Month: November 2015

[Update-2] The Red Line and the Rat Line

Seymour M. Hersh on Obama, Erdoğan and the Syrian rebels

will expand later …

A live event I watched with astonishment on AL Jazeera. I didn’t take more than 5 minutes of his speech to understand Erdogan was delivering a major speech. Using all false rhetoric of arrogance, fascism and the distortion of facts. Using the label “terror” very similar to and copying George Bush and Binyamin Netanyahu before him.

I must wait for the video or transcript, will publish as soon as available.

A few remarks from memory:

• artificial borders have been drawn by colonial rulers
• root cause of suffering along 900 mile border of Turkey with Syria
• a hundred NGOs are operating inside Turkey with a foreign agenda
• all one and the same criminal group: YPG, Assad and IS committing crimes against humanity
• don’t be misled by mass murderer Assad responsible for deaths of 380,000 Syrians
• Assad leads an illigitimate terrorist regime
• many of our countrymen, Turkmen are suffering due to heavy bombardment
• what gives a foreign power the right to establish itself in Syria
• these powers are thousands of miles separated from Syria
• Turkey shares a long border, splitting families and relatives
• Turkmen have decide to wage battle and die as a martyr, not seeking refuge in Turkey
• Turkmen share the same of our moral values

  My three recent diaries …

  ○ Russian SU-24 Fighter Shot Down By Turkey
  ○ ISIS Terror Attacks Lead to A Franco-Russian Coalition
  ○ The Terror Trap Laid By Warmongers In the US and Israel

[Update] No Excuses from Erdogan, A Stern Warning to Russia

Turkish President Erdoğan warns Russia ‘not to play with fire’

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has warned Russia “not to play with fire” in the wake of a crisis between Ankara and Moscow following the downing of a Russian jet by Turkey on Nov. 24 near the Syrian border.

“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin says ‘those who have double standards on terrorism are playing with fire.’ I totally agree with him,” Erdoğan said Nov. 27 in the northern province of Bayburt.

“Indeed, supporting the [Bashar] al-Assad regime in Syria, which has killed 380,000 people, is playing with fire.
Striking opposition groups that have international legitimacy with the excuse of fighting against Daesh [an acronym of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ISIL] is playing with fire.
Using an incident in which Turkey’s righteousness is accepted by the whole world as an excuse to torment our citizens who were in Russia to attend a fair is playing with fire.
Irresponsibly hitting trucks in the region that are there for trade or humanitarian reasons is playing with fire.
We sincerely advise Russia not to play with fire.”

Erdoğan also expressed his willingness to meet Putin during the upcoming climate change summit in Paris in order to find common ground and avoid a further escalation of tension.

“We are uncomfortable with efforts to take the dispute over the downed jet into other areas of relations. Let’s not allow that to happen,” he said, underlining that maintaining good relations was beneficial for both countries.

○ Putin approves economic sanctions against Turkey

Claiming that Turkey’s shooting down of the Russian jet was not “intentional” but simply a result of an automatic enforcement of rules of engagement, Erdoğan nevertheless argued that Turkey was right to do so.

“Turkey has proved its honesty” by releasing audio recordings of the warnings issued to the Russian pilots, he added.

Erdoğan also touched on the joint press conference held by Putin and French President François Hollande on Nov. 26, describing the former’s comments as “unacceptable.” Denying allegations that Turkey has been purchasing oil from ISIL, Erdoğan said the oil trade between ISIL, Russia and the Syrian regime had been documented by the United States.

○ Moscow decree putting economic sanctions in place and mobilizing armed forces in Black Sea region

Quite irritating, former US Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker arguing in support of Turkey in a panel discussion/debate on France24. Had to see with what other purpose this useful idiot was putting forth this view from the US. Apparently, Volker has found a new purpose in life outside of NATO as leader of a John McCain “think-tank”.

A transport of 800 guns intercepted in Trieste (Italy) originating from Turkey, headed for Belgium –
○ Carico di armi da guerra sequestrato a Trieste | La Stampa |

Raw Story, November 27, 2015 Mississippi man guns down Waffle House waitress after she asks him not to smoke

Police said Johnny Mount was eating about 1 a.m. at the restaurant in Biloxi, Mississippi, when he lit a cigarette, reported WLOX-TV.

A waitress asked the 45-year-old Mount to put out the cigarette or smoke outside, and he began arguing with her.

Police said Mount then pulled out a 9 mm handgun he had concealed under his shirt and shot the 52-year-old waitress in the head.

She was taken to a nearby hospital but died from her wounds.

Raw Story, November 27, 2015 UPDATE: Gunman who opened fire at Colorado Planned Parenthood taken into custody

An active shooter was reported at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood facility at about 11:45 a.m. local time. Police said the gunman shot at passing cars from the parking lot of a clinic in Colorado Springs, reported KRDO-TV.

… [All those in the mall offices, stores, and restaurants sheltered in place throughout the attack]

UPDATE 5:14 p.m. local time: A gunman who opened fire Friday afternoon at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado has been taken into custody, according to CBS News. The man apparently surrendered after a more than 4-hour stand-off with police. According to reporters on the scene, 11 people, including 5 police officers, have been hospitalized with injuries.

UPDATE:

The Gazette – 2 reportedly killed, gunman detained in Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting [Updated to 3 killed. Identity of murderer still being withheld other than he’s an older white man with gray hair and beard]

Multiple news outlets are reporting fatalities in Friday’s shooting at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood building. Gazette news partner KKTV reports that a University of Colorado at Colorado Springs officer was killed; 9News in Denver reported that one offficer and one civilian are dead.

…

Eleven people were taken to hospitals, including five law enforcement officers.

I am not offended, Sheriff Mike Jolley of Harris County if you wish to say Merry Christmas. Please, say it to your heart’s content. Have yourself a merry little Christmas, as the song goes. I suspect 99% of people in this country of ours have no problem with you saying Merry Christmas even in the middle of Summer if you should so desire.

Here’s some other things that do not offend me:

Feliz Navidad!
Happy Hannukah!

Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Eḥad!

Allahu Akbar!

Umoja! Kujichagulia! Ujima! Ujamaa! Nia! Kuumba! Imani!

Namaste’

Happy Holidays!

Sheriff Jolley, I don’t know where you got the idea that there are millions of godless heathens and commie liberals in America who hate the fact that you like to say Merry Christmas or God bless America or whatever. Most people I know, those who do not listen to conservatalk radio or watch Fox News all day, really don’t understand what generated all this hostility that so many “Christians” spew toward “non-believers” or secularists, atheists or followers of other faiths this time of year. Really, it makes no sense whatsoever.

The vast majority don’t care one way or another if you say Merry Christmas or sing Christmas Carols or salute the flag (provided it’s the flag of the United, and not the Confederate, States of America), or say “In God We Trust” 20 gazillion times a day. Yet, instead of celebrating the birth of the man you believe was sent by God to save all humankind, what I hear from so many so-called fervent believers in Christ are words of hatred, aggression and even violent threats against those of us who do not share your beliefs. For example, consider the words on the sign you paid for and placed in front of your office:

The sign reads “WARNING: Harris County is politically incorrect. We say: Merry Christmas, God Bless America and In God We Trust. We salute our troops and our flag. If this offends you…LEAVE!”

This doesn’t sound like someone who follows the teachings of Jesus. Instead it appears you have abandoned your faith and allowed yourself to be hoodwinked by a bunch of hate merchants who wish to divide the people of our country for their own benefit. Jesus never asked his followers to hate people, even the ones who despised them. Just look at the sayings attributed to him in the Gospels of the New testament if you doubt me.

Jesus said you should love your neighbor as yourself, and by neighbor he meant anyone, even scapegoated and ostracized minorities. Jesus said if someone strikes you you should turn the other cheek rather than strike them back. Jesus said that if someone takes your coat do not demand it back, but give them the shirt off your back as well. Jesus also told us to forgive those who hurt us or mean us harm. Most tellingly, Jesus warned us not to judge or condemn others when we have so many faults of our own to address:

Matthew 7:1-5 “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

And yet, Sheriff Jolley, I know far too many self-professed Christians, such as yourself, who do not follow these principles and teachings of Jesus, the man you acknowledge as the Son of God and the Savior of the world. Instead, what comes forth from your lips, and from the lips of all those who share your spirit of intolerance, are words of anger, of the absence of love and the presence of hatred toward those who are not like you and calls for violence and retribution. This is a long way from the message of love, peace and forgiveness preached by the man you worship as the Son of God.

Recently, Charisma magazine, a major media outlet for evangelical and Pentecostal Christians, published an open call to genocide. The article in question, titled “Why I Am Absolutely Islamaphobic” [sic] and written by Gary Cass, begins with the premise that “every true follower of Mohammed” wants to “subjugate and murder” non-Muslims, and therefore it’s impossible for Christians to live together peacefully with them.

Cass proposes three solutions to this problem. One is for Muslims to undergo mass conversion to Christianity; the other is mass deportation combined with eugenics – either “force them all to get sterilized” or kick them out of America “like Spain was forced to do when they deported the Muslim Moors.” But he says both of these plans are unlikely to work, so “really there’s only one” solution, which is:

Violence: The only thing that is biblical and that 1,400 years of history has shown to work is overwhelming Christian just war and overwhelming self defense.

Other “Christians” have called for the rule in America of “biblical law,” which they claim justifies the subjugation of women and the death sentence for homosexuality. Indeed, a group of American Christians worked to implement in Uganda and other countries, such as Nigeria, Russia, etc., laws criminalizing homosexuality.

Now, that kind of behavior, purportedly based on Christian beliefs and doctrines, does offend me, as it should offend any true follower of Jesus. In an election cycle where the leading presidential candidate for the Republican Party, Donald Trump, has been calling in effect for ethnic cleansing and actively encouraging racism against Blacks, Hispanics and Muslims among his his followers, as well as promising to bring back torture and whatever else he considers necessary to “make our nation great again,” I find it troubling that so many people, people like you Sheriff Jolley, are so adamant about encouraging a climate of hate and fear among your fellow Americans.

You see, Sheriff Jolley, despite what you may believe or may have been told, the United States was not founded as a Christian nation. There is nothing in the Constitution that refers to Christianity as the basis for our government. There is no religious test for holding public office, much less becoming a citizen. And while I’m not offended if you want to say “Merry Christmas,” “God Bless America” or whatever else you consider essential to being a good American, anyone who is offended by your sign or your statements does have the right under the First Amendment to express that opinion without fear that the Sheriff of Harris County, Georgia, might decide to treat them differently because they do not believe what he believes or act in the manner that he consider Americans should act.

Obviously, Sheriff Jolley, I do not know what was in your heart when you erected your sign on government property telling people that if they did not like your views they should get the hell out of your county. Perhaps you just wanted to blow off some steam. But whatever your reasons, it must have been apparent to you that your words would be taken as an implicit threat from an elected official and law enforcement official to anyone who does not condone or abide your view of what constitutes the only “American values” worth defending.

I’m not going to tell you, Sheriff Jolley, what to do with your sign. But I am going to suggest you go back and read your bible, since you claim to be a Christian. In particular, I recommend you study what Jesus said very carefully, because in my view, he would be appalled by your actions, and dismayed that you would use your faith in him to justify such a hateful and intolerant attitude regarding your fellow human beings.

Christmas should be a holiday that celebrates love and joy for all people on earth. It should be a time of year when the followers of Jesus reach out to those who are different from themselves to share that feeling of love and joy. It appears you would rather feed your own anger and the anger of others who feel the way you do, rather than extend a hand in love to all God’s children. That way, as the saying goes, lies madness.

Most likely Germany with Chancellor Angela Merkel will accept the invitation to join the fight against ISIS in Syria. Brit David Cameron is glued to the US policy in the Middle East, but will urge parliament for permission to bomb IS in the sovereign state of Syria.

○ Putin ready to work with France against ‘mutual enemy’ IS group
○ France appeals directly for Britain to join war against Isis in Syria

As the Obama administration has it’s Syria policy tied hands and feet to Erdogan of Turkey, the coalition partners of the US are bolting away from the fools of NATO. The Gulf States already had pulled away from bombing runs on IS in Syria as soon as the US upped its air strikes from NATO base Incirlik in Southern Turkey. The Gulf coalition are bombing Houthis in Yemen which leads to a resurgence of Al Qaeda (AQAP). Turkey of course is NOT bombing IS at all but has used the agreement with Obama to start a revenge bombing campaign across the Kurds (Kurdistan) in Turkey, Syria and Iraq.

Erdogan pulled off another rabbit out of the AKP hat to win sufficient seats in the rerun election in November. He now sees fit to prosecute newspaper editors/reporters with long prison sentences who dare to write MIT trucks are moving arms and munitions to the anti-Assad rebels in Syria. Never mind most end up with the jihadists of the brutal Islamic State.

○ Two journalists arrested for story on intelligence trucks bound for Syria
○ Turkish newspaper editor in court for ‘espionage’ after revealing weapon convoy to Syrian militants

Obama is upending European nations by sticking to his policy of regime change by any means, even if it destructs a whole nation with a quart million lives lost of which a third are Assad’s armed forces.

The propaganda coming from the White House and from the spokespersons at State and Pentagon are not only sad but way over the top beyond reality.  Are the Democrats in a contest with the GOP tp present a fantasy world to the American people?

The relations between Moscow and Ankara are chilled down to absolute zero. Turkey failed to get full support during last week’s NATO ambasssadors’ meeting in Brussels.

Turkmen regions continue to come under heavy attack | Hürriyet Daily News |

Turkmen regions in Syria’s northwest are continuing to come under heavy attack by Russian-backed Syrian forces as government forces have taken back the Kızıldağ area that is home to Turkmens.

At the same time, four missiles hit the Sarmada village in Syria, around 10 kilometers from Turkey’s southern Cilvegözü border gate, causing multiple casualties, Doğan News Agency reported Nov. 26.

Syrian forces, with the support of Russian airstrikes and missiles launched from the sea, retook the Kızıldağ region, leading to the withdrawal of Turkmen forces further to the north toward the Syrian border with Turkey.

A representative of the Sultan Abdülhamid Brigade of the Turkmens, Tahsin Koşkar, told Doğan News Agency that when Kızıldağ fell due to heavy strikes, the Turkmens had to go to Yamadi village, which is a village close to the Turkish border. Relief material is being sent to Yamadi, where there is a tent city.

Daily Hürriyet reported on Nov. 25 that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces had intensified the shelling of Kızıldağ, a strategic point in northwestern Syria controlled by Turkmen forces.

Four villages in the Bayırbucak region, which is inhabited by Turkmens, were being evacuated on Nov. 26 with people being relocated to camps in Yamadi, daily Hürriyet reported from the southern Turkish province of Hatay, which is close to the regions where Turkmens live in Syria.

Jabal al-Turkmen, a mountain in the region that lies south of the mainly Christian town of Kasab, has been coming under bombardment since early Nov. 26, and a big proportion of the mountain has been taken by government forces.  

Terrorists in Su-24 search operation area killed – Russian Defense Ministry

Erdoğan: No apology to Russia, they need to apologize to us | Hürriyet Daily News |

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan appeared set to increase tension with Russia in the wake of his country’s downing of a Russian jet on Nov. 24, vowing that his country would offer no apology for the incident.

“I think if there is a party that needs to apologize, it is not us,” Erdoğan said in an exclusive interview with France24 on Nov. 26. “Those who violated our airspace are the ones who need to apologize. Our pilots and our armed forces, they simply fulfilled their duties, which consisted of responding to … violations of the rules of engagement. I think this is the essence.”

Earlier the same day, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Turkey still had not apologized for the downing of the Russian warplane or given assurances that “the culprits of this crime” would be punished. Speaking at the Kremlin, Putin complained that he had not received an apology from Turkey or an offer “to make up for the damages.” Russia previously insisted that its plane never violated Turkish airspace as Turkey claimed.

Putin also said he regretted the fact that relations between Turkey and Russia had been driven into a stalemate.

Speaking to reporters during a visit to the Turkish Cypriot capital of Nicosia on Nov. 26, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu also said Ankara would not apologize to Moscow.

“We don’t need to apologize on an occasion in which we are right,” Çavuşoğlu said. “But we said on the phone [Nov. 25] that we are sorry,” he said, referring to a telephone conversation with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.  
 Turkey suspends Syria flights after crisis with Russia

Putin: Turkey deliberately leading relations with Russia ‘into a gridlock’ | RT |

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused Turkey of intentionally bringing relations with Russia into a `gridlock’ following the incident with the downed Russian bomber in Syria.

The Turkish government has made no steps towards clearing up the situation with Russia after the Tuesday incident at the Syrian-Turkish border. The country has neither offered any compensation nor expressed any apologies over the death of the Russian pilot, thus apparently deliberately dampening relations with Moscow, Putin stressed in his speech at the presentation of foreign ambassadors’ letters of credence in the Kremlin.

“We have still not heard any comprehensible apologies from the Turkish political leaders or any offers to compensate for the damage caused or promises to punish the criminals for their crime,” Russian president said.

“One gets the impression that the Turkish leaders are deliberately leading Russian-Turkish relations into a gridlock – and we are sorry to see this.”

US-backed forces have right to self-defense, but others do not – State Department | RT |

Turkey and the rebels it backs northern Syria had the right to defend themselves against Russian airstrikes, State Department spokesman told reporters. The rebels reportedly killed one Russian pilot who ejected from the jet hit by a Turkish missile.

During the regular press briefing, Mark Toner said the Syrian government did not have such a right, though.

When asked by RT’s Gayane Chichakyan if the State Department considered the rebels who reportedly killed the Russian pilots “moderates,” Toner replied:

“We’ve seen conflicting reports. One pilot may not have been killed. If these `Turkomen’ were actually being attacked by Russian strikes, they have every right to defend themselves.”

AP’s diplomatic correspondent Matt Lee asked a follow up question.

What the Assad regime was doing “is not self-defense,” Toner countered, arguing that the government in Damascus responded to “peaceful protests with four years of terror.”

When other reporters questioned his description of the Syrian conflict as a “peaceful protest,” Toner brushed them off by saying that “everyone in this room knows what happened.”

Toner repeated several times that Washington stood by Turkey as a NATO ally, and its “right to protect its sovereign airspace”, while refusing to comment on the specifics of this morning’s downing of a Russian jet because, by his admission, he had no details yet.

The State Department spokesman confirmed the US was supplying TOW missiles – seen in a video purportedly showing the rebels destroying a Russian search-and-rescue helicopter – to the “moderates” in northern Syria who were supposedly battling Islamic State forces.

Ten years ago, today, a rich defense contractor rented out the Rainbow Room for his daughter’s bat mitzvah and paid Stevie Nicks, Tom Petty, Kenny G, Don Henley, Fifty Cent, and Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith to perform. Who knows how much that cost (reportedly, $10 million), but it definitely was more money than I’ve made in my entire life.

The contractor was named David Brooks and he was the CEO of DHB Industries Inc., a company that specialized in making body armor for our troops. Roughly a year prior to this bat mitzvah celebration, the issue of armor for our troops had been the top story in the country.

In December 2004, while visiting out soldiers in Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was confronted with a question about vehicle armor. His answer was one for the ages.

Rumsfeld fielded a question from Army Spc. Thomas Wilson of the 278th Regimental Combat Team who complained that military vehicles are not properly armored:

“Now why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up armor our vehicles, and why don’t we have those resources readily available to us?”

Rumsfeld replied, “As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time. Since the Iraq conflict began, the Army has been pressing ahead to produce the armor necessary at a rate that they believe — it’s a greatly expanded rate from what existed previously, but a rate that they believe is the rate that is all that can be accomplished at this moment.”

It shouldn’t have been all that shocking that Rumsfeld hadn’t provided adequate protection for our soldiers. He told the Washington Post in January 2002 that “I’m not into this detail stuff. I’m more concepty.” And, in November of 2002, he told Steve Croft of CBS News, “I can’t tell you if the use of force in Iraq today would last five days, or five weeks, or five months, but it certainly isn’t going to last any longer than that.” Quite obviously, he didn’t have a clue.

Also, quite obviously, it soon became so lucrative to profit off the disaster in Iraq that a body armor supplier like David Brooks could throw quite a party for his 13 year old daughter. Things were looking quite bright for Mr. Brooks.

But it didn’t last. Five years later, he found himself in a bit of hot water. That’s why Loretta E. Lynch, then the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, indicted Brooks for pretty much everything under the Sun.

By August 2013, the FBI announced that Brooks was going to jail.

Earlier today, in Central Islip, New York, the former chief executive officer of a Long Island-based supplier of body armor to the U.S. military and law enforcement agencies was sentenced to 17 years in prison for his leadership role in a $200 million fraud and obstruction of justice case, to be followed by five years of supervised release. DHB Industries Inc. founder David H. Brooks, who was convicted in September 2010 on 14 counts of conspiracy, mail and wire fraud, securities fraud, obstruction of justice, and lying to auditors and subsequently pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the IRS and filing false income tax returns, was also ordered to pay a fine of $8.7 million and to forfeit approximately $65 million in illegally-gained profits to the United States. The court will determine the amount Brooks must pay in restitution to the victims of his fraud scheme within 90 days. The sentence was imposed by U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert.

The sentence was announced by Loretta E. Lynch, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York; George Venizelos, Assistant Director in Charge, FBI, New York Field Office (FBI); and Richard Weber, Chief, Criminal Investigation, Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

“DHB Industries made body armor that protected the men and women of the U.S. military, who risk their lives to keep us safe. To David Brooks, it was merely a vehicle for plunder and a means to feed his own greed. Brooks fancied himself a master of the sport of kings. In reality, he was a selfish man who looted his company, defrauded his investors, lied to the SEC and the investing public, and sought to profit through insider trading right before the collapse of his house of cards. And he demonstrated time and time again that he believes he is above the law. Today, David Brooks learned otherwise,” stated U.S. Attorney Lynch. “Thanks to the hard work and dedication of law enforcement, the investing public can rest easier knowing that for the next 17 years, Brooks will not be able to lie, cheat, and steal from anyone else.” Ms. Lynch thanked the FBI and IRS for leading the investigation and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service for its assistance in the case.

FBI Assistant Director in Charge Venizelos stated, “David Brooks repeatedly stole from his company, stole from investors, lied to auditors and regulators, and traded on inside information. He did all this to finance an obscenely lavish lifestyle paid for by his victims. Today’s sentencing is the justice the government has been seeking.”

“Tax fraud was integral to sustaining Brooks’s securities fraud schemes and fueling his lust for money,” stated IRS Chief, Criminal Investigation Weber. “Brooks falsified his income tax returns in order to prevent law enforcement from discovering that he was looting DHB. IRS-CI will turn over every stone to find where criminals are hiding and spending their illegal proceeds. This case should send a message to those who feel that they can commit fraud and evade taxes—their consuming greed will always leave a money trail.”

The FBI also announced that day that the prosecution of Brooks “was the result of efforts by President Barack Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force (FFETF), which was created in November 2009 to wage an aggressive, coordinated, and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes.”

I mention all this not just to point out that the fighting in Iraq lasted longer than five months and has now spread to Syria and the streets of Paris. I mention it because it’s a reminder of why you don’t start wars of choice. I mention it because there’s a lesson in here somewhere about violence and entertainment and greed and opulence and what it means to sell out. I mention it because the people we ask to fight our wars never seem to come first.

I mention it mostly because it’s disgusting, and I never want us to forget.

In the June/July/August issue of the Washington Monthly, former Bill Clinton-pollster Stanley Greenberg discussed areas of agreement between “downscale” white working class voters and reform-minded progressives. His findings came from research he did in concert with Page Gardner’s Women’s Voices Women Vote Action Fund and David Donnelly’s Every Voice. Here’s part of what Greenberg discovered and concluded:

…the white working-class and downscale voters in our surveys do support major parts of a progressive, activist agenda, particularly when a Democratic candidate boldly attacks the role of money and special interests dominating government and aggressively promotes reforms to ensure that average citizens get both their say and their money’s worth…

…In recent years, too many Democrats have presumed that the white working class is out of the party’s reach and that talk of reforming government and the political process simply does not move voters. My contention is that both of those presumptions are wrong. An agenda of reform is the key to Democrats winning the greater share of white working-class and unmarried women votes that will give the party the majorities it needs to govern.

So, the key finding is that going after money in politics actually can move voters, and particularly the kind of voters that Democrats have been losing and that they need to broaden their regional appeal and make a run at retaking control of the House of Representatives.

You might think that the Republican Party is aware of this potential weakness and is therefore willing to play defense or maybe even get out in front of the reform process to cut off a likely avenue of attack. If so, you couldn’t be more wrong.

As Politico reports, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (the least popular member of the Senate) is preparing to introduce a rider into the upcoming must-pass omnibus spending bill.

Senate Republicans plan to insert a provision into a must-pass government funding bill that would vastly expand the amount of cash that political parties could spend on candidates, multiple sources tell POLITICO.

The provision, which sources say is one of a few campaign-finance related riders being discussed in closed-door negotiations over a $1.15 trillion omnibus spending package, would eliminate caps on the amount of cash that parties may spend in coordination with their candidates.

Pushed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a longtime foe of campaign finance restrictions, the coordination rider represents the latest threat to the increasingly rickety set of rules created to restrict political fundraising and spending on elections.

Campaign finance watchdogs argue that it would allow wealthy donors to exercise even more influence with members of Congress. And they cried foul over the possibility that the provision could be slipped into the omnibus spending bill that Congress is working to pass before a Dec. 11 deadline to avoid a government shutdown.

Campaign-finance watchdog Fred Wertheimer of Democracy 21, points out that the Republicans tried and failed to get a similar provision through the normal committee process. “They’re using this end-game process to do what they can’t necessarily do in the legislative process.”

Meanwhile, the Senate Democratic leadership is opposed to this change in the law, although that doesn’t mean necessarily that they’ll be willing to cause a government shutdown to prevent it. I don’t know that the Obama administration would veto an omnibus containing this provision, either. The assumption that the Democrats won’t fight on this is the entire point of McConnell’s gambit.

To be sure, there are some reform-minded folks who think the parties have grown too weak relative to outside Super PAC-type organizations, and a few of them believe that giving the parties more power to fund and coordinate with campaigns could serve as a useful tonic.

We can discuss the policy merits of that argument if you like, but there’s also a political argument here. Greenberg identified an area where the Democrats might make some headway by picking a fight, which is in keeping big money out of politics. If they acquiesce to these changes, they’ll be passing up a chance to show that they’re on the side of the small donor and the little guy.

There’s also something to be said for picking a fight with the least popular senator in America, particularly one with a long checkered record of fighting for big money.

Do you remember during McConnell’s reelection campaign last year when The Nation released a surreptitiously recorded audio tape of him addressing a “secret strategy conference of conservative millionaire and billionaire donors hosted by the Koch brothers”?

If you listened to that tape, you can hardly be surprised by what McConnell is planning now:

In the tape, McConnell talks about his plan to attach Republican initiatives to spending bills should he become the Senate majority leader…

“The worst day of my political life was when President George W. Bush signed McCain-Feingold into law in the early part of the first administration,” McConnell told the group.

“McCain-Feingold” refers to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, which was the last serious attempt to get big money out of politics.

Some people noted that perhaps 9/11 would have been a better day to choose as the “worst day of his life.” But, then, not everyone is accustomed to addressing billionaires in secret strategy sessions.

Returning to Greenberg’s research, here’s what he found happens when you pitch a plan to get big money out of politics before you pitch them on a Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren-type plan to soak the rich to help the middle class:

In a straight test, the presidential electorate is as enthusiastic about a reform narrative as the middle-class economic one. The first part of the narrative focuses on big business and special interests that give big money to politicians and then use lobbyists to win special tax breaks and special laws that cost the country billions. The second part emphasizes how special interests and the bureaucracy protect out-of-date programs that don’t work. The bottom line of the narrative is that government reform would free up money so the government could work for middle-class and working families rather than big donors.

Most importantly, when voters hear the reform narrative first, they are then dramatically more open to the middle-class economic narrative that calls for government activism in response to America’s problems.

Among voters who heard the reform message first, 43 percent describe the middle-class economic narrative as very convincing—11 points higher than when they hear the economic message first. Among white working-class voters in particular, this effect produced a 13-point jump in intensity for the Democrats’ middle-class economic message (from 27 to 40 percent).

Clearly, these white working-class and downscale voters are open to a bold Democratic agenda and prefer it to a conservative Republican vision for the country. To win their support, however, voters are demanding, with growing ferocity, that Democrats battle against America’s corrupted politics and for a government that really works for the average citizen.

If Greenberg is correct and these voters are gettable but not until the Democrats meet their “ferocious demands” that the government work for them and not big donors, then it should be obvious what to do about McConnell’s omnibus rider.

Fight.

Right?

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This post originally started as a short answer to Booman’s recent post Do We Have Basic Minimum Standards? It grew.

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Booman asks:

Q: Do We Have Basic Minimum Standards?

Short answer: No.

Longer answer: Not anymore we don’t.

Elucidation: Why? Because corporatist power (via its intelligence system)  took over the media and succeeded in thoroughly debasing a working culture that had a certain “morality” at its hitherto unshakeable base. (See “Operation Mockingbird” for more on that…just the beginning of what has now happened.)

Read on for more.

Much more.
I find it more than a little…odd…that no one seems to have mentioned the plain fact that the band that got blown up in Paris (along with its many listeners) is named “Eagles of Death Metal.” Sorry…does no one else object to the term “Death Metal?’ Is there anything on earth more descriptive of the violence the U.S./European coalition has unleashed upon the Third World…the parts of the world that cannot match power to power w/the U.S./European military…over the last say 70 years or so?

Please!!!

I went and listened to a couple of their pre-Bataclan tracks…they are a good rock ‘n’ roll band (which really ain’t saying much compared to high level musics) that is basically selling rock as sex.

So what.

Right?

So what.

Business as usual.

So what? I don’t want to see anybody killed or maimed, but these guys are fronting for the further dissolution of traditional U.S./European society. Meanwhile 70+ years of real “death metal” has spawned a violent underclass in the Muslim countries that has found a way to bring that enemy culture down. That underclass is the dregs of the shattered Middle Eastern system come to take its revenge. They are no better…and no worse…than the dregs of our own system that are waging their own war against the system that marginalized them. Gang-bangers and far-right militias alike. Throw in the poor, sad, system-created nutcases that are wantonly killing innocents here while you’re at it.

It’s all broken, and we are the bull in the china shop that did the initial breaking.

In the name of “profit.”

“You break it, you buy it,” said Colin Powell as he tried to warn the neocons about their Iraq mistake.

Maybe he could have said it better by quoting an old Toyota ad campaign.

You asked for it, you got it.

We asked for it and we got it, alright.

We got it good!!!.

Question is…what’re gonna do about it?

Damned if I know.

Compound the mistake?

Looks like.

Maybe eventually pop a nuke cap or two on somebody’s ass?

Quite likely.

“It worked in 1945” someone is undoubtedly whispering into someone else’s uninformed…err, ahhh, uniformed…ear at the moment.

Bet on it.

Or…maybe we’re the turkey this Thanksgiving.

Gotta love the media, eh?

Jackass TV.

Good work, America.

Good work.

Happy Turkey Day.

And…WTFU.

AG

David Bry Here’s my tip for your Thanksgiving turkey prep: throw it in the garbage.  Tante Marie says, Just Put the F*cking Turkey in the Oven.  Both agree that turkey is dry and awful, but Tante Marie prefers to drench it in gravy and let others eat it before throwing it in the garbage.  What neither mentions is that turkeys don’t  freeze well and the larger the bird, the less flavor it has.  So, start with a fresh, unfrozen, turkey, stick some onions and celery in the cavity, and put the fucking turkey in the oven.  Occassionaly rub it with a stick of butter while baking and tent the breast with aluminum foil during the middle hour of the baking.  (But do throw the giblets in the garbage for feed it to the cats.)

On to the nasty bits.  From the top:

1. Sweet potato/yams with marshmallows.
2. Green bean casserole.

(Could be a tie because I won’t eat either of those dreadful concoctions.)

3. Gravy.  (Explains why I disagree with Tante Marie’s solution.)
4. Mashed potatoes.  (Although Julia’s roasted garlic mashed potatoes are good.)
5. Pop the can crescent rolls.
6. Brown and serve rolls.
7. Fruit cocktail appetizer.  (There may be a good version, but I haven’t had it.)
8. Jello molds.

Not good but minimally understandable.

1. Frozen pumpkin pie
2. Canned jellied cranberry sauce.  (Whole berry is better but both seemed to be made with HFCS.)

Everything else is good; some of it just better than other versions depending on one’s tastes and childhood memories.  The high and low fat versions of the vegetables are equally good.  (Or almost equally good.)  No particular favorites, but apple pie and ice cream should be reserved for other holidays.

What do you relish and skip from the Thanksgiving dinner table?

Do you think this is the kind of country that would replace Barack Obama with a president who mocks people for their disabilities? This is actually a serious question.

And before you object, I know all about the previous occupant of the White House. I remember when George W. Bush did an interview back in 1999 with Tucker Carlson and decided to make fun of Karla Faye Tucker for pleading for her life:

The most disquieting aspect of Mr. Carlson’s report of Mr. Bush’s language is not what it says about Mr. Bush’s ability to dignify politics after President Clinton’s squalor. Rather, it is that Mr. Bush may have been showing off for Mr. Carlson, daring to be naughty. He may be proving his independence, which Mr. Carlson likes, but it is independence from standards of public taste — not the sort of independence many voters will be seeking in a successor to Mr. Clinton.

Mr. Carlson reports asking Mr. Bush whether he met with any people who came to Texas to protest the execution of the murderer Karla Faye Tucker. Mr. Bush said no, adding: “I watched [Larry King’s] interview with [Tucker], though. He asked her real difficult questions, like `What would you say to Governor Bush?’ ” Mr. Carlson asked, “What was her answer?” and writes:

“`Please,’ Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, `don’t kill me.’ “

Ms. [Karen] Hughes, who says Mr. Bush’s decision not to commute Tucker’s sentence was “very difficult and very emotional,” says Mr. Carlson’s report is “a total misread” of Mr. Bush. Mr. Carlson, who describes Mr. Bush as “smirking,” says: “I took it down as he said it.”

Nothing remotely resembling the King-Tucker exchange that Mr. Bush describes appears in the transcript of Mr. King’s hour-long Jan. 14, 1998, program. And it is difficult to imagine anything Mr. Bush said that Mr. Carlson may have “misread” that could do Mr. Bush credit.

I also know that the Bushes were the precursors to the current post-truth party. For example, after Carlson reported on Bush’s mocking of a woman he had condemned to death, and also on Bush’s liberal use of profanity, he got some major pushback from the campaign.

“Then I heard that Karen Hughes accused me of lying. And so I called Karen and asked her why she was saying this, and she had this almost Orwellian rap that she laid on me about how things she’d heard — that I watched her hear — she in fact had never heard, and she’d never heard Bush use profanity ever. It was insane. I’ve obviously been lied to a lot by campaign operatives, but the striking thing about the way she lied was she knew I knew she was lying, and she did it anyway. There is no word in English that captures that. It almost crosses over from bravado into mental illness. They get carried away, consultants do, in the heat of the campaign, they’re really invested in this. A lot of times they really like the candidate. That’s all conventional. But on some level, you think, there’s a hint of recognition that there is reality — even if they don’t recognize reality exists — there is an objective truth. With Karen you didn’t get that sense at all. A lot of people like her. A lot of people I know like her. I’m not one of them.”

When Carlson says that Karen Hughes “almost crosse[d] over from bravado into mental illness,” he could just as easily be describing Donald Trump.

There is one difference, however.

When Bush mocked Karla Faye Tucker, he did it in the privacy of the backseat of a car. His campaign could and did deny that it ever happened.

Donald Trump mocked New York Times investigative reporter Serge Kovaleski’s disability on a stage in front of thousands of supporters. There’s no denying that he did it or what he meant by it. At another point, Trump said that conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer, who is partially paralyzed, “couldn’t buy a pair of pants.” That was also captured on camera.

So, even if there isn’t as much difference between George W. Bush and Donald Trump as people might think, there’s a lot more ammo to use against Trump.

So, I ask again, is this the kind of country that would replace Barack Obama with a president who mocks people for their disabilities?

I’m so hip that I’d never heard of the band Eagles of Death Metal before their concert was attacked in Paris. I’m very sorry for what happened to them and their fans.

Having watched their interview with Vice, they seem like really nice guys. I hope they get their wish and play the hall the night that the Bataclan reopens. It would be nice to be there with them, though I don’t see that in my budgetary future.