Month: May 2014

I don’t enjoy being clueless about 95% of what goes on in our popular culture, but I am not ashamed to admit that I have no idea who Clay Aiken is other than that he appeared on some talent show many years ago.

You know what this reminds me of?

Rep. Trey Gowdy is drawing up a list of witnesses for the newly formed Republican congressional committee investigating the consulate attack in Libya on Sept. 11, 2012, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is likely to be on it.

Also, too, this:

Republicans struggled to land punches against ObamaCare in a hearing Wednesday as responses from insurance companies deflated several lines of questioning.

Democratic lawmakers were emboldened to defend the Affordable Care Act with renewed vigor and levity, creating a dynamic rarely seen in the debate over ObamaCare.

Adding to the irregularity, exits on the Republican side at subcommittee hearing led by Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) allowed multiple Democrats to speak in a row and let heavy Democratic criticisms of Republicans go unanswered, a contrast with the heated exchanges of last fall.

The discussion was not always favorable to the healthcare law, as it touched on health plan cancellations, the potential for premium increases in 2015 and problems that still plague the back end of HealthCare.gov.

Witnesses from the insurance industry were also careful in their comments, and promised to submit several answers to the committee at a later date.

But Republicans were visibly exasperated as insurers failed to confirm certain assumptions about ObamaCare, such as the committee’s allegation that one-third of federal exchange enrollees have not paid their first premium.

Four out of five companies represented said more than 80 percent of their new customers had paid. The fifth, Cigna, did not offer an estimate.

Republicans also stumbled in asking insurers to detail next year’s premium rates.

File this under: Stop Punching Yourself in the Face.

Following on my last piece on Why Resentment is Key to Conservative Politics, I want to introduce you to the winner of last night’s Republican senatorial primary in North Carolina, state House Speaker Thom Tillis, who will be challenging Senator Kay Hagan in November:

Here (via TPM) is the transcript of Tillis’s remarks in that video, which was made in 2011:

“What we have to do is find a way to divide and conquer the people who are on assistance,” Tillis said. “We have to show respect for that woman who has cerebral palsy and had no choice, in her condition, that needs help and that we should help. And we need to get those folks to look down at these people who choose to get into a condition that makes them dependent on the government and say at some point, ‘You’re on your own. We may end up taking care of those babies, but we’re not going to take care of you.’ And we’ve got to start having that serious discussion.”

Tillis went on to say that discussion wouldn’t happen until at least 2013.

“It won’t happen next year. Wrong time, ‘cause it’s going to be politically charged,” Tillis said. “One of the reasons why I may never run for another elected office is that some of these things may just get me railroaded out of town. But in 2013, I honestly believe that we have to do that.”

Now, looking back at my argument that making people hate each other is the core of right-wing politics, you can see it in its most naked form here. He’s quite honest that conservatives need to get people who are genuinely in need because of a medical illness or something else that they cannot control to actively dislike other people who are getting public assistance. The idea is that Republicans can get people in genuine need of public assistance to vote against public assistance (and for Republicans) by getting them to hate other people on public assistance. If you have cerebral palsy, you’ll vote for Thom Tillis over Kay Hagan because Thom Tillis is going to cut the public assistance that you need. You’ll do this because you’d rather not get the help you need than see someone else get help that they may not need it as much as you do.

This is how rich people can convince poor unfortunate people to vote for Republicans, which will allow them to keep more of their money and go about their business in as unregulated a manner as possible.

In this case, the racist aspect of this is buried. Tillis is dividing the world into those who genuinely need assistance and those who are basically freeloaders. And he’s pitting them against each other. But the people who are harmed are the people who genuinely need assistance, and the people who are helped are the tax-averse folks who benefit from Republican policies.

When you start off with the view that 47% of the population are “takers” who get public assistance or pay no taxes, you need to set that 47% against each other and get some of them to vote for you because they believe you will beat the crap out of the folks they don’t like. If you don’t do this, you’ll never win.

But, what if there were a right-wing party that wasn’t just a tax and regulation-averse vessel for plutocrats? Could they maybe compete without cranking up the hate machine and pitting Americans against each other?

Maybe, or maybe not. But a hate machine is what they have, and they never stop inflicting it on the rest of us.

Jay Nordlinger raised an issue yesterday at The Corner that is really a fundamental part of American politics that people should make sure to understand:

Many of us have asked a question for many years, and especially in the last few years. It goes something like this: “How can conservatives win elections against Santa Claus, or Robin Hood? Against candidates offering free stuff? Against candidates who blame people’s problems on the greedy rich, keepin’ ’em down?” In other words, how do you beat the socialists?

Obviously, this came up during the 2012 presidential campaign. It’s materially the same as what Mitt Romney was ruminating about in his infamous 47 percent remarks, but it’s also how Romney explained his loss after the fact. To be generous about it, it is somewhat of a disadvantage to run for office promising to do less for people than your opponent.

Mr. Nordlinger enlisted the wisdom of British Education Minister Michael Gove to help conservatives understand how to win with an austere message.

“Tocqueville pointed out — though he wasn’t the first — that, in a democratic system, there’s always a tendency to gravitate to the guy who offers free stuff, or who is prepared to pander to achieve power. But I have more faith in human nature, in that people do want to think better of themselves, people do want to take control of their own lives and make an enterprise of their own existence. People do recognize that being dependent on others is debilitating, and people also have a low tolerance for lead-swingers and others who seem to be taking advantage of their own hard work.”

(“Lead-swinger” is a British term for “idler,” “slacker.”)

“I think the way to win the argument, however, is not just to rely on people’s desire to improve their own lives, and their impatience with those who are not being similarly strenuous, but to make the point that conservative ideas are the best way of achieving the sorts of goals that progressives profess to believe in.”

Once again, we can see how these folks divide the world into a bifurcated land of enterprising strivers and idle moochers. Conservatives have an easy time understanding the world as a “fallen” place where sin is ever-present and perfection always eludes even the best of bureaucratic planners, but they seem to have great difficulty in understanding that the world is also a place with broken people who through genetics, environment, or misfortune are in need of societal assistance. As long as there is some accountability, they are pretty good at forgiveness, but compassion and empathy are tremendous challenges for them.

But, quite aside from all that, we can see that resentment is the key ingredient in their political toolbox. Mr. Gove argues that conservatives have to do more than just appeal to folks’ impatience with people who aren’t as strenuously enterprising as themselves, but he does acknowledge that appealing to that impatience is the starting point.

There are severe problems with this. For starters, the way this tends to manifest itself is in scapegoating and stereotyping certain groups of people who are classified as insufficiently enterprising. In America, this means blacks and Latinos. So, while the political strategy may start out as colorblind, it immediately transforms into racism.

Secondly, this idea that being on government assistance is “debilitating” is an exhortatory argument that, while having merit, is no way to deal with those who are genuinely in need. Public policy is not the same thing as life advice. We give assistance to mothers with dependent children because the children need food and clothes regardless of why the mother is unable to provide these things herself.

Thirdly, this constant appeal to resentment is not morally edifying for the people who are targeted by it. Rather than telling them that they are doing a good thing by contributing to the upkeep of our infrastructure and the needs of the poor, they are told that people are taking advantage of them and that they should be able to keep all the fruits of their labor.

But this appeal to resentment is seemingly an indispensable strategy for the rich, who need it to rally support for policies that will allow them to grow ever-richer and avoid any kind of constraints on their activities, even if those activities degrade the environment, harm consumers, or lead to an economic calamity.

Making people hate each other is at the core of right-wing politics.

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The Obama administration made a huge miscalculation in forcing regime change in Libya, spreading terror and weapons to neighboring African states. The rise in better weapons for groups in Mali, Algeria, Niger and Nigeria is one phenomena. As i have written before about the armed militants of Boko Haram in Nigeria …

Nigerian Military Lied About Rescue Of Abducted School Girls- Borno Government officials And School Principal

(Sahara Reporters) Apr. 17, 2014 – There is controversy over the rescue of abducted school girls in Borno with the state government and the school principal faulting the military’s claim that most of the pupils have been freed. The claim by military officials in Abuja on Wednesday that 107 abducted girls of Government Girls Secondary School (GGSS) Chibok were freed is a huge lie, Borno  government officials, the management of the school and residents have said.

The Principal of Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Asabe Kwambura, told Premium Times Thursday morning that the military’s claim was false.

“There is nothing in the military statement that is true about our abducted girls,”  Mrs. Kwambura said. “Up till now we are still waiting and praying for the safe return of the students; all I know is that we have only 14 of them, and the security people especially the Vigilante and the well meaning volunteers of Gwoza are still out searching for them.”

“The military people too are in the bush searching. So we have not received any information that they have gotten the students yet. So let it be clear that all the information passed on the media by the military concerning 107 girls is not true.

“I, as the principal did not tell any body any figure on released students other than what our Governor, His Excellency Kashim Shettima had informed the media.”

The Principal said she was contacted by the military headquarters in Abuja yesterday and some person was asking her to confirm the number of girls released.

“I told them that I don’t want to be seen to be contradicting myself on that because what the governor said was what we know about; and I told them there may be additional rescue of the girls, but up to this moment we have not received any of them apart from what we had before,” the principal said.

“What the governor said is still the true picture of the whole issue and that information given by the military is totally wrong.”

The military spokesperson at the Defence Headquarters, Major General Chris Olukolade, had Wednesday issued a statement  claiming that 107 abducted girls were freed; adding that only eight of the girls were still missing and the military was searching for them.

He also claimed that a member of the Boko Haram sect that participated in the abduction was also nabbed by the military. Borno state Governor, Kashim Shettima was also quoted by  the BBC Hausa service this morning faulting the claims of the military.

Global protest mounts to pressure Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan

(CNN) –Protesters took the streets again Sunday, adding to the international pressure on Nigeria do more to rescue more than 200 schoolgirls abducted by militants.

Crowds from Los Angeles to London rallied on Saturday, carrying posters reading #BringBackOurGirls — a campaign that began on Twitter after the mass abduction of the girls by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram last month. In Washington, protesters gathered at the Lincoln Memorial to denounce what they described as a poor response by the Nigerian government to rescue the girls.

On Sunday, about 100 demonstrators gathered outside the Nigerian High Commission in London again, where they chanted “Bring them back!” as well as “Not for sale!” and “African lives matter!”

 « click for more info
President Goodluck Jonathan criticized the girls' parents for not "cooperating fully with police." (CNN)

The mainly female crowd, from young girls to older women, also carried banners that read “These are our sisters” and “No child born to be taken.”

The social media campaign has gained momentum with celebrities, such as singer Mary J. Blige, offering their support. Education advocate and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl who made a miraculous recovery after being shot in the head by the Taliban, posed in a picture with the #BringBackOurGirls poster.

On Saturday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called on Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan to step up efforts to find the girls, who were kidnapped April 16 from a school in Chibok, in the country’s rural northeast.

Amid mounting international pressure, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan spoke Sunday about his government’s efforts to rescue more than 200 schoolgirls abducted by militants.

“Wherever these girls are, we’ll get them out,” he said, acknowledging that officials don’t know where they are. The President criticized the girls’ parents for not cooperating fully with police.

Twitter Campaign #BringBackOurGirls Takes Off

○ Nigeria Katsina State and Sharia Law  Dec. 27, 2009
○ Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka: Jonathan allowed insurgency to fester

Africa has seen the Algerian hostage crisis, in Mali the insertion of the French legionnaires armed forces to repel Al Qaeda fighters from the North and multiple kidnappings from Somalia, Kenia, Niger to Cameroon.  Glad there is no dicussion [with Joe] on this matter anymore – Seriously, Dr. Kissinger, do you have any democratic leanings at all?.

New Rule: Every time a Republican (whether they’re a politician or just some dude on the internet) says something gay like “they’re ramming ObamaCare down our throats” or “they’re shoving long-term unemployment insurance up our asses” or “Dr. Weiland, is it OK for, you know, eight of your friends that you’re in love with to take a dump in your bed and then you can sleep in it all year long?”

…they lose.

Someone once something like, “When they look in the mirror, every senator sees a president.” But it doesn’t sound like many of the Senate Republicans believe it. To hear them tell it, everyone hates the Senate and, anyway, senators have no executive experience and aren’t even qualified to run the country. Plus, they’re way too long-winded and inept at retail politics.

Of course, the real problem is that senators like Chuck Grassley and Orrin Hatch take one look at Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, or Marco Rubio and they know they will be obliterated in a national election. Lack of overall experience is one problem. Lack of gravitas is another. Radicalism is a third. Regional deficits are a fourth. Inability to unite the party is a fifth. Being gaffe-prone is a sixth. You have to get pretty far down the list before you get to any particular problem with being a senator. After all, their voting records are just a subset of their radicalism. It’s the policies that they’d propose that are the main problem.

People talk a lot about the Tea Party vs. the Establishment, but the GOP has an Electoral College problem. If your problem is that you’re getting killed in Northern Virginia and the Philly suburbs, nominating a social conservative is a bad idea, and I don’t care if you’re talking about an ex-governor from Arkansas, a current governor from Louisiana, or senators from Texas, Kentucky, or Florida. When the Democrats had an Electoral College problem they overcame it with Democratic governors from Georgia and Arkansas, not Oregon and Vermont. And both Carter and Clinton kept their distance from the fringes of their own party, rather than trying to be the most liberal members in the country.

The problem is primarily that conservatism doesn’t sell as a national ideology. It’s not enough to nominate someone from Wisconsin if that candidate is an extreme conservative. I can almost guarantee you that Sen. Susan Collins of Maine would win more states than Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin.

What’s your opinion of high fructose corn syrup?

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Fran’s earlier post today …
Haven’t seen this site before, don’t know how reliable it is, but it still makes interesting reading:
○ Meet the Americans Who Put Together the Coup in Kiev

No surprise here!

Read about USAID and the linked NGOs operating in the Ukraine in my earlier posts. From Fran’s first link …

Many of Hromadske‘s journalists had worked in the past with American benefactors. Editor-in-chief Roman Skrypin was a frequent contributor to Washington’s Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and the US-funded Ukrayinska Pravda. In 2004, he had helped create Channel 5 television, which played a major role in the Orange Revolution that the US and its European allies masterminded in 2004.

Senator John McCain chairs the parallel International Republican Institute, with a board that stretches from his longtime advisor and a paid lobbyist for Georgia, neocon Randy Scheuneman.

○ Revisited: Engineering ‘People’s Revolutions’ – A Color?
○ USAID funding a network of interlocking NGOs – Chesno (Honestly), Center UA and Stop Censorship, to name a few
○ Confirmed: Omidyar’s NGOs Clearly Partner in Regime Change
○ Embarrassment to GG, MW of The Intercept: Omidyar Co-funded Ukraine Revolt

The earliest propaganda footage and photo’s of “snipers” at Maidan Independence square were shared between RFERL and the pro-West Ukraine’s Pravda:

Photo’s of police with yellow armbands were released on a phony website: “Украинской правды” which translates as “Ukraine’s Pravda.”

Diaspora haven ‘freedom fighters’ USA …  Northern Ireland (IRA) – Chechnya (freedom fighters) – Iraq (Chalabi) – Iran (MEK) – Libya (Khalifa Hifter) – Syria (SETF) – Ukraine (UCCA)

Andrij Dobriansky is an executive at Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA)  

Remarks on the Conference ‘Ukraine’s Choice’ (2004) — By Krystyna Litton  

On Friday, December 10th [2004], the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) held a conference entitled “Ukraine’s Choice”. The conference attempted to assess Ukraine’s geopolitical orientation, civil society, and economy after the presidential elections.

The AEI is one of the largest public policy think tanks in Washington, DC. The conference was also sponsored by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, Freedom House, the International Republican Institute, the National Endowment for Democracy, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Among speakers were well know politicians and researchers such as Zbigniew Brzezinski, Radek Sikorski, Vyacheslav Briukhovetsky, the chief of staff for Viktor Yushchenko Oleh Rybachuk, Adrian Karatnycky of Freedom House, Paula Dobriansky and others.

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Any relationship? WhoIs Paula J. Dobriansky … appears to be daughter of anti-communist Lev E. Dobriansky.

Did we mention Poland’s FM Radek Sikorski and spouse “first lady” Anne Applebaum.

This past Sunday, the JFK Library awarded Poppy Bush their Profile in Courage Award for breaking his “Read-My-Lips: No-New Taxes” pledge. The idea being that he did the right thing for the country even while knowing he would pay a hefty political price for it. Steven Mufson disputes both the courageousness of Poppy’s decision and the idea that it cost him reelection. Here, he tackles the question of political fallout:

It has become a central part of political mythology that Bush lost the 1992 election because of the 1990 budget deal and the breaking of the “read my lips” pledge from 1988. But there is limited evidence to support that. President Ronald Reagan campaigned on a platform of cutting taxes, and then after cutting them reversed himself three times and still was reelected. And Bush lost the 1992 election in a three-way race against Ross Perot and Bill Clinton, both of whom campaigned on programs that included tax increases larger than the 1990 deal. In his book “Who’s in Control?” Bush’s budget director, the late Richard G. Darman, noted that “together, these advocates of big additional tax increases – Clinton and Perot – got 62 percent of the vote. So it seems hard to defend the proposition that the vote against President Bush was a vote against taxes.”

That’s an interesting statistic. Candidates advocating higher taxes to pay for deficit reduction won 62% of the vote in the 1992 presidential election. It’s easy to draw from that that the electorate wasn’t particularly opposed to a tax hike. But it’s also a tunnel-visioned way of assessing the price that Poppy paid for his heresy.

In addition to a bad economy, Poppy was wounded by the surprising strength of Patrick Buchanan’s candidacy, which necessitated a prime speaking slot at the notoriously frightening Houston convention.

When Buchanan announced his candidacy on December 10, 1991 at the New Hampshire State Legislative Office Building, he explained his rationale for running:

Why am I running? Because we Republicans can no longer say it is all the liberals’ fault. It was not some liberal Democrat who declared, “Read my lips! No new taxes!,” then broke his word to cut a back room budget deal with the big spenders.

Buchanan attacked the flip-flop throughout his lengthy campaign, driving a wedge between conservatives and the Republican president, and weakening Poppy’s credibility with the general electorate. The strength Buchanan derived from the attack gave him a bigger platform to spew odious beliefs that tarnished the image of the GOP and made them seen extreme.

The problem for Poppy wasn’t that the public at-large was opposed to raising taxes to pay down the debt. The problem was a lack of enthusiasm within conservative ranks combined with a reputation of not being as good as his word. When combined with other factors like a bad economy, a strong populist third-party challenge from Ross Perot, and an unusually talented campaigner in Bill Clinton, this proved fatal.

So, he did pay a hefty political price for breaking the pledge. That doesn’t mean he showered himself in glory with a show of courage, however. He did the right thing, but it did it without enthusiasm, without leadership, and without a willingness to vigorously defend the principles he was operating under. The legacy, then, became toxic, as Ed Kilgore explains:

The most important effect of the flip-flop was probably the development of an ever-more-stringent set of pledges and litmus tests among Republican pols to ensure that no one ever again would agree to a tax increase under any circumstances. If the definition of “courage” is to do something that could never be emulated, then Poppy richly deserves his award.

That’s not a record worthy of a Profile in Courage award.