Modus Operandi of Sniper Killings to Color Revolutions Red

Started as a comment but expanded into a diary.

‘Domestic Security Alliance Council’ Killed OWS

Shiit … on Obama’s Watch!

FBI Documents Reveal Secret Nationwide Occupy Monitoring

FBI Report Mentions Plot To Kill Occupy Protesters
By DS Wright | FDL | Dec. 31, 2012 |

    “An identified [redacted] of October planned to engage in sniper attacks against protestors in Houston, Texas, if deemed necessary. An identified [redacted] had received intelligence that indicated the protesters in New York and Seattle planned similar protests in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin, Texas. [Redacted] planned to gather intelligence against the leaders of the protest groups and obtain photographs then formulate a plan to kill the leadership via suppressed sniper rifles.

    (Note: protests continued throughout the weekend with approximately 6000 persons in NYC. ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protests have spread to about half of all states in the US, over a dozen European and Asian cities, including protests in Cleveland 10/6-8/11 at Willard Park which was initially attended by hundreds of protesters).” (Page 61)

It remains unclear as to who or what this report is referring to, yet the FBI decided to disclose it under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to the Partnership For Civil Justice Fund – the document is on page 61.

All that is known is that this individual/group was identified by the FBI as having a plan to kill Occupy Protesters. Who was involved? How far did this plot go? Will there be charges?

Was the Government Prepared to Deploy Snipers If the Occupy Protests Gained Momentum?
Washington Blog | Aug. 19, 2014  |  

When the Houston Police department was asked about its knowledge of the plot, public affairs officer Keith Smith said it “hadn’t heard about it” and directed future questions to the Houston FBI office.

The obvious question to ask in attempting to determine the identities of the planners is this: Who has sniper training? A number of Texas law enforcement organizations received special training from Dallas-based mercenary company Craft International, which has a contract for training services with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The company was founded by a celebrated Army sniper who was killed by a combat veteran he accompanied to a shooting range.

Remington Alessi, an Occupy Houston activist who played a prominent role in the protests and hails from a law enforcement family, agrees with attorney Kennedy that the plot likely did not originate with a right-wing group. “If it had been that, the FBI would have acted on it,” he said. “I believe the sniper attack was one strategy being discussed for dealing with the occupation.”

A new Army report may shed light on the sniper issue. As Paul Joseph Watson reports:

    A document released by the U.S. Army details preparations for “full scale riots” within the United States during which troops may be forced to engage in a “lethal response” to deal with unruly crowds of demonstrators.

If this sounds hard to believe, remember that:

  • According to Department of Defense training manuals, all protest is now considered “low-level terrorism”. And see this, this and this
  • An Army colonel has written a paper advocating military methods for “crushing” a Tea Party type insurgency
  • Questioning government policy or “mainstream ideologies”, or challenging big bank policies can get you labeled a potential terrorist in America today.  Indeed, for at least 40 years, the government has arbitrarily relabeled dissent as “terrorism” so it could go after dissenters
  • The U.S. government has long used anti-terror laws to crush dissent and protect the powers-that-be
  • Highly-militarized, federally-coordinated police used such brutal violence to break up the Occupy protests (see this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this) that the Egyptian military used the crack down on Occupy as justification for the murder of protesters in Tahir Square, Egypt.
  • Personally a reminder of sniper killings not only on Tahrir Square, but also in Homs, Syria and the Maidan Revolt in Kiev. Color these revolutions RED.

Explaining the EU to outsiders

Promoted by Steven D

Having written a piece on American Exceptionalism I thought it might be appropriate to turn my attention to the EU, and to try to define what makes it a unique constellation of notionally independent states today. There are many misconceptions about what the EU is and is not, so perhaps some clarification from a citizen of a relatively enthusiastic member state (Ireland) may be helpful in understanding the phenomenon.

The first thing to be said about the EU is that it is in a state of continuous evolution, and with different member states pushing that process along at somewhat different speeds and in sometimes quite different directions. That it hasn’t all fallen apart (yet) may be regarded as quite an achievement in itself, especially given the the European propensity for fractious nationalism leading to regional and world wars.

But what, positively does the EU stand for?

Cont. below the fold.

Ideas of European Union have been around for a long time but generally involved the creation of one empire or another by military force and rule by one dynasty or another. Even after the horrors of the First World War, the Treaty of Versailles essentially involved the subjugation of the defeated powers by the victors. When that led to the economic crash of the 1930’s followed by the Second World World war, there was a determination that this should never be repeated.

History of the European Union – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As distinct from ideas of federation, confederation or customs union the main development in Europe depends on a supranational foundation to make war unthinkable and materially impossible and reinforce democracy [as] enunciated by Robert Schuman and other leaders in the Europe Declaration. The principle was at the heart of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in the Treaty of Paris (1951), following the “Schuman Declaration” and the later the Treaties of Rome establishing the European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC). Both the ECSC and EEC were later incorporated into the European Union while the EAEC maintains a distinct legal identity despite sharing members and institutions.

The main realization was that new technologies and, in particular, nuclear weapons erased the traditional distinctions between combatants and civilians and would lead to the wholesale destruction of societies unless extremist nationalist tendencies could be reined in within a supranational entity and authority.  The second main insight was that economic integration would lead to increased interdependency between nations and thus make war increasingly unthinkable. These developments also had the support of a USA concerned at the rise of a Soviet superpower and the danger that it could over-run a weakened and divided Europe.

Judged by these original aims and objectives, the European Union has been a spectacular success, having expanded gradually from 6 to 28 member states, having withstood the dangers of Soviet expansion (with US led NATO support), having maintained almost 70 years of peace between those member states, and having achieved a generally increasing level of economic integration and prosperity over those years, the current Euro area crisis notwithstanding.

However eaten bread is soon forgotten, and the achievements of a previous generation tend to be taken for granted. The recent European Parliament elections last May showed increasing disillusion with the EU elite and with nationalist parties of various ilks generally making gains at the expense of establishment parties. There were perhaps two main drivers for this:

  1. The ongoing tensions between UK led calls for greater neo-liberal market “reforms” (also supported by some eastern European members) clashing with the more political integrationist and social democratic “social market” orientated policies and institutions of the EU founders and founding member states. Many would argue that the UK joined the EU, and supported the rapid accession of eastern European members, to prevent the too rapid and too deep integration of the original “European core” member states into effectively a European superstate – an aspiration the UK has never shared – continuing to see the EU as more of a “Common Market” than as a “Political Union” even though the latter aspiration is written into the more recent European Treaties.
  2. The asymmetric impact of the  economic crisis arising from the financial crash of 2008, which effected European peripheral states much more dramatically than the European core. Central to this asymmetry was the adoption of the Euro as a common currency by 18 EU member states which meant they no longer had the option of devaluing their currencies as a means of mitigating the deflationary effects of the recession on their domestic economies.

The Euro had been adopted as an essentially political project – as part of the process of ever increasing economic integration – without there being prior agreement to the other factors which are generally required for a stable currency regime.  These include:

i) Fiscal transfers between richer to poorer areas of the Eurozone: In the USA for example, if (say) Georgia experiences a severe recession, this tends to be mitigated by greater Federal transfers in the form of unemployment insurance, health care subsidies, and federally funded infrastructural development, not to say direct transfers to State level Governments.  Except for policies such as the Common Agricultural Policy (which stabilizes and controls market prices and farmer income) the total EU budget is relatively tiny (c. 1% of EU GDP) compared to the US Federal Budget (c. 40% of GDP) – so much for the vast EU bureaucracy and profligate spending myths of the Eurosceptics! The EU simply doesn’t have the resources to help (say)Greece when its economy implodes, and, as part of the Eurozone, Greece can no longer devalue its currency as a means of mitigating deflation and restoring competitiveness.

ii) A central bank which performs the functions of Lender of Last Resort, regulator of Eurozone wide banking institutions, resolver of bankrupt financial institutions and setter of interest rates in line with unemployment as well as inflation criteria.  

Some of these deficiencies are in the process of being addressed, but it is in many ways a case of too little, too late.  A great deal of damage has already been done.

Thus Ireland experienced a housing bubble and bust partly because the European Central Bank (ECB) kept interest rates at much too low a level for the Irish economy (then booming and at full employment) because the German economy was in recession because of the costs of German re-unification. When that bubble went bust, the Irish citizenry were held to be accountable for those losses, even though they were incurred by private banks operating within an EU common financial services area and often involved transactions in other EU member states. Whilst the Irish Financial Regulator was clearly also at fault, there is a fundamental problem with – on the one hand promulgating a single European market in financial services – and on the other expecting a national regulator to be able to regulate transactions in other national member states.

The result was that the Irish people bailed out banks resident on their territory to the tune of 41% of GDP.  To put that in perspective, the US bank bail-out amounted to about 5% of GDP, most of which has been repaid, whilst it is doubtful the Irish bank bail-out will ever be repaid. As a result of these bail-outs and the resultant recession, the Irish debt to GDP ratio rose from a very modest 25% of GDP in 2008 to 125% of GDP in 2014. A rather severe price to pay for the failings of a bank regulation system, and understandably, it has led to some disillusion with the EU and Eurozone project as well as with the Irish Government which was unceremoniously cast out of office with record losses at the ensuing election.

And herein, perhaps, lies part of the problem with the EU as it is currently constituted.  The ECB continues to fail abjectly in achieving the one target it sets itself – maintaining inflation at or just below 2% – with the result that the Irish debt mountain is not deflating as fast as it would were inflation rates of around 2% being achieved.  But there is no way the ECB Board can be fired, even if it fails to achieve its one and only major target.

And it gets worst than that: the ECB, unlike the FED, doesn’t even set itself an unemployment target, and so it takes no responsibility for the ruinous unemployment rates in southern Europe, in particular, and sets rates and policies largely in line with what its main constituent member – the Bundesbank – wants from a German point of view. Not surprisingly, net creditor countries, like Germany, want tighter monetary policies, even if this increases the debt interest load and unemployment rate in net debtor countries. And so the regional economic inequalities in the Eurozone are exacerbated, not mitigated by central policies as in the US fiscal and monetary system.

The central problems here are the twin German obsessions with having export surpluses (forgetting that these can only be achieved if other countries run deficits) and inflation phobia which means that the ECB has not followed the Quantitative Easing policies of the FED, even though, as Krugman never tires of pointing out, these are not inflationary when interest rates are at the zero bound. As a result, the Eurozone as a whole remains mired in recession, and even the German economy is suffering because of the lack of demand from peripheral Eurozone states.

So is the Euro threatening the success of the EU as a whole? Many previously enthusiastic supporters  of the European project think that this is precisely the case and now advocate the abandoning of the Euro experiment. In doing so, I think they forget the purpose of the Euro in the first place, and that was precisely to force the gradual ever deeper monetary, economic and fiscal integration of the Eurozone as a whole.  Despite staunch German resistance, the ECB has gradually been expanding its role in Bank supervision and has pushed it’s monetary easing policies to the limits of what current treaties will allow.  The problem is that monetary policy can only go so far in enabling economic growth and stability, and, without greater fiscal transfers and an EU budget big enough to enable them, the Euro will always be a monetary experiment on the brink of failure.

And this brings me the first tension I instanced above, and that is the continuing UK led drive for neo-liberal reforms with the implicit threat that the UK will withdraw if it doesn’t get its way.  The UK only ever joined the EU to obtain favoured access to its markets and to prevent a German French duopoly gaining control of a nascent European superstate.  Not surprisingly, it has indulged in considerable schadenfreude at the continued failure of the Eurozone to lift its members out of stagnation and recession.

But if the only solution to that failure is increased political, economic, and fiscal integration between member states – as provided for to an insufficient extent in existing treaties – then the UK and the Eurozone are on a collision course with respect to the future reforms required: Is it to be the British model of independent member states with their own currencies sharing markets but little else, or the original vision for the EU which was to create an ever deeper political and economic Union with gradually increased powers vested in the European Council, Commission, and Parliament?

If popular discourse is to be believed, the UK is ever on the brink of leaving the EU, although it is my belief that the British elite ambition is to run the EU, not leave it. However – as the Scottish referendum almost showed – the British elite can also miscalculate, and could well lose a referendum on EU membership should it be so foolish as to call it.  In the short term, at least, that might well be a relief both to many Britons and to many Europeans.  Both parties could then get on with pursing their different visions, although I believe the British elite could be sorely disappointed if they think that a departing UK would be granted the same access privileges to EU markets as say Switzerland.  Why would Berlin agree to giving the City privileged access to EU markets on a par with (say) Frankfurt when it is not subject to the same regulatory supervision as Frankfurt and doesn’t contribute to the costs and Governance of the EU as Germany does?

In reality, I don’t believe the UK will ever seek to leave the EU – it risks renewed pressure for secession in Scotland and the implosion of its financial services industry if it were to do so. But this means the battle over the future direction of the EU will run and run to the exasperation of many.

One of the amazing successes of the EU has been the degree to which consensus decision making is still the norm – even as the membership has increased from 6 to 28 states with only a little overhaul of the decision making process – the introduction of “qualified majority voting” instead of the requirement for unanimity for many Council decisions, and with increased powers devolved to the European Parliament.

In this sense the EU Council (made up of Heads of State or Government) is coming to resemble, more and more the US Senate, the Commission’s reach is extending a little more to resemble the US Government, and the EU Parliament is beginning to resemble the powers of the US House of Congress. If only the ECB were to achieve a broader mandate (like the Fed) but with more democratic accountability.

But the EU is still a long way from a United States of Europe and should not be confused as such. It has very little military power which is still mainly vested in member states (most of whom are also members of NATO). It is an outstanding example of what is possible through soft power and by negotiation and comprise – even if, to the frustration of Kissenger et al – this means it is often not possible to lift to phone to one person and get a quick decision on anything. Most decisions still require an exhaustive round of consultations and negotiations involving 28 heads of Government and their ministers, even if Merkel is, more and more, a cautious Primus inter Pares.

But the British have had their victories too.  English has replaced French as the main working language of the commission and neo-liberalism has pushed back the boundaries of traditional social democratic state driven policies of the European core. If the Euro is deemed essential to the future of the EU project, then further fiscal, economic and political integration is unavoidable, even if different states, increasingly integrate in different areas at different speeds.

It will remain a convoluted and messy process, unsuited to the demands of a military superstate like the USA, and perhaps unsuited to respond appropriately to quickly developing regional crises like the Ukraine. Many welcome its lack of military and surveillance capabilities even if it comes at the cost of a lack of influence over world events relative to its economic and political power. As many Americans know only too well, developing a military, industrial and surveillance complex comes with huge costs for political culture and civil liberties.

Despite its many limitations and failures, I believe the EU (and the Euro) project is here to stay, as it has shown a capacity to grow and develop to the benefit of the vast majority of its citizens, most of the time. The EU has contributed enormously to the maintenance of democracy and civil liberties throughout the EU and the gradual development of a secular European identity which makes war almost inconceivable again.

In particular, it has contributed enormously to Ireland’s economic and social development, and to the gradual diffusion of tensions within Northern Ireland and between Ireland and the UK.  Despite the banking fiasco, many Irish citizens hold their own Government even more accountable for the regulatory failures and subsequent Bank guarantee even if the EU was also culpable and subsequently acted almost entirely in the interests of creditor rather than debtor nations. Some hard lessons were learned, but the Irish economy is recovering largely in consequence to our membership of the EU. In an increasingly globalized world, a small country like Ireland would be hostage to global corporations which only a large superstate like the EU has the scale to regulate and control.

In today’s world, the choice is not between state regulation and personal freedom, but between state regulation and corporate control. Ireland’s membership of the EU, whatever its faults, at least means we still have a choice.

I Muse on a Jeb Sighting in Oz Land

Kansas has become the state to which much of the media has turned its attention when it comes to this year’s misdirection-election season. And not only the media. Look, down on the ground, among the cornfield and manure, it’s a Bush!

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is the latest Republican heavy-hitter to come to the aid of Sen. Pat Roberts’ struggling campaign for re-election.

The potential 2016 GOP presidential candidate was in Wichita on Monday for a fundraising event where he told supporters that Roberts would not let them down if re-elected.

Yep, I bolded that potential clause above. We could have a re-run of the first Clinton – Bush war of 1992 if Jeb can wash all the George off his hands. The son Daddy Bush always wanted to succeed him is now knee deep in the sins of his brother. But this is a crazy country. Maybe the voters will forgive him. And he does have all Dad’s connections and Big Bro’s base to draw upon. I don’t think Jeb will do much to save Pat Robert’s bacon (for that he has to hope for a flood of Koch cash), but it sounds like Jeb is doing his best to lay the groundwork for a third Bush Presidency.

Then again, sounds like he has a lot of boot-licking to do before the ‘real conservatives’ are ready to consider his candidacy, if this non-invite is any indication.

Conservatives delivered a major diss to Chris Christie and Jeb Bush, opting not to invite the likely presidential frontrunners to the Values Voter Summit this weekend.

“They were not invited this year ‘cause they just weren’t on the top of the list in terms of what they’re doing right now and whether or not it was relevant to the value voters and who they want to hear from,” said Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council – the organizers of the event.

The only thing bizarre in that story is the description of Christie and Jeb as ‘frontrunners’ for the 2016 GOP nomination. Christie is toast. And no one has been talking up Jeb much, but then presidential campaigns now start the very second the last ball for the Inauguration festivities ends. Maybe it will be Jeb and Mitt duking it out down the stretch. They both know where to find the money needed to seriously contend. As does Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side.

Which is too bad when you think that a bunch of wealthy donors and Super Pacs decide our “choices” for the highest office in the land. Aren’t the protests in Hong Kong right now about that very same principle? Having a real choice, and not a rigged one?

The current demonstrations are the most widespread since the 1997 handover, with protesters calling for a free choice of candidates in Hong Kong’s leadership elections in 2017. China insists that only candidates it has approved will be allowed to stand.

When you think about it, how much difference is there between our elections and the ones in Hong Kong? Not a whole heck of a lot, in my opinion, other than the fact that the ‘deciders’ in China are much more open and transparent about who is rigging the game.

Secret Service – Cultural Failure?

Promoted by Steven D.

Like all the other institutional failures being ascribed to cultures, such as the NY Fed, VA hospitals, etc? Or is the job/mission just too darn tough to expect zero failures?  Does the fact that only two Presidents have been shot in the past hundred plus years indicate that the Secret Service does a fine job or has mostly been lucky?  Lucky that Lynette Fromme waved a gun without firing and Sara Jane Moore fired and missed?  It’s interesting to note that Moore came to the attention of the Secret Service before she shot at President Ford on September 22, 1975:

Moore had been evaluated by the Secret Service earlier in 1975, but agents decided that she posed no danger to the President.  She had been picked up by police on an illegal handgun charge the day before the Ford incident, but was released. The police confiscated her .44 caliber revolver and 113 rounds of ammunition.

(Cont. below the fold …)
Not so different from the recent WH fence jumper as reported by WAPO.

Four days after the incident, a look back shows that Gonzalez had come to the Secret Service’s attention twice earlier this year.

Once detained by VA police when he was found to have an arsenal in his trunk and a map with a line pointed to the WH.  The Secret Service interviewed and cleared him.  In August he was hanging around the WH fence with a hatchet in his waistband.  Fully aware of the earlier incident, the official said, “he did not exhibit any mental-health issues at that point. He had not engaged in any criminal activity.” Gonzalez was let go.

Just your ordinary, everyday armed USian.

With this incident freshly in mind along with the recent Secret Service agents partying in advance of the Presidential detail, WAPO did a bit of reporting this weekend into a 2011 incident: Secret Service Stumbled After Gunman Hit White House Residence in 2011.  As far as it goes, it’s a decent report and definitely worth reading.  The Secret Service does not fare well in it.  But it begs a few questions.

First, why did it take almost three years to put this story together?  Was it embargoed until new security measures, such as ShotSpotter, were in place and functioning?  Or held back not to give a potential copycat any ideas?

Second, how does it compare to the original report, Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez arrested after shots fired near White House?  The differences are striking beginning with shots fired near White House and not that shots hit the White House.  Then there were the assurances.  Just an unexplained nut:

One official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing, said Ortega-Hernandez’s alleged motive may have been anger. “He hates the president, he hates Washington, he hates society,” the official said.

A lone wolf (isn’t it always in the good ole USA? Except for the assassination of Lincoln, of course.):

Ortega-Hernandez has a record of arrests for relatively minor offenses in Texas, Utah and Idaho, authorities said, but he has not been linked to any radical organizations.

A revealing, and most troubling aspect to me, of the first report was:

In trying to determine why he traveled to the nation’s capital from the western part of the country, investigators also found no connection between him and the Occupy D.C. protest, according to three law enforcement officials familiar with the case.

How much time and effort was the Secret Service devoting to a perceived threat from Occupy D.C?  Hatchetman with a sawed-off shotgun, two sniper rifles, an assault rifle, a bolt-action rifle, one intact shotgun and five handguns, no threat.  Occupy D.C, very scary.

The latest report reveals another perceived threat:

Amid conflicting radio chatter, including a Secret Service dispatcher calling into 911 with contradictory descriptions of vehicles and suspects, police began looking for the wrong people: two black men supposedly fleeing down Rock Creek Parkway.

Very scary black men.  Not that there’s ever been a black assassin of a POTUS (who lives a majority African-American city), but I guess, you never know.

Should we make anything of the names of the two perps?  Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez and Omar Jose Gonzalez?  Not exactly what I would expect to see as would-be assassins of the first black POTUS.  Possibly not even what the Secret Service is seeing in the large volume of threats being made against Obama.  Hope it’s just on odd coincidence.  

O’Malley in New Hampshire

Promoted by Steven D. Thanks fladem for your first-hand account.

I think many here, and most who think of themselves left of the Democratic Party center are looking for a candidate other than Hilary Clinton.  Front runners can lose, and there is nothing inevitable in politics. To date I know of four candidates that have floated their names (other than Biden – and I don’t think he is running.):

Brian Schweitzer – I saw him speak to the New Hampshire Delegation at the 2012 Convention.  It was a low key speech that talked about the Patriot Act.  Over the last year the have been disturbing rumors about him, and there is no indication he is still planning to run.

Jim Webb – I posted about this earlier this week.  There are good things, but there are bad as well (see his statements on affirmative action).  

Bernie Sanders – I was a UVM Student when he became mayor. He has endorsed every Democrat since Mondale for President: mentioning him in the same breath as Nader is to misjudge Sanders.  I would vote for him, but I doubt he would be much more than a protest candidate. Make no mistake, even a protest candidate would be valuable in building a long term progressive organization.

Martin O’Malley.

More about O’Malley on the flip
This is O’Malley at a small event before his speech to the larger group of Portsmouth Democrats.  To his left is Governor Hassan and a NH State Senator.  To his right is Ray Buckley, chair of the NH Democratic Party.

 photo 2014-09-26182313_zpsa625c5b3.jpg

On paper there is much to like.  He is younger, there is a progressive record in both Baltimore and Maryland he can cite.  Moreover governors are freer to frame their own candidacy than Senators are.

This is the third time I have seen O’Malley: the first was in Charlotte in 2012, and he was unremarkable.  The second was at Jefferson & Jackson Dinner in Manchester. He essentially game the same speech in Portsmouth that he gave in Manchester.  It talked about how crime ridden Baltimore was when he became mayor. He then talked about a program called “believe”.  It began with a 4 minutes commercial than ran every night. The focus was on connecting people to social services.  It was interesting, and my brief description does not do it justice. Thematically it talked about the values of collaboration and community.  The speech was not ideological, it was very much an introduction to New Hampshire.  Certainly at an event like the one in Portsmouth 38 days before the election you aren’t going to draw contrasts with the Clintons.  

O’Malley is clearly running.  His PAC has paid staff in Iowa and New Hampshire.  There is clear interest from Hart alumni – I am one.  And the room in Portsmouth had many former Hart alumni. When I spoke to him we talked about another Hart alumni.  He knows the primary process. that national polling is irrelevant at this point, and that front runners can lose.

The problem is Hilary Clinton is not a typical front runner.  There is very little in Iowa and New Hampshire polling to suggest she is vulnerable. The picture I took was of a room of about 30 people.  That is New Hampshire politics until late next year.  In that light several people told me about a house party for Hilary with about 80 people.  She made sure she talked to everyone there – sought out the shier people in the crowd.  She then answered questions, and when the question was asked she answered in detail, and her answer began with the person’s name who had asked the question.  No, there were no name tags.

She blew the room away.  This is the reality. In New Hampshire remembering people’s name matters.  It shouldn’t, it should be about ideas.  It CAN be about ideas, but it will never be ONLY about ideas in Presidential Primary.

Which left a group of old Hart people wondering what O’Malley’s strategy could be.  To turn the line from Arthur Miller around, Hillary is not just liked, she is WELL liked in the Party. But is worth remembering this was an establishment gathering.  The people who might vote against Hilary weren’t in the room he was in on Friday night.  His target, like Hart’s in 1982, has to be the activists who aren’t part of the establishment.  

Hart understood that instinctively. Does O’Malley? I am not sure.  It’s not a question I would expect to be answered at an event like the one on Friday anyway.  O’Malley is a VERY different candidate than Hart.  For one O’Malley is twice the speaker Hart ever was.  Hart excelled in small rooms where he could talk about his issues. The candidates who have succeeded in New Hampshire as insurgents have tended to be wonkish types who could talk issues in detail (Hart, Tsongas come to mind).  I have no idea if O’Malley is good at that or not.

But the last thing that was said was probably the truest. 2015 isn’t about beating Hilary, it’s about beating the other potential alternatives.  

The War in SW Asia Gets Bigger

The Guardian is reporting today that Turkey join the fight against the Islamic State and may even send ground troops into Syria, ostensibly to eliminate the threat posed by this radical organization. The real reason, however, for their involvement in this armed conflict is likely far different than the stated reason they are joining President Obama’s much heralded coalition.

After months of hanging back amid angry accusations of collusion, Turkey is gearing up for a bigger role in the fight against Islamic State (Isis) that could include sending Turkish ground troops across the border into Syria and Iraq.

But counter-terrorism aside, Turkey’s leaders have another, less altruistic motive for getting involved: preventing independent-minded Syrian and Iraqi Kurds, who have links to Turkish Kurd separatists, from further strengthening and exploiting their position as key western allies.

Read the whole article, it is well worth your time.

We have no allies in the Middle East. What we have are a group of governments with a variety of goals and purposes who, for now, are more than happy to put a US military face on a multifaceted conflict that involves differing ethnic groups and religious factions, none of whom are particularly fond of one another. We can rain down as many cruise missiles, drones and bombs as we like, but the fact of the matter is that expanding the number of parties at war in the region will inevitably lead to worse consequences for the people there, and for the American people. Only the war profiteers have anything to gain.

Obama Got It Wrong On Strength Islamic State

Obama: U.S. underestimated rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria
By Steve Kroft | CBS 60 Minutes | Sept. 28, 2014 |

President Obama acknowledged that the U.S. underestimated the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS, also called ISIL) and overestimated the ability of the Iraqi military to fend off the militant group in an interview that [aired] Sunday on 60 Minutes.

The president was asked about comments from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper [caught lying to Congress], who has said the U.S. not only underestimated ISIS, it also overestimated the ability and will of the Iraqi military to fight the extremist group.

“That’s true,” Mr. Obama said. “That’s absolutely true.”

Jim Clappper has acknowledged that I think they [CIA or White House and NSC? – Oui] underestimated what had been taking place in Syria,” he said, blaming the instability of the Syrian civil war for giving extremists space to thrive.

The comments were among the president’s most candid to date about the rapid rise of the terrorist group that has ransacked much of Syria and Iraq in recent months.

“Essentially what happened with ISIL was that you had al Qaeda in Iraq, which was a vicious group, but our Marines were able to quash with the help of Sunni tribes (1),” he explained. “They went back underground, but over the past couple of years, during the chaos of the Syrian civil war (2), where essentially you had huge swaths of the country that are completely ungoverned, they were able to reconstitute themselves and take advantage of that chaos.”

The group was able to “attract foreign fighters who believed in their jihadist nonsense and traveled everywhere from Europe to the United States to Australia to other parts of the Muslim world, converging on Syria,” the president said. “And so this became ground zero for jihadists around the world.”

He said their recruitment has been aided by a “very savvy” social media campaign (3). He also blamed remnants of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s military, which were expunged from the Iraqi military after Hussein’s fall, for lending some “traditional military capacity” to the terrorist group.
Footage courtesy of 60 Minutes  

(1) Awakening Councils – see my recent diary Iraqi Tribal Leaders Pledge March to Baghdad or Not?

(2) During the chaos of the Syrian War … meaning the White House underestimated the strength of the Bashar al-Assad regime and the bad actors that would join the sectarian war. Of course we allowed Libyan jihadists to travel to Syria via Turkey and we even supported the shipment of tons of weapons to Northern Syria with funding ny the Gulf States. Assad was supposed to fall within weeks as this had been U.S. policy under Clinton and Bush. By removing Assad, the US would be helpful to our allies Israel and Saudi Arabia. Regime change is in the air, so why not a little push over the brink, we can always blame the Russians and Iranians for our failure.

(3) “very savvy” social media campaign … Yes, I [Obama] was advised that by eliminating some US citizens in Yemen, the bad actor who enticed Muslims around the world to join the jihad against the West, the propaganda would end. See also Nidal Hassan and the monthly Inspire Magazine published ny AQIP.

NYT Interview On Foreign Policy: Hogwash Mr. President! by Oui on August 9, 2014

President Obama Talks to Thomas L. Friedman About Iraq, Putin and Israel …

“The reason,” the president added, “that we did not just start taking a bunch of airstrikes all across Iraq as soon as ISIL came in was because that would have taken the pressure off of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.” That only would have encouraged, he said, Maliki and other Shiites to think: “‘We don’t actually have to make compromises. We don’t have to make any decisions. We don’t have to go through the difficult process of figuring out what we’ve done wrong in the past. All we have to do is let the Americans bail us out again. And we can go about business as usual.'”

U.S. Intelligemce failure on strength ISIL and the weakness Iraq Army

Steve King: Leader Of The Asshole Caucus

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/the-party-of-steve-king

One of the tropes you see a lot in political reporting is that “So-and-So isn’t stupid…” and then goes on to explain why this person does what are apparently stupid things.  A variation of this is the Newt Gingrich Effect, whereby a person gets a reputation as being intelligent, despite all evidence to the contrary.

The profile of Steve King quotes people who note that he’s “not stupid” and by that they mean that the outrageous things he says are not impulsive, off the cuff statements, but rather a conscious political calculation to change the debate.

And change the debate he has.

But this “Steve King is smart” idea is confusing successful with smart.  The central fact of American politics right now is the narrowing of the GOP base.  Both generationally and racially, the GOP is losing its future, and as the country becomes less pale, the ensuing panic among whites – especially whites in relatively racially homogeneous areas (and the South which is a weird mix of segregation and coexistence) – has made people like Steve King popular.

The article notes that King was a college drop-out and entered construction, where he was also successful.  The idea of college has been the cultivation of the mind beyond the vocational.  The term “liberal arts” refers to the freedom of thought that should be engaged at the collegiate level.  (This is the theory, keg stands and frat basements notwithstanding.)

But it is in that lack of perspective, nuance and intellectual empathy that we see King’s essentially blinkered and, yes, stupid side.

King routinely makes up his own numbers – either because he can’t understand how to read them or because he doesn’t care.  His position resonates well within the GOP base, but it has a negative effect on the GOP as a whole.  It makes Steve King important in a party that is going to struggle to win a national election absent a scandal.

King has succeeded in defining the immigration debate in his terms, but I think the Democrats are having some success in making King the face of GOP immigration policy.  (see “self-deport”)

Steve King has been successful in promoting Steve King, but it’s tough to see that as “smart”.

The Trees are Turning

Sorry I don’t have any pictures to put up (I am photography challenged), but our trees have started to turn here in western NY. The reds always appear first, and some few oranges, too. Its a very lovely time of year. Having lived out in the arid West for so long, all the vegetation was quite a shock to me when my wife and I moved back east sixteen years ago, but what was most striking were all the trees, which grow in such abundance here, so many that the farmers consider saplings weeds. Such things remind me that all is not wrong with our world, and that we, individually and as a species, are only passing through, part of a long parade of life on earth.

It also helps me stay calm in the face of so much bile and anger in our society, and so much injustice. Outrage dominates America these days, though what one is outraged about very much depends on where you stand on the political spectrum. I believe that what underlies that outrage, however, is the knowledge among most people that things have gone terribly wrong. Most of us have lost the idea that our live and the lives of those we love, will continue to improve.

I see it in my son and daughter’s generation, the oft called Millennials, where jobs are scarce, most are part-time, and higher education requires taking on massive amounts of debt. I see it in the faces of older generations as well, the stress of working long hours for less pay, and often needing two jobs to cover their bills. Worse, I see the haunted looks of those who are unemployed or unemployable, many of them homeless, many suffering mental health disorders, reduced to begging.

At times, the feeling of helplessness dominates. When I watch our political leaders act as if they are playing some cruel playground game, rather than governing and doing the business of addressing our many problems, the sole reason we elected them to office, it frustrates and discourages me. The refusal to act, or when they do act, to act for the benefit of their corporate campaign donors, is sickening. The plague of Ebola is real, and yet it is symbolic of the times in which we live: governments ignoring the problem if it is once recognized doing too little and doing it too late.

But when I look at the faces of so many of our nation’s young people, I also see resilience and strength, courage and hope. That is one of the reasons I still blog despite everything. I do not have the physical strength or the good health to be an activist anymore, but I can still write, still communicate with so many more people than I ever dreamed would be possible when I was young. And that is a miracle.

If you are discouraged today by all the bad news, the wars, the droughts, the changing climate, the greed and power of our largest corporations and wealthiest individuals, remember that never before in history have so many had the power to make contact with others, to organize and act against the powers that be.

Human civilizations have always been troubled by many of the same problems we labor under today. Injustice is a perpetual consequence of those who place their interests before anyone else. Human beings have always fought for freedom, equality, social and economic justice, for a better world for their children, and hope has always been in short supply.

So, if you can, take a moment and look around you today. The physical world is vast and wondrous and fills me with awe at its complexity and beauty. Look as well into the faces of your family and friends, and at the young people you know or who cross your path this day.

See what I see and feel what I feel, for when I look at the physical world it gives me a moment of peace and the knowledge that such beauty is worth preserving. And when I look at the faces of those I care for and love, or even strangers I meet, I am filled with the desire to keep working for that better world, as hopeless and futile a task as it so often appears. For the world, the present moment and our future are worth fighting for, and it is essential we we keep faith with our ancestors who also struggled to make a better world for us.

Now I am off for some coffee. May your day go well, and you receive the strength to endure whatever burdens you bear.

Shantih,

Steven D