;)
The Commentariat -- June 17, 2014
Cartoon removed.
Elections Matter. Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "President Obama on Tuesday will announce his intent to make a broad swath of the central Pacific Ocean off-limits to fishing, energy exploration and other activities, according to senior White House officials. The proposal, slated to go into effect later this year after a comment period, could create the world's largest marine sanctuary and double the area of ocean globally that is fully protected."
Ziad Al-Sanjary & Arshad Mohammed of Reuters: "U.S. and Iranian officials discussed the crisis in Vienna on the sidelines of separate negotiations about the Iranian nuclear program, the two sides each said. Both ruled out military cooperation. A U.S. official said the talks did not include military coordination and would not make 'strategic determinations' over the heads of Iraqis." ...
... Alissa Rubin & Rod Nordland of the New York Times: Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki is not interested in "the political reconciliation with the Sunni Arabs and Kurds that his international allies in Washington and Tehran have insisted is his country's only possible salvation." He'd rather play commander-in-chief. ...
... Gary Brecher, the War Nerd, explains ISIS & its operational policies & talents. Thanks to contributor Patrick for the link. Patrick notes that Brecher's piece is an entertaining read. If you don't want to know much about the crisis du jour but think you should, here's a painless way to inform yourself & impress your friends & neighbors that you know more than half the senators who sit on the Foreign Relations Committee. ...
... Guardian reporters have a more sober-sided & "terrifying" (the paper's headline) description of ISIS. ...
How to Settle the Crisis in Iraq
Wherein I Save the Best for Last
CW: I was just thinking, "At least Paul Bremer has had the sense to take his Medal of Freedom & head for the hills rather than pipe up now on Iraq." Wrong. Here he is in the Wall Street Journal, opining on President Obama's "feckless" mistakes & what Obama must do to correct them. ...
... Bremer is apparently enjoying his return to the limelight. He appeared on CNN and on NBC's "Today Show," too. My special congratulations to the network producers who thought it a good ideas to book this incredibly disastrous "manager" of Iraq to offer his sage advice. The news ladies gave Bremer a bit of a hard time. ...
... In case you've forgotten Bremer (which is a good idea), here's a reprise of the low points of his glorious tour of duty.
Burgess Everett of Politico: "Sen. John McCain said he spoke to White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough over the weekend as sectarian violence in Iraq swelled." And McCain gave McDonough a piece of his mind, blah blah David Petraeus blah blah surge blah blah. Also, bad news for Baghdad: "'I don't believe Baghdad will fall,' he told reporters Monday evening.... I am pretty confident that [ISIS] won't take Baghdad."
Scott Lemieux in Lawyers, Guns & Money: "Wow, I see that Fred Kagan has teamed up with Mr. Bill Kristol to tell us what to do about the colossal disaster they and their allies made out of Iraq. Goody! Admittedly, they have plenty of company among the idiots who brought us this catastrophe. Of course, none of this stops Kagan from getting an uncritical-to-fawning profile from the newspaper that hired Kristol to write the worst regular op-ed column in known human history. It contains this rather chilling passage." ...
... Jay Bookman of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "Kristol, Kagan have an idea: Let's put troops in Iraq! ... As always, I'm struck at the magical powers that Kristol, Kagan and their colleagues attribute to military power.... None of [what they suggest] sounds even remotely plausible." ~~~
... Shorter Fred Kagan: We've screwed up so much, so badly in Iraq that we can ill-afford to stop screwing up. -- Matt Yglesias, ca. 2006, on Kagan's rationale for the 2007 U.S. "surge" in Iraq ...
... Even Pat Robertson Makes More Sense Than Kristol-Kagan. Until He Doesn't. David Edwards of the Raw Story: "Televangelist Pat Robertson on Monday blasted former President George W. Bush for selling Americans a 'bill of goods' before the Iraq invasion, which led to the violence that is currently sweeping across the country.... In the end, Robertson reckoned that there would be conflict in Iraq until an Antichrist appeared before the Second Coming of Christ." Yup. The solution to the Iraq crisis is the Second Coming. I would like to know why neocons haven't thought of that. It's so simple.
Lyle Denniston of ScotusBlog: "An individual cannot walk into a gun dealer's shop and buy a gun for someone else by claiming to be the actual buyer, a deeply split Supreme Court ruled on Monday. A form demanding to know who the actual purchaser is, the majority ruled, has to be answered truthfully, or else the transaction is illegal. The practical effect of the ruling is likely to be shutting down, or at least cutting back on, an active market in gun-buying by 'straw purchasers' .... The majority opinion by [Justice Elena] Kagan was supported in full by Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony M. Kennedy, and Sonia Sotomayor."
Edward-Issac Dovere & Jennifer Epstein of Politico: "Monday, the White House announced Obama will sign an executive order that would prohibit federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. This will be a week of the administration trumpeting its gay rights record...." CW: Notice how the Politico writers frame the story as one that's all about Obamas' seeking "a political boost" for his gay rights activism, as opposed to even hinting he's doing the right thing.
Lenny Bernstein of the Washington Post: "A report released Monday by a respected think tank ranks the United States dead last in the quality of its health-care system when compared with 10 other western, industrialized nations, the same spot it occupied in four previous studies by the same organization. Not only did the U.S. fail to move up between 2004 and 2014 -- as other nations did with concerted effort and significant reforms -- it also has maintained this dubious distinction while spending far more per capita ($8,508) on health care than Norway ($5,669), which has the second most expensive system." ...
... Here's the Commonwealth Fund's summary of the report.
This Link Is Dedicated to Contributor Unwashed Who Had a Close Encounter Yesterday with the Subject. Robert Costa & Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post: Why not Paul Ryan for House majority leader? He's perhaps the best-known member & "is well regarded across the spectrum in the fractious House Republican Conference and would be a unifying figure." He doesn't want the job.
Martha Stewart Just Wants to Make Money. Hilary Stout of the New York Times: "A New York judge on Monday ruled that J. C. Penney unlawfully interfered with an exclusive merchandising agreement between Macy's and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.... At the root of the dispute was a December 2011 agreement between Penney and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia to sell an array of her home products, like rugs and bath towels, in Penney's stores. Macy's sued both companies, contending that the pact violated a five-year-old deal it already had to sell many of the same housewares exclusively. Earlier this year, Macy's and Martha Stewart settled their legal battle under confidential terms and their partnership continues."
Dana Milbank: "Representatives of prominent conservative groups converged on the Heritage Foundation on Monday afternoon for the umpteenth in a series of gatherings to draw attention to the Benghazi controversy.... What began as a session purportedly about 'unanswered questions' surrounding the September 2012 attacks on U.S. facilities in Libya deteriorated into the ugly taunting of a woman in the room who wore an Islamic head covering." CW: I suspect there's money to be made in hatemongering, too. If you don't have Martha's talent for making "good things," then doing bad things is one alternative career path. ...
... AND Let's Not Forget Impeachment! Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "A Republican congressman thinks a vote to impeachment President Obama would pass the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Speaking with the Gary Sutton radio program on Monday, Rep. Lou Barletta of Pennsylvania said a vote to impeach Obama would 'probably pass' the House."
Congressional Elections
Lizette Alvarez of the New York Times: "With the midterm elections only months away, efforts to carry out some of the country's strictest photo ID requirements and shorten early voting in several politically pivotal states have been thrown into limbo by a series of court decisions concluding that the measures infringe on the right to vote.... The court decisions have gone both ways, but several have provided a new round of judicial rebukes to the wave of voting restrictions, nearly all of them introduced since 2011 in states with Republican majorities.... And, with challenges still going through the courts, voting rules and requirements remain uncertain in several states before the midterm elections."
Government for Sale. High Bidders -- Charles & David Koch. Ken Vogel & Darren Goode of Politico: "During a closed-door gathering of major donors in Southern California on Monday, the political operation spearheaded by the Koch brothers unveiled a significant new weapon in its rapidly expanding arsenal -- a super PAC called Freedom Partners Action Fund. The new group aims to spend more than $15 million in the 2014 midterm campaigns -- part of a much larger spending effort expected to total $290 million...."
News Ledes
New York Times: "Just as the federal government reached an agreement on Tuesday with SunTrust Banks over questionable mortgage practices, the government's talks to resolve Citigroup's mortgage issues grew increasingly tense and veered toward a lawsuit.... The Justice Department is also in settlement discussions with Bank of America."
New York Times: "Julian Koenig, who is widely regarded as one of the 20th century's most innovative advertising writers -- a creative force behind an array of memorable campaigns, including for the original Volkswagen Beetle and the enduring environmental brand Earth Day -- died on Thursday in Manhattan. He was 93."
New York Times: "Daniel Keyes, the author of 'Flowers for Algernon,' the story of a man with an I.Q. of 68 who temporarily becomes a genius after surgery -- a book that inspired the film 'Charly,' starring Cliff Robertson -- died on Sunday at his home in South Florida. He was 86."
Los Angeles Times: "Los Angeles Air Force Base[, which is in El Segundo,] was on lockdown Tuesday as authorities investigated reports of a suspicious man roaming the facility. A spokeswoman at the base confirmed that it was sealed off as of 1:45 p.m." ...
... CW: My best guess: the "suspicious man" turns out to be Darrell Issa (R-Ca.) looking for former IRS employee Lois Lerner, whom he believed the Obama administration was planning to secretly fly out of the country to a location where Issa has no subpoena power.
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Reader Comments (18)
This veteran says it all: http://aattp.org/absolutely-nothing-a-veterans-savage-indictment-of-the-iraq-war/
This article was cited in one of the comments to Charles Pierce's blog yesterday, and is a very accurate and readable account of what ISIS is and how it operates. Worth the read, and entertaining.
http://pando.com/2014/06/16/the-war-nerd-heres-everything-you-need-to-know-about-too-extreme-for-al-qaeda-i-s-i-s/
Lisa: The indictment you cited is awesome in the author's writing ability, insight, and majestic disdain for the chickenhawks. Thanks for putting it out there.
Scott Walker has a cover story! Unfortunately for him, it's at
new republic.com
And is a well written explanation of how he has risen to the top of Wisconsin politics due to the support of Rightwing talk radio in the poisonous racially divided counties in southeast Wisconsin. Living just outside the broadcast area and unable to stomach even a few minutes of the on-air hate mongers, I found the piece quite edifying.
@Lisa; Thanks for the link. Reminds me of the best essays by guys "who were there" in every war ever. "Hearts and minds and freedom and democracy and nation building and magic bunnies who fart sunshine and rainbows." Jim Wright.
War is a odd way of making peace.
Have you got a little kiddie that wants an edumacation but fears getting shot in the back while roaming the halls of his unprotected school? Well buy this new bulletproof backpack for only $269.99!
They're selling like fried twinkies at the Kansas fairgrounds.
When the shooter strolls into the halls, just assume the fetal position with your back TOWARD the shooter with your feet and head tucked in like a turtle and you'll be back to school in no time! Afraid the shooter might walk around and catch your unprotected side? No worries! Just whip out your BulletBlocker Bulletproof Defender Notebook ($144.99) and use it as a shield like your favorite Mutant Turtle Leonardo and stop the bullets in their tracks!
But what if you're just on the way to the water fountain and you leave your bulletproof backpack and notebook in the classroom? Well just equip yourself with a Bulletblocker Bullproof nylon jacket for only $749.99 and of course don't forget to protect your family's jewels with the "groin protector" for only $120!
....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/16/school-shootings_n_5497428.html
School shootings shouldn't be the object of satire, but if it's reached the point that we're actually selling bulletproof backpacks as a de facto fatalism to this phenomena, then we've clearly reached the outer limits of sanity. Another instance of the militarization of American society. I can't imagine going to elementary school today and having my parents explain how I should use my bulletproof notebook as a shield against potential shooters, or to not forget my bulletproof jacket while playing kickball. I can understand parents being deathly worried about their children's safety in schools these days, but this is an astounding social evolution.
If we continue in this direction, we're literally going have some of the loony and paranoid parents sending their kids to school in full bulletproof gear, helmet and all. Sitting there in 5th grade Civics sweating under his bulletproof vest. What kind of young adults are these kids going to be living in such fear?
Yet such inaction and gridlock for even meager progress makes this outcome seem like a pathetic inevitability. This seems like a science fiction work, a nation so filled with gun-angst and disdain for our fellow species that society breaks down into traditional tribalism, social fractures prevail to the point that venturing out into public requires full body armor because war is both everywhere and nowhere. It's around the corner of your calm suburban home, when the Outsiders dare to cross into your territory. A dystopia of a society full of creative potential, but eerily complacent to moral malaise.
Good thing I saw Wayne Shorter in concert last week and I was reminded again of the genius we're capable of when our best minds get together. I'll stay in that fantasy script.
"My general message would be to put a sock in it–-really. Paper bag on head time." Boris Johnson's remarks after listening to Tony Blair's (George W's poodle pal) bloviating. Love that paper bag business––can't you visualize all those hawks who wanted to take to the skies and swoop down pecking their way to destruction with paper bags on their heads? Wolfie, Rice and Rummy would look especially adorable.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-27864603
P.S.@Nadd–-I posted the link to that story yesterday. Twas, indeed, a most informative piece.
@PDPepe
Oops, missed it. Thanks for bringing our attention to it before I did.
How about this, more friendly article:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/380452/scott-walker-gets-ready-eliana-johnson
It still manages to convey many of Walker's weaknesses--a lightweight team, his inability to speak clearly, and his nasty streak. Of course, this last is touted in the comments as desirable.
My apologies if this link, too, has been previously posted. I was pretty busy yesterday and only saw it today.
The chemistry of shameless mendacity.
According to that most reliable of journalistic bellwethers, CBS News--you remember, they're the guys who hired back disgraced liar and propagandist, Lara Logan, to soothe any bruised wingnut egos out there who prefer conservative fairy tales to facts and truth, especially about Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi--reports (I use the word archly) that Republican hysterics are running around with underwear ablaze worrying that their favorite new bogeyman, ISIS, is readying a 9-11 type attack on US cities.
Lindsey Graham, always ready to chew his nails to the nub, live on national TV over some fabricated bullshit, and Mike Rogers, chairman of the Republican controlled (oxymoron alert!) House Intelligence Committee, are braying that the "seeds of 9-11" are being planted by Obama in Iraq.
Oh, wait. You mean the decade long, several trillion dollar war begun by Republican shitheads and supported by others of the same noisome species, such as Graham and Rogers has nothing to do with the present state of chaotic clusterfuckery?
Class, time for some basic chemistry.
Take a gallon of your basic sodium hypochlorite, NaOCL (bleach). Now mix that with a gallon of your basic hydrochloric acid (HCL). You see that green vapor forming over the container? Best to leave the room while you're still conscious because that, class, is a cloud of chlorine gas and it will scour your lungs quicker than George Bush can desert during wartime.
Okay. So, now, what Republicans are now suggesting is that the chlorine gas cloud hovering over Iraq appeared, miraculously, on its own. It had nothing to do with the millions of gallons of bleach and hydrochloric acid that their avatars, Bush, Cheney, et al, cheered on lustily by the likes of Bill (Wrong, Wrong, Wrong) Kristol, David (Hippies caused the war, not me) Brooks, Fox, and yada, yada, yada, everyone else on the right, mixed together for years beginning as soon as they saw a chance to drop bombs on people without having to say why.
You see, class, chemical reactions don't work the same way for right-wingers. If there's a bad result, it couldn't possibly be their fault. Now, if there happens to be an uppity nee-groe in the neighborhood....well, that's chemistry they can believe in.
Anyway, having just read the excellent article suggested by Patrick (and linked above) covering the genesis and current state of ISIS, I will bet everything I own and every penny I have ever made in my life and will make, that neither Graham nor Rogers, nor any of the other Chicken Littles screaming about terror from abroad, know a scintilla as much as I now know about what's going on there (and that ain't much). But it appears highly likely that ISIS is not the all powerful, comic book terror-from-hell operation they would have you believe. It's all of a piece with the idea that the five prisoners exchanged for Bowe Bergdahl (Islamic versions of Iron Man, Hulk, Mighty Thor, Superman, and Green Lantern) will singlehandedly destroy the country now that they're free to unleash their immense galactic powers.
This isn't to say that some kind of attack is impossible, but there is no evidence of such a likelihood, which has never stopped Republicans from simply making shit up (and CBS reporting it without a trace of skepticism).
I guess I'm not really surprised after all. The only thing that continues to surprise is the depth of conservative hypocrisy, the never ending ability to lie with impunity, and the total lack of a single iota of shame or responsibility on the part of Republicans who started this thing in the first place but point fingers at everyone else.
Now, of course, they want everyone to heed their dire (but entirely baseless and unsupported) warnings. But when their guys were warned that terrible things were about to happen, based on actual evidence in the form of intercepted communications, they brushed them aside with haughty, smarmy indifference ("Okay, you've covered your ass, now scram. I have to take a nap."). Thousands of Americans paid with their lives a few weeks later. A couple of years later hundreds of thousands paid and are still sucking down chlorine gas by the metric ton.
But Lindsey Graham, Mike Rogers, Bill Kristol, and Fred Kagan want you to ignore all that.
Chemistry only works for people who live in the real world.
Safari,
I seriously, I mean seriously, man, thought that the idea of bulletproof backpacks for kids was a joke (okay, a kinda sick joke, but you know what I mean...).
Then I looked it up.
I don't know what else to say but "Wow".
If we really are at the point where the only thing we can do to stave off annihilation of school children is to send them out in a bulletproof bubble, with no hope of doing the sensible thing--reducing the number of weapons available--then we really have gone through the looking glass.
"Sorry, mom, sorry, dad, sorry, kids. Everyone is packing these days and we've secured their right to bring semi-automatic, large capacity killing machines into classrooms. If your kid isn't fully armored and she gets shot, don't come crying to us. And if you don't like it, you must hate FREEDOM."
Fear, baby. It's the only way to live.
@Ak
Wholeheartedly agree. Did you see the bulletproof white boards available in custom sizes? My pea-sized brain can't wrap around the logic of bulletproof white boards. Aren't they generally, um, screwed to the wall? So what is the interest in investing in bulletproof white boards? Are they planning on having so many school shootings that they'll no longer have to worry about the inconvenience of replacing the white boards when everything's cleaned up afterward? Or are they going to convince the school districts to buy personal bulletproof white boards for each student so when the shooter comes in they can all converge into a Roman testudo formation to deflect any incoming projectiles?
When these are the questions being considered, it's legitimate to believe the gun debate has run off its rails into upside down world.
http://www.bulletblocker.com/
http://www.salon.com/2014/06/13/nras_really_big_problem_why_its_dependent_on_a_dwindling_fringe/. I haven't seen any reference to this article here. With all the talk from war-mongerers in Iraq, I can't help but wonder about the pro-gun environment in the US or how both subjects are aligned. For lack of a better term, I'd say it is the 'win at any cost' model perfected by the NRA, the NFL, Cheney, et al. as well as Republicans everywhere.
The NRA, NFL, Cheney and Republicans everywhere use violence as the first resort and only tactic. Strategy be damned, especially since their are no consequences for grievous errors costing lives, time and money. They have absolutely no idea of the biology of kindness and how acting kind improves just about everything. In group bias can change and can change rather quickly, though never quickly enough, in some cases. Whether it was the former pro-gun people in Australia or LGBT rights or the perception and engagement with littering and recycling activities here at home all have changed in my lifetime. To go back to the very top of the page: "Elections Matter". The Violence lobby needs to be stopped. Contrary to their hyperbole, they can be stopped.
Safari,
Hey, great idea. Forget about language arts, math, and science (what's that?). Kids should be studying military defense tactics in elementary school. Roman testudo formations, Hittite phalanxes, Parthian Shots, the use of Macedonian sarissas. The little tykes shouldn't be sitting on their lazy mooching asses learning ABC's when there's every likelihood that some NRA freedom lover will burst through the door at any moment and exercise his Second Amendment rights.
Pretty soon we can adopt the Spartan test of putting babies outdoors in the winter, overnight, to weed out the weak ones. Only the strong and well armed will survive in NRA-GOP World. No time for education. Time to pick up a gun and hit the firing range.
Then, in addition to body armor and bulletproof white boards, every classroom will have a decent array of shields, spears, attack and defense weaponry. Hey, why not a trebuchet out in the school yard in case the shooter barricades himself in? A group of third graders are plenty old enough to learn to implement siege tactics. Maces, battle axes, battering rams, all that good shit.
But in case they catch the guy, every school should have a George W. Bush Memorial Torture Room where they can drag him and work him over until the cops get there. They could have him halfway flayed by the time the local authorities drag him out, if he's still alive, over the bodies of any school kids whose parents were too cheap to buy bulletproof backpacks and chest protectors.
The freakin' apotheosis of Right Wing World. Weapons, torture, brutality. And of course, don't forget tax cuts and Jesus.
The Tom Tomorrow cartoon featuring walking, talking cartoon Bill Kristol perfectly illustrates the level of ignorance that has informed the Bush-Cheney Iraq adventure from the first night of Shock and Awe.
I especially would like to butt together a picture of Sunni insurgents executing Shi'a forces next to Wrongway Bill's statement of how there's no evidence of Sunni/Shiite enmity.
How is it possible that someone so galactically stupid can still have that job?
It's like repeatedly hiring the plumber who floods your house every time you call him. Except in Kristol's case, following his advice gets people killed.
At some point it will occur to us that the madcap malicious merkins on the right will never change, and our focus will move to their enablers, our supine press. Remember, many in this country who believe themselves to be "centrists" can justify their positions partially by pointing to CBS's Lara Logan and the rest of the "liberal media" that is anything but. I'm sure that all this has been said before, but I'm aghast when a Times article discusses our sending more troops into Iraq without pointing out that our having become enured to such an American double standard does not make our violating other countries' borders either legal or moral.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/16/1307306/-Why-The-MSM-Is-Such-A-Farce?detail=email#
Blogger LaFeminista in "Daily Kos" commenting on the uselessness of MSM. Do the MSM think we're all stupid enough to listen to the ones that were wrong, wrong, wrong about Iraq? I'll tell you who's stupid: the ones that say we shouldn't have withdrawn from Iraq. Do they even know what a SOFA is? The United States doesn't leave troops in foreign countries without a valid Status Of Forces Agreement that protects our troops. Since Iraq wouldn't budge on this, we left. Earth to McCain: Iraq is a sovereign nation. (The Decider said so.) If the country doesn't want us there, we get out. It seems the force we wanted to leave consisted of 5000 training personnel. They aren't organized or equipped for combat, so I doubt the bad guys would have been too intimidated.
My reliable news sources: RC, Maddow, Hayes, Colbert, Stewart, are all saying IN UNISON: "Why is anyone paying attention to the people who got it so wrong a decade ago?" To me, it feels like 2003 all over again. Back then I faxed letters to my senators, couldn't mail them because anthrax had shut down the congressional mail system, and it felt like sending words into the void.
Now at least I know I am not alone, thanks in a large part to the community here, but I still don't know how to get my voice heard by the people in charge. And the onslaught of stupidity from the "news" organizations is truly depressing.
Nisky Guy
The press is no longer the fourth estate. It is simply entertainment - the horror show of 2003 still sells lots of tickets. A measured or thoughtful response is just tooo boring.