Month: February 2015

Quotes like this don’t come along every day:

“I prefer to be in the arena voting than trying to placate a small group of phony conservative members who have no credible policy proposals and no political strategy to stop Obama’s lawlessness,” said Rep. Devin Nunes, a close ally of the speaker. “While conservative leaders are trying to move the ball up the field, these other members sit in exotic places like basements of Mexican restaurants and upper levels of House office buildings, seemingly unaware that they can’t advance conservatism by playing fantasy football with their voting cards.”

I kind of love that quote. At first glance, it has the flavor of sanity about it until you realize that he’s arguing about who are the real conservatives and declaring that the president is lawless.

Because you can be rock-ribbed or moderate, frothing mad or seemingly reasonable, but the two things you are not permitted to contradict are the Tea Party delusions about the president’s perfidy and the supremacy of conservatism.

There will be no coup against Boehner. Not a successful one, anyway. But Boehner will continue to let the rock-ribbed Tea Party conservatives run the show and steer him into shoal after shoal. So, really, what difference does it make whether Boehner is speaker or not?

Whenever he tries to do anything even modestly sane, he fails.

I have to go do more family-related chores, so why don’t you tell me the stupidest thing that’s happened at CPAC? I know the competition is stiff.

On the simplistic left-right, political spectrum, every good USian knows that communism is on the far left.  Anti-capitalism.  The Soviet Union and Russia today equals communism regardless of how little or poorly implemented such an economic policy prevails there.  They are the enemy.  And Putin is always guilty.

Putin’s Foe Boris Nemtsov Gunned Down Outside Kremlin, Days After Family Predicted His Murder

Boris Nemtsov, a charismatic Russian opposition leader and sharp critic of President Vladimir Putin, was gunned down Saturday near the Kremlin, just a day before a planned protest against the government.
The death of Nemtsov, a 55-year-old former deputy prime minister, ignited a fury among opposition figures who called the brutal killing an assassination. Putin quickly offered his condolences and called the murder a provocation.
Nemtsov himself had said in recent days that his family believed he would be murdered for his anti-Putin activism. Britain has said it will follow closely investigations in to the killing.
…
“He did so without fear, and never gave in to intimidation. He was greatly admired in Britain, not least by his friend Lady Thatcher, who visited him in Russia and who would have been appalled by today’s news.

Mark Ferguson tweet

Boris Nemtsov is dead. Another opponent of Putin gunned down or poisoned or imprisoned. No-one can claim these are coincidences.

The quick denunciation of Putin in the west whenever a Russian of minor or modest public profile who opposed the Russian government is murdered is interesting because high level, western leaders are never suspected when one of their opponents is bumped off.  Not that assassinations and murders of politicians, judges, and journalists are unheard of in the west.  (Ten US assassinations in the past eighteen years.)   And no, the CT folks that finger LBJ in the assassination of JFK is not analogous to accusing Putin of the murder of Nemtsov in Russia.

We have to go somewhat far back in time to consider something that could have been similar.  Not for how it would have played in the US, but in the USSR.  Did Moscow newspaper headlines scream in 1935:

Roosevelt rival assassinated!

With opinions from the press and denizens of the Kremlin not too subtly suggesting that FDR was the murderer?  After all, politically Huey Long was further to the left than FDR and many viewed FDR as having dictatorial aspirations.

Long often attempted to upstage FDR and the congressional leadership by mounting populist appeals of his own, most notably his “Share Our Wealth” program.
…
In the critical 100 days in spring 1933 Long was generally a strong supporter of the New Deal, but differed with the president on patronage. Roosevelt wanted control of the patronage and the two men broke in late 1933.  Aware that Roosevelt had no intention to radically redistribute the country’s wealth, Long became one of the few national politicians to oppose Roosevelt’s New Deal policies from the left.
…
Long was shot [9/8/35] a month after announcing that he would run for president. …

Americans would have rightly scoffed at suggestions from the USSR that FDR had Long assassinated.

The Vineyard of the Saker provides an antidote to the anti-Putin western hysteria with regard to this murder, but likely errs as well.

There is no doubt in my mind at all that either this is a fantastically unlikely but always possible case of really bad luck for Putin and Nemtsov was shot by some nutcase or mugged, or this was a absolutely prototypical western false flag: you take a spent politician who has no credibility left with anyone with an IQ over 70, and you turn him into an instant “martyr for freedom, democracy, human right and civilization”.

“Nutcases” are too frequently responsible for assassinations of political figures to declare that it would be “fanstastically unlikely” in the case of Nemtsov.  What’s more typical is that assassinations are perpetrated by powerless or not powerful people that have a personal grudge against the target or an intra-group conflict.  Long’s assassin was the son-in-law of a Long LA political rival.  Ousted American Nazi Party member murdered George Rockwell.  Derwin Brown, sheriff-elect, was a contract killing by his defeated opponent.  General rule, losers murder.  

Don’t necessarily disagree with Saker that the assassination of a “spent politician” can turn him/her into an instant martyr.  (Why I said a little prayer for the odious George Wallace to live after he was shot.)  But it’s not a guarantee, and seriously question the assertion that it’s a “prototypical western false flag.”  Saker should have stuck with the observation that Nemtsov wasn’t much of a threat to Putin and Putin isn’t Stalin (or J. Edgar Hoover or the mafia).  OTOH, would rule out an anti-Russian Ukrainian “false flag” in this instance.  Considering that when the 55 year old Nemstov was murdered, he was in the company of his 23 year old anti-Russia Ukrainian girlfriend.  Plenty of anti-Russian Ukrainians could have come up with such a plot all on their own.
Update –

Suspects Named in Nemtsov’s murder

The Nemtsov murder investigation has focused on the theory that the crime was organized  by a Chechen militant commander Adam Osmayev, of the Dzhokhar Dudayev battalion, who also was named in the case concerning the attempt to assassinate Vladimir Putin. …

I have no idea how credible this source is, but it appears to me that this reported focus of the Russian investigators is spot on even if they don’t catch the operational perps and those who directed the assassination.

This was a sophisticated hit. Not Russian. Only remotely possible that there was any US involvement. Possible but unlikely that the Kiev government was a participant. More possible that Kolomoisky, one of his associates, or his Dnipro Battalion were involved. However, in tone and feel, it points to someone educated in the west, and that’s a reason why Adam Osmayev is at the top of the focus list.

Things I didn’t know that are required to appreciate why it was Nemtsov that was assassinated.

Chechens fighting for Ukraine

In a statement dated August 28, Isa Munayev appeals to the United States and “the countries of the democratic world” to provide “comprehensive military assistance” to the Ukrainian people, whom Munayev describes as victims of Russian imperial aggression, just as the Chechens were 20 years ago.

Munayev identified himself in that statement as commander of the Dzhokhar Dudayev international volunteer peacekeeping battalion and a brigadier general of the armed forces of the Chechen Republic Ichkeria (ChRI) of which Dudayev was the first president. He spoke to RFE/RL’s Radio Marsho a week ago, shortly before he travelled to Ukraine to show “international support for the Ukrainian people.” The strength of his battalion, and who is bankrolling it, is not known.

Munayev died fighting in Ukraine on 2/1/15. Revenge for his death is one motive for the assassination of Nemtsov. Not an intuitively obvious target since he was aligned with Kiev. They want Putin. But Nemtsov held the potential to be an even better than a direct hit on Putin. A detour is needed to explain that.

With the Muslim Kadyrov as President of Chechnya, he, and not Russia and Putin, handle the internal conflicts (and alliances) with the remaining Muslim rebel separatists and apparently with little regard for human rights. Yet,

…
Meanwhile, evidence continues to mount of the presence on the side of the pro-Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine of hundreds of fighters sent by Chechen Republic head Ramzan Kadyrov. Those fighters are apparently primarily volunteers from among the various police and security forces subordinate to Kadyrov, who has consistently denied that there are any “Chechen battalions” in Ukraine, even after the “Financial Times” quoted a fighter named Zelimkhan who said he and his comrades in arms had been sent to Ukraine in mid-May on Kadyrov’s orders.
…

An enemy of my enemy is my friend sort of situation. (We USians have some experience with that, but the shifting alliances in many conflicts confounds us. One reason we should stay away from them.) A recent confounding variable in the three-part (Chechnya, Ukraine, Russia) internal-external nexis takes us to France. The Charlie Hebdo cartoons and the Islamic terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo personnel on January 7, 2015. “Je suis Charlie Hebdo” didn’t take hold everywhere.

In January 2015, Kadyrov said he would organize protests if a Russian newspaper published the Charlie Hebdo cartoons, saying “we will not allow anyone to insult the prophet, even if it will cost us our lives.”

Nemtsov got on the “Je suis Charlie Hebdo” side. That made this darling of the west, Kiev supporter, and Putin opponent the perfect, expendable martyr for Muslim Chechen purposes. DC, London, Kiev, etc. fell for it faster than a New York minute. Confirmation that Putin is a monster. Now, surely monies and arms would quickly begin to flow to rebel Chechen fighters in Ukraine. An alliance that wants to take out Putin and take down Russia. Because funding the Afghan Mujahideen and the imported Saudi fighters worked out so well for the US.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”

And the same damn architect of that the Afghanistan debacle continues playing his fiddle:

Brzezinski also said that Western governments should provide “defensive” weapons to Ukraine …

Update #2 Rounding up the usual suspects?

From RT 5 suspects arrested over Nemtsov murder, 1 ‘confessed’ – court RT lists the names of those charged but little else.
Al Jezeera released more

State news agencies Tass and RIA Novosti said they were detained in Ingushetia, a republic bordering Chechnya, citing Ingush Security Council chief Albert Barakhoev.

Zaur Dadayev, served in a battalion of Interior Ministry troops in Chechnya, Barakhoev was quoted as saying.

He said Anzor Gubashev, had worked in a private security company in Moscow, according to the reports.

According to the WSJ, Chechen officials aren’t talking other than Kadyrov who has denied any involvement in the murder. The sparse information released according to a senior security official in Ingushetia. So, was the assassination plot hatched in Chechnya, Ingushetia, or a joint effort?
Plenty of animosity and armed conflicts between Ingushetia rebels and Moscow. A cursory impression is that Nemtsov as a target of these rebels seems a stretch as they and Nemtsov were on the same side in support of Kiev and opposed to Putin, but anything to make Putin appear bad can’t be rejected. Note:

10 December 2013 Ingush opposition leader Magomed Khazbiev, who was a close friend of assassinated Magomed Yevloyev, attends Euromaidan in Ukraine and participates in anti-Russian campaign there after which his parents were threatened and harassed in Russia. On his website he writes: “the fact that Putin’s slaves harass my parents do not make any sense, if you [Russians] want me to stop you have to kill me like Magomed Yevloyev and Makhsharip Aushev”

Not noted in the first update is that there was personal animosity between Kadyrov and Nemtsov.

Radio Free Europe – Radio Liberty (no less !! )

But the possibility of a Chechen connection should not be dismissed out of hand, given Nemtsov’s repeated criticism of Chechen Republic head Ramzan Kadyrov, and the fact that since 2011, security personnel loyal to Kadyrov have reportedly engaged with total impunity in abductions and killings in Moscow. …

Radio Free Europe is not exactly a reputable source, but this information is probably correct. Particularly since the report went on to speculate that Kadyrov could have ordered the murder as a favor to Putin. Doubt Mr. Putin would consider this a favor.

The NYTimes reports that the suspects are Chechen. Will wait for further confirmation* as it’s possible that the NYTimes reporters accepted “ethnic north Caucus” suspects to mean that they are, or was in the case of the one that blew himself up before being apprehended, Chechens.

Also note that western leaders and media are backing away from the strident accusations that the murder of Nemtsov was a Putin/Moscow/FSB hit job.

*Several sources now reporting that Zaur Dadayev, who has allegedly confessed to the murder, is Chechen and had recently been dismissed as deputy commander of a unit of the Chechen Republic Ministry of Internal Affairs’s “Sever” battalion per Sputnik News

Did you get a chance to read my book review in the current issue of the Washington Monthly?

No?

That’s okay.

I’ll wait.

Sometimes, Steve M. can be very concise, which is a nice skill to have as a writer and an analyst. In this case, what struck me was how efficient he was in explaining the basic problem with the right-wing model of stoking perpetual fear and outrage without even the slightest regard for a factual foundation for their claims.

[Chris] Cillizza admits that Jeb inspired walkouts, that Jeb got heckled, and that Sean Hannity was a surprisingly gentle to Jeb in their CPAC Q&A. (I don’t think the mostly softball nature of the questions is a surprise at all — Hannity may make a living stoking purist right-wing rage, but every four years the guy who signs Hannity’s paychecks decides it’s time to find some Republican who’s electable and try to catapult him into the White House, even though Republicans struggle in presidential elections precisely because they first have to appeal to voters Fox has made into a hysterical mob. Murdoch and his henchman Roger Ailes don’t even want to dial down the mob-goading long enough to fluff a presentable candidate properly, which is why Mitt Romney got a cold shoulder from Fox for much of the last campaign, but the folks at Fox think they want someone electable, so of course Hannity was nice to Jeb.)

Jeb is still for immigration reform. He’s still for Common Core. As Martin and Maggie Haberman remind us in a separate Times article, Jeb supported giving driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants and allowing them to pay state college tuition at in-state rates, although he’s repudiated those positions.

So he’s not what Republican voters want.

We can go over this again and again and again, but the Republican base hasn’t had the candidate they wanted since Ronald Reagan ran for reelection in 1984. It isn’t necessarily a problem for a candidate seeking the Republican nomination that they are unloved by the base, even though the base theoretically has some influence on who will lead the party.

But, recent history suggests that the base is powerless to stop squishes like Poppy, Dole, McCain, and Romney from beating out their more conservative competitors. What the base is good at is freaking out their nominees and getting them to commit fatal errors. Poppy didn’t really need to promise no new taxes, but it was a broken promise that cost him dearly. McCain overcompensated for his weakness with the base by giving us Sarah Palin. And, in his contorted efforts to speak to a base that had become completely unmoored from terrestrial reality, Romney set the land-speed record for lying by a human being.

I don’t know if Jeb helped or hurt himself by speaking at CPAC. I really don’t.

I do know that when addressing a room full of untethered zoo animals, you’re lucky to emerge with your life. That Jeb felt the need to bus in some tame animals demonstrates that he doesn’t actually understand the nature of the threat.

Hello again painting fans.

This week I will be starting an entirely new painting.  Seen below is my own photo of Victorian house that I took this past October.  It is of a type seen in many places across America.  I intend to paint it and include the 2 cars as well.  I will be using my usual acrylics on an 8 by 8 inch gallery-wrapped canvas.

I started with a pencil grid on both the canvas and a print of the photograph.  Then I made a sketch on the canvas using the grid as a reference point.  In doing this, I was able to make a fairly faithful sketch of the photo.  Note both the sketch and grid in the photo seen directly below.  (Next week some actual paint.)

The current state of the painting is seen in the photo directly below.

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

Earlier paintings in this series can be seen here.

I had a family matter that I had to attend to today, which meant that I wasn’t around to watch the latest example proving that John Boehner is not good at his job. I also didn’t get to enjoy the hilarity at the CPAC conference. And then I found out that Leonard Nimoy had died.

Overall, I guess it doesn’t matter that I wasn’t online to receive these pieces of news, but I would have had something to say about them if I had been.

I don’t talk about it much, but I am total Trekkie. And I’m the pure form, which means that nothing but the original series will do it for me. I love each and every character from the original Star Trek and I think all of the actors were unusually awesome people. Leonard Nimoy and his character Mr. Spock was my favorite. It would not be unfair to say that Spock helped make me the person I am. As much as I love him, I can’t say that about Captain Kirk.

I already miss Nimoy. This is a real loss for me.

We were fortunate to get Harvard Professor Daniel Carpenter to write an important piece on wealth inequality in the new issue of the Washington Monthly. Despite the headline, What Piketty Missed: The Banks, the article should be seen more as a complement to the French economist’s work than a refutation.

Carpenter’s central insight is that financial regulation, if it is done correctly, can be a very important and effective component in reducing the difference between the rate of return on capital (r) and the rate of economic growth (g). Piketty argued that as long as r is greater than g, wealth disparities will grow over time, and the degree of difference determines how fast inequality will expand.

In the piece, Carpenter focuses on three main regulatory efforts that he believes would be useful in bringing r and g closer together: Glass-Steagall, regulation of stock buybacks, and core capital requirements.

All of these policies target organizations and institutions of capital—banks, investment firms, and, in many cases, regulatory agencies themselves. This approach differs from Piketty’s methodological individualism because the targets of policy are less individuals—or not exclusively individuals—and more organizations and institutions. And following Daniel Seligman’s classic Public Interest article in 1970 on the transformation of Wall Street to a world of more organizational investors, it is organizations and not just individual investors that need to be regulated in the world of finance.

Piketty’s call for a tax on global assets is more focused on clawing back wealth from individuals, but Carpenter is looking for structural reforms that can encourage organizations to behave differently and to use their capital in a way that is more beneficial to society.

Seven years ago, Mitt Romney was arguing that wealth inequality was a divisive issue that should only be discussed in “quiet rooms,” but lately we’ve seen Republicans show more interest in discussing the subject in the public square. If you want to be part of that conversation, you should definitely check out Professor Carpenter’s piece.

Not much detail yet on this story, but once again gun violence in America rears its devastatingly cruel and monstrous head.

TYRONE, Missouri – Nine people were found dead in southern Missouri, authorities said Friday.

Texas County Sheriff James Sigman confirmed the deaths to the Houston Herald Friday morning.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol confirmed to CBS Springfield affiliate KOLR-TV that a shooter has been identified as one of the nine.

Police are saying that there are four confirmed separate crime scenes, and two other potential ones. Other reports indicate the suspected killer with the gun was found dead in a parked car.

Texas County sheriff’s deputies found victims in four separate residences in the Tyrone area after responding to a call about a disturbance. The caller, described as a juvenile girl, reported hearing shots in her house “and immediately fled to a neighbor’s house,” the statement said.

Further investigation revealed five additional victims who were deceased and one additional victim who was wounded in three additional residences” in the unincorporated community, the highway patrol said.

One report claims one of the people found dead at one of the sites was an elderly woman who was not shot, but who died of “natural causes.”

One person was found wounded but alive.

Condolences to all the family members of the deceased.

I’m even more disturbed by racist, conservative culture whereever it exists in the world than outright anti-semitism. So we have in a horrible way cut-throat politics in a backward state – Show Me Missouri.

Tom Schweich will be missed by family and friends, Missouri wasn’t worth it to die for! RIP Tom …

Statement by Clayton Police Chief Kevin Murphy | KOMU |

CLAYTON – Clayton Police Chief Kevin Murphy said Missouri Auditor and gubernatorial candidate Thomas A. Schweich, 54, died Thursday of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound inside his home.

Murphy said at 9:48 a.m., Clayton police officers responded to a call for a gunshot wound in the 7100 block of Wydown Boulevard. Paramedics attended to the victim, who was identified as Schweich. Clayton fire officials transferred Scweich to Barnes-Jewish Hospital’s Trauma Center, where he was subsequently pronounced dead from a single gunshot wound.

 « click for more info
Please join with all Missourians in praying for Tom's family,
including his wife Kathy and children, Emilie and Thomas, Jr.

…
Schweich was born on Oct. 2, 1960, in St. Louis, and was educated in the St. Louis County Public Schools. After earning his undergraduate degree from Yale, he studied law at Harvard University. He worked as an attorney before serving with the federal government under former U.S. Sen. John Danforth.

In 1999, Schweich was appointed Chief of Staff for Danforth’s investigation of the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. He also served under Danforth and three other ambassadors in the United Nations.

Schweich worked as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under the Bush administration. In 2007, he was named ambassador by President George W. Bush himself.

Schweich’s death prompted swift and shocked reaction from politicians. Lawmakers held a prayer service in his honor inside of the Missouri House of Representatives.

He is survived by his wife Kathy and his two daughters son and daughter.

Missouri Republican Candidate Commits Suicide Amid Jewish Ancestry ‘Whisper Campaign’

Missouri State Auditor Tom Schweich, a Republican candidate for governor, died on Thursday in an apparent suicide after he went public with allegations that rivals in the GOP planned to mount an anti-Semitic `whisper campaign” about his Jewish heritage.

The suicide came minutes after he called the Associated Press to accuse John Hancock, the head of the Missouri Republican Party. of making anti-Semitic comments about him.

Schweich was a churchgoing Episcopalian but his grandfather was Jewish.

Hancock later denied making anti-Semitic remarks about Schweich, but admitted that he believed Schweich was Jewish because of his last name.

“I don’t have a specific recollection of having said that, but it’s plausible that I would have told somebody that Tom was Jewish because I thought he was, but I wouldn’t have said it in a derogatory or demeaning fashion,” Hancock told the AP.

Political columnist Tony Messenger wrote in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that Schweich had disclosed the existence of the anti-Semitic “whisper campaign” a few days ago.

Even though the columnist conceded he didn’t know if the campaign drove Schweich to suicide, he believed it deeply disturbed the candidate, especially in a deeply conservative state where racism and anti-Semitism still loom large as evidenced by last year’s shooting rampage just across the border at a JCC in surburban Overland Park, Kansas.

The Post-Dispatch reported that Schweich had contacted the Anti-Defamation League about his allegations.

Messenger: From voicemail to voicemail: The short political life and times of Tom Schweich

He was my BFF.

That’s how my editorial board colleagues jokingly referred to my relationship with state auditor Tom Schweich, who on Thursday morning raised a gun to his head in his Clayton home and shot himself dead.

We weren’t actual best friends forever. We didn’t vacation together. I didn’t have his kids’ names memorized. We didn’t exchange birthday cards or hang out at the corner pub drinking beer and talking football.

But we had a relationship, which in today’s highly charged political world is saying something. In the age of Twitter, in the age of billions of dollars being spent on political consultants who control messaging to voters, in the age of depressed newspaper budgets, politicians and reporters generally don’t have the relationships they once had. Ditto athletes and sports reporters.

Times have changed. But Schweich and I had developed enough of a relationship since he was first elected state auditor in 2010, when I was still a political reporter in the state Capitol, that we exchanged phone calls and sat down for meals now and then. He confided in me. I found him to be an awful politician, which is to say he was an effective auditor but bad at the business of politics.

Maybe that’s why I liked him.

BC Attorney Tom Schweich Authors Book on Staying Power’ | April 2003 |

In his first two books, Bryan Cave LLP St. Louis Partner Tom Schweich guided readers around some of life’s biggest personal and professional pitfalls. In his third book, due in bookstores May 1, Schweich reveals 30 characteristics of “invincibility.” Staying Power: Thirty Secrets Invincible Executives Use for Getting to the Top…and Staying There uses anecdotes and personal examples from some of our time’s top CEOs, four-star generals, rock stars and political leaders to devise how people rise in prominence and what helps them stay put.

Dubbed a “primer for everyone interested in getting to the top of their field and staying there – through good times and bad – while avoiding the scandals that are dominating today’s headlines,” Schweich’s latest effort pinpoints 30 sometimes counter-intuitive “Rules of Invincibility” (ROIs) that guide successful people, including do not plan your career; use anger as a tactic, not an emotion; don’t rely on your connections; and consider work a member of the family.

See my earlier diary – Freedom For Hate and Murder – Frazier Glenn Miller.