Month: February 2015

Papantonio: Why Is Netanyahu Coming to Congress? A Jeb Bush–Circle Neocon Set It Up

by Gaius Publius

I just wanted to add to something digby wrote recently about Jeb Bush, who is not out of the running for serious Republican presidential money:

[Jeb Bush] happens to be the only Bush who was a card-carrying member of the PNAC. He was a neocon long before neocons were cool. In fact, one must suspect that his early defiance of his father and brother in this regard signals the act of a True Believer. He didn’t need to do it. He was Governor of Florida, not head of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He must have really thought the cause was righteous. …

Right now he’s being given a smooth ride because the press and the political establishment is afraid that the lunatic fringe might get a crack at the white house and they see Jeb as the only sane alternative. The problem is that Jeb’s one of the crazies too, always has been.

The bottom line is this: if you liked Dick Cheney, you’re going to love President Jeb Bush. It turns out that Jeb’s the guy W was pretending to be.

In that context, consider this, Thom Hartmann and Mike Papantonio talking about the kerfuffle over Israeli hard-right premier Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the U.S. and its Republican Congress (via Thom Hartmann’s TV show, The Big Picture):

This is a former U.S. Florida politician, from a Florida political family, now serving as Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. — a non-political position, there as here — who is one of the key behind-the-scenes players in setting up Netanyahu’s speech before Congress, over administration objections. As Hartmann asks in the video, “How does that happen?”

Papantonio’s answer, “Real easy. Jeb Bush.” Because Dermer comes from the same neocon Florida crowd that Jeb Bush comes from. Listen to the video for the full Florida explanation, and also what Obama has to do to stop this.

Ready for endless Middle East war? As digby said:

Jeb’s the guy W was pretending to be.

Please consider that, Democratic king- and queen-makers before you give us a 2016 candidate the Democratic base is reluctant to support. Blackmail works both ways, you know, and the choice of candidate is on you.

GP

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The politics of resentment
by Tom Sullivan

At Salon, Jim Newell suggests that although Gov. Scott Walker holds a front-runnerish status in the GOP’s 2016 presidential field that may not last, he is still a credible candidate. “Notwithstanding the concern that he has the charisma of a nightstand,” Newell adds.

But he cautions critics to avoid attacking Walker for his lack of a college degree. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean gave Newell the opening by questioning Walker’s academic credentials on Thursday’s “Morning Joe.” That exchange did not go so well for the former DNC chair, making him look in Newell’s estimation like a “snooty liberal snob jerk.”

It’s not a particularly trenchant observation, but the fact that the iconically liberal Vermonter took a swing at Walker’s education and whiffed ought to discourage others on the left from having a go at it. Democrats have enough ground to make up among the white, working class without compounding the problem by sneering at the non-degreed.

Leave attacking people’s education to Walker. He’s a professional. His plan to slash $300 million from the University of Wisconsin’s budget is playing to his base:

But to his critics, Mr. Walker, in both his proposed cuts and in the discussion that arose over the Wisconsin Idea, is trying to capitalize on a view that is popular among many conservatives: that state universities have become elite bastions of liberal academics that do not prepare students for work and are a burden on taxpayers.

“This is a budget that serves Scott Walker for president, and it doesn’t serve Wisconsin,” said Jon Erpenbach, a Democratic state senator. “He’s trying to appeal to the most conservative of conservatives, the Republican voters in early-polling states. And there’s 5.5 million people back home saying, ‘Wait a minute.’ ”

The politics of resentment is an art as fine as winemaking on the right. Liberals don’t do it well and shouldn’t try.

Lesley Gore, RIP

by digby

Before there was “Let It Go” there was “You Don’t Own Me”.

I can’t fully explain what a profound effect this song had on me when I was a little girl. It hit me hard. Let’s just say this message wasn’t something you heard every day in popular culture back then:

Gore was a feminist and in later life an out lesbian. She was always a cool gal, even with that flip.

RIP.

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What a good time to provoke another economic crisis

by digby

Krugman on the Euro-Greek talks falling apart:

OK, this is amazing, and not in a good way. Greek talks with finance ministers have broken up over this draft statement, which the Greeks have described as “absurd.” It’s certainly remarkable. On my reading, here’s the key sentence:

The Greek authorities committed to ensure appropriate primary fiscal surpluses and financing in order to guarantee debt sustainability in line with the targets agreed in the November 2012 Eurogroup statement. Moreover, any new measures should be funded, and not endanger financial stability.

Translation (if you look back at that Eurogroup statement): no give whatsoever on the primary surplus of 4.5 percent of GDP.

There was absolutely no way Tsipras and company could sign on to such a statement, which makes you wonder what the Eurogroup ministers think they’re doing.

I guess it’s possible that they’re just fools — that they don’t understand that Greece 2015 is not Ireland 2010, and that this kind of bullying won’t work.

Alternatively, and I guess more likely, they’ve decided to push Greece over the edge. Rather than give any ground, they prefer to see Greece forced into default and probably out of the euro, with the presumed economic wreckage as an object lesson to anyone else thinking of asking for relief. That is, they’re setting out to impose the economic equivalent of the “Carthaginian peace” France sought to impose on Germany after World War I.

Either way, the lack of wisdom is astonishing and appalling.

Oh heck, what really bad thing could happen? It’s not as if the world is suddenly looking very unstable in a number of different ways or anything. Obviously, it’s a perfect time to provoke a serious political and economic crisis in Europe for no good reason. What could go wrong?

Krugman’s column today was on this subject as well. Here’s the cheery intro:

Try to talk about the policies we need in a depressed world economy, and someone is sure to counter with the specter of Weimar Germany, supposedly an object lesson in the dangers of budget deficits and monetary expansion. But the history of Germany after World War I is almost always cited in a curiously selective way. We hear endlessly about the hyperinflation of 1923, when people carted around wheelbarrows full of cash, but we never hear about the much more relevant deflation of the early 1930s, as the government of Chancellor Brüning — having learned the wrong lessons — tried to defend Germany’s peg to gold with tight money and harsh austerity.

And what about what happened before the hyperinflation, when the victorious Allies tried to force Germany to pay huge reparations? That’s also a tale with a lot of modern relevance, because it has a direct bearing on the crisis now brewing over Greece.

The point is that now, more than ever, it is crucial that Europe’s leaders remember the right history. If they don’t, the European project of peace and democracy through prosperity will not survive.

Update: This op-ed by Greece’s finance minister Yanis Varoufakis in today’s NY Times is a must read if you’re looking for some context.
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It’s almost PATRIOT ACT time. Again.

by digby

We sent the following out to our Blue America members last night:

It seems like only yesterday that the congress pulled the intelligence and police agencies’ dream legislation off the shelf where it had been blessedly mouldering for years and passed it with little fanfare. I’m speaking of the Patriot Act, a group of initiatives made into law in the wake of 9/11 as an emergency measure. As these things always seem to go, it has been on the books ever since, a permanent fixture in our never-ending War on Terror.

A police and military power once given to the government is almost never given back to the people.

The bill has been reauthorized several times since then, most recently in 2011 under President Obama. It is due to be revisited again in June and one of the key elements to be reauthorized are the provisions which allow bulk surveillance of American citizens by the NSA. The intelligence reforms the president has offered do virtually nothing to stop this unconstitutional government intrusion on our freedom— so going through the Congress is our only hope.

A number of progressive groups have banded together to ask Congress to put an final expiration date on the program this year. It’s gone on for over a decade and a half, growing in capability with precious little to show for the effort.

The GOP majority is up in arms about its constitutional prerogatives being usurped by the executive — this is one area where they can make a stand and they will be joined in bipartisan comity by many Democrats.

If you’d care to help us send a message to your Congressperson you can sign the petition here:

Tell Congress to Put an Expiration Date on Unconstitutional Bulk Surveillance.

Blue America has been committed to the protection of our civil liberties from the beginning. We consider it one of the fundamental values required of any progressive politician.

And so does Senator Bernie Sanders. When the Patriot Act was passed in 2001, he was one of 66 Democratic House members to vote against it. He’s never voted for a reauthorization as a Senator. In 2012, on the occasion of the Snowden revelations, Sanders took to Youtube and said this:

“As one of the few members of Congress who consistently voted against the Patriot Act, I expressed concern at the time of passage that it gave the government far too much power to spy on innocent Americans. Unfortunately, what I said turned out to be exactly true. The United States government should not be accumulating phone records on tens of millions of innocent Americans. That is not what freedom is about. That is not what our constitution is about.”

We don’t believe it is either. And we think it’s important to support stalwarts like Senator Sanders who have taken a stand from the beginning.

If he were to run for President you can be sure that he would be educating the people about the critical stakes they have in these issues at every whistle-stop and county fair.

We think it’s important that a true civil libertarian is on the stump talking the talk over these next two years. We cannot leave the representation of this vital issue up to fringe Republican Rand Paul. There are many more civil libertarians in the Democratic Party and there is no better spokesman for them than Senator Bernie Sanders.

If you’d care to donate a few dollars to the cause, you can do so here.

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Don’t tell Tom Cotton

by digby

In 2004, Donald Rumsfeld directed a Task Force to determine the causes of radicalism & terrorism. Its conclusions: pic.twitter.com/4eRmvXtI01
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 16, 2015

I think this is so interesting. Bush and company were intent upon deposing Saddam as we know. And 9/11 woke them up to threat of al Qaida. But they were pretty careful about not demonizing Islam and worked to keep the xenophobic and racist impulse from hurtling out of control.

But it’s going out of control now. I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that the only people who could keep it even slightly reined in would Republican leaders. It’s (mostly) their followers who are likely to go there.

The source of the Tom Cotton reference is here.

The everyday terror we all live with

by digby

I realize that terrorism is scary and I certainly hope that the US doesn’t suffer any more attacks from Islamic extremists any time soon.

But this is the kind of thing that really scares the hell out of me and it’s all too common in America:

After giving her 15-year-old daughter a driving lesson in the parking lot of a Las Vegas middle school last Thursday night, Tammy Meyers nearly hit another car on their drive home. That car apparently followed them home, police say, where one passenger opened fire, hitting Meyers in the head. Meyers, 44, died at University Medical Center Saturday after her family took her off life support.

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, after avoiding the wreck with the other vehicle, Meyers pulled over, and got into an argument with the three people reportedly in the second car; one apparently threatened her.

The car allegedly followed the Meyers’ home, and after the mother and daughter pulled in front of their house, opened fire. Tammy’s husband, Robert, told the Associated Press that after hearing gunshots, the couple’s adult son ran out of the house with a handgun, firing several shots. ABC News reports the daughter had run inside before the shooting started.

We live in a shooting gallery in this country. The bullet of a random armed asshole angry about a fender bender is far more likely to kill us than a terrorist:

A few more statistics:

In the combined US and European Union statistics for 2010, percentage of terrorist attacks that occurred in the US: .008

Among 23 developed OECD countries, percent of all firearm deaths that occurred in the U.S. in 2003: 80

Number of 249 terrorist attacks in 2010 in European Union carried out by Muslim extremists: 3

Number of whites killed by other whites, primarily by firearms, in US, 2000-2009: 46,171

There is no apparent path in this country to curb the kind of random violence that occurs every day among our own people for the most mundane of reasons, even when people are mowed down in movie theatres and armed lunatics shoot 1st graders by the dozens.

And yet I hear ridiculous crapola like this all day long on cable news networks, the worst of which on Fox and CNN are basically running snuff porn as often as possible and pimping the most hysterical ideas possible. Yesterday terrorism expert Bob baer said on CNN that ISIS was “the worst pandemic of violence ever” and that it was inevitable that American lone wolves inspired by ISIS would attack us here: “I can see them coming.”

Apparently if you are killed by a lone wolf ISIS misfit the death is worse than if you are killed by a miscreant with a gun who gets upset over a fender bender or a parking place. I don’t know why that should be, especially since the latter is far more likely than the former.

I certainly understand why the Europeans are freaking out. They aren’t used to random gun violence. And needless to say, the fact that Jews are being specifically targeted is extremely horrifying. Terrorism carries a special brand of fear due to its political motivation.

But the “lone wolf” threat in the US? Considering the threat we live with from our fellow “lone wolf” citizens every day, even from political violence, it ridiculously hysterical. Nobody bats an eye at abortion clinics being targeted for years on end. A couple of right wing lunatics gunned down police officers in Las Vegas with a political beef a few months back and we didn’t launch a national crusade against it. We can’t even sustain any alarm at kids shooting up kids in schools for longer than a couple of days. We hardly even report it anymore it’s so old hat. If there’s one nation on earth that knows how to keep calm and carry on in the face of random armed misfits gunning down strangers it’s us.

Update: Paul Waldman has a good piece up at the Plumline about the return of the GWOT:

To date, ISIS has killed four Americans, a horrible tragedy for those people and their families. But since the idea of the group’s threat to America is at this point entirely hypothetical, we should be as specific as we can when we talk about that threat. Do we think they’re going to try to hijack planes or send agents here to set off bombs? And if so, what do we need to do to counter those threats that we aren’t already doing? If we’re going to expand our military involvement in the Middle East, is there a way to do it that won’t create more problems than it solves?

Those are simple, obvious questions, but so often they’re overwhelmed by people waving their arms and shouting “We’re all gonna die!” In the days and years after September 11, Republicans repeated that al Qaeda was an “existential threat,” a notion that was utterly insane yet seldom examined. And we certainly acted as though the very existence of the United States of America was indeed in question. Congress gave the federal government a slate of new powers to spy on its citizens. We created a surveillance apparatus of gargantuan size and scope. We deployed a network of secret prisons as sites for a program of torture. And we all got used to the idea that the War on Terror is forever.

From what I gather from the comments of various law enforcement officials and terrorism experts, the threat that concerns them is the Lone Wolf scenario. I’m sure it’s very scary. But again, what makes it so much scarier than Adam Lanza or James Holmes or Eric Harris or Dylan Klebold? I don’t think anyone wants those kinds of killings but we haven’t decided to turn ourselves into a full-blown police state to stop them. In fact, we have pretty much done nothing to stop them, even the smallest common sense measures like trying to keep guns out of the hands of mentally ill kids. So all this handwringing over Muslim lone wolves seems just a bit over the top.

But it is very convenient and lucrative for certain politicians, news networks and military contractors, so there’s that …

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Perlstein on the rise of Reagan

by digby

Here’s a fascinating 5 minute Perlstein talk on how St. Ronnie came to power:

I lived it and it still kind of freaks me out.

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President’s Day: the dream shall never die

by digby

President Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms:

“In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want — which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants-everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear — which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor — anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.”

Sadly, it remains a vision for a distant millenium. But you have to believe that it’s attainable or what’s the point?

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Look! Up in the sky!

by Tom Sullivan

Commercial drones. Those GoPro-equipped gadgets for hobbyists, news crews, professional photographers, and drunk, off-duty, intelligence employees. Maybe even for Amazon package deliveries. (In your fever dreams, maybe.) The FAA announced proposed rules governing their use on Sunday:

The U.S. aviation regulator proposed rules on Sunday for commercial drone flights that would lift some restrictions but would still bar activities such as the delivery of packages and inspection of pipelines that have been eyed by companies as a potentially breakthrough use of the technology.

The long-awaited draft rules from the Federal Aviation Administration would require unmanned aircraft pilots to obtain special pilot certificates, stay away from bystanders and fly only during the day. They limit flying speed to 100 miles per hour (160 kph) and the altitude to 500 feet (152 meters) above ground level.

Just a tentative toe in the water, a camel’s nose under the tent. But it’s an announcement that will send eager technophiles rushing to buy the latest in remote-control spy-ware, and encourage what NPR reported last night could be a $2 billion commercial drone sector. These rules also are meant to prepare the public for further expansion of the program and assuage privacy concerns, etc., etc.

Drone testing and approval has been in the pipeline since at least late 2013:

The FAA has already permitted approximately 300 “public organizations” to fly drones, said FAA spokesperson Alison Duquette in an interview with Common Dreams. This includes drones used by law enforcement and Customs and Border Enforcement for the purpose of aerial surveillance.

Duquette said she would not disclose the numbers of drones in U.S. airspace armed with military grade weapons or spying capabilities.

Excuse me? But worry not, officials said Sunday:

“Today’s proposed rule is the next step in integrating unmanned aircraft systems into our nation’s airspace.” FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said in a conference call with reporters. “We are doing everything that we can to safely integrate these aircraft while ensuring that America remains the leader in aviation safety and technology.”

[snip]

“From entertainment, to energy, to agriculture there are a host of industries interested in using UAS to improve their business,” Anthony Foxx, secretary of the Transportation Department said. “But for us at U.S. DOT the first threshold always is and must be keeping the American people safe as we move to integrate these new types of aircraft into our skies.”

Yes, but. Lest you think — as yesterday’s reports suggest — we’re just talking about hobbyists, Eyewitness News, or even the police flying plastic toys in commercial airspace, there’s a little more to it (from February 2012):

“We’re going to bring aircraft back from Iraq and Afghanistan, and we’re going to train in the [continental U.S.],” said Steve Pennington, the Air Force’s director of ranges, bases and airspace, and executive director of the Defense Department’s FAA policy board. “So the challenge is how to fly in nonsegregated airspace.”

The Pentagon too has been working with the FAA to open up U.S. airspace to its fleet of big-boy toys, nearly 7,500 combat drones (also from February 2012):

The vast majority of the military’s drones are small — similar to hobby aircraft. The FAA is working on proposed rules for integrating these drones, which are being eyed by law enforcement and private business to provide aerial surveillance. The FAA expects to release the proposal on small drones this spring.

But the Pentagon is concerned about flying hundreds of larger drones, including Global Hawks as well as MQ-1 Predators and MQ-9 Reapers, both made by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. in Poway.

And last week Congress approved legislation that requires the FAA to have a plan to integrate drones of all kinds into national airspace on a wide scale by 2015.

The Department of Homeland Security announced its intention to double its fleet of Predators in late 2012. If Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and General Atomics have their way, there could be 30,000 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)
in U.S. airspace by 2020.

Maybe like me, you first remember the phrase “unmanned aerial vehicles” from George W. Bush’s scaremongering, Cincinnati speech about Iraq, Saddam Hussein, and WMDs in October 2002. Back then, we were supposed to soil ourselves and go to war over the prospect of military UAVs in our skies. Ah, but we were young and foolish then.

Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s a Predator!

(h/t Barry Summers)