ago, Americans for the Kochs' Prosperity, Tennessee branch, spent a ton of money to kill a proposal to expand public transportation in Nashville. You may wonder why the Kochs would care if public transit was dramatically improved in Nashville. Why, they might as well be residents, doncha know? Wichita is a mere 700 miles or so from downtown Nashville. Practically next door.
The real reason, says Alex Parene, who describes the Koch actions as "dickish villainy for the hell of it", has more to do with a demonstration of power. They likely could care less if Nashville has public transit or Tennesseans have healthcare.
What they do care about is showing everyone, especially other Republican Nanny Staters, that they can make things happen, just like that. They can take an inept loser douchebag like Scott Walker and turn him into a presidential candidate. They decide who lives and who dies in Tennessee or in any number of other red states where their money somersaults in and takes off people at the knees. And they can drop a billion dollars on the table of the next presidential poker game, hoping to tilt the odds in their favor. And thank you again, Little Johnny and the Dwarfs, for that amazing gift to fascism.
Because this is fascism in about as pure a form as you can imagine outside a laboratory. Oh wait, we LIVE in the Kochs' Laboratory for Fascist Research. Republicans have willingly offered us up as guinea pigs.
But this time they can't even pretend its for FREEDOM. They certainly can't pretend it's for democracy. They've turned their backs on America for money.
Dickish villainy, like you read about.
A piece worth reading noticed at www.NakedCapitalism.com:
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/a-blackwater-world-order/
A new war of all against all is probably coming. The only question is, how soon? Career suggestion: Chaos Theory. Best,
Keith Howard
"If Germany were "publicly arming soldiers meant to shoot Russian surrogates," the same dynamic would apply, though perhaps to a slightly lesser extent. "
I couldn't agree more, and sorry for not properly communicating my ideas. I meant to promote a "diplomatic" solution led by Germany that erases the logic of sending weapons in the first place. I couldn't imagine today's Germany openly sending caches of glocks or Heckler and Koch submachine guns to Ukraine, even if their the third biggest arms exporter behind Russia and the US.
Overall the onus should be on Europe to get their diplomatic act together and confront the Ukrainian situation head to head with Putin. And today that means Germany, with Hollande as the "Yes" man. It's partly the West's fault for trying to expand NATO into Putin's backyard and also lobbying for a staunch pro-Western leader to pull Ukraine away from Russia, but the US is not directly threatened by the Ukrainian conflict nor does Putin want war with us. I'm not convinced he actually wants to expand Russia into all the former Soviet Union territory either.
Overall he wants to pad the riches of his cronies and have a docile citizenry that it well-off enough to not make a large fuss against his authoritarianism. Fomenting the border war is his way of saying "don't fuck with my system". It's a sick game to play, with innocent civilians paying the price as usual.
We awoke the bear, sending more weapons won't calm it down, whether German or American made.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/02/07/1363060/-When-Will-Fox-News-Fire-Bill-O-Reilly-For-Lying-About-Combat-Duty?detail=email
Bill O'Peabody (Thanks Al Franken) has also lied about his experiences, but I doubt if his core audience cares. But, you say he's not a "journalist." He's lied about that, too (Peabody Awards).
Keith,
A chilling piece, but not surprising. The Bush Debacle continues to gush poison into the world. We will be paying for the Bush-Cheney War of Choice and Hubris well into the next century given the way the strands of history unravel and then gather up into unexpected ways generations removed. No wonder Confederate flacks are hard at work trying to rewrite history, declaring that all those lies he told weren't lies at all. They were.....well, they were....er.....mistakes. Yeah, mistakes.
It's often said that nations are always attempting to fight the last (previous) war. Not so during Iraq. There were at least three different wars going on: Bush needed to assert his manhood since his previous demonstrations of manliness were to desert during Vietnam and waving pom-poms on the sideline while squealing "Go get 'em, boys" at Andover Academy.
He didn't much care about proofs or truth, so lies sufficed to drag America into a war we were extremely unprepared for. And to help keep us unprepared we had the duo of Dick Cheney, whose goals were to keep voters from realizing how they had been duped by the Supreme Court, and to try on the mantle of biggest badass in the valley. He didn't much care about reality or truth either and peddled the canard that the whole thing would be over in weeks with "our boys" coming home wreathed in garlands of "thank you" flowers.
Donald Rumsfeld was fighting a fantasy war all his own. He saw Iraq as a chance to play with the lives of American soldiers in an attempt to prove how right he was about a new kind of army. He sent them over there unprepared and largely unprotected, he himself having no real idea what was happening on the ground. That didn't matter because he was out to prove that he was smarter than anyone else. Tens of thousands of bodies later, I'm sure he believes he still is.
Of course, the ultimate reliance on unprepared military personnel meant we needed to rely then on unprepared and thoroughly undisciplined mercs, and Blackwater, being owned by one of Bush's good buddies, got in line with all the other Bush-Cheney war profiteers to gouge American taxpayers while other Americans paid with their lives so all these guys could live the good life.
So now, while Bush lolls in his hammock painting pictures of his toes and Cheney snarls his way into the grave--none too soon, I might add--and Rumsfeld blames everyone else for the screw-ups, war lords around the globe are readying for their next war. And the one after that. And after that. And Bush-Cheney made sure to supply them with the means.
And they've got plenty of cheerleaders in the American congress as well, looking for the next place we can bomb or shoot the locals.
Bush wasn't the only one waving pom-poms, squealing "Go get 'em, boys" it seems.
Barbarossa,
Not only does O'Reilly suggest (okay, lie) that he was in combat, he insults the caller who asks for clarification, ie, a little truth from Loofah Boy, by telling him that he (the caller) could never possibly be as macho as O'Reilly had been, without, obviously, knowing anything about him. It's just the Fox way. When you're caught in a lie, blame the other guy.
So will Fox do anything about O'Reilly?
Ha....ha...ha.
He's their chief turd. They'll never flush him.