Month: September 2013

My understanding of the White House’s thinking is imperfect at best, but I believe that they are confident that Speaker Boehner will eventually conclude that he has no choice but to go to Nancy Pelosi for the votes he needs to raise the debt ceiling. And the White House doesn’t seem overly concerned that this might cause Boehner to lose his gavel to a real mouth-breather.

I think we ought to be a little more pro-active here, because it’s not enough to win this battle outright if it isn’t going to stop the cycle of governing by crisis and hostage-taking. Forcing the House to capitulate would go a long way towards breaking the cycle, but not if it results in Boehner being replaced by a more implacable foe.

Perhaps the most likely result here is that Boehner will eventually do the responsible thing and then resign. But that is not an optimal outcome. The best outcome is that the Tea Party’s grip on the House is broken entirely so that we can pass legislation, including immigration reform, a more rigorous background check for gun purchases, and appropriations bills.

If Boehner is going to be challenged and defeated by his own party, we ought to at least offer to save him up front. Make a deal now, and agree to lead a sane coalition, and he can keep his job. If we let him twist in the wind and then resign, we won’t end this crisis on the most favorable terms.

It’s unlikely that Boehner would be willing to serve in this new role, but we have no reason not to offer it to him now, rather than later.

Other than their ability to destroy the Republican Party, I am just not sure why any of us should care about this.

The clash in Congress over efforts to derail President Obama’s health-care law has lit up tea party groups across the country, reenergizing activists who had drifted away from the movement while intensifying the divisions tearing at the Republican Party.

The standoff, which threatens to plunge the federal government into a financial crisis, has served as a rallying cry for a cadre of conservatives, who are bombarding lawmakers with phone calls, e-mails and social media messages backing a last-ditch effort to hobble the health-care law.

I don’t think these people can be told to “go fuck themselves” with enough emphasis.

Hello again painting fans.

This week I will starting the new painting of the Grand Canyon. The photo that I will be using is seen directly below. I will be using my usual acrylics on an 10×10 gallery-wrapped canvas.

I began with a pencil grid upon which I added the major elements.  This preliminary pencil sketch is seen directly below.

I then proceeded to paint in some base colors.  These will change with time but they provide a starting point.  Note that the features in the center already have a wonderful rhythm.

The current state of the painting is seen directly below.

I’ll have much more to show you next week.  See you then.

IEarlier paintings in this series can be seen here.

I’m sorry about your dog, Jonah, but your column is ridiculous. Let’s take a look.

‘It’s the law of the land.”

This is rapidly becoming the preferred shorthand argument for why criticism of Obamacare is just so, so wrong. It also serves as the lead sentence of a larger claim that all attempts to overturn the Affordable Care Act are really symptoms of a kind of extremist right-wing lunacy.

Let’s be clear at the outset that the Republicans are not currently attempting to overturn the Affordable Care Act. They have yet to identify one Democrat in either chamber of Congress who is willing to join them in overturning the Affordable Care Act. (And, no, Sen. Joe Manchin doesn’t want to repeal the Affordable Care Act). The Republicans are not unaware of this. Whatever it is that they are doing, it is not an actual effort at repeal, so let’s not call it that.

When people point out that ObamaCare is the Supreme Court-vetted law of the land, what they mean is that you can’t change that without overriding the president’s veto. So, what exactly are you idiots doing closing down the government and threatening to destroy the global economy? That sounds like something only a right-wing loon would do.

For instance, here’s Senate majority leader Harry Reid, who walked out of the painting American Gothic to deliver this homespun wisdom: “We’re not going to bow to tea-party anarchists who deny the mere fact that Obamacare is the law. We will not bow to tea-party anarchists who refuse to accept that the Supreme Court ruled that Obamacare is constitutional.”

Where to begin? For starters, I know a great many self-described members of the Tea Party, and I’ve yet to meet one who would not acknowledge — admittedly with dismay — that Obamacare is the law. Nor have I met one unwilling to concede that the Supreme Court ruled that Obamacare is constitutional.

I think Jonah needs to read more Red State comment threads. This next bit is going to take your breath away.

Lurking beneath such lazy rhetoric is a nasty psychological insinuation that there’s something deranged not just about opposing Obamacare, but about being a conservative. This is an ancient smear, used to discredit conservatives in order to avoid debating them.

Reid is a dim and sallow man whose tin ear long ago started to rust. But it’s worth pointing out that “anarchy” is not defined in any textbook or dictionary I can find as “the absence of Obamacare.”

Okay, so first Mr. Goldberg complains about using smears to avoid debate, and then in the next sentence he says that Harry Reid is stupid and sickly-looking. Second, after he’s done questioning Harry Reid’s intelligence, he obtusely argues that Harry Reid’s reference to anarchy had something to do with opposing ObamaCare rather than everything to do with throwing abstruse tantrums and threatening the reputation of America’s credit and currency. But don’t worry, he’s going to go for a walk with this misunderstanding.

More to the point, petitioning Congress to repeal a bad law through formal procedures is not the kind of behavior educated people normally associate with anarchism. Indeed, the hypocrisy of liberals who find it somehow “extreme” for citizens to organize peacefully to overturn a law they consider bad and unjust is a marvel to behold. The Fugitive Slave Act was once the law of the land. So was the Defense of Marriage Act. Were those determined to overturn them anarchists?

Can we agree that Congress cannot “petition” Congress, and that the majority in the House of Representatives is not seriously asking for anything? I’m a fully grown man in my mid-40’s, and if I make a wish-list for Santa Claus, I am not petitioning him “through formal procedures.” I’m fucking nuts, okay? I don’t know how Goldberg got to talking about “citizens” who are “organizing peacefully” because Harry Reid wasn’t talking about citizens. Lastly, I wasn’t around when The Fugitive Slave Act was the law of the land, but the Democrats never held the debt ceiling hostage to force the repeal of DOMA. In fact, our president signed it into law.

On an almost daily basis, I get a fundraising e-mail from a Democrat or from liberal outfits begging for help to overturn Citizens United, which in case you hadn’t heard is the law of the land. Why won’t these anarchists and extremists accept that the Supreme Court has ruled? I cannot wait for the Supreme Court to overrule Roe v. Wade, just to hear liberals announce, “Well, the fight is over. The Court has spoken.”

Again, he is confusing citizens who organize politically around an issue with politicians who shut down the government and threaten our credit rating for, well, we still don’t quite know why they’re doing that. The president was quite vocal about his displeasure with the Citizens United ruling, even making a point about it to the Justices’ faces during one of his State of the Union speeches. But, so far, he hasn’t refused to keep the government operating until Congress agrees to pass a law that overrides the Court’s ruling.

Nearly the whole story of American liberalism is a story of dedicated ideologues seeking to overturn what they consider to be bad laws and replace them with good ones. Sometimes those efforts were laudable, as when they fought to overturn the doctrine of “separate but equal” (despite fierce opposition from Democrats). And sometimes they are lamentable, as when they routinely labor to overturn or deny school-choice laws, consigning underprivileged children to horrible schools just to placate teachers’ unions.

History, as taught by conservatives, allows you to say in one breath that “liberalism” got rid of the separate but equal doctrine over the fierce opposition of “Democrats.” He forgot to mention that those “Democrats” were conservatives who left the party to hang out with Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. It turned out that those “Democrats” weren’t too loyal to the party but they understood very well the concept of being a “dedicated ideologue,” or racist, as the case may be.

But where’s he going with this line of argument?

But when conservatives try to do the exact same thing, they can’t simply be wrong, according to liberals. They must be demented extremists, anarchists, and — another favorite epithet these days — nihilists.

Forgive me for saying it, but if the Republicans are doing the exact same thing that Thurgood Marshall did before the Supreme Court as counsel for the NAACP, and if they doing the exact same thing as the Democrats are doing when they fight to keep public money in public schools, then their tactics should look the exact same, too. But their tactics look totally foreign and unprecedented. So, I think these comparisons might not be too apt.

In an article like this, it was inevitable that Goldberg would eventually get around to making shit up and start spewing tired talking points. This is the point where Goldberg argues that everything that the Affordable Care Act authorizes must be fully-implemented at a time certain or the president is violating the statute and acting like he has no respect for the rule of law. Nothing can be delayed, even if it isn’t ready to go, or the president is a tyrant. If anyone is responsible for anarchy, it’s the people who passed this law and are trying to implement it. Etc.

While this is closer to anarchy than anything the tea partiers have pushed for, anarchy still isn’t the right word for it. Because President Obama still believes people should obey the law of the land — when it pleases him, that is.

I’m sorry, but what we’ve been reading is the definition of “extremist right-wing lunacy.”

Here’s our offer. “Nothing.”

“Although we would appreciate it if you would pay for the gaming license personally.”

Any questions?

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A discussion about former New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins, triggered a deeper investigation in understanding about the earliest reporting from East-Ghouta on the day of the gas attack. The advocacy group Syrian Support Group of Brian Sayers has some explaining to do.

The Syrian Question by Dexter Filkins on Aug. 23, 2013 also published @Syrian Freedom

(The New Yorker) – But Wednesday’s early-morning attack appears to be something very different in scale. According to reports from the scene, four large rockets landed in the Damascus suburb of East Ghouta at just after 2 A.M. This time, the gas appeared to be more concentrated: on Thursday, the Syrian Support Group (S.S.G.), a rebel advocacy organization in Washington, put the death toll at 1,302, with nearly ten thousand others contaminated. Two-thirds of the dead were women and children, the group said. [Ghouta was evacuated as the suburb has been under heavy bombardment by the Assad regime – Oui]

… On Thursday, S.S.G. put me in touch with Mohammad Salaheddine, a Syrian reporter and activist who lives in the Damascus area and works for Al Aan TV, which is based in Dubai. Salaheddine told me that he arrived in East Ghouta minutes after the area was struck by four rockets containing poison gas.

“There were so many people I could not count them,” Salaheddine said of the hospital. Many of the people, he said, were weak and couldn’t breathe; the doctors were trying to give injections of atropine, an antidote, to as many of the victims as they could, and administer oxygen to others.”

“People were panicking,” he went on. “They were saying, Am I dead or am I alive?”

Continued below the fold …

The worst moment, Salaheddine said, came when he found three women huddled together in the hospital; a young woman, her mother, and her grandmother. All were suffering the symptoms of poison gas, he said, and each was trying to comfort the others. “I was trying to rescue the grandmother,” Salaheddine said. “She was dying. I was trying to give her oxygen. She kept saying to me, ‘My son–my heart, my heart.’ She was gasping for air. She was in agony. She died in my arms.”

Before we hung up, Salaheddine told me he hoped that his story would goad the United States into action. “I want you to pass a message to the U.S. leadership: America has great power and influence and can make a difference. We are suffering. It’s been too long.”

NY Times – Obama Officials Weigh Response to Syria Assault  Aug. 22, 2013

“Mr. Salaheddine was reached by Skype on Thursday with the help of the Syrian Support Group, an American-based organization that backs the opposition.

He asserted that more than 1,500 people had been killed by the chemical attack and that many more had been wounded. The area, he said, was cut off by the fighting, making it hard for opposition members to smuggle hair, urine and blood samples out for analysis.

Adding to the opposition’s frustration, two of its officials said that none of the weapons American officials said would be provided by the C.I.A. had yet been delivered.”

East Ghouta Report by Syrian Support Group Aug. 22, 2013

“The areas attacked are heavily populated, and are under the ontrol of the FSA. Doctors and activists report that people’s windows were open during the night, allowing high concentrations of gas to pour into homes.

Many civilians were found simply unconscious in the street. Mohammad Salaheddine, a journalist/activist based in a Zamalka hospital at the time the victims began to arrive, says ‘the dead were loaded into large pick-up trucks by the hundreds,and were taken to three large mass graves in Zamalka, Ain Turma, and Arbeen. The bodies were placed inside, and dirt was bulldozed to bury them.'”

Another Halabja?
Horrifying reports of Assad’s biggest chemical attack by Michael Weiss

Human Rights Watch Report (HRW) did not have any evidence to suggest that, whatever substance was used, this was the result of a conventional round accidentally striking a chemical or gas facility in the surrounding area. The New York-based NGO also spoke to one doctor working in the medical center at Arbeen who claimed that activists told him 18 missiles were fired “from the direction of the October War Panorama, a military museum in Damascus city, and of Mezzeh military airport, hit Zamalka, Ayn Tarma, Douma, and Moadamiya.”

The Syrian Support Group (SSG), a U.S.-licensed rebel aid provider, cited one very early report that preceded the HRW briefing that was relayed by Mohammed Salaheddine, a journalist with Al Aan TV and an eyewitness to the early-morning attacks. Salaheddine claimed that four rockets hit Eastern Ghouta, the first striking Zamalka, the second Ayn Tarma, the third Jobar, and the fourth Zamalka again. He said these were all Grad 122-mm rockets and came from the Damascus-Homs highway near the Baghdad Bridge (southern Damascus), and the other two came from Qabun (north of Jobar). (Note that the Baghdad Bridge is near the Nusariyeh chemical research facility, which the regime currently controls.)

These attacks appeared to have preceded a rapid buildup of conventional military forces around Eastern Ghouta which, according to Salaheddine, included 30 tanks and “several thousand regime soldiers.” [Would this build-up of soldiers be logical with a simultaneous neurotoxin gas attack on Ghouta? – Oui] Non-chemical rocket attacks continued from the direction of Mezze Air Base in Moaddamiya, presumably launched by the Fourth Division. “Large explosions could be heard in the background during the call with Mohammad,” the SSG emailed.

Samantha Power cited the UN Report and found 122mm rockets!!

US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power said: “The technical details of the UN report make clear that only the regime could have carried out this large-scale chemical weapons attack.” The 122mm rockets cited in the report, according to Power, were previously linked to government forces.

Samantha Power speaks at UN about Ghouta Inspection Report – video

Syrian rebels open US lobbying agency

WASHINGTON (DC) (TheNational.ae) Feb. 7, 2013 – Brian Sayers is a former Nato political officer lobbying in the corridors of Washington on behalf of Syrian rebels fighting the regime of Bashar Al Assad, the country’s president.

Not all the rebels, of course. Washington only publicly supports those rebel groups it is convinced are committed to a secular, democratic Syria. Consequently, only a select group of fighters qualify to receive funds from the Syrian Support Group (SSG), the organisation where Mr Brian Sayers works [LinkedIn states per June 2013 job at Oak Global Tech (?) – Oui] and the only group licensed by US authorities to fund the rebels. New policy director at SSG is Max Stahlberg, previous job a senior editor at Public International Law & Policy Group (PIPLG).

Those constraints are at least one of the reasons why the Syrian National Coalition (SNC), the main anti-Assad political bloc, announced this week that is it planning to open offices in Washington and New York. Najib Ghadbian, an associate professor of <strike>political science and</strike&gt King Fahd Center for Middle East studies at the University of Arkansas who was born in the Damascus suburbs, will lead both offices. Link to SCPSS [Arabic – Google translation].

… All the money that the SSG sends to Syria is currently from private donations, though Mr Sayers refused to specify the amount. Most of the funds are earmarked for rebels’ salaries, and none of it is to be used to buy weapons. But verifying the money trail is difficult.

“At the end of the day it’s not funding that could be diverted for the most part. It’s not been enough for lethal purposes. That’s not within their purview anyway,” he said.

Besides helping the insurgents’ payroll, the SSG hopes to provide them with training on dealing with a chemical-weapons attack and on the Geneva Conventions and other international law pertaining to conduct during war.

Syrian Rebels Lobby Washington Behind The Scenes

○ Al Aan TV Dubai – search for صلاح الدين  (Salaheddine)

Questions to be asked:
Who is Mohammad Salaheddine?
Is he a reporter for Al Aan TV in Dubai?
Activist, linked to an opposition group in Damascus?

The president went before the cameras and microphones again this afternoon and reiterated that he will make no concessions surrounding the debt ceiling. Meanwhile, Harry Reid told the House Republicans to get over their fantasy about delaying ObamaCare and to “get a life.” He went on to say that the Senate has no intention of taking any further action to prevent a government shutdown and that Boehner’s only choice is to pass the Senate’s legislation. Nonetheless, the House Republicans announced their intention to ask for a one year postponement of ObamaCare.

I guess it is pretty clear that the Democrats have exactly zero fear of a government shutdown. I am reminded of the story of Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby. Also, “please proceed, Speaker Boehner.”

The roll call will eventually appear here. The Senate just rejected Ted Cruz’s gambit and approved cloture for a second time on the continuing resolution to keep the government operating past October 1st. Eighteen Republicans voted with Cruz and (I think) twenty-three voted against him. Harry Reid will clean the bill up and send it back to the House, where they have no earthly clue what to do with it.

Make sure to read Jonathan Chait’s piece today. It’s going to get very interesting.

Recently, Jonathan Cymberknopf wrote a very upbeat article where he makes it sound like third party presidential candidates in 2012 achieved remarkable, even historic, success.  He provides considerable data on how a number of third party candidates did better in 2012 than in the previous presidential election.  For many years I strongly advocated third party options and even was a state chairperson for a major third party.  But over time I realized what a fool’s effort third parties are for presidential elections and also for nearly all congressional ones.  Why?  Because anyone who thinks clearly and understands the US electoral system should know that the system is so rigged against third parties that they are mostly a wasted effort.  Worse even, and this is my major point, because third parties provide a kind of high pressure escape valve for very unhappy Americans to express their anger and frustration.  In so doing, they perversely help to sustain the very corrupt, dysfunctional two-party system they reject and want to change but cannot possibly do.

Let me further explain.  As someone who worked within the federal and state political system for a long time I am totally convinced that the American political system has become a farce, actually an evil system for the vast majority of Americans.  Why?  Because this political system has become the tool for sustaining the upper, wealthy class and is destroying the middle class and succeeding in creating a two-class society.  Economic inequality is now at its highest level.  This has resulted because the rich, upper class controls the political system through money that more than earns a terrific return on the funds invested, because the political system has also corrupted the economic system.

We desperately need a second American revolution.  But it will not and cannot come through elections.  Elections merely represent a delusional notion that American democracy still works, when in fact it is nothing more now than a delusional democracy.  Beyond the top 1 percent so talked about as the very wealthy grabbing nearly all the increases in economic growth and prosperity, it is probably the top 10 percent or more that enjoys fabulous lives.  There really are two economies.  The one for the top on the economic ladder is working wonderfully.  They are gobbling up luxury cars, jewelry and all kinds of products, eating expensive foods at home and in fancy restaurants, getting the very best medical care, and experiencing the joys of luxury travel and entertainment.  The lives of some 30 million Americans are truly wonderful.  But the remaining vast majority of Americans who constitute most of the voters are leading very, very different economic lives with much diminished quality of lives and considerable economic insecurity.

So, rather than celebrate that less than 2 percent of voters supported third party presidential candidates and, in so doing, legitimized the US electoral system, what the country really needs are millions of Americans more forcefully attacking the status quo that the two-party plutocracy uses to serve and protect the upper, wealthy class.  Americans who happily and proudly vote and work for third party candidates are delusional if they think that their actions are helping to bring down our corrupt political system.  They need to realize that in a perverse way they are protecting and sustaining the status quo political system.  It would be far better if many millions of Americans who, as expressed in virtually all surveys and polls, have no trust and confidence in both major political parties and all the elected politicians chose to express their discontent by NOT voting in elections.  Yes, that is what we need.  We need to concretely show our rejection of the political system by not honoring it through voting.

The sad joke is that not much more than half of eligible voters actually vote, far worse than in other advanced, industrialized nations.  What the goal of Americans who correctly see both major parties as rigidly corrupt and useless for most citizens should be is to attack the legitimacy of the political system by cutting voter turnout substantially.

Stop feel-good voting for third party candidates and reject the current electoral system altogether.  Do that and think more about other ways to destroy this system.  Think in terms of a political boycott just as you would an economic boycott against a company.  Never delude yourself that by electing Republicans or Democrats you will see the many necessary, fundamental changes for restoring true democracy and honoring the values of the Constitution.  The one most powerful tactic to restore democracy and economic freedom is removing all private money from the entire political system.  That requires a constitutional amendment, and that can only happen through an Article V convention that recently Mark Levin so powerfully advocated in his new book, but which he, sadly, failed to present the full truth about, namely that Congress has already failed to obey the Constitution and recognize the sufficient number of state applications for a convention.

This failure of Congress, like so many other circumstances, decisions and events, only further proves just how awful American democracy has become.  And it shows just how much we need millions of Americans to fight for what is necessary, rather than think that third party candidates are the answer.  Interestingly, third party presidential candidates have not made the Article V convention option a major campaign issue, just as Republicans and Democrats have ignored this constitutional option.

Contact Joel S. Hirschhorn through

David Corn explains why the president is very unlikely to yield to the Republicans’ demands that he negotiate over raising the debt ceiling. I think the basic difference between today and 2011 is that the president doesn’t have to worry about getting reelected, so he’s willing to call the Republicans’ bluff. Back in 2011, a default would have probably made him a one-term president. Today, a default would still be terrible for the country, but he at least has the option of letting it happen. If he takes extraordinary steps to avoid a default, he has less to worry about in terms of backlash. Plus, the Tea Party fervor has faded, the deficit has been coming down, and the mandate from the 2010 elections has been superseded by the mandate from the 2012 elections.

It’s not at all clear that Speaker Boehner can raise the debt ceiling with only Republican votes. With two vacancies, the House has 433 members, of which 233 are Republicans. For a bill to pass it needs 217 votes. That means that Boehner cannot afford to lose more than 16 members of his caucus.

Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.), who opposes any debt-ceiling increase at all, estimated there were 10 to 15 Republicans “that feel as strongly as I do,” and predicted GOP leaders did not have the votes to pass the legislation.

Rep. Walter “Freedom Fries” Jones doesn’t just oppose the Christmas tree legislation that Boehner is concocting to attract Republican votes. Rep. Jones opposes raising the debt ceiling under any circumstances, and says he has potentially as many as 15 colleagues who feel the same way. If he’s right, Boehner can’t lose any additional votes, which seems like a stretch if he is forced to ask for a bill without any concessions from the president.

But the Republicans are operating under the assumption that the president will back down.

Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) made clear that Republicans were not operating under any illusions that this initial offer would remain intact, however. He described it more as a wish list.

“We’re obviously going to throw out what we want. Obviously that’s not going to be acceptable to the other party, most likely,” he said. “It puts our marker down.”

But Simpson said the one-year delay of ObamaCare is a mandatory component for Republicans.

“When Obama says he’s not going to negotiate on the debt ceiling, that’s just baloney,” Simpson said. “Ultimately, he will.”

I think David Corn has made a compelling case that the president actually won’t negotiate. I’m not sure what he will do if it comes down the last moment and Congress hasn’t extended the debt ceiling, but it seems clear that he’s prepared to tell the Republicans’ to stuff it. Unfortunately, the Republicans are not yet convinced of that, so the hostage-taking will continue.

I hope someone is readying the SWAT team.

For whatever reason, Kentuckians, who have no use for President Obama, decided to elect a Democrat as their governor in 2007 and then reelected him in 2011. This is the reason that Kentucky is the
only state in the South that it both expanding Medicaid and opening and operating its own health insurance exchange.

Governor Steve Beshear wants his political opponents to “Get over it.” After noting that Kentucky ranks near the bottom in nearly every health index, he makes the following observations:

The Affordable Care Act will address these weaknesses.

Some 308,000 of Kentucky’s uninsured — mostly the working poor — will be covered when we increase Medicaid eligibility guidelines to 138 percent of the federal poverty level.

PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Urban Studies Institute at the University of Louisville concluded that expanding Medicaid would inject $15.6 billion into Kentucky’s economy over the next eight years, create almost 17,000 new jobs, have an $802.4 million positive budget impact (by transferring certain expenditures from the state to the federal government, among other things), protect hospitals from cuts in indigent care funding and shield businesses from up to $48 million in annual penalties.

In short, we couldn’t afford not to do it.

The other 332,000 uninsured Kentuckians will be able to access affordable coverage — most with a discount — through the Health Benefit Exchange, the online insurance marketplace we named Kynect: Kentucky’s Healthcare Connection.

Regardless of what Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul think they are doing in Washington DC, Kentucky is moving forward. It’s population may not have the country’s highest educational attainment, but they are smart enough to figure out that ObamaCare is improving their lives and helping their state’s economy.

Someday soon, the freak show in Congress will end. But ObamaCare is forever.