The Commentariat -- March 21, 2014
Internal links removed.
BBC News: "EU leaders have signed an agreement on closer relations with Ukraine, in a show of support following Russia's annexation of Crimea. The EU signed the deal hours after announcing further targeted sanctions. Pro-Moscow leader Viktor Yanukovych's abandonment of the deal in November had led to deadly protests, his removal and Russia taking over Crimea." ...
... Mark Landler of the New York Times: "President Obama on Thursday announced that he would expand sanctions against Russia, blacklisting wealthy individuals with ties to the government and a bank used by them, and opening the door to broader measures against Russian energy exports.The measures deliver on Mr. Obama's warning this week that the United States would ratchet up the costs for Russia if President Vladimir V. Putin moved to annex the breakaway province of Crimea. But they were aimed at forestalling further Russian incursions into eastern Ukraine.... In a tit-for-tat response, Moscow banned nine American officials from entering Russia, including Speaker John A. Boehner, the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, Senator John McCain of Arizona, as well as three senior White House officials":
... Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "The Pentagon says it has received assurances that Russian forces will not push further into Ukraine, despite Moscow massing thousands of troops on the border in what it describes as a military exercise. US defense secretary Chuck Hagel spoke for an hour on Thursday with his counterpart, Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu, in what was described as an occasionally blunt phone call." ...
... Phil Stewart & David Alexander of Reuters: "The Pentagon said on Thursday it was focusing for now on Ukrainian requests for non-lethal support, as opposed to any weaponry, as a senior U.S. official said Washington wanted to avoid further militarizing the standoff with Russia." ...
... Andrew Higgins of the New York Times: "... Ukraine's political tumult has instead brought back an old story line -- a confrontation redolent of the Cold War that has only underscored Europe's divisions and exposed the chasm between the bloc's high-minded aspirations and the rough reality of geopolitics as practiced by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia." ...
James Surowiecki of the New Yorker: Putin uses Russia's vast supply of natural gas as an "unconventional weapon." CW: Thanks to Victoria D. for the link. Surowiecki seems to think Putin is making a short-term calculation that will have bad effects long-term. But he doesn't take this into account:
... Timothy Heritage & Vladimir Soldatkin of Reuters: Putin signals, "if Europe and the United States isolate Russia, Moscow will look East for new business, energy deals, military contracts and political alliances. The Holy Grail for Moscow is a natural gas supply deal with China that is apparently now close after years of negotiations. If it can be signed when Putin visits China in May, he will be able to hold it up to show that global power has shifted eastwards and he does not need the West." ...
... CW: It seems to me -- and I place myself right up there with Mitt Romney as an expert on international affairs -- that as Russia makes its landgrabs to solidify its Western flank, it is attempting to increase its Eastern influence. China is, indirectly, as big a player in the Ukraine crisis as is Russia. ...
... Update. And this. Kristina Wong of the Hill: "Away from the conflict in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin is quietly seeking a foothold in Latin America, military officials warn. To the alarm of [U.S.] lawmakers and Pentagon officials, Putin has begun sending navy ships and long-range bombers to the region for the first time in years. Russia's defense minister says the country is planning bases in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, and just last week, Putin's national security team met to discuss increasing military ties in the region.... China is making a play for Latin America a well, and is now the fastest growing investor in the region, according to experts."
... Alexey A. Navalny, "a Russian lawyer, anti-corruption activist and opposition politician," in a New York Times op-ed, published March 19: "Western nations could deliver a serious blow to the luxurious lifestyles enjoyed by the Kremlin's cronies who shuttle between Russia and the West. This means freezing the oligarchs' financial assets and seizing their property. Such sanctions should primarily target Mr. Putin's inner circle.... The notion that this reunification should be achieved at the end of the barrel of a gun is supported only by Mr. Putin's hard-core base. ...
... Miriam Elder of BuzzFeed: "The names on the latest list of sanctions released by the White House on Thursday read like a who's who of Vladimir Putin's innermost circle -- ex-KGB colleagues, top advisers, and the men believed to hold the Russian president's personal purse strings." ...
... AP: The E.U. "did not immediately release the names of those it had targeted Thursday with travel bans and asset freezes, but they are expected to close in on members of President Vladimir Putin's inner circle to punish him in the escalating Ukrainian crisis." ...
... Fred Kaplan of Slate: "... Putin's actions have been driven less by a belief that the West is weak than his knowledge that Russia is.... He dreams of restoring Russia's empire.... The main goal of the United States, the EU, and NATO should be to deter and dissuade Putin from moving his troops deeper into Ukraine.... Senators like John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who used to know better, could lay off their absurd yelping about Obama's 'weakness' and 'feckless leadership.' ... It's not true; at least when it comes to this crisis, they've recommended very few steps that Obama hasn't already taken."
Carl Hulse & Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "Americans for Prosperity turned the [Jolly-Sink] Florida contest into its personal electoral laboratory to fine-tune get-out-the-vote tools and messaging for future elections as it pursues its overarching goal of convincing Americans that big government is bad government." Thanks to Ken W. for the link.
Paul Krugman: "... I'd argue that an important source of [economic] failure was what I've taken to calling the timidity trap -- the consistent tendency of policy makers who have the right ideas in principle to go for half-measures in practice, and the way this timidity ends up backfiring, politically and even economically. In other words, Yeats had it right: the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
The Trans Pacific Partnership -- "A Race to the Bottom" -- & Kinda Like the Opium Wars. Joe Stiglitz in the New York Times: "When agreements like the TPP govern international trade -- when every country has agreed to similarly minimal regulations -- multinational corporations can return to the practices that were common before the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts became law (in 1970 and 1972, respectively) and before the latest financial crisis hit.... One of the reasons that we are in such bad shape [economically] is that we have mismanaged globalization. Our economic policies encourage the outsourcing of jobs." ...
... CW: Like contributor MAG, I meant to link this piece earlier. I've linked to other pieces that make many of the points Stiglitz does, but he succinctly weaves them together, & his creds should get Obama's attention, which is what he is attempting to do here: "Given that the president himself has emphasized that inequality should be the country's top priority, every new policy, program or law should be examined from the perspective of its impact on inequality." Also, thanks to the whistleblowers who have leaked some of the provisions of the secret TPP.
Alex Hern of the Guardian: "Microsoft has tightened up its privacy policy after admitting to reading emails from a journalist's Hotmail account while tracking down a leak. The new rules prevent the company from snooping on customers' communications without first convincing two legal teams, independent of the internal investigation, that they have evidence sufficient to obtain a court order were one applicable. The company did not apologise for the search.... The initial search occurred in September 2012, when the company was attempting to discover who had handed an anonymous blogger the source code to Windows 8, its then-upcoming operating system. It discovered that the blogger was using a Microsoft Hotmail email address, and that they had used it to send the code to a third party."
Jane Perlez of the New York Times: "Michelle Obama, on the first day of a good-will tour to China with her daughters and her mother, tried her hand on Friday at three quintessentially Chinese specialties: calligraphy, table tennis and mathematics. Her hostess was China's first lady -- though strictly speaking there is no such title in China -- Peng Liyuan, the wife of President Xi Jinping and a glamorous, nationally known singing star."
Terrence McCoy of the Washington Post: Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan banned Twitter -- which caused Twitter usage to explode. ...
... Margaret Hartmann of New York: "While Turkish users who try to access Twitter still see a government notice citing four court orders that authorize the ban, many are using VPNs to circumvent the block. The hashtag #TwitterisblockedinTurkey quickly became a top trend worldwide, and Twitter posted instructions on how to keep posting via text message...."
** Chauncey DeVega of AlterNet, in Salon, on the White Supremacy Party, a/k/a the GOP: "Colorblind racism inverts reality and distorts the facts. It involves denying that racism still exists as a serious social problem; black and brown people are limited in their life chances not because of institutional discrimination but because of their 'bad culture' or 'laziness'; white supremacy and systems of white racial advantage are dismissed as either exaggerated or non-existent; racism is reduced to mean words by white people, as opposed to systematic institutional discrimination against people of color."
Dahlia Lithwick of Slate: "Ruth Bader Ginsburg is irreplaceable.... If anything, Ginsburg has been stronger in recent years than ever and has been a crisper, more urgent voice for women's rights, minority rights, affirmative action, and the dignity of those who often go unseen at the high court than ever before." Lithwick provides many links to articles urging & not urging Ginsburg to retire.
Internets "Journalism"
Sorry, Drudge. Evan McMorris-Santoro of BuzzFeed: "The Drudge Report went big Thursday with KPHO reporter Catherine Anaya's story that White House Press Secretary Jay Carney gets questions from reporters ahead of the daily press briefing in advance so he can prepare his answers. The story was false, and in an email to BuzzFeed, Anaya says the day of online speculation about it was 'my mistake and I own up to it.' ... Reporters who regularly attend White House briefings are not asked to provide questions in advance, nor are they given answers in advance."
Sexists, Right & Left, Attack BuzzFeed's Rosie Gray. Tom Kludt of TPM: Tucker Carlson & Patrick Howley of the Daily Caller have apologized & deleted offensive tweets. No apologies from Firedoglake, tho D. S. Wright, um, amended the language in his story from "[Eli] Lake may be pumping more than stories into Gray" to "may be having a romantic relationship with Gray." after BuzzFeed editor Ben Smith complained on Twitter.
Congressional Races
** "Thank God for ObamaCare!" Sam Stein of the Huffington Post: "... when [Scott Brown] stopped by the home of Herb Richardson, a Republican state representative..., Brown called Obamacare a 'monstrosity' that members of Congress didn't even bother to read before they passed. At that point, according to the Coos County Democrat, Richardson chimed in to explain that the law had been a 'financial lifesaver' for him and his wife.... '"Thank God for Obamacare!" [Mrs. Richardson] exclaimed.'"
Beyond the Beltway
Philip Messing, et al., of the New York Post: "The Freedom Tower, America's top terror target, doesn't have a single working surveillance camera inside -- a stunning security lapse that let a New Jersey teen roam the top floors undetected for two hours, The Post has learned. The video system for 1 World Trade Center 'won't be operational until the building opens later this year,' said a source familiar with the security plan."
** David Atkins of Hullabaloo: "DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas and the execrable Third Way are in a minor media tussle at the moment. Markos correctly pointed out that in both the House and Senate, the Democratic caucus has shifted significantly to the left over the last 10 years with the defeats of many conservative Democrats. The usual Third Way flacks Matt Bennett and Jim Kessler were Elizabeth Warren's form of economic populism and anti-Wall Street sentiment is that it's the most popular piece of the Democratic agenda."
News Ledes
AP: "A fire early Friday destroyed a New Jersey shore motel that was housing people displaced by Superstorm Sandy, killing four people and injuring eight, authorities said." The Star-Ledger story is here.
AP: "Israel's defense minister [Moshe Yaalon] has apologized to his U.S. counterpart [Chuck Hagel] for criticizing Washington and for calling it weak when it comes to its stance on Iran's nuclear program.... Earlier, he also criticized U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, saying the top American diplomat was unrealistic and naive in trying to forge an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. In a statement Thursday, the Defense Department said Hagel 'expressed deep concern' to Yaalon about his remarks. Kerry on Wednesday called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to protest Yaalon's remarks."
Guardian: "An Indian court sentenced four men to life in prison on Friday for raping a call-centre operator last year inside an abandoned textile mill in the financial hub of Mumbai."
Guardian: "Thailand's constitutional court has ruled that a general election held in February was invalid, setting the stage for a new vote and further deepening the country's political crisis. The judges voted by six to three to declare the 2 February election unconstitutional because voting was not held that day in 28 constituencies where anti-government protesters had prevented candidates from registering. The constitution says the election must be held on the same day nationwide."
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Reader Comments (10)
James Surowiecki has a well written analysis of the underpinning of Putin's grab at Crimea that examines the huge role Russia's natural gas resources play in giving it confidence to act belligerently, and how that confidence may be misplaced:
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2014/03/24/140324ta_talk_surowiecki
I know that some, maybe most, of you do not give much credence to Robert Parry's rants about the Neo-Cons, Israel, Syria, Putin and the Ukraine. I do trust much of what he says, and here is his latest:
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/22671-focus-neocons-ukraine-syria-iran-gambit
Almost missed this excellent op-ed piece that appeared on the 15th. Stiglitz's arguments are quite compelling and well detailed.
'On the Wrong Side of Globalization'
By JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ "...I have repeatedly emphasized: Trickle-down economics is a myth. Enriching corporations — as the TPP would — will not necessarily help those in the middle, let alone those at the bottom."
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/15/on-the-wrong-side-of-globalization/?alg=44K8R
Another irony (of which there is certainly no dearth), which the Stiglitz piece brought to mind:
To hear it talk, corporate America is all for high standards, particularly when it comes to education; according to their well-heeled mouthpieces (the Gates Foundation comes immediately to mind), we are failing our children and sacrificing our future by demanding too little of our teachers and kids. Our standards are just too low. Test those kids to death and by implication their teachers, too, we say; prod the kids, get rid of their incompetent teachers; put schools in the hands of businesses that know how to get things done, that know real value when they see it. To compete successfully on the international playing field, we must not be content; we must reach ever higher and higher.
But when it comes to most quality of life issues for anyone but the elite, like wages for workers, and the wise and equitable use of common resources, like water and air, the corporate community endorses the lowest of all possible standards, and some, like the vile Kochs, would prefer none at all.
So, the corporate mantra (with a wry nod to the Right's preferred goddess of self absorption, Ms. Rand) runs something like this:
We seek always to live in the name of that which is "the best within us," as Ms. Rand said, except apparently when it is more immediately profitable to seek the worst.
Headline: "Decline of the West (at least the American part of it) just around the corner."
If Spengler could see us now he'd have to rethink the whole megillah and start from scratch.
Ken raises the specter (already abroad in the country) of schools for profit, of corporate educational concepts, and the narrative of failure in schools requiring a proper administration of the "right kind" of learning.
Wingnuts have, for some time now, been frothing at the mouth about what kids learn in school, especially in history classes. Too much multiculturalism, too much about pesky women, too much about non-whites, and way too much about the downside of corporate culture; not nearly enough about rich, white, Christians or American Exceptionalism. It's the Texas textbook scandals writ large.
Well, according to the Children's Book Council, one of their nominees for Author of the Year, is here to save us.
Rush Limbaugh.
That's right. Limbaugh is working hard to hard-wire young minds with his own warped brand of wingnut ideology through the vehicle of a children's book ("Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims") in which he is the Paul Revere-like hero who saves the Pilgrims (wait, Paul Revere saves the pilgrims?...oh...never mind) and teaches them about the evils of communism and the virtues of individual achievement with no expectations of government handouts for loafers and moochers. I suppose the Wampanoag tribe comes in for some finger wagging for handing out food, but I doubt he ever mentions that the pilgrims who landed in Plymouth were religious fanatics who would have starved to death if Squanto and his tribe hadn't taken pity on these wretched people. In this version of history, it's Rush who saves the day. Narcissus has nothing on this self-aggrandizing fool.
The Children's Book Council, in response to the uproar of having a foul mouthed, bloated bigot and spreader of hate elevated to the position of award winning children's author, states, in its own defense, that it's all based on a book's "performance", meaning, I suppose, sales. It's very likely that hundreds, perhaps thousands of far-right church groups have purchased beaucoup copies of this dreck, pushing it into bestseller land.
Limbaugh has been, as you might expect, happily crowing that his version of history has made him a respected author now and his next book (not even out yet) is already a bestseller. The cover art shows Rush Revere (that name!!) getting ready to toss a crate of tea into Boston Harbor. Get it?
Sinking fast here.
For an interesting commentary on what Putin is doing in Ukraine, see Dimitry Orlov's site.
I found the Stiglitz piece most interesting as well as disturbing. Made me want to gather up the man himself and whisk him into the office of the Prez and say, "Hey, hear what Joe has to say––it's important!" Then someone would come with coffee and kuchen and the two could talk for hours––uninterrupted.
Here's a piece from The Irish Times that's tough on Obama and the US and gives Putin some stroking:
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/if-we-have-to-pick-a-side-over-crimea-let-it-be-russia-1.1731105
A little tough love:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2014/03/alternatively-democrats-could-give.html
Kate, I read your latest Parry link - pretty depressing stuff - especially in combination with our November prospects and my growing alarm over Hillary's position on Israel.
It's odd isn't it? The week that gives us a (probable) picture of the beginning of the universe, is a week in which I'm convinced we are the Country of Stupid.
Aasif Mandi of the Daily Show has Todd Wilemon, a Fox conservative business commentator open mouthed without words––A SMACK DOWN!
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/16/1285230/-Fox-conservative-commentator-admits-America-has-Third-World-Healthcare?detail=email