;)
The Commentariat -- Jan. 20, 2014
** 'A Time to Break the Silence' Sermon delivered at Riverside Church in New York on April 4, 1967. Text & audio. ...
... John Blake of CNN: " Why it's important: This was King's most controversial speech. Even some members of his own staff warned him not to give it. With this sermon, King decisively came out against the Vietnam War at a time when many Americans still supported it. People were furious. President Lyndon Johnson stopped talking to him. Civil rights leaders criticized him, and major newspapers told him to stick to civil rights.... One year later to the day he gave this speech, King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee." ...
... Joan Walsh of Salon: "Some of King's closest living allies have been trying hard to right the reverend's record. 'There have been and continue to be efforts to "neuter" or "de-radicalize" the Dr. King who delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech in August, 1963,' says his longtime lawyer and speechwriter Clarence B. Jones. Though the dream speech, which Jones helped write, was itself radical, he sees King's April 1967 'Beyond Vietnam: Time to Break the Silence' speech at Riverside Church as 'the ideological turning point for King.'" ...
... The New Yorker opens up Renata Adler's "Letter from Selma," published April 10, 1965. ...
... Sean McElwee interviews Ian Lopez for Salon about the GOP's use of racist dogwhistles to attack all liberal policies. Lopez says, "... the central point here is that race is being used to wreck the middle class. This has been the way conservatives have found that they can attack commitments to education, commitments to a social safety net, commitments to infrastructure, commitments to job programs, commitments to progressive taxation that taxes the most wealthy to help the rest of society." ...
There's no doubt that there’s some folks who just really dislike me because they don't like the idea of a black president. Now, the flip side of it is there are some black folks and maybe some white folks who really like me and give me the benefit of the doubt precisely because I'm a black president. There is a historic connection between some of the arguments that we have politically and the history of race in our country, and sometimes it's hard to disentangle those issues. You can be somebody who, for very legitimate reasons, worries about the power of the federal government -- that it's distant, that it's bureaucratic, that it's not accountable -- and as a consequence you think that more power should reside in the hands of state governments. But what's also true, obviously, is that philosophy is wrapped up in the history of states' rights in the context of the civil-rights movement and the Civil War and Calhoun. There's a pretty long history there. -- Barack Obama, to David Remnick ...
... David Remnick of the New Yorker has a long piece (18 pages!) on President Obama. Remnick interviewed Obama for the magazine. ...
... What most pundits (in this case, Jordan Sargent of Gawker) picked up from Remnick's interview was this: "Obama said just about everything he should be saying about weed."
"Influence in Paradise -- Destination Fundraisers." Eric Lipton of the New York Times: "... members of Congress ... hit hot spots like the Napa Valley wine country, famed golf courses and hunting preserves, as well as five-star hotels in Puerto Rico, Las Vegas, South Florida and even Bermuda. Congress, after a corruption scandal that involved golf trips to Scotland and other getaways paid for by lobbyists, passed legislation in 2007 prohibiting lobbyists from giving lawmakers gifts of just about any value. But as is the norm in Washington, the lawmakers and lobbyists have figured out a workaround: Political campaigns and so-called leadership PACs controlled by the lawmakers now pay the expenses for the catering and the lawmakers' lodging at these events -- so they are not gifts -- with money collected from the corporate executives and lobbyists, who are still indirectly footing the bill."
Paul Krugman clocks David Brooks: "... for the past three decades and more the main obstacle facing the poor has been the lack of jobs paying decent wages. But the myth of the undeserving poor persists, and so does a counterpart myth, that of the deserving rich.... I know that these realities make some people, not all of them hired guns for the plutocracy, uncomfortable, and they'd prefer to paint a different picture. But even if the facts have a well-known populist bias, they're still the facts -- and they must be faced.".
Eyder Peralta of NPR: "Rep. Mike Rogers made some strong allegations against former NSA contractor Edward Snowden on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday. Rogers, a Republican from Michigan, implied that Snowden received helped from Russia's security service both to steal the highly classified documents and then to travel to Russia, where he received temporary asylum.... These are some of the strongest allegations levied against Snowden...."
... The New York Times story, by Eric Schmitt & David Sanger, is here.
New York Times Editors: "If the Air Force cheating scandal disclosed last week were a singular event, it would be easier to accept Pentagon assurances that America's nuclear deterrence and military readiness have not been compromised. But it is the latest in a series of breaches that have raised alarms about discipline and competency in the Air Force.... The scandals should force America to think more broadly about the purpose of its vast and increasingly obsolete nuclear arsenal, and how the nation could be safer with far fewer weapons."
Local News
Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: Dawn Zimmer, "the mayor of Hoboken, N.J., met with federal prosecutors Sunday to provide information about her allegations that top aides to Gov. Chris Christie threatened to withhold Hurricane Sandy recovery money from her city if she did not approve development projects the governor favored. The meeting is a sign of the broadening scope of the federal investigation.... In a statement, Zimmer said Sunday evening that she had met in the afternoon with prosecutors at the U.S. attorney's office for several hours. She said the meeting came at prosecutors' request and she provided them with documents, including a personal journal entry she said was written in May in which she described the encounters." ...
... Angela Delli Santi of the AP: "On Sunday, [Mayor Zimmer] went a step further and said on CNN's 'State of the Union with Candy Crowley' that [New Jersey Lt. Gov. Kim] Guadagno told her that the request 'was a direct message from the governor. The lieutenant governor pulled me aside and said, essentially, "You've got to move forward with the Rockefeller project. This project is really important to the governor." And she said that she had been with him on Friday night and that this was a direct message from the governor,' Zimmer recalled Guadagno saying."
... Dominic Rushe of the Guardian: "On Sunday, the New Jersey assemblyman John Wisniewski [D] said his special legislative panel -- one of a number of investigations looking into the actions of Christie's administration – would look into Zimmer's claims as well as those regarding the George Washington bridge." ...
... Jonathan Chait: "... this is the main reason why I think Christie's presidential aspirations are basically dead. He's genuinely corrupt. There are numerous allegations swirling around him, and at this point it would require an implausible series of coincidences to believe he's not implicated in some nasty and quite likely straight-out illegal behavior."
... Michael Barbaro & Bill Carter of the New York Times: Christie breaks up with MSNBC. ...
... Paul Krugman: Chris Christie's "most devoted fund-raiser and loudest cheerleader," billionaire Home Depot founder Ken Langone, is also a guy who "recently tried to bully -- the Pope.... Yep. Stop criticizing the rich or we'll take it out on the poor. Nothing at all like punishing the residents of Fort Lee -- and, apparently, in what may be a much worse story, Hoboken -- because you're annoyed at their mayor."
Steve Szkotak of the AP: " Almost overnight, Virginia has emerged as a critical state in the nationwide fight to grant gay men and women the right to wed. This purple state was once perceived as unfriendly and even bordering on hostile to gay rights. That's changed after a seismic political shift in the top three elected offices, from conservative Republicans to liberal Democrats who support gay marriage. Two federal lawsuits challenging the state's constitutional ban on gay marriage are moving forward, and a hearing on one of the cases is scheduled for Jan. 30."
News Ledes
New York Times: "Otis G. Pike, a longtime congressman from New York who spearheaded an inquiry in the 1970s into accusations that the intelligence establishment had abused its power, died on Monday in Vero Beach, Fla. He was 92...."
One of his memorable achievements was when he thwarted a bill with a single comical speech on the House floor. The bill would have awarded $14 million in flight pay to admirals and generals who spent their time not in cockpits but sitting at desks. Standing up on the House floor to criticize the legislation, Mr. Pike spoke with his arms spread and swaying like the wings of a plane, as if he were flying. He brought up the worrisome perils of an admiral spinning in his chair and soaring out a window of the Pentagon into air-traffic patterns. The speech drew laughter and applause. The bill was defeated.
More from the Washington Post's obituary:
'If the in-basket is continually loaded on the starboard, or right-hand, side of the desk, and the out-basket is continually empty on the port, or left-hand, side of the desk,' said Mr. Pike, who flew 120 missions as a Marine pilot in World War II, 'wood fatigue sets in, the landing gear tends to buckle and the whole fuselage crashes down on your feet.'
New York Times: "Under intense American pressure, the United Nations on Monday withdrew an invitation to Iran to attend the much-anticipated Syria peace conference, reversing a decision announced a day earlier."
New York Times: "The first orchestrated rollback in Western antinuclear economic sanctions against Iran took effect on Monday under Tehran's temporary agreement with world powers, as all sides reported that the steps initially promised had been fulfilled. Under the temporary agreement, Iran began suspending most advanced uranium-fuel enrichment and halted other sensitive elements of its nuclear program. In exchange, it received what the United States called 'limited, targeted and reversible sanctions relief for a six-month period.'"
AFP: "A new threat to the upcoming Winter Olympics surfaced Sunday as US lawmakers worried about attacks at the Games to be hosted by Russia. In a video posted on a well-known jihadi forum, two men believed to have been suicide bombers in last month's deadly bombings in Volgograd speak of them -- and warned of more." ...
... AP: "Members of Congress expressed serious concerns Sunday about the safety of Americans at next month's Olympics in Russia and said Moscow needs to cooperate more on security."
AP: "Iran halted its most sensitive uranium enrichment work on Monday as part of a landmark deal struck with world powers, easing concerns over the country's nuclear program and clearing the way for a partial lifting of sanctions, Tehran and the U.N. said."
AFP: "Opposition protesters were Monday locked in a tense standoff with Ukrainian security forces in Kiev after hours of unprecedented clashes deep into the night left dozens wounded and parts of the centre resembling a battlefield."
AP: "An American missionary who has been jailed in North Korea for more than a year appeared before reporters Monday and appealed to the U.S. government to do its best to secure his release. The missionary, Kenneth Bae, made the comments at what he called a press conference held at his own request. He was under guard during the appearance. It is not unusual for prisoners in North Korea to say after their release that they spoke in similar situations under duress."
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Reader Comments (6)
Chris Christie (RC Index of 6 today), in many ways is an avatar for the Republican Party.
He's a bully, he's vindictive, hateful, smug, connives with cronies to stick it to his enemies (ie, anyone who won't go along with him), perpetrates a string of actions designed to impose his will on constituents, whether they like it or not, imposing avoidable hardships even to the extent of placing their lives at risk, withholds vital support to needy citizens as a form of political payback, and disseminates false or misleading information to keep his misdeeds out of sight. And, like a certain Republican saint, doesn't understand that practically the entire canon of Springsteen songs are written from a viewpoint 180 degrees opposite to his own.
It's not a perfect match, but there are enough parallels to see the perfidious actions of the party, when examined in a very focused way, through the person of Chris Christie, actions which, as they become more clear, are being rejected by waves of New Jersey citizens and most Americans in other states.
Would that people could see that many of the same things they now dislike about Christie, are fundamental operational elements in the Republican Party. The difference is that, as bad as Christie's actions have been, the Party's are much worse and on a much grander and more egregious scale, and unlike being able to concentrate attention on an individual, the shenanigans of party "leaders" , apparatchiks, and schemers, are disperse and without that single face.
Looks like Christie got his wish after all. He wanted to represent the Republican Party on a national scale.
Now he is.
Seeing as today we celebrate Martin Luther King, it's only fitting to mention the plans of the Republicans of Multnomah County, Oregon, to honor the memory of Dr. King, by auctioning off an AR-15 high velocity rifle.
Hmmmm wasn't King murdered with a high-velocity rifle? Well, no matter. They're also honoring the memory of Abraham Lincoln with this firearm auction and if the winner already has plenty of high-velocity rifles at home, he or she can choose a handgun. Oh wait, wasn't Lincoln killed with.....er...never mind.
Those wingnuts, they sure know how to honor great Americans who were victims of gun violence. I guess the idea is to demonstrate that the spirits of King and Lincoln have no hard feelings, after all this time, of being shot to death. But even better....the Republican Party of Multnomah County describes MLK as not only a great American, but a great Republican. Yup. Bet you didn't know that King was a card carrying member of the party that has supported quite a few KKK members and supporters for public office. Hey, no hard feelings, Marty, right?
Except he wasn't. A Republican, that is. Nor a Democrat, as far as anyone knows.
But here's what he had to say about the Republican Party in 1964 four years before he was killed by a man who signed for his motel room as a Mr. Galt (Ray was an Ayn Rand fan).
"The Republican Party geared its appeal and program to racism, reaction, and extremism. All people of goodwill viewed with alarm and concern the frenzied wedding at the Cow Palace of the KKK with the radical right."
Oh yeah, sounds like unqualified support to me.
Truly, these people are soulless, shameless, black-hearted vermin.
So Happy MLK day to all the gun nuts out there. BTW, the 30-06 Remington King was murdered with is still available at a WalMart near you, $800! What a deal.
Honor his memory with all those Multnomah Republicans, by glorifying deadly weapons! Get your own today.
Celebrate MLK day with a deadly weapon of your choice!
I'm celebrating MLK Day by telling my grandchildren who are visiting a little history on civil rights. They listen with polite attention, but I can tell they are eager to get back to their IPad games. We forgive them for not being concerned––blame it on their youth––but so many not so young are forgetting that hard struggle or––just don't give a damn.
I haven't written much about the NSA because frankly I can't get all worked up about it. But this morning I read an in-depth piece on our three compadres, Snowden, Greenwald, and Assange that I found quite fascinating and revealing (quite a bit about the Pauls'–-father and son).
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116253/edward-snowden-glenn-greenwald-julian-assange-what-they-believe
Re: Nuclear weapons: Can anyone explain why we need so many or why we need them at all? I do know that the tests involved in the cheating scandal are very difficult with no room for error.
Back in the day when I was a Pfc in the rear rank, the Army was busy reorganizing itself into the Pentomic Divisions (can't let the Air Force have all the glory). We were going to fight on the nuclear battlefield, by gum. One of our weapons was the Davy Crockett--sort of a big RPG with a nuclear warhead. According to Wikipedia: "Both recoilless guns proved to have poor accuracy in testing, so the shell's greatest effect would have been its extreme radiation hazard. The M-388 would produce an almost instantly lethal radiation dosage (in excess of 10,000 rem) within 500 feet (150 m), and a probably fatal dose (around 600 rem) within a quarter mile (400 m).[3]" for crew safety, it pretty much had to be fired from defilade. We had the Honest John, an unguided rocket with a range of 15-30 miles whch carried a 20 kiloton warhead or a Sarin gas warhead. This beast stuck around until 1985 and with some of our allies even longer. We had nuclear artillery shells and actual guided missiles, the Redstone and later the Pershing. As you can see, if all these weapons had been fired at once, along with the Air Force and Navy missiles, life on Earth would have been tenuous at best, not to mention the Warsaw Pact nukes. To me, it was insanity on a grand scale.
One of our Assistant Division commanders in Vietnam had made a name for himself writing papers and manuals on "nuclear tactics." (The joke at the time was in the event of a nuclear attack, put your head between your legs and "kiss your ass goodbye.") The Pentomic Division by that time had been consigned to the "dustbin of history." We'd moved on to "counerinsugency," in which nukes were useless. He got his star preaching the nuclear gospel, but had to learn a new way of war. How well he did was far above a lowly captain's ability to judge. We must have had hundreds if not thousands of nukes.
Now we have far fewer of them. The Davy Crockett and Honest John are museum displays and the Pershings were destroyed in an agreement with the Soviets.
The ones we have are aging and deteriorating. Why keep them? Is it because we have to justify the personnel to man them?
Barbarossa,
I guess we keep them around because Putin has his own deteriorating nukes and we sure wouldn't want a deteriorating nuclear warhead gap, now would we. Besides, what do we do if an asteroid is on a collision course with earth? We can't send Bruce Willis up to save us with a slingshot and a few hand grenades.
Almost more disturbing than an aging nuclear stockpile are the people overseeing it.
Who's minding the nukes? Don't ask...
CNN, the other day, reported on a number of problems (in addition to the cheating scandal you refer to) plaguing the program. The general running the whole shee-bang, one Maj. Gen. Michael Carey, was relieved after incidents involving drunkeness and chasing "hot women" while on an official visit. To Russia!
A vice admiral charged with oversight of nuclear weapons was relieved of his duties as deputy chief of US Strategic Command (!), after being caught trying to pass off fake gambling chips at a casino. Several other incidents involved incompetence and failed inspections for safety and proper handling. OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS! All of this was just in the last seven months or so.
People engaging in risky behavior or who are demonstrably incompetent would not be my first choice for managing stockpiled nukes. Nor does it fill me with optimism that the guys coming along after them cheated on their exams. Just what we need to ensure the safety of the world: incompetents, drunks, gamblers, and cheaters.
But military types are still at it. As of a few years ago, there was serious talk of refurbishing the whole program (for billions, natch) with RRW, aka Reliable Replacement Warheads. Even the name sounds shaky. I'll buy Reliable Replacement Windows, maybe, but replacement nuclear warheads that need to be named "reliable"?
Not today, thanks.
But hey, we gotta do something when that big asteroid with our name on it is streaking towards us at 65,000 miles per. Bruce can't do it by himself. He's aging too!
PD,
Thanks for the post. Haven't had time to read it all the way through but I will. Snowden comes across as an immature dickhead, regardless of his stated or actual sentiments surrounding the leaks. It's another demonstration of the fact that, if useful and good things ever come out of the whole affair, especially concerning NSA policies, it's not necessary that the activating agent, Snowden, be a decent or even very knowledgeable person.
Ron Paul sounds like even more of a dangerous crank than I had originally thought.