Month: June 2014

Speaking of classless scumbags

by digby

I think we can all agree that Brian Schweitzer’s “colorful” language was offensive and stupid. But please:

What kind of sexist scumbag says something like this? Diane Feinstein has more class in her pinky than Schweitzer has in his 20 gallon hat
— Rep. Mike Coffman (@RepMikeCoffman) June 19, 2014

This is just a tad self-righteous from this particular fellow, don’t you think?

During a campaign fundraiser in Elbert County on May 12, 2012, Coffman expressed doubt that President Barack Obama had been born in the United States and declared that: “I don’t know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America. I don’t know that. But I do know this, that in his heart, he’s not an American. He’s just not an American.” Coffman later apologized saying that he had “misspoken”. In September 2012, Coffman said that he had a “fundamental concern” that President Obama would use the military to aid his re-election bid in an attempted October surprise conspiracy.

Just saying. Log. Eye.  All that jazz.

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The Neocons have always been wrong about everything, not just Iraq

by digby

My piece in Salon today:

For instance, here’s Fareed Zakaria from a few years back reprising one of their greatest hits:

It all started with the now famous “Team B” exercise. During the early 1970s, hard-line conservatives pilloried the CIA for being soft on the Soviets. As a result, CIA Director George Bush agreed to allow a team of outside experts to look at the intelligence and come to their own conclusions. Team B–which included Paul Wolfowitz–produced a scathing report, claiming that the Soviet threat had been badly underestimated.

In retrospect, Team B’s conclusions were wildly off the mark. Describing the Soviet Union, in 1976, as having “a large and expanding Gross National Product,” it predicted that it would modernize and expand its military at an awesome pace. For example, it predicted that the Backfire bomber “probably will be produced in substantial numbers, with perhaps 500 aircraft off the line by early 1984.” In fact, the Soviets had 235 in 1984.

It turned out later that even the wimps at the CIA had hugely overestimated the Soviet threat. Similarly, in the early ’80s these same folks concluded that terrorism could never be effective without a state sponsor. Lo and behold, while they were obsessing over Saddam for more than a decade, they completely missed the threat of al Qaeda. And that’s just one example from the years leading up to the catastrophic decision to go into Iraq. At this point it’s deeply irrational for anyone who wants a serious analysis of any issue to look to these people for an opinion.

I also take some shots at the humanitarian interventionists who think that military violence can be judiciously applied in such exacting ways that only the “bad guys” will get hurt.

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Travel advisory: Yahoo alert

by digby

Chasing off the normal people can be expensive:

The Lake Ozark, Missouri Board of Alderman voted last week to ban gun owners from openly carrying firearms, even if they have a concealed carry permit, because they were afraid that armed individuals would chase away tourists. “We’ve had a tough time over the years promoting Lake Ozark as a family area,” Alderman Larry Buschjost explained. “We want you on the Strip with families, everywhere in Lake Ozark with families. We want you to bring your kids down here and let them loose. For the life of me, I don’t understand why I would have to carry any type of gun, concealed or otherwise.”

The ban was initiated by the local police chief, in part due to concerns raised by business owners.

Missouri has recently passed a state law, awaiting the signature of the government, which would allow anyone with a concealed carry permit to strap on their guns and swagger around, waving them in people’s faces. So this probably will not last.

But it raises a point which I think might become relevant to a lot of places if this febrile gun culture continues to behave like fools: there are going to be ramifications for the tourist industry wherever the travelers are exposed to stuff like this:

If you want people from other places to come and visit your state or town, it’s probably not a good idea to have a bunch of yahoos running all over town brandishing deadly weapons like it’s nothing. They won’t know that John and Jane Opencarry are upstanding citizens just by looking at them. And even if they make that foolish assumption, it’s not most people’s idea of a vacation to be wondering if one of these fine upstanding citizens might make one of those tens of thousands of “mistakes” gun owners make every year and accidentally shoot one of the kids. It’s much more restful to go someplace where that isn’t likely to happen.

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It takes a Village, remember?

by digby

When I first became acquainted with Hillary Clinton back in the early 90s, her main academic and activist interest concerned the rights and needs of children. She was considered a major thinker on the issue, aligning herself closely with such luminaries and Marian Wright Edelman of the Children’s Defense Fund. In fact, it was one of the signifiers of Hillary’s fundamental liberalism (as opposed to her husband’s more political centrist style.)

So it’s kind of depressing to see this:

On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton discussed the growing child-migrant crisis in south Texas — and called for most of the tens of thousands of children and teenagers to be sent back to their home countries in Central America, as long as their parents could be found.

“We have to send a clear message: just because your child gets across the border doesn’t mean your child gets to stay,” Clinton said at a CNN-hosted town hall.

As Dara Lind points out in this Vox explainer, you can’t just do that — if you care about children. We have lots of laws governing refugees and asylum seekers and immigrants. This proposal basically throws them all out the window simply because the people involved are children.

Like I said — depressing.

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Money well spent

by digby

Lest you think they were so embarrassed when their silly plans to send exploding cigars to Fidel Castro back on the 60s was exposed, think again:

Beginning in about 2005, the CIA began secretly developing a custom-made Osama bin Laden action figure, according to people familiar with the project. The faces of the figures were painted with a heat-dissolving material, designed to peel off and reveal a red-faced bin Laden who looked like a demon, with piercing green eyes and black facial markings.

The goal of the short-lived project was simple: spook children and their parents, causing them to turn away from the actual bin Laden.

The code-name for the bin Laden figures was “Devil Eyes,” and to create them the CIA turned to one of the best minds in the toy business, said those familiar with the project, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the project publicly.

I guess this is supposed to be a good idea because Muslims are a primitive people who would never be able to figure out that this is laughable bullshit.

They probably aren’t embarrassed. But as an American, I am.

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The ultimate goal within reach?

by digby

Richard Perle’s wet dream:

Alarmed over the Sunni insurgent mayhem convulsing Iraq, the country’s political leaders are actively jockeying to replace Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, Iraqi officials said Thursday.

The political leaders have been encouraged by what they see as newfound American support for replacing Mr. Maliki with someone more acceptable to Iraq’s Sunnis and Kurds, as well as to the Shiite majority, the officials said.

They stressed that the discussions were all within the framework of Iraq’s Constitution and the recent elections in the country, which calls for the formation of a new government over the next few weeks.

Over the past two days the American ambassador, Robert S. Beecroft, along with Brett McGurk, the senior State Department official on Iraq and Iran, have met with Usama Nujaifi, the leader of the largest Sunni contingent, United For Reform, and with Ahmad Chalabi, one of the several potential Shiite candidates for prime minister, according to people close to each of those factions, as well as other political figures.

In case you’ve forgotten, this was the endgame:

In public comments last month, Perle suggested that installing Chalabi in power in Baghdad would alleviate any Muslim fears of U.S. imperialist aims. It would also improve the chances for resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Perle said, because “Chalabi and his people have confirmed that they want a real peace process, and that they would recognize the state of Israel.”

Okie dokie.

Also too, recall some of Chalabi’s other close pals, like Randy Scheunmann, candidate John McCain’s chief foreign policy advisor:

Remember, US intelligence later found evidence that Chalabi, in addition to foisting a bunch of bogus intelligence and lying informers on the US and pocketing a lot of US taxpayer dollars, had provided highly classified US intelligence to Iran. Scheunemann worked closely with Chalabi for years in his efforts to get the US into war with Iraq. He was also a go-between between Chalabi and McCain. Now that he’s taking such a high-profile role on the Iraq issue in the 2008, Scheunemann’s history with Chalabi and the use of bogus intelligence to get the nation into war is unquestionably highly newsworthy.

He sounds like our kind of guy.

David Gregory is on the TV telling me that John Kerry is heading to Iraq to tell Maliki that he must go. Stay tuned …

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QOTD: Megyn Kelly

by digby

To her guest, Dick Cheney:

“Time and time again, history has proven that you got it wrong as well in Iraq, sir. You said there was no doubt Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. You said we would be greeted as liberators. You said the insurgency was in its last throes back in 2005, and you said that after our intervention, extremists would have to ‘rethink their strategy of jihad.’ Now, with almost a trillion dollars spent there, with almost 4,500 American lives lost there, what do you say to those who say you were so wrong about so much at the expense of so many?”

That’s right, Megyn Kelly. She might as well have shot him in the face.

I’m going to guess that all those elderly Fox viewers must have had a Depends moment there.

Has Ailes lost control too?

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Dear lawmakers: death with dignity has a 70% approval rating

by David Atkins

We progressives often point out that the public is with us on nearly every single issue. Often the public is way out in front of conventional wisdom. That’s certainly the case with the right to choose one’s own exit when confronted with a terminal illness:

Most Americans continue to support euthanasia when asked whether they believe physicians should be able to legally “end [a] patient’s life by some painless means.” Strong majorities have supported this for more than 20 years.

Although these are largely private family matters, controversy about euthanasia and other end-of-life situations has often become public — most recently, regarding the death of iconic radio host Casey Kasem. His children and his wife fought in court over what to do in the final stages of Kasem’s battle with Lewy body disease, a form of dementia. Ultimately, a judge granted his daughter the authority to have doctors remove his infusions of water, food, and medicine.

These data are from Gallup’s May 8-11 Values and Beliefs poll, conducted before Kasem’s death. Gallup began asking this question about euthanasia in 1947. At that time, Americans were about half as likely (37%) to support euthanasia as they are today. Support had grown by 1990, and since then, a large majority of Americans have backed euthanasia.

It’s time to end the taboos over this question and give people the freedom and peace of mind to know that they can go out on their terms rather than suffer needless, debilitating pain at the hands of a horrible disease. People shouldn’t have to travel to Oregon to give themselves and their loved ones the care and respect they deserve.

Lawmakers, please take note. People are suffering. Caregivers are putting themselves at risk. End the superstitious madness.

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Cantor couldn’t survive in the jungle

by digby

I have no way of knowing whether this is just CYA nonsense, but Eric Cantor’s polling outfit has re-polled the district and came up with some interesting analysis. According to these latest numbers, their mistake was in not realizing that this election was a sort of jungle primary where people of both parties and independents were all voting in the race between Cantor and Brat. It turns out that a majority of the actual Republicans who usually vote in Republican primaries voted for Cantor. And that explains why the polling was so off — they only polled the normal primary voters. This race brought in a bunch of new voters, some Republicans, a bunch of Independents and quite a few Democrats who had no corresponding primary in which to vote:

The organic turnout of non-Republican voting Independents and Democrats clearly decided the race for Brat. Since they were not included in any past Republican primary voting samples, that is why our poll was wrong. In retrospect we needed to see this possibility and poll this race as if it were a special election and not just a typical Republican primary. The polling that we and others did from samples of past Republican primary voters was woefully inadequate in this case of an open primary for a national figure with no simultaneous primary on the other side. While the Republican primaries that we have polled for successfully this year so far have been served well by polling past Republican primary voters, this race needed to be polled from a general election voter sample that could account for our influx of new voters into the open primary.

You can’t really say that it was specifically these voters who made the difference of course. Cantor didn’t get 100% of the normal GOP primary voters either so who’s to say which specific votes were the decisive ones. But it’s interesting that it never occurred to them that there might be a few thousand people in the district who, having no other primary available, might just decide that they wanted to vote out a loathed national politician like Eric Cantor. It’s exactly the sort of thing that happens when you become a poster boy for a scorched earth approach to partisan politics. You’re safe in your little GOP bubble but the minute there’s a little opening, there are going to be few people who will infiltrate and blow your little bubble sky high.

Look for Republicans to start shutting down the open primaries in the future. As long as they behave like political terrorists this could be a problem.

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Here comes stupid

by digby

I’m talking about Tea Party Senator Ron Johnson:

Yeah, Hillary “planted the Benghazi cover-up.” Makes perfect sense.

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