Month: September 2014

A U.S. senator from New York says the f-word on video. Politico, not quite realizing that New York is populated by New Yorkers, clutches pearls in horror.

Here’s a clue, morons. The gentle lady from New York was talking about the inability of her male colleagues in the Senate to decide whether it’s a good thing she’s working out so she won’t get porky or a bad thing because they like their women chubby. Apparently, there’s no shortage of people who badly need to be told to go fuck themselves.

That’s the story. The f-bomb is basically the Empire State anthem.

In the September/October issue of the Washington Monthly, Timothy Noah sits down with Ralph Nader to discuss Nader’s new book Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State. As you can surmise from the book’s title, Nader is bullish on the electorate’s ability to roll back the degree of corporate power we see in contemporary America. Specifically, Nader believes we will soon pass a national hike in the minimum wage and break up the big banks, and he predicts that the Trans-Pacific Partnership will go down to defeat.

Nader also offers a strong defense of the U.S. Postal Service and supports the continuation of Saturday delivery of the mail.

The basic idea behind the book is that liberals and conservatives agree with each other a lot more than they may realize. Whether it is opposition to fighting undeclared wars, Wall Street crimes that go unpunished, or franchisees and their minimum wage workers who are getting screwed by the system, there are a host of areas where people can and should transcend the political divide and get things done.

I am optimistic person by nature, by I have almost zero confidence that Congress can transcend anything, now or in the near future. I’d like to believe that Nader’s optimism is well-founded, but I see no signs of the Republicans responding to popular opinion. The fact that they have behaved so atrociously during Obama’s presidency, and particularly in light of his strong reelection, and are still on course to make gains in the upcoming election tells me that there are no repercussions for bad behavior in Washington. The only popular opinion that matters is the opinion of people who actually vote. Only a little over a third of country is even having Senate elections the Senate’s seats are up for grabs this year. What people want and what they are going to get are two completely different things.

Still, it’s good to see Ralph Nader feeling upbeat for a change. Maybe he’s right.

Check out the whole interview here.

If Democratic pollster Celinda Lake’s research with focus groups can be believed, the average disengaged Democratic voter isn’t that easy to mobilize. The best way to turn them away from their apathy is to give them a complicated message that turns on getting them to understand both why control of the Senate matters and that control of the Senate may be determined by the outcome of the election in their state.

That’s challenging enough, but it doesn’t work very well in states that don’t have Senate races because, in those cases, the messaging isn’t even true.

How do we get Democrats in California to turn out?

It looks like the two strongest messages are related to funding of education and the War on Women. I know that those two issues are absolutely sinking Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett’s reelection prospects, so it may be that it can work in other races, too.

Roger Simon writes for Tiger Beat on the Potomac these days, and the headline writers make him look like a fool. You would think that an article entitled Why Hillary Hates Iowa would have at least one fact in it that verifies that she has some kind of antipathy for the Hawkeye State. But, sadly, all this article has is the assertion, by Simon, that “until quite recently [she] has loathed the place.”

Admittedly, her third place finish in the 2008 Iowa caucuses would justify her not having the fondest feelings about the state, but if you are going to say that a potential candidate “loathes” a state, you ought to at least have some kind of second-hand anonymous source to justify it, right?

But Politico doesn’t require even that. The article is really little more than a snarky bit of coverage of the Clintons’ appearance this weekend at Senator Tom Harkin’s 37th (and last) Steak Fry. It doesn’t in any way document any loathing of Iowa, any unhappiness to be there, or any significant news whatsoever. Likewise, Mr. Simon argues without any substantiating documentation whatsoever that Vice-President Biden is making Hillary Clinton “crazy” by visiting Des Moines this week.

Apparently, this totally mailed-in article cuts the mustard at Politico, and the click-baiting headline bothers no one.

What a joke.

Oops. I inadvertently stuck my toe inside the Mighty Right-Wing Wurlitzer bubble. It’s a weird rabbit hole designed for gullible people.

IDF Unit 8200 Officers Refuse to Fight Palestinians | Tikun Olam |

Activists who’ve paid attention to Israeli military affairs over the past decade or more know that hundreds of soldiers and inductees have similarly refused military service in the West Bank.  But this group is different.  Unit 8200 is the equivalent of the NSA.  It is one of the most critical weapons in the IDF arsenal to defend the nation’s security.  It participates in myriad ways supporting, and even initiating IDF operations.  It is the biggest intelligence unit in the Israeli army.  This is the first time any such officers have publicly protested.

These refusers are not Edward Snowden.  They are not spilling secrets or naming names.  But their motivation for protesting against Israeli intelligence operations is almost the same as Snowden’s.  They claim that there is virtually no oversight or restraint against spying on Palestinians.  That there is no distinction made between innocent and guilty Palestinians.  That their goal as intelligence operatives was to subvert Palestinian society from within.  Here is a translation of the letter, which was addressed to the prime minister, IDF chief of staff, and Aman (intelligence) chief … read on.

…
The signatories also pointed to another controversial Shin Bet “recruitment” technique, by which they exploit character flaws or vulnerabilities among Palestinians in order to blackmail them to become agents.  Intercepting private phone conversations, text messages, and e mails is a prime tool in this process, making Unit 8200 officers complicit.

Instead of a career in high-tech, these 43 reservists will be shunned and severely punished for refusing IDF service.

“I can’t exaggerate how brave these officers have been.  As those who read this blog regularly know, service in Unit 8200 is a steppingstone into Israeli high tech.  It offers a wide array of professional opportunities that are not available to those who don’t serve there.  Veterans network amongst each other and it’s like a Good Old Boys’ club, only more so.  The signers will be blackballed.  They will lose privileges, friendships, promotions.  This is a big step for them.”

○ IDF Unit 8200 Cyberwar Veterans Developed NSA Snooping Technology
○ False flag incident Ghouta gas attack based on Unit 8200 “intelligence”
○ Stuxnet US-Israel Cooperation Cyber Warfare on Iran

The Israeli Empire Strikes Back

Continued below the fold …

IDF spokesperson: Discipline of Unit 8200 refuseniks will be sharp and clear
By Haaretz |  Sep. 14, 2014 | 11:58 AM  |

IDF Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Motti Almoz wrote on his Facebook page that the reservists’ refusal to serve was viewed by the army with utmost severity and that “the disciplinary treatment would be sharp and clear.”

The soldiers and commanders signatory to the letter have used the army to express a political stance, Almoz said, adding: “There is no place for refusal in the IDF. There are arguments and there are political stances. Celebration of democracy…. What happened here, in my eyes? Exploitation of military service to express a political stance.”

…
The signatories claimed that while surveillance of Israeli citizens was strictly limited, “the Palestinians are not afforded this protection.”

They said the information that is collected in the military’s computers “harms innocent people. It is used for political persecution and to create divisions within Palestinian society by recruiting collaborators and driving parts of Palestinian society against itself.”

According to the reservists, “In many cases, intelligence prevents defendants from receiving a fair trial in military courts, as the evidence against them is not revealed. Intelligence allows for the continued control over millions of people through thorough and intrusive supervision and invasion of most areas of life. This does not allow for people to lead normal lives, and fuels more violence further distancing us from the end of the conflict.

The soldiers noted that millions of Palestinians have been living under Israeli military rule for more than 47 years.

○ Wall-to-Wall Anger in Israel at IDF Intel Unit Refusal Letter, Dozens Volunteer to Replace Them The Algemeiner
○ Journalist Yaron Avraham: Refusers Should Remove 8200 From their Resume Times of Israel

It should be obvious by now that John McCain wants to attack everyone, everywhere. In September 2013, Mother Jones made a map of the world showing that McCain has advocated attacking roughly half the Eastern Hemisphere’s land mass. Now he wants to attack basically everyone in Syria. Even the hawkish Jeffrey Goldberg thinks this is a bit much:

McCain’s second criticism: Obama is not attacking the root cause of the Syrian war, which is the behavior of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and its supporters in Iran. He said the U.S. should be bombing government targets at the same time it is bombing Assad’s Islamic State enemies. I, too, am dispositionally interventionist, but it seemed to me that McCain was outlining not only a formula for chaos, but also a program that could not possibly be sold to the American people.

I asked him this question: “Wouldn’t the generals say to you, ‘You want me to fight ISIS, and you want me to fight the guys who are fighting ISIS, at the same time? Why would we bomb guys who are bombing ISIS? That would turn this into a crazy standoff.’ ”

“Our ultimate job is not only to defeat ISIS but to give the Syrian people the opportunity to prevail as well,” McCain answered. “Remember, there are 192,000 dead Syrians thanks to Assad. If we do this right, if we do the right kind of training and equipping of the Free Syrian Army, plus air strikes, plus taking out Bashar Assad’s air assets, we could reverse the battlefield equation.”

The U.S. could conceivably wage war on two fronts against two vicious parties that are also warring against each other, on a battlefield in which another set of America’s enemies — Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps — are also fighting. But this is a much too complicated mission for any post-Iraq War American president to prudently tackle, even a president not quite so reluctant as Obama.

For those Americans who are moving toward McCain and away from Paul on crucial questions concerning the U.S.’s role in the world, I can’t imagine that they would be able to stomach such a war, either.

If you think John McCain actually understands the complexity of trying to hold together an alliance to fight ISIS that includes Sunni governments in Amman, Riyadh, Cairo, and Ankara and Shiite governments in Baghdad and Teheran, I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. The war in Syria is sectarian in nature, as are most of the problems within Iraq.

If you are trying to get Baghdad to govern inclusively, you can’t take the side of the Sunnis in Syria. If you can get consensus from the Sunni powers to eliminate the most radical and effective army on their side of the fight, then you’ve accomplished something. But, if you take it too far, everything will blow up in your face.

I wake up every day thanking fate that John McCain never got to order our armed forces around.

I never owned an iPod. I do not like to wear head phones. I think it’s less the discomfort of shoving something in my ears than it is a dislike of not being about to hear anything but the music. I want to have situational awareness, and dedicating my hearing 100% to music feels, to me, not all that different from wearing a blindfold. Even when blasting my stereo I can still hear the fire alarm.

So, i won’t miss the iPod, but it is significant that it only lasted thirteen years. And it totally transformed the music industry. No one buys CD’s anymore.

On the other hand, in my experience, an iTunes gift card is considered by teenagers to be one of the most impolite of gifts. Our sons have often asked for cash as compensation for an otherwise worthless gift. In fact, the only time I have ever purchased anything on iTunes was because I had been forced to fork over twenty bucks to compensate a disappointed stepson for getting a gift card for something he routinely steals via music pirating sites.

For a while, I tried to discourage this behavior because I considered the theft to be immoral, but it soon became clear to me that I was fighting a culture so normative and ubiquitous that I might as well have been fitting them for chastity belts.

It used to be that it was bad form to break up with someone over the phone. Then it evolved to be bad form to break up with someone with post-it note. Now, it’s morphed again. Today, it’s bad form to break up with someone on Facebook.

The very public break-up between Rep. Mark Sanford and his fiancée came as a surprise to his fiancée, who told the New York Times on Saturday that she learned about it from the media.

Maria Belen Chapur told the Times that she had spent time with Sanford in Paris last week. Chapur had such a wonderful time during their time in France that she felt it was like a “honeymoon,” she said.

But then she learned Saturday that Sanford had written a 2,400-plus word post on Facebook announcing his intention to break up with her.

“I learned it from the press today,” she told the Times.

I guess I am going with a South Carolina theme today, but one does wonder how awful a Republican would have to behave to get kicked out of office in the Palmetto State.

So, no more hiking the Appalachian Trail?

Senator Lindsey Graham is a grown man who still wets his bed every night when he goes to sleep.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) blasted President Barack Obama’s plan to defeat ISIS during an appearance on Fox News Sunday, calling the commander-in-chief “disingenuous and delusional” and warning that Americans will be “killed here at home” unless he sends ground troops into Iraq and Syria to defeat the terrorist threat.

Comparing the estimated 30,000 ISIS fighters to the Nazis, Graham warned that “this idea we’ll never had any boots to defeat them in Syria is fantasy.” He argued that given the growth of the “radical Islamic army” and its control of territory in northern Iraq and Syria, “it’s going to take an army to beat a army.” “This is ISIL versus mankind,” he said, using another acronym for the group.

“To destroy ISIL, you have to kill or capture their leaders, take back their territory, cut off the finances and destroy the capability to regenerate. This is a war we’re fighting not a counter terrorism operation,” Graham continued. “This president needs to rise to the occasion before we all get killed back here at home.”

There really in no excuse for a 59 year old man to not be housebroken. The idea that we are all going to get killed if the president doesn’t immediately send ground troops to Iraq and Syria is the intellectual equivalent of having night terrors about monsters in your closet and under your bed.

It is unbecoming for a grown man to publicly display this degree of cowardice. I don’t normally associate myself with the prevailing political attitudes of South Carolinians, but if they vote Senator Graham out of office for being an embarrassment who reflects poorly on the bravery of their state, I will certainly understand.