Kick Me In The Rear, Again!

You know Republicans have gotten a bit ridiculous (analogous to slightly pregnant?) when, as Think Progress reported a little over a week ago,

Hours before Congress broke for the August recess, House Republicans claimed that the President could use executive action to fix the border situation with unaccompanied children fleeing violence in the Central American countries of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. In a press statement released Thursday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and other House Republican leaders indicated that President Obama could address the crisis “without the need for congressional action,” a statement tinged with some irony given that just the day before, House Republicans had slammed the President with a lawsuit claiming executive overreach.

It is, additionally, a lawsuit claiming the President exceeded his authority by delaying the employer mandate of the Affordable Care Act, a provision bitterly opposed by the Party which bitterly opposed the legislation itself. But there is a way to gain Republican cooperation, even turning them into metaphorical cute little puppy dogs.  CNN reveals

The former Republican presidential nominee will team up with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for a fundraiser benefiting the New Jersey Republican Party next month, sources familiar with the plans told CNN.

The event is billed as a birthday celebration for Christie, who turns 52 next month.

The September 10 fundraiser — co-hosted by Christie allies Bill Palatucci, New Jersey GOP Chairman Sam Raia, state Sen. Tom Kean and Assemblyman Jon Bramnick — will take place in East Brunswick.

Romney is listed as a "special guest."

It’s the latest high-profile political move for Romney, who is asserting himself on the 2014 campaign trail as a surrogate in key Senate and House races, and burnishing his reputation among Republicans in the process.

Romney’s appearance alongside the New Jersey governor, who is laying groundwork for a 2016 presidential bid, could also signal to Romney’s network of financial supporters that Christie remains a viable choice for the Republican nomination in the wake of the Bridgegate scandal that engulfed his administration earlier this year and continues to bubble beneath the surface. It's not the first time the two men have shared a stage together this year - Christie was invited to address a Romney-hosted donor retreat in Park City in June.

While the Republican donor class hasn't fled from Christie en masse, the scandal tarnished his his early frontrunner status and wounded Christie's golden boy status among establishment money-men.

The birthday fundraiser might also heal some bad blood left over from 2012. Christie and Romney — and their respective loyalists — had a sometimes fraught relationship at times during the presidential race. Christie publicly mulled running against Romney for the GOP nomination, and later infuriated some Republicans just days before the election by teaming up with President Obama for a tour of New Jersey storm damage after Hurricane Sandy, giving the president some important bipartisan luster in full view of the national media.

This is great reporting. We all witnessed at the convention set to nominate Mitt Romney for president a keynote speech by Chris Christie extolling the virtues of Chris Christie.  Too seldom is noted the photo tour of Hurricane Sandy damage conducted by a then-wildly popular Republican governor and the man facing off against Romney in the presidential election.  The image of seeming bipartisanship was a boon both for Christie, seen collaborating with a President popular in New Jersey, and for the incumbent President, whose bipatisanship credentials were greatly enhanced by his appearance with the GOP governor.  It was a win-win for guys whose personal ambitions greatly exceed their interest in the fortunes of their party.

In plain English:  Chris Christie sabotaged Mitt Romney.  And now Romney is doing whatever he can to help the Governor, himself lusting for the presidency.

A similar dynamic is taking place in Michigan. There, Republican Representative Justin Amash scored a victory in Tuesday's primary, after which

Amash targeted Michigan’s former Republican congressman Pete Hoekstra, a longtime Chamber-backed candidate himself, now a Chamber-funded political lobbyist and supporter of Amash’s Republican opponent Brian Ellis. “I want to say to lobbyist Pete Hoekstra,” Amash told the crowd, underscoring the L-word to much applause, “you are a disgrace. And I’m glad we could hand you one more loss before you fade into total obscurity and irrelevance.”

Ouch. As “The Fix” notes, “Hoekstra lost the state’s 2012 Senate race — and in the 2010 gubernatorial primary.”

And then Amash zeroed in on his direct opponent, businessman Ellis: “You owe my family and this community an apology for your disgusting, despicable smear campaign. You had the audacity to try and call me today after running a campaign that was called the nastiest in the country. I ran for office to stop people like you. To stop people who were more interested in themselves than in doing what’s best for their district.”

A disgrace who will fade into total obscurity and irrelevance- how would a proud man respond?  We found out when during a Newsmax panel (video, below) Hoekstra declared

I congratulate Justin, he won a good victory on Tuesday. As Republicans, most of us are united, there's a lot of opportunities in Michigan. We've got a good opportunity to re-elect the successful Governor. We have an opportunity to pick up a Senate seat. We have to win 3 new Congressional seats where the existing Republicans are either retiring or one incumbent was defeated in a primary. So, we've got a lot of work to do, that's kind of what I am focused on.

The Congressman can deal with his victory, and that’s something he has to deal with. I can’t have any control over that. My response to the primary on Tuesday is let's get together and let's focus on what we need to accomplish in November.

When the surprised conservative host asked Hoekstra to elaborate, the latter responded

Yeah, I mean, you know, the Congressman is entitled to his own opinions. So we disagree on who the best candidate was for the third district of Michigan. I supported his opponent, and I feel very comfortable and confident that the decision that I made in supporting Brian Ellis. Brian Ellis is a very talented individual, he's a successful businessman. I thought he would have been a very successful and a very constructive governing Congressman if he had had the opportunity to serve in Washington.

Congressman Amash's response to those who disagree with him, you know, that's his perspective. I really can't respond his feelings or his attitudes.










The ex-Repub congressman could have denounced Amash for his intemperate remarks, even suggesting that they revealed why he would prove to be a weaker general election candidate than Ellis.  If that were excessively bold, he might at least have withheld, however temporarily, offering his support for Amash's re-election.  Instead, it was "we have an opportunity to pick up a Senate seat" so "let's get together and focus on what we need to accomplish in November. "

Evidently, anyone who condemns Peter Hoekstra will pay as severe a price as someone metaphorically sticking a knife in the back of Mitt Romney.  Or perhaps less a price than a reward, something akin to winning the lottery.

It's the way they roll, witnessed after GOP Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina yelled "you lie" at President Obama during the latter's 2010 State of the Union message, a horrifying infraction against the imperial presidency which has gradually taken hold in the nation the past few decades.  ("Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names..." oh, never mind).  House Democrats threatened to censure Wilson; a few Republicans threatened retaliation. The Democrats censured Wilson; Republicans did.... nothing.

It's a lesson President Obama only recently has begun to learn. But, in all fairness, it's a lesson Democrats have failed to understand for decades.





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Perhaps Parmesan Would Go Best With That Whine

One of the fifteen most common defense mechanisms, writes John M. Grohol, Psy.D., is projection, which

is the misattribution of a person’s undesired thoughts, feelings or impulses onto another person who does not have those thoughts, feelings or impulses. Projection is used especially when the thoughts are considered unacceptable for the person to express, or they feel completely ill at ease with having them. For example, a spouse may be angry at their significant other for not listening, when in fact it is the angry spouse who does not listen. Projection is often the result of a lack of insight and acknowledgement of one’s own motivations and feelings.

If there actually is such a phenomenon, rarely has it been so vividly displayed in public as by the National Review editor Rich Lowry, who recently dragged the impulse to new depths in an article in Politico magazine.

Lowry is free to maintain "It’s certainly true that the president is much further left than he’d ever admit," though under closer examination this suggests a meaning far different than what the he evidently assumes.  If the President's policies were not middle-of-the-road but rather liberal/progressive, he would in effect be admitting he were a leftist. Hence, Lowry is (though he'd never admit it), acknowledging that Barack Obama is governing from the center, a conclusion he wishes the reader overlook.

Elsewhere, Lowry's piece is rife with ad hominem attacks. While conceding Obama's "rousing words" as a campaigner, his "truly inspired convention speech in 2004," and "a few defining campaign speeches in 2008, Lowry nonetheless slams the President as "glib without being eloquent." Self-awareness is not this conservatives's strong suit.

Lowry claims also President Obama is a

celebrity without being interesting. He’s callow. It’s a trope on the right to say that Obama has quit, that he’s not interested in the job anymore. It isn’t true. If you are smug, overly self-impressed and unwilling to bend from your (erroneous) presumptions of how the world works, this is what presidential leadership looks like.

The guy who is "unwilling to bend" from his "presumptions of how the world works" must not be the same one The New York Times noticed

As a young lawmaker defining himself as a presidential candidate, Barack Obama visited a center for scholars in August 2007 to give a speech on terrorism. He described a surveillance state run amok and vowed to rein it in. “That means no more illegal wiretapping of American citizens,” he declared. “No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime.”

More than six years later, the onetime constitutional lawyer is now the commander in chief presiding over a surveillance state that some of his own advisers think has once again gotten out of control.

In a similar manner, Obama as a candidate also opposed the individual health care mandate, which he later found essential to his Affordable Care Act.  He has since delayed the employer mandate, once vociferously opposed by the GOP, and for which the Party's congressional leadership is suing the President for delaying.

"What Churchill was to thundering statements of resolve," Lowry argues, "he (Obama) is to snotty put-downs," itself a transparent snotty put-down. (Oh, to be a professional journalist able to turn such a well-crafted phrase).  Lowry contends "The man who once promised to transcend political divisions is an expert at the stinging partisan jab."   Yet, faced with a GOP House (one who passes as reasonable and "moderate," below) that votes in lockstep against him and a Senate minority which endlessly filibusters, the President during most of his tenure took to blaming "Congress" or "Washington."

Lowry may have a hard time accepting the very legitimacy of Obama's presidency and weeps over the President's criticism of those opponents.   He  conveniently forgets, as Ezra Klein explained shortly before the Supreme Court handed down its decision on the ACA

The Republicans have made the individual mandate the element most likely to undo the President’s health-care law. The irony is that the Democrats adopted it in the first place because they thought that it would help them secure conservative support. It had, after all, been at the heart of Republican health-care reforms for two decades.

Embellishing a reputation for incisive analysis and sharp-edged wit, Lowry says Obama "partisans" at fund-raisers and campaign rallies

soak up his faux folksy, g-droppin’ assurances that he’s working for ordinary “folks,” and laugh at anything they suspect might be one of his brilliant barbs. Not since Jefferson took snide swipes at the Federalists …

The president’s constant complaints about everyone else in Washington playing politics while he high-mindedly devotes himself to substance have all the maturity of Holden Caulfield’s plaints about “phonies.” Please, grow up.

"In terms of his sensibility," the NR editor claims, Barack Obama is "about what you'd get if you took the average reader of The New Yorker and made him president of the United States."    Given the eight years which preceded the Obama Administration, that would be a demonstrative improvement. However, Lowry does approach substance upon remarking "He evidently has no conception of the national interest larger than his ideology or immediate political interests."

This could be disputed by the al-Jazeera reporter who last September wrote

The United States has informed the UN Security Council that it has neutralised about 60 percent of Syria's most toxic chemicals.

Mark Lyall Grant, the British ambassador to the UN and the current president of the Security Council, said that the US made the report after a video-conference briefing by Sigrid Kaag, who heads the international effort to rid Syria of its chemical weapons.

He said Kaag reported that a meeting was held in Beirut on earlier Tuesday to work out methods to destroy the 12 chemical production facilities that Syria has declared. She said it will take about six months to complete.

Lyall Grant said he reported to the closed council meeting that Britain will complete its destruction of Syrian chemical precursors intended for the production of chemical weapons and hydrochloric acid "in the course of this week."

"So, good progress on the destruction of chemicals outside Syria," he said.

Syria agreed to surrender its chemical arsenal last year when the US threatened missile strikes in retaliation for a chemical attack on a rebel-held suburb of Damascus. The attack is believed to have killed more than 1,000 people.

Adopted by the UN Security Council, the deal reached, President Obama commented at the time, "not only deters and prevents additional chemical use but actually goes beyond what could have been accomplished to any military action, and that is the removal of chemical weapons, one of the largest stockpiles in the world, from Syria so that they can actually be destroyed.” If either the Obama Administration had not threatened bombing raids or congressional Democrats had not urged caution, the USA either would have become involved in another war in the Middle East or Bashir Assad further emboldened in the brutal war he is waging against citizens of his own nation.

After 2010, Lowry asserts, the President could have chosen to "work with the opposition... or crush it," but instead chosen to "whine."  Confronted with the possibility of another military conflict, Barack Obama opted for leadership while Rich Lowry opted for the whine.

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We'll Call It Genocide If We Want To

The government of Benjamin Netanyahu has failed dramatically.  The nation's military forces may not have eliminated the tunnels of destruction from Hamas-controlled Gaza into Israel proper, nor have they deterred Hamas sufficiently from firing missiles into Israel on a regular basis.

No, instead Israel has been remarkably unsuccessful because it has failed to destroy the Palestinian people. Or so that is the implication of Salon contributor Patrick L. Smith, for whom a lasting peace based upon justice for all sides in the conflict is nary a passing concern.

Smith begins with "Now that Israel has finally let up on what looks like a genocidal campaign against Gaza," and goes downhill from there. Having accused Israel by implication of genocide, he goes on to write "the question of a genocidal campaign arises" and "the savagery of the Gaza campaign..."   He also links to a piece by one Luke Peterson, with "a Cambridge doctorate in Midddle Eastern Studies," who "appears to have a thorough grasp of the legal and technical questions at issue" and whmo Smith approvingly quotes as maintaining "Yes, Israel is committing genocide."

Peterson finds that Article 2 of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide considers “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:”

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

The esteemed Mr. Peterson mentions the word "Palestinians" 14 times. Add the word "Palestinian" and, between the two, there are 19 times.

This is not mere semantics. If Mr. Peterson were arguing that Israel were committing genocide against Gazans, it might also be untrue, though that would remind readers that the government of Israel is, in fact, engaged in a war with the government of Gaza, and the actions of the combatants would likely be viewed in that context.  The word "Gazan" is avoided, further, because it does not have the same emotional impact as "Palestinian."

If one wishes to level the charge of "genocide," he at least ought to clarify the target of the genocidal behavior.  That Mr. Peterson (surprise!) does not do, for it would necessitate noting that the modern nation-state of Israel sits on the land historically known as Palestine, to which both Arabs and Jews legitimately lay claim (photo below from Bahrain News Agency, inadvertently acknowledging Israeli Jews as Palestinians). For thoroughness, it would require adding that Palestinians exist in the Middle East outside of Israel proper and the Gaza Strip.

The West Bank and Jordan are two of those areas, the latter boasting a population which is (barely) majority Palestinian. The governments of both those entities, significantly, supported the cease-fire proposed by Egypt, which was considered somewhat favorable to the Israelis, who understandably backed it.  Hamas did not, inspiring Secretary of State Kerry to pursue an alternative in order to assuage Hamas.

If Israel is indeed guilty of genocide against- well, against someone- under the expansive definition favored by Mr. Peterson and Mr. Smith, it is clear the charge applies also to Hamas, which has been at it for longer than the Israelis (less than two months) and has pursued it with all the will the organization can muster. In fairness, genocide also would apply to the government of several nations at one time or another, as well as to an individual who kills more than one person while committing a bias crime in the USA.

The armed forces of Israel have been imprecise and careless, killing far more civilians than it wishes and far fewer than it is able. But if Israelis are targeting Palestinians as a group, the practice of dropping leaflets on a neighborhood to warn residents of an upcoming bombing raid, however inadequate, is not only foolish. It is a case of massive malpractice and failure on an unprecedented scale.

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Plenty Of Money From Somewhwere

In her interview (video, here) with Stephen Colbert, Campbell Brown, founder of Parents Transparency Group and Partnership for Educational Justice, maintains "But, but you, you’re suggesting that mon, that it’s all about the money, and I think it’s not about the money." Colbert figuratively shoots her down, responding "Well, you’re suggesting it’s about equality, and money is one of the equations in equality, or have I just schooled you?"

Yes, and yes. You may have noticed only the people who have a lot of money- such as Campbell Brown- and people with access to even more money- such as Campbell Brown- being so self-righteous as to claim "it's not about the money."  (video from Majority Report, below)






There are at least two other reasons Brown, husband of GOP operative Dan Senor, doesn't talk about money.  She states "I think we should be paying teachers more," though without elaboration, which reveals the emptiness of her statement.  Of course, if she and her organization were to get their way. tenure would be eliminated and teachers' unions eviscerated, with obvious implications for the salary, benefits, and job protections of the average educator.

But there is another reason.  Andy Kroll of Mother Jones explained last October "As a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, PTP may keep its donors' identities secret and spend money in electoral campaigns, so long as political activity doesn't consume the majority of its time and money."  Brown did Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers proud as she danced around the issue of her funding while she talked to Colbert:

SC: .... Um, your organization, where does it’s money come from? That’s one of the things they asked me to ask you.
CB: I, I saw that on my Twitter feed today. The, the, who’s funding this effort?
SC: Yeah, who’s funding your, your effort, [CB: Kirkland Ellis.] your organization.
CB: The law firm…
SC: The law firm is funding it?
CB: Well, the law firm is doing this for free, so we haven’t gone out…
SC: So, your organization collects no money, you don’t get, you don’t have to go about, out to raise any money?
CB: I, I, I’m going to be raising lots of money because we’re going to try to bring this work…
SC: After this, obviously the Colbert [fund], you can enroll in it, okay? [Audience applause.]
CB: But we want this to be, we want this to be a national effort, Um, we want to help parents in, in states across the country who want to do similar things.
SC: So, the Partnership for Educational Justice [7:00] has not raised any money so far?
CB: Yeah, we are raising money.
SC: And who did you raise it from?
CB: I’m not gonna reveal who the donors are because the people (pointing toward window) are out…
SC: I’m going to respect that because I had a super PAC. [Audience applause.]
CB: I hear you. But, part of the reason is the people who are outside today, trying to protest, trying to silence our parents who want to have a voice in this debate…
SC: Exercising First Amendment rights…
CB: Absolutely, but they’re also going to go after people who are funding this, and I think this is a good cause and an important cause, and if someone wants to contribute to this cause without having to put their name on it so they can become a target of the people who were out there earlier today, then I respect that.
[Silence from audience.]


Here is a photograph of the storm troopers protesting outside the studio as The Colbert Report was taped:

Those are the people whom Brown said are "trying to silence the debate that's a really important debate that we should be having in this country."   She suggests a classic conservative approach to the First Amendment: free speech is vitally important unless you disagree with me.

Brown's arguments have been effectively debunked, with the work of Jersey Jazzman and  Valerie Strauss. However, there is one sleight-of-hand that seems to have eluded recognition. Beginning with Colbert asking about "parents complaining," the exchange continues as

CB: if a lot of parents are complaining, there’s probably something to that, don’t you think?
SC: What if there’s someplace where the parents don’t want certain things taught to the kids? ‘Cause I’d love my kids not to be taught evolution. [Audience laughter.] Could I get a teacher fired if my community believed that evolution wasn’t a good thing, if the teacher had tenure?
CB: Now that’s one of the arguments that the union makes is that they’re gonna lose…
SC: Not in the union. I’m not in the union, [CB: Okay.] but I did get that argument.
CB: …that they’re going to lose due process rights if we change these laws, but that’s simply not true. Everybody has the right to due process and the right to a fair hearing....

Brown contends teachers are not "going to lose due process rights if we change these laws." She does not say that due process won't be slashed; merely that they won't be eliminated (lost).  Further, she notes "everybody has the right to due process and the right to a fair hearing."  And so  they do- currently; she does not deny that those rights would be eradicated if the educational "reformers" get their way, nor could she honestly.  But then, there is really very little that's honest about what corporate-backed activists are trying to do to public education in the name of "reform."

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Someone Is The Mark Here, And It's Not John Brennan.

Recounting a conversation in 2001, an author in The New York Times  recalled

 'I can't define pornography, but I know it when I see it and this movie is not pornography'?''

''Of course,'' I answered. ''That is Justice Potter Stewart, although I don't remember the case.''

The case was Jacobellis v. Ohio and it was 1964 when Justice Stewart uttered "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced . . . [b]ut I know it when I see it . . . “

Still, for the benefit of Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-TX), we will define "torture" as the UN Convention Against Torture in 1984 defined it, as

...any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions.

In 2008, right-wing shock-jock Mancow Muller denied waterboarding is torture and then was instantly converted after he underwent the "enhanced interrogation" technique, in his case reportedly lasting six seconds.The late Christopher Hitchens, waterboarded in 2008, admitted "I find I don’t want to tell you how little time I lasted"  (video below from Vanity Fair).  In 2009, Sean Hannity vowed to undergo waterboarding to prove it wasn't torture but when challenged by Keith Olbermann and Jesse Ventura, opted out.







Yet, Politico reports, "The term torture is being used by the critics of the program. I think that term is going to be disputed," Chambliss said, adding that waterboarding was investigated by the Justice Department and "is not torture."

"Critics of the program"is  the term of art, as Marcy Wheeler points out, by journalists afraid to acknowledge the term "torture" except in quotes, suggesting there is doubt where there is none. Once it was found to have authorized waterboarding, the Bush 43 Justice Department conducted what it sold as an investigation, wisely concluding torture was not torture, which is strictly prohibited by the (UN) Torture Convention, the Geneva Convention, and United States federal code.

Waterboarding, we read, generally" involves choking the victim by filling their throat with a steady stream of water — a sort of "slow-motion drowning" that was perfected by Dutch traders in the 17th century. They used it against their British rivals in the East Indies." It was torture when the USA prosecuted Japanese for imposing it upon American soldiers in World War II, and when

used by the Japanese in World War II, by U.S. troops in the Philippines and by the French in Algeria. In Cambodia, the Khmer Rogue used waterboarding against its own people. The British used it against both Arabs and Jews in occupied Palestine in the 1930s. In the 1970s, it was widely used in Latin America, particularly under the military dictatorships in Chile and Argentina (where it was known as "Asian torture.")

But the Texas Senator may have been at his most ridiculous when

"I think John has done a really good job," Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

When Brennan initially denied the agency was snooping on Senate computers and first briefed the leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee on the issue, "he didn't have all the facts," Chambliss said. Five CIA employees involved in the operation should be fired, he added.

"Once he got all the facts, he came back and he did apologize. He was wrong. Sen. [Dianne] Feinstein was right," Chambliss said. "If I thought John Brennan knew about this then ... certainly we'd be calling for his resignation. ... But I will tell you that these five staffers that did this — if they worked for me, they'd be gone now. But the accountability board has been convened, and they will be looking into this, and they will be dealt with accordingly."

Let's see if we understand this. In March, C.I.A. Director Brennan had claimed

As far as the allegations of, you know, the CIA hacking into, you know, Senate computers, nothing could be further from the truth. I mean, we wouldn’t do that. I mean, that’s—that’s—that’s just beyond the—you know, the scope of reason in terms of what we would do. ... When the facts come out on this, I think a lot of people who are claiming that there has been this tremendous sort of spying and monitoring and hacking will be proved wrong.

Now that it has turned out CIA staff members did spy on members of the Senate and their staffs, Senator Chambliss says he would fire the employees, were they only his to fire. Brennan has fired no one and the Senator says "I think John has done a really good job."  Either Chambliss is proud Brennan is a lousy administrator or he 's pulling our collective legs, playing the tough guy when he says "if they worked for me, they'd be gone now."  More likely, if they worked for Chambliss and were not discovered, he would promote them.

One definition has "fool" as "a person who behaves in a silly way, or someone who lacks judgment:"  John Brennan already has told Chambliss and Feinstein something they interpret as an "apology" and apparently has survived being demonstrably incompetent or dishonest.   That leaves the likes of Chambliss- and us the public, and if we let the CIA Director and the Enabler In Chief get away with this, we're the ones wearing dunce caps.









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Such A Vicious Man. Probably A Traitor.

Slate's Dave Weigel recognizes Americans viewing the border crisis blame Barack Obama simply because he is the President. Mother Jones' Kevin Drum concludes

Republicans can basically do anything they want and never get blamed for it. Most voters don't even know who's in control of Congress anyway. When something goes wrong, all they know is (a) something went wrong, and (b) Barack Obama is the president and he should have done something about it.

This in turn prompts David Atkins to remark

There has to be an acknowledgment from the Executive Branch that Republicans in Congress are saboteurs, not legislators. Presidents tend to be reluctant to acknowledge the boundaries of their power so that the public doesn't perceive them as weak. But that ship has sailed. The government's clear inability to accomplish almost anything has already made that case. All that's left is to adjudicate the blame.

There's no reason not to simply come forward with a popular progressive legislative wish list, hold symbolic votes in the Senate, do whatever is possible via Executive Order, watch the lawsuits and impeachment threats roll in, and remind the American public every day through Election Day how Republicans are sabotaging the country.

Now more than ever, the country needs a fighter in the Oval Office--not a conciliator.

A conciliator is fine if there is someone to be conciliatory with.   At a news conference Friday, President Obama conceded

I understand why it happened.  I think it’s important when we look back to recall how afraid people were after the Twin Towers fell and the Pentagon had been hit and the plane in Pennsylvania had fallen, and people did not know whether more attacks were imminent, and there was enormous pressure on our law enforcement and our national security teams to try to deal with this.  And it’s important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job that those folks had.  And a lot of those folks were working hard under enormous pressure and are real patriots. 

But having said all that, we did some things that were wrong.  And that's what that report reflects. And that's the reason why, after I took office, one of the first things I did was to ban some of the extraordinary interrogation techniques that are the subject of that report.

I understand; some things were wrong; we mustn't retroactively feel too sanctimonious. It was Barack Obama at his patronizing best, but never mind. In essence, the torturers were (and are) patriots, the President maintains and, as Digby comments

is there any doubt after all this that any president, including Obama himself, will approve the use of torture if the CIA says it needs to use it in the future? Let's say when there is "enormous pressure on our law enforcement and our national security teams to try to deal with this" and everybody is afraid? I didn't think so. 

But the President's statement wasn't good enough for most Repubs. In fact, The Wall Street Journal reported

.... the president's remarks acknowledging the milieu in which the CIA program was launched, when officials expected another attack could come at any time, were well-received by some former CIA officials.

"Sure, he called what we did 'torture,' but that's what he's been saying going back to his first campaign, so no surprise there," said former acting general counsel John Rizzo. "But I give him tremendous credit for noting that the folks, like me, who conceived and implemented the program were under tremendous pressure to protect the homeland in a time of national crisis. He even used the word 'patriots' to describe us."

Nonetheless, the newspaper (1980s-era term) noted "Mr. Obama's comments Friday are likely to draw new criticism from some Republicans, including former members and defenders of the Bush administration."

Of course they are.  And leading the pack is Liz Cheney (video below, with the perpetually unreasonable Monica Crowley), the straight daughter of Liz and Dick, who responded

You’ve got crises erupting around the world and he’s expending [...] more aggressive activity in targeting and going after patriots, heroes, CIA officers and others who kept us safe after 9/11.  He’s lying about what they did, he’s slandering them. He went to Cairo and did it in 2009. Today, he did it from the podium of the Oval Office. It’s a disgrace. It’s despicable.

President Obama viciously goes after lawbreakers, even smearing them as "real patriots." Whatever Obama's motivation- and Conor Friedersdorf senses a dark motive where there probably is a dark motive- the reaction to the President's remarks demonstrates that there is no satisfying some people, and those people are Republicans.








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The Vision Of Hamas

MoveOn once was an organization devoted entirely to economic justice and closely related issues, a critical effort in the midst of ever-greater concentration of wealth in the hands of the 1%.  But no good "progressive" can resist the temptation to oppose the one successful national liberation movement in the Middle East.

The e-mail seemed evenhanded enough, expressing concern for "Israeli and Egyptian security concerns and the Israeli-Egyptian economic blockade of 1.8 million human beings - mostly women and children - in Gaza." It urged signatures for a petition calling on Secretary of State John Kerry to ramp up his effort at securing a cease-fire in the region.

But the organization's objective became clearer when it pleaded for "ending the economic blockade (of) 1.8 million human beings, mostly women and children, in Gaza."  Adult males do not matter.  And memories, apparently, are quite short. For the benefit of MoveON and other apparent amnesiacs, we return to August, 2005 when

More than 1,000 Israelis made a defiant stand Thursday in the synagogues of two Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, confronting their own soldiers with rudimentary arsenals of household items in a final attempt to prevent their evacuation from land they believe was promised to them by God.

The standoffs came as Israeli soldiers moved swiftly to clear communities that have been most opposed to the Gaza evacuation. After a day of emotional encounters around kitchen tables and in places of worship, Israeli officials said 17 of Gaza's 21 settlements had been emptied, with agreements in place to evacuate two others.

In perhaps the most dramatic moment of the highly unusual military operation to end Israel's nearly four-decade presence in the coastal strip, Israeli troops stormed the synagogue in Kfar Darom over the course of a sweltering afternoon.

Using water cannons and cranes, Israeli forces broke through barricades of tables lashed together with rope, coils of razor wire and a hail of rocks, paint-filled light bulbs and what military officials said was acid thrown by scores of settlers holding out on the roof. Dozens of commandos, climbing ladders and being lowered onto the roof inside shipping containers, took more than three hours to clear the building.

That extraordinary- probably historically unprecedented- generosity in violently uprooting its own citizens in order to transfer a small amount of land to an enemy now qualifies as exceedingly foolish.  Israeli soldiers and settlers alike were by their own government's hands eliminated from the Gaza Strip, which its new owners assured the world would become a viable, independent state.  At that time, Charles Krauthammer reminisces,

... there was no blockade. On the contrary. Israel wanted this new Palestinian state to succeed. To help the Gaza economy, Israel gave the Palestinians its 3,000 greenhouses that had produced fruit and flowers for export. It opened border crossings and encouraged commerce.

The whole idea was to establish the model for two states living peacefully and productively side by side. No one seems to remember that, simultaneous with the Gaza withdrawal, Israel dismantled four smaller settlements in the northern West Bank as a clear signal of Israel’s desire to leave the West Bank as well and thus achieve an amicable two-state solution.

This is not ancient history. This was nine years ago.

And how did the Gaza Palestinians react to being granted by the Israelis what no previous ruler, neither Egyptian, nor British, nor Turkish, had ever given them — an independent territory? First, they demolished the greenhouses. Then they elected Hamas. Then, instead of building a state with its attendant political and economic institutions, they spent the better part of a decade turning Gaza into a massive military base, brimming with terror weapons, to make ceaseless war on Israel.

Where are the roads and rail, the industry and infrastructure of the new Palestinian state? Nowhere. Instead, they built mile upon mile of underground tunnels to hide their weapons and, when the going gets tough, their military commanders. They spent millions importing and producing rockets, launchers, mortars, small arms, even drones.

There was, as the cliche has it, method behind the madness.  The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (the Hamas Covenant) of 1988 asks "Arab countries surrounding Israel" to "open their borders before the fighters from among the Arab and Islamic nations so that they could consolidate their efforts with those of their Moslem brethren in Palestine." The Islamic Resistance Movement, the Covenant asserts, "strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine" because "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it."

As if to assure everyone their motivation goes far beyond Palestinian aspirations for a homeland, the Covenant refers to "Israel, Judaism,and Jews" as "cowards" who must "never sleep."

The actions of the government of Benjamin Netanyahu may not have been wisely crafted to achieve the goals of eliminating rocket fire from the Gaza Strip into Israel and destroying the underground tunnels designed to enhance the objective of obliterating citizens of a sovereign state.  But organizations like MoveOn which believe Hamas would like to end the economic blockade of Gaza in order to uplift the well-being and quality of life of the residents are living in a world of their own making, one in which no one but Islamic fundamentalists may apply (cartoon below by Ivarjfeld from August, 2013).

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