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The Commentariat -- May 18, 2015
Internal links removed.
Today's Commentariat will be extremely abbreviated. I will try to update this afternoon. Please feel free to share your own links in the Comments section. -- Constant Weader
Julie Davis of the New York Times: "President Obama on Monday will ban the federal provision of some types of military-style equipment to local police departments and sharply restrict the availability of others, administration officials said."
Paul Krugman: "Thanks to Jeb Bush, we may finally have the frank discussion of the Iraq invasion we should have had a decade ago.... The public justifications for the invasion were nothing but pretexts, and falsified pretexts at that. We were, in a fundamental sense, lied into war.... This was, in short, a war the White House wanted, and all of the supposed mistakes that, as Jeb puts it, 'were made' by someone unnamed actually flowed from this underlying desire.... Once again: We were lied into war."
Daniel McGraw in Politico Magazine: "The GOP is dying off. Literally.... Since the average Republican is significantly older than the average Democrat, far more Republicans than Democrats have died since the 2012 elections. To make matters worse, the GOP is attracting fewer first-time voters." ...
... Jim Fallows: "... (a) ... Fox's core viewers are factually worse-informed than people who follow other sources, and even those who don't follow news at all, and (b) ... the mode of perpetual outrage that is Fox's goal and effect has become a serious problem for the Republican party, in that it pushes its candidates to sound always-outraged themselves." This is a synopsis -- with tidbits -- of a long piece by Bruce Bartlett, which Fallows links. CW: The point that Fox "News" has contributed to the dumbing-down of the U.S. & the radicalization of confederates is worth emphasizing. Rupert & Roger-- not to mention Limbaugh, et al. -- have made the crazies crazier. Or why the FCC's long-dead Fairness Doctrine mattered. ...
... Steve M.: "It beats me how having ill-informed voters is a bad thing for the GOP if what the voters think they know keeps them voting Republican.... Fox, along with talk radio, has found a way to turn rabidly partisan politics into mass entertainment, at least for the third of the country that's conservative. Fox and talk radio keep these people thoroughly focused on politics at all times.... The conservative media keeps Republicans wanting to vote, even in off-year elections, when many of the rest of us don't bother."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Driftglass has a funny post -- unless you're a huge Glenn Greenwald fan -- titled "Glass Housing Sales Remain Brisk, Ctd."
Presidential Race
Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: "Hillary Rodham Clinton is running as the most liberal Democratic presidential front-runner in decades, with positions on issues from gay marriage to immigration that would, in past elections, have put her at her party's precarious left edge. The moves are part of a strategic conclusion by Clinton's emerging campaign: that it can harness the same kind of young and diverse coalition as Barack Obama did in 2008 and 2012, bolstered by even stronger appeal among women."
Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "... Jeb Bush reiterated in a new interview that he doesn't believe that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right. The high court is expected to rule next month on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage, and court observers and justices have hinted in recent weeks that the court is likely to expand marriage rights to gay men and lesbians." ...
... Amy Davidson of the New Yorker shows the five ways Jeb's first Iraq War answer show why he's such a lousy candidate.
... GOP Moneybags Picked "the Wrong Retread." Steve M.: "There was a moment when it looked as if both Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney would be running for president. Then, apparently, meetings were convened in the modern-day equivalent of smoke-filled rooms, and Romney decided to bow out, allowing Bush to be the graybeard choice of the party Establishment. More and more, it seems as if the party made a mistake. Mitt and Jeb are both sad emblems of an embarrassing past, but Jeb appears to be a worse campaigner than Mitt, and Jeb refuses to budge from positions that are anathema to the party base. What's more, the party's voters want a candidate who's an grudge-driven attack dog, which is why the first candidate to shoot to the top of the charts this year was Scott Walker."
Jonathan Karl of ABC News: "John Kasich is 'virtually certain' to jump into the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, sources close to the Ohio governor tell ABC News." CW: Mr. Balanced Budget should drive Krugman mad.
Beyond the Beltway
Sarah Nir of the New York Times: "Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is expected to introduce legislation subjecting New York salons to some of the strictest health regulations in the country and expanding authority to punish those that mistreat workers."
News Ledes
New York Times: "A shootout among members of several rival motorcycle gangs in a busy shopping plaza in the Central Texas city of Waco on Sunday left at least nine bikers dead and 18 others injured, creating chaos in a sprawling parking lot packed with afternoon shoppers, law enforcement officials said.... No officers, shoppers or bystanders were injured." Because permissive gun laws, a/k/a freeedom, are such a good idea. ...
... The KWXT story is here.
Reuters: "The US is talking to China about imposing further sanctions against North Korea as the reclusive country is 'not even close' to taking steps to rein in its nuclear weapons programme, the US secretary of state, John Kerry, has said."
Washington Post: "Iranian-aligned Shiite militias headed Monday into Anbar province a day after its capital Ramadi fell to Islamic State militants and as hundreds of police personnel, soldiers and tribal fighters abandoned the Iraqi city in a chaotic exit." ...
New York Times: "The last Iraqi security forces fled Ramadi on Sunday, as the city fell completely to the militants of the Islamic State, who ransacked the provincial military headquarters, seizing a large store of weapons, and killed people loyal to the government, according to security officials and tribal leaders."
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Reader Comments (10)
Here is Juan Cole on who does Jerusalem actually belong to? This is a neat, concise history of the area to tuck away for a rainy day and bring out now and then to remind those that keep telling us differently.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/who_does_jerusalem_belong_to_20150518
A professor at Duke University pulls the blind racist card and writes it directly onto the website of the NY Times....Wow... just wow.
"“I am a professor at Duke University,” he admitted. “Every Asian student has a very simple old American first name that symbolizes their desire for integration. Virtually every black has a strange new name that symbolizes their lack of desire for integration.”
Ya got that? "Blacks" refuse integration because they've them funny names and that means they're anti-American. Never mind any other ethnicities that have preserved traditional names, it's just the "blacks" who refuse to be "American". And he suggests that "blacks" could maybe improve their integration desires if they dated more whites, although my funny bone tells me that if he had a daughter that came home with a "black" that ol' Jerry wouldn't be too happy about her choices....
Another gem from the Professor: "In 1965 the Asians were discriminated against as least as badly as blacks. That was reflected in the word "colored."
Yeah, so the Asians had it AT LEAST as bad as the African-Americans, if not MORE! because they too were a central part of the triangle commerce between the Western nations to systematically kidnap, sell, beat, rape and enslave multiple generations of their people. Then post-Civil War, the Asians were also specifically suppressed through an entire regime of Jim Crow laws and systematic impediments to any chances of empowerment. Yeah, those Asians were considered "colored" so that means they shared AT LEAST the same burdens.....
How can an American university professor at a respectable academic institution (Duke) be so blind as to not expect a public backlash against him? By making such broad claims while leaving out any historical perspective, he makes himself out to be a complete idiot intellectually, yet he's a.....PROFESSOR of POLITICAL SCIENCE!
And to makes things worse (or better?) he got his Bachelor's, Master's and Doctorate at HARVARD UNIVERSITY!
His argument is: "Look at them Poles and Chinese for examples, getting ahead in the game, but them blacks just can't get their shit together because they've got funny names and worship Malcolm X"
Holy shit! That argument would be blown out of the water by fellow classmates if it were a Freshman touting it in class discussion. But the University Professor saying it? I'm a loss for words.
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/05/duke-professor-blacks-riot-because-theyre-lazier-than-asians-and-have-strange-un-american-names/
You can read his full comments here:
http://www.dukechronicle.com/articles/2015/05/15/james-b-duke-professor-jerry-hough-makes-controversial-comment-new-york-times-editorial#.VVnhN4usVM0
Lindsey Graham is kicking off his shadow campaign to be the guy who gets to decide which and how many countries we'll be bombing next (he hasn't officially announced, it is expected that a burst of white smoke from a flare fired from his secret underground bunker will signal that historic event) by checking off one of the most important boxes on the admissions application to ride the GOP Clown Bus: Delusional. Yup. Got that covered. What else?
On Friday, Sen. Creampuff Casper Milquetoast (aka Scared of His Own Shadow) Lindsey Graham, dropped this bombshell on the public regarding the person most responsible for the Iraq debacle:
“I blame Obama for Iraq, not Bush.”
Ahhh.....errrr....what do you say to such a thing? "Hope you're feeling better soon?", "Are you off of your meds?", "Have you been sleeping for the last 12 years?" "Are you really that STUPID?"
Pick one.
This is a little like blaming the fire chief for putting out a house fire set by an arsonist.
It's like blaming the captain of the Carpathia for sinking the Titanic.
It's fucking delusional is what it is.
But that has become the norm on the right. If you aren't taking your daily dose of Krazy, you have no right standing for president as a Republican.
Steve M.'s rebuttal to Jim Fallows' assessment of the value of Fox "news" to the Republican Party (ie, bad for the party) misses an important point. Bruce Bartlett's paper, which started this conversation, concludes that a constantly outraged and increasingly extreme electorate, conditions promoted in large part by constant bombardment by Fox, will demand candidates even more outraged and extreme than themselves, thereby salting the political earth and preventing any cooperation necessary for an effective union.
And outraged and extreme candidates are rarely in the mood for civilized conversations. They don't even have to be knowledgeable or competent, as long as they pass the litmus test established by Fox.
At street level, the never ending barrage of lies and misinformation spread by Fox, has created a toxic climate of suspicion, paranoia, and frothing hatred among their viewers. Political discussions in my blood red state start at 60 mph and get to warp speed in a heartbeat. You can see the eyes roll back in the heads whenever Barack Obama's name is mentioned (they don't even have to say his name, since he's often referred to simply as "that traitor" or "the Muslim in the White House". The appalling sense of victimization and visceral sense of required vengeance cuts off any hope of civilized conversation. References to what Hannity said and what O'Reilly is always on about or something some other Fox personality has passed on are constant reminders of the source of this malice and loathing. Add to that the completion of the propaganda blanket when the TV is turned off and the car radio is turned on to right-wing hate radio or Christian radio which is often the same thing, and you realize the obscene level of for-profit anti-Americanism for which Fox is responsible.
So, yes, Fox does certainly help Republican candidates. As I commented the other day, were the FEC to take into account the benefits delivered to the GOP by Fox, they would have to make it illegal for them to cover any elections. But that ain't gonna happen. And here's the larger problem. What do these people do when, with Fox's irreplaceable assistance, they finally get elected? In many cases, nothing. They simply play the broken attack records but they have no real plan on how to fix anything. Outside of more tax breaks and attacks on anything social conservatives hate (a lot!), they got nothing. When they do try to put Confederate talking points into action (Kansas), it's a complete disaster.
Fox has so much to answer for, but as long as they can make money for Murdoch and Ailes spreading discontent, hatred, and lies, they won't stop. Why should they?
But at some point, people will start to figure out that they've been hoodwinked. At least some will. And, luckily for civilization, as long as the forces of darkness can be kept out of the White House, the entire Supreme Court won't become puppets of an unworkable and illogical ideology of hatred. And in a way, we can thank Fox for that.
"Poor people are that way because they like it. Also, no fathers. And Obama."
per Fox "News"
You may recall, my brothers and sisters, that the president made a big faux pas last week when he criticized Almighty Fox for taking two or three people who say they love collecting a check and food stamps and an Obamaphone for not working, and stating outright that all poors are like these two people.
Fox is not pleased. Un-unh.
And to demonstrate their displeasure, they went into the bathroom, looked into the mirror, and had a conversation with themselves in which they decided that they had been right all along and that mean Obama blah person is wrong. As always. Oh yeah, and poor people are still a goddam pain in their rich asses.
So Brit Hume and sadly, always mistaken Howard Kurtz, discussed Fox's portrayal of poverty and why the president is wrong to criticize them for making poor people look like lazy schlubs who sit at home eating filet mignon and watching revenge porn on their 90" drug dealer TV screens which they bought by hitting nice old white Christian ladies over the head and rifling their purses.
But give them credit, they provide excellent reasons why Fox constantly promotes this image. Why? Because, as Hume points out, it's well, it's like, true. Right?
"...people who live in these terrible conditions are...responsible for that by the choices they make."
They're just lazy schmoes and they don't deserve to sniff the caviar on Hume's yacht.
Oh, and the president is also to blame as well. Hume reminds everyone what Republicans have answers to all these problems (permanent incarceration, sterilization, work camps, all great ideas, by the way) but President Mooslim just won't listen:
"Well, first of all, a big part of the job of a president is to find a way to work with people who disagree with him and try to get something done. He's especially bad at this."
Oh....you mean like that time the president spent three years begging Republicans to sit down and help work out the problems of healthcare reform? Republicans who threw rocks at him, refused to talk to him at all and called him Hitler? You mean like that time? And all the other times like that?
Okay, I could go on for a lot longer (which you know) so I'll spare you.
You get it. They don't. But all their viewers hear is "Obama and the poors. They want your money and your house and your car and your TV set but they're too lazy to work. And savage blah poors are coming for your daughters and wives. Start cleaning the guns."
By the way, not for nothin' but Howard Kurtz used to work for CNN. Brit Hume worked for years at ABC. And yet we still hear that the "Liberal Media" would never employ any true patriots like them. These people get out of bed lying.
safari's post re: the Duke professor makes one wonder how a person with so puny a mindset can be teaching something like Poly-Sci, at Duke, no less, but then we realize there are systems in place in all kinds of places that place fools in high places and it has been ever thus. "True, that" as the boys from the hood are wont to say.
Here's a passionate piece from Chris Hedges who addresses our inequalities. Worth a read: "The Pathology of the Rich White Family." I rejoice in Hedge's passion, but fault him in somehow not presenting the color grey (different from "both sides do it") but in this piece he gets it mostly right and I love the smear he gives to NYT's columnists and he doesn't even have to name them–-we know who he's referring to.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_pathology_of_the_rich_white_family_20150517
NRA Watch.
We got an excellent look at the kind of society the NRA and their jock sniffers in congress fervently desire with every GSR molecule on their grasping fingers.
Somewhere near Waco, TX (where else?), a group of NRA members and Second Amendment lovers settled a disagreement by turning an afternoon at a restaurant into a bad night in Baghdad.
Guns for everyone, says Wayne La Pierre. "Hey, it's our fuckin' konstitushunal rite, assface!"
Whatever happened to that part about "well regulated militias", the part that Nino says doesn't matter?
@ PD Pepe: thank you for the Chris Hedges piece. It's excellent, and fits neatly with Achilleus' (also excellent) comment.
Here is a disturbing article on a large collection of letters from a GI liberator of Dachau to his wife. They reveal something that I had not known. It not a history that Brochaw or Speilberg would write.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121779/liberator-never-free?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=TNR%20Daily%20Newsletter&utm_campaign=Daily%20Newsletter%20-%205%2F18%2F15
The Hedges piece linked above by PD (and I agree that it lacks neutral tones, but I'd have to say that gray is not a color in great demand on the palette of the rich and powerful) provides, in outline form, a plan for domination and continued rapacity. One might be able to say that, well, it's not like all these rich white families got together and planned this sort of thing. No. They didn't have to. This is the way it's been for most of these families since the first of them tripped over Plymouth Rock.
Hedges mentions how the sycophants, the hangers-on, the media shills and the otherwise morally corrupt aid and abet the sense that rich white families are in no way to blame for the human detritus they leave in the wake of their calamitous cupidity.
Here's an excellent example provided courtesy of the liars and courtiers of the families who have placed themselves in charge but need to blame others for their own moral turpitude. This particular group of liars works for the Heartland Institute, a winger "think tank" that seems to support nothing but the horrible, the terrible, the unethical, the deadly, and the morally bankrupt. Their job seems to be to provide cover for corporations owned by those rich white families so that they can continue to pile up profits while killing other humans with impunity.
Heartland still routinely rips science linking tobacco to cancer, think fracking should be done in every city in America, represent the worst and most repugnant of climate change deniers (recently telling the Pope that he better change his tune about coming out against their profiteer clients; they once erected billboards across the country displaying the faces of Ted Kaczynski and Charles Manson saying "I still believe in global warming, do you?"), support privatization of every governmental department and service and push relentlessly for education to be handled by for-profit corporations, the better to control what kids are taught. And education, or control thereof, is where this latest lie comes into focus.
No doubt many of you have heard George Carlin rant about how big business and the rich families who control them, strive to maintain a sort of master/serf relationship with their workers.
Here's the short version of Carlin's famous rant:
"Big, wealthy business interests don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. That is against their interests.
They want obedient workers who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept their increasingly shittier jobs, lower pay, reduced benefits, and retirement that disappears when you come to collect it."
Sounds about right, doesn't it?
But here is how Heartland has edited Carlin's rant to suit the needs of the wealthy and the ideologues. Simply replace "big, wealthy business interests" with the word "government" and delete all of that dangerous business about shitty jobs and reduced benefits.
Then spread this around as the word of George Carlin.
This shit never stops. Somewhere, right now, some malevolent scumbags are rubbing their hands together and twirling their mustaches in glee over some malicious scheme they've concocted to fuck people, pick their pockets for the rich, and blame someone else.
But this is how the Kochs and their Confederate lackeys in congress maintain control.
Despicable is too nice a word.