Month: March 2015

I’m just paging Arthur Gilroy here. Any response?

In an open letter to Iranian leaders, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and 46 other Republicans said that without congressional approval, any deal between Iran and the U.S. would be merely an agreement between President Barack Obama and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei…

The letter released Monday was signed by 47 of the Senate’s 54 Republicans. Included were McConnell and the rest of the Senate GOP leadership plus presidential contenders Marco Rubio of Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas.

Now I quote The Mighty Biden:

Statement by the Vice President on the March 9th Letter From Republican Senators to the Islamic Republic of Iran

I served in the United States Senate for thirty-six years. I believe deeply in its traditions, in its value as an institution, and in its indispensable constitutional role in the conduct of our foreign policy. The letter sent on March 9th by forty-seven Republican Senators to the Islamic Republic of Iran, expressly designed to undercut a sitting President in the midst of sensitive international negotiations, is beneath the dignity of an institution I revere.

This letter, in the guise of a constitutional lesson, ignores two centuries of precedent and threatens to undermine the ability of any future American President, whether Democrat or Republican, to negotiate with other nations on behalf of the United States. Honorable people can disagree over policy. But this is no way to make America safer or stronger.

Around the world, America’s influence depends on its ability to honor its commitments. Some of these are made in international agreements approved by Congress. However, as the authors of this letter must know, the vast majority of our international commitments take effect without Congressional approval. And that will be the case should the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, and Germany reach an understanding with Iran. There are numerous similar cases. The recent U.S.-Russia framework to remove chemical weapons from Syria is only one recent example. Arrangements such as these are often what provide the protections that U.S. troops around the world rely on every day. They allow for the basing of our forces in places like Afghanistan. They help us disrupt the proliferation by sea of weapons of mass destruction. They are essential tools to the conduct of our foreign policy, and they ensure the continuity that enables the United States to maintain our credibility and global leadership even as Presidents and Congresses come and go.

Since the beginning of the Republic, Presidents have addressed sensitive and high-profile matters in negotiations that culminate in commitments, both binding and non-binding, that Congress does not approve. Under Presidents of both parties, such major shifts in American foreign policy as diplomatic recognition of the People’s Republic of China, the resolution of the Iran hostage crisis, and the conclusion of the Vietnam War were all conducted without Congressional approval.

In thirty-six years in the United States Senate, I cannot recall another instance in which Senators wrote directly to advise another country—much less a longtime foreign adversary— that the President does not have the constitutional authority to reach a meaningful understanding with them. This letter sends a highly misleading signal to friend and foe alike that that our Commander-in-Chief cannot deliver on America’s commitments—a message that is as false as it is dangerous.

The decision to undercut our President and circumvent our constitutional system offends me as a matter of principle. As a matter of policy, the letter and its authors have also offered no viable alternative to the diplomatic resolution with Iran that their letter seeks to undermine.

There is no perfect solution to the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program. However, a diplomatic solution that puts significant and verifiable constraints on Iran’s nuclear program represents the best, most sustainable chance to ensure that America, Israel, and the world will never be menaced by a nuclear-armed Iran. This letter is designed to convince Iran’s leaders not to reach such an understanding with the United States.

The author of this letter has been explicit that he is seeking to take any action that will end President Obama’s diplomatic negotiations with Iran. But to what end? If talks collapse because of Congressional intervention, the United States will be blamed, leaving us with the worst of all worlds. Iran’s nuclear program, currently frozen, would race forward again. We would lack the international unity necessary just to enforce existing sanctions, let alone put in place new ones. Without diplomacy or increased pressure, the need to resort to military force becomes much more likely—at a time when our forces are already engaged in the fight against ISIL.

The President has committed to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. He has made clear that no deal is preferable to a bad deal that fails to achieve this objective, and he has made clear that all options remain on the table. The current negotiations offer the best prospect in many years to address the serious threat posed by Iran’s nuclear ambitions. It would be a dangerous mistake to scuttle a peaceful resolution, especially while diplomacy is still underway.

Enough with the Rand Paul nonsense.

Accepting Duncan’s invitation to revisit my contemporaneous analysis of the debt ceiling negotiations and compare it to what I said earlier today, I agree that there isn’t much contradiction. I think, although I am not certain, that I wrote the 2011 piece immediately after getting off a conference call with the White House. It just seems to me that that post reflected pretty strongly what the White House was saying privately at the time. The headline leads me to that conclusion, too.

Ultimately, I was half right and half wrong. I was right that the White House felt that they had the upper hand and would not be making big concessions. I was right that it was nearly impossible to envision Boehner doing a deal because he’d need Democratic votes. I was right that he’d probably never survive if he made that deal. I was wrong to predict that Boehner would cave to his big donors rather than his Tea Party base.

It’s also possible that I was engaged in a bit of psychological warfare at the time, which admittedly sometimes creeps into my analysis when the stakes are high enough.

But, on the whole, I am not sure why Duncan chose that particular piece for a contrast because it doesn’t really touch on the main question I raised, which was what the administration really wanted to happen at the time.

Sarah Palin’s mockery of Barack Obama’s brief community organizing career during her acceptance speech at the 2008 Republican national convention was typical of how many conservatives treated his experience then, and of how they treat it now:

“I was mayor of my hometown. And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involved.  I guess — I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.” (emphasis added)

As a result, many conservatives struggling to come to terms with President Obama’s eloquent, fiery, powerful speech delivered in Selma on the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday are at a disadvantage.  Because they don’t respect organizing, they haven’t bothered to learn what a community organizer does.  More importantly, they don’t know how a community organizer thinks.

Here’s just one example from Saturday’s speech of Obama as Community-Organizer-in-Chief.

After, in quick succession, criticizing the Supreme Court for weakening the Voting Rights Act, praising Presidents Reagan and Bush for signing extensions of the Voting Rights Act when they were in office, calling on the 100 members of Congress before him in the assembled crowd to “go back to Washington, and gather four hundred more, and together, pledge to make it their mission to restore the law this year“, Obama addressed all US citizens on our collective responsibility as voters.  Here’s the paragraph as prepared for delivery:

“Of course, our democracy is not the task of Congress alone, or the courts alone, or the President alone. If every new voter suppression law was struck down today, we’d still have one of the lowest voting rates among free peoples. Fifty years ago, registering to vote here in Selma and much of the South meant guessing the number of jellybeans in a jar or bubbles on a bar of soap. It meant risking your dignity, and sometimes, your life. What is our excuse today for not voting? How do we so casually discard the right for which so many fought? How do we so fully give away our power, our voice, in shaping America’s future?”

The audience applauds, Obama pauses, and then ad-libs for emphasis, “We give away our power!“.  (At 31:57 of the linked video.) More applause follows.

Now, that’s a line the 20-something Barack Obama heard on the first full day of a week-long leadership training he attended when he was an aspiring community organizer back in the 1980s.  “We give away our power more often than it’s taken from us.”  It’s one of the foundational lessons taught in networks of community organizations all across the United States and around the world.  Power, the ability to act, has two primary sources:  organized people and organized money.  By accepting the “world as it is”, we give away our power to help shape the “world as it should be”.  Thirty years later, these organizing “habits of mind” still shape how Barack Obama does his job.

Perhaps President Obama’s political opponents would have been wiser to spend more time over the past several years fearing his community organizing background, rather than mocking it.  Because his speech in Selma suggests what place they ultimately will have in American history (or at least, his version of American history):  none.

There’s no Sheriff Jim Clark or Gov. George Wallace in Obama’s retelling of the confrontation on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday.  There’s no shout-out to the anti-federalists who opposed adoption of the Constitution…or the men who opposed women’s suffrage, or the straights who oppose equal marriage rights for gays and lesbians.  In Obama’s retelling, the Berlin Wall didn’t fall because Ronald Reagan gave a speech; it fell because young people in eastern Europe were inspired by the actions in Selma of young people like John Lewis and Diane Nash.

It’s not unlike the Biblical telling of the story of Shiphrah and Puah, the Hebrew midwives in the first chapter of Exodus who disobey Pharaoh’s order to kill newborn boys.  (Another story used by community organizers to teach about power, organizing and change.)  The author of Exodus preserves their names, but is completely uninterested in the king’s name (which is not recorded).

As liberal commentator Jonathan Chait tweeted on Saturday:

“Obama defines the American story as an ongoing and inevitably successful struggle for social equality.”

“He thus defines the opponents of social equality as the historical losers, essentially writing them out of the American tradition.”

“And in case it wasn’t clear, I agree with Obama’s interpretation.”

This is American history told from the bottom up. It’s a history of high ideals (the “world as it should be”) never fully realized (the “world as it is”).  It’s a history made by leaders and organizers who understand the timeless wisdom of Frederick Douglass:

“If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”

One of the great puzzles about the Obama administration that historians will have to suss out is just what their actual position was going into and during the negotiations over the Grand Bargain. This isn’t a simple question to define, let alone attempt to answer in a definitive way.

The biggest problem is that the Obama administration has never, in my opinion, been very honest about what transpired, and why. In their telling, they were completely sincere in making these offers to Boehner and were shocked to learn that he would not and (even more importantly) could not accept them. That’s the line Dan Pfeiffer is still pushing, and it’s at least partially true. There is no doubt, for example, that the White House was slow to learn that Boehner could not deliver on his promises and that the administration wasn’t really having a genuine negotiation with him.

However, I do not believe that the White House ever expected the House Republicans to accept their terms. Their strategy was to dangle forbidden fruit but hold back enough that they’d never actually have to deliver on their offers. So, what surprised them wasn’t that Boehner didn’t accept their plan but that he did. And, once he did, they were shocked to discover that he didn’t have the power to bring his caucus along with him.

There was definitely some bad thinking going on on the White House side. They wavered on whether a bad deal was better than no deal at all. They were clear that the primary objective was to appear reasonable in order to assure that they didn’t get the blame for a failure of negotiations, and a failure was the default assumption. This meant that there was little cost to appearing to give away the store. But, at some point, Boehner attempted to call them on their bluff, and that’s the point where everything gets very contentious. Did the president back out of the deal, as I believe he did? Or did it turn out that Boehner couldn’t deliver either way, which I also believe to be true?

Why this matters is because it was at this time that the White House finally learned that they’d do better not even trying to negotiate with the GOP. But this lesson was a results-driven lesson that only could be fully applied once Obama won reelection. Until a second term was assured, the optics and the politics mattered at least as much as the policy, and for this reason they felt compelled to pursue Obama’s campaign promise to take the poison out of partisan politics and change the tone in Washington. If they failed, it had to be the Republicans who took the blame.

There’s no question that parts of the White House operated during the first term as if it were their responsibility to cut deals, even lousy deals, in the interest of getting things done. Some probably saw the Republicans as having enough legitimate political power after the 2010 midterms that they had a right to expect unsavory concessions. Others saw what was happening more clearly.

In the end, those concessions were not made. Some progressives will argue until the end of time that it was only Republican radicalism that saved the day and that the White House was desperate for a Grand Bargain. The truth is much more complicated. The White House was divided. They were primarily concerned with getting the president reelected. The most important thing was that Obama be perceived as the only adult in the room, and he couldn’t do that if he was seen as just as intransigent as the Republicans.

But they wavered. They might have cut a deal that we would all regret if their terms had been unexpectedly accepted.

What’s clearer is that, freed from the need to worry about getting reelected, the president was able to show his true preferences. And that should guide us when we look back to his first term and try to figure out what was happening at the time.

Personally, I like Chris Van Hollen. He’d make a fine senator. But I like Donna Edwards more. And she’d be an electrifying senator.

Even the prospect of Edwards getting into the Maryland race to replace Barbara Mikulski has reporters and analysts defining it as a white vs. black thing, or a fight for Mikulski’s legacy as a trailblazing woman in the Senate. That’s unfortunate.

Van Hollen deserves consideration on his merits, not as a foil for some gender or race priority. And Edwards shouldn’t be treated as a black candidate or simply as the flag bearer for senatorial women. She’s an outstanding politician and advocate on her own.

I hope the two candidates will resist the temptation to emphasize their superficial differences and will fight it out on the high road. This won’t be easy, especially with the need to raise so much money. But I’d hate to see nasty divisions on the left open up over this contest.

I’ll be supporting Edwards, but that doesn’t mean that I think Van Hollen is a bad guy or a weak candidate to run against the Republicans. If they run this race the way it should be run, we can’t lose no matter who wins.

Does any body else watch football/futbol/soccer?

Major League Soccer is off to a great start this year. I’ve already watched three matches, and the level of play is definitely improved. It was pretty special to see Kaka score to tie the game this afternoon. That’s a great way for Orlando City to begin their MLS career. It was nice to see Jozy Altidore get a brace yesterday afternoon, too.

I can’t wait to watch Clint Dempsey play later.

But you probably have no idea what I’m talking about.

BREAKING NEWS:
A suspect in Boris Nemtsov killing blew himself up with a grenade
in Grozny as police tried to detain him -Interfax.

From the anti-Putin propaganda website in Washington DC – The Interpreter …

5 Men from Caucasus Brought Before Court in Murder of Opposition Leader Boris Nemtsov

According to Novaya Gazeta , five persons appeared today in Moscow’s Basmanny Court in the murder investigation of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov.

Two, Zaur Dadayev and Anzor Gubashev (also Kubashev) were arraigned, i.e. formally charged in the Russian criminal justice system and placed under pre-trial detention until April 28 on charges under Art. 105-2, sections zh and z and Art. 222 of the Russian criminal code (pre-meditated murder and illegal possession of weapons).

Dadaev pleaded guilty, and Gubashev pleaded not guilty.

The other three were categorized as suspects in the case and also put in detention, as the judge selected the measure of restraint as “arrest” or jail, as they were seen as a flight risk.

One suspect was the brother of Anzor, Shagid Gubashev, arrested on March 7 at 21:00, who was ordered detained until May 7. Two other suspects, Tamerlan Eskerkhanov and Khamzat Bakhayev, arrested at 2:20 am today, March 8 were ordered detained until May 8.

A sixth suspect blew himself up with a grenade as police banged on the door of his apartment in Grozny.

As Novaya Gazeta and others have reported, one of the names in the list is Zaur Dadayev of the 46th Separate Operations Purpose Brigade of the Interior Ministry who was decorated personally by Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.

In a speech at the ceremony in October 19, 2010, Rashid Nurgaliev,  then head of the Interior Ministry said that the 46th Brigade was founded by Ramzan’s father Akhmad Kadyrov, the former chief mufti of Ichkeria, the independent Chechen republic, who switched sides to serve the central Russian government, and who was assassinated at a May 9th Victory Day rally in 1994 [year was 2004 – Oui].

○ The Cancellation of Counter-Terrorism Operation in Chechnya: Peace or War? | Jamestown – April 2009 |

Dadayev raised his index finger in the courtroom, a common Islamist sign.

More below the fold …

Boris Nemtsov: two charged over killing of Russian opposition politician | The Guardian | plus video

Their heads bowed and their arms handcuffed behind their backs, five men were marched into a Moscow court by armed men in balaclavas on Sunday, accused of involvement in the murder of Boris Nemtsov.

The five men accused of complicity in the murder of the opposition politician are all from Russia’s restive north Caucasus region, and one of them, Zaur Dadayev, has admitted his guilt, according to the judge.

“Dadayev’s involvement in committing this crime is confirmed by, apart from his own confession, the totality of evidence gathered as part of this criminal case,” said Judge Natalia Mushnikova.

Dadayev raised his index finger in the courtroom, a common Islamist sign, and said “I love the prophet Mohammad”, according to reporters present. Other defendants attempted to hide their faces from television cameras using their hoods, collars or sheets of paper.

The Russian agency Interfax also quoted a law-enforcement source claiming a 30-year-old man who was another suspect in the Nemtsov murder had “blown himself up” with a grenade when police tried to detain him in Grozny, the Chechen capital. There was no official confirmation that the man was linked to the Nemtsov killing, however.

You can say this about American Nazis, they are persistent.

Nearly ten years ago, a group calling itself the National Socialist Movement (NSM) planned a march through a predominately African-American community in a northern section of Toledo, Ohio, ostensibly at the invitation of white residents to protest alleged gang activity by blacks. On October 15, 2005, at the staging point for their march near a local park, they began taunting local African American residents with racial slurs, inciting incidents of civil unrest and the arrest by mounted and unmounted police of roughly 100 people after the Nazis were pelted by eggs. Now they are back, trying to stir up trouble once again:

TOLEDO — Nearly ten years after angry crowds took the streets of Toledo during a march by neo-Nazis, the National Socialist Movement is planning to rally in the Glass City again. […]

“The Toledo rally was important ten years ago, due to violence in the city, and is just as important today considering things have not improved there,” reads a statement released by the NSM. “The National Socialist Movement is calling upon our folk and allies once again as we make another public stand in Toledo on April 18th.”

The date in April for their return was not chosen at random. It comes one day before official festivities for 419 Day, an annual event in Northwest Toled that celebrates the pride and love that people who live in Northwest Toledo have for their communities there. Manyb events by local businesses, museums and the City of Toledo are planned. No surprise, then, that the NSM chose the day before the 419 Day festivities, in what is no doubt another attempt to create trouble and violent conflict between the African American communities in the city and the local police.

The worst part about this year’s planned visit is the timing. The group is coming on April 18, the same weekend as our newest, unofficial citywide holiday, 419 Day.

419 Day is April 19, or 4-19, and is a 24-hour period where residents are asked to show their love for Northwest Ohio, including on social media. This special day, bolstered in recent years by Instagramers, has caught on to the point where bars and local businesses are now planning events to help celebrate Toledo and all those living in the 419.

419 Day was created to show love and pride for our city. The last thing we need are front-page headlines of a repeat riot, inspired by a group of people who only hate.

Ten years ago, this white supremacist hate group was able to achieve its goal of inciting civil unrest. On October 15, 2005, all it took was fifteen members of the NSM, and protected by police, to succeed through taunting the people they came to denigrate. Here’s an account of what happened in 2005 by Pastor Mansour Bey of Toledo’s First Church of God in an interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now.

The media … gave a forum to [the organizers of the NSM March] , so that by the time Saturday arrived, a lot of people were already angry because of some of the remarks that had already been made, in terms of the neo-Nazis coming to challenge the gangs and to liberate the white people from the blacks who were terrorizing their neighborhoods. […]

Mansour goes on to say that around 200 to 330 people showed up to protest the presence of the Nazis. Although most were local residents, some came from outside
Toledo, including groups of so-called anarchists (Pastor Bey’s words) who brought eggs, which they handed out to the crowd. After the fifteen Neeo-Nazis began taunting the people with the N-word and other slurs, those eggs were thrown. At that point the police escalated the situation:

[T]he police reacted very swiftly and very forcefully by moving in the mounted police.

And that kind of angered the people, also, because when they came in with the horses, they did not discriminate. They were knocking over — not over, but knocking back women, children and even myself. I was pushed back by a horse. So now — and the people are really — they’re angry at the neo-Nazis, but now their anger was beginning to build towards the police, also, who they felt that they were protecting the neo-Nazis, who were, again, in their neighborhood.

You can imagine what happened after that. The small group of NSM racists had achieved their goal of inciting the crowd, with the help, of course of an overreaction by the police to the eggs that were thrown. The unrest spread, after the group of counter-protesters moved to the other side of the park where they believed the Nazis would appear after marching through the park. There the counter-protestors were confronted by a larger group of police who refused to let them approach the park. Tear gas canisters were employed by the cops and things took a decidedly ugly turn for the worse.

[After the tear gas was shot into the crowd] the people came back with their bricks and their rocks. And so it began, the battle began.

During that time the chief of police called off the march and sent the Nazis home. And I happened to be standing right there and saw the Nazis get in their cars and leave. But none of the counter-protesters saw this. So, many of them — this is about 11:00 in the morning, and even as late as 1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon, some of them were still believing — you know, the residents were still believing that the neo-Nazis were still inside of that park being protected by police. But I knew that they had already left town. And we tried to get that word out, but unfortunately that word did not get out.

I’m sure the Neo-Nazi provocateurs in 2005 had a grand old time celebrating all the mayhem they engendered. Of course, local radio shows, just days before the Neo-Nazi rally, gave these hatemongers a forum and the opportunity to do their best to anger and enrage the people of Northern Toledo:

[O]ne of the local radio stations, they have a very popular drive time radio program. And it’s a call-in show. And they had — they were interviewing either Martin or White — In fact, both of them; one day it was Martin the next day it was Bill White, the leaders of this neo-Nazi movement. And on both days, the host tried to be politically correct and, you know, talk about why they had this particular philosophy of hate. But each time the guests would say: “Well, give me my time. It’s my turn. You got me on, let me say what I want to say.” And they gave a forum, to these neo-Nazis.

And they were allowed to really challenge. I mean, they really spoke to the people, to the neighborhood and really challenged, you know, African Americans, the blacks, you know. “This is white man’s time! White power! We’re coming in and we’re gonna be kicking butt!” you know. And they were really saying those types of things.

Yeah, that was a great public service by that radio station, wasn’t it. These hatemongers have a 1st amendment right not to have their speech censored by the government. What they do not have is the right to go on public radio and television and be given broadcast airtime to stir up anger and resentment with their repeated calls for white power and violence against African-Americans.

This time, the reaction to these racist scumbags must be different. If this group of contemptible race-baiting troublemakers shows up, the word must be spread within the community and the local media to simply ignore them. Don’t allow these evil people to cause more misery for the African Americans who live in Toledo. As Jerry Baumhower, columnist for the Toledo Free Press puts it:

This time, let’s not be trolled by the lowest pieces of s*** this country has ever known.

Let’s ignore stupidity and put the focus on love. Let’s choose to not give them any airtime or ink. Let’s not make it worth their time to ever step foot in this city again.

It’s been 10 years, and we are a different city. This time, let’s ignore them.

Amen.

What’s your favorite word that you would never use in ordinary conversation?

I finally got a chance to read the transcript of President Obama’s speech in Selma. It struck me, at least on paper, as a pretty epic stemwinder. I assume he wrote it with minimal help for his speechwriting staff, although we’ll hear more about that in coming years.

Would I be off base to predict that future students will read and watch this speech like we did with Kennedy’s inaugural and Lincoln’s address at Gettysburg?

Some people said that the president seemed like the old candidate Obama, high on hope and change. I prefer to think that this is who he has been all along.

At this point in his presidency, he just doesn’t give a damn anymore. So, he went to Alabama and talked about the patriotism of the people who gay marry each other and swim across the Rio Grande to get here.

I wouldn’t want to reduce his grand speech to its most hilariously trollish elements, but if Obama was hoping to get reelected again he would have toned that shit WAY down.

Nothing was more satisfying than, 50 years on, having a black president in Selma, saying, “We’re the slaves who built the White House.”

If you don’t like it, too bad.