Month: January 2016

Given his history and how he currently makes a living, people should be forgiven if it makes them impatient to get lectured by Tucker Carlson, but his column on Donald Trump is worth reading even if the messenger doesn’t have any moral standing to deliver the message.

He makes more than a few worthwhile points. For starters, the Democrats should take a recent history lesson from the Republicans and stop dismissing Trump as some kind of gift from God. I don’t care what the head-to-head polls say today. The head-to-head polls looked a lot better for Ted Cruz before Trump started savaging him.

He would be the most aggressive anti-Clinton campaigner we’ve ever seen, and there’s nothing in Bernie Sanders’ history that indicates any proficiency with attack politics. Trump is also pulling from the pool of unlikely voters, many of whom are registered Democrats. There’s enough evidence now–the left should not be as complacent about Trump’s candidacy as the right has been.

As for the Republican Establishment, Carlson points out, correctly, that Trump is succeeding because they have failed. Ultimately, they didn’t know their own voters and they didn’t make sure to look after them.

Conservative voters are being scolded for supporting a candidate they consider conservative because it would be bad for conservatism? And by the way, the people doing the scolding? They’re the ones who’ve been advocating for open borders, and nation-building in countries whose populations hate us, and trade deals that eliminated jobs while enriching their donors, all while implicitly mocking the base for its worries about abortion and gay marriage and the pace of demographic change. Now they’re telling their voters to shut up and obey, and if they don’t, they’re liberal.

This is actually the same critique of the Republican Establishment that progressives have been making for years. One part is a charge of hypocrisy and incompetence, that the GOP doesn’t deliver or really believe in many of its core promises. Another part is a critique that most of these policies aren’t actually good for ordinary working people. So, whatever the overall effects of free trade agreements, for example, the losers are quite clearly folks who work in our formerly industrialized heartland. And, whatever the legitimate seasonal labor needs of the agriculture industry, the folks who are actually facing job and wage competition from undocumented workers tend to be working class folks in industries like construction.

I can see how this is working right here at home. I live in the near-Philadelphia suburbs and our local mall is still virtually full, with a small handful of empty stores. Pretty soon, they’re going to film a Hollywood film there. It has several restaurants and a thriving health center that is part the Main Line Health System.

But if I travel out to Berks County, the malls are almost completely empty. Instead of a Macy’s, they have maybe a used furniture outlet, a comic book store, and an old, tired arcade. You can walk from one end of the mall to the other and see no more than two or three operating businesses. The food court was shut down long ago, and the parking lot is pulling in more revenue than the interior by selling Christmas trees and hosting flea markets.

That’s the story of this thriving economy, and it’s analogous to the disconnect between DC and Red State America that Carlson describes in his piece.

It’s true that this is what Bernie Sanders wants to talk about, but these voters have a shorter walk from where they stood (with George W. Bush) to Donald Trump’s Screw-You-Politics than to Sanders’ Democratic Socialism.

This cohort of America, downscale white working class culturally conservative workers, has been dying out at a rate comparable to the AIDS epidemic at its height. They’re being felled by opioid and alcohol poisoning, mainly, but also by the loss of status and hope. And their Republican masters totally missed this. They proposed nothing to combat it except tribalism, anti-elite resentment, and policies that promise to keep more money in the hands of the coastal elites and heartland oligarchs.

It’s no wonder these people feel betrayed. And the religious among them are feeling the additional sting of losing the culture wars. For them, Trump may be faking his piety but it doesn’t matter.

You read surveys that indicate the majority of Christian conservatives support Trump, and then you see the video: Trump on stage with pastors, looking pained as they pray over him, misidentifying key books in the New Testament, and in general doing a ludicrous imitation of a faithful Christian, the least holy roller ever. You wonder as you watch this: How could they be that dumb? He’s so obviously faking it.

They know that already. I doubt there are many Christian voters who think Trump could recite the Nicene Creed, or even identify it. Evangelicals have given up trying to elect one of their own. What they’re looking for is a bodyguard, someone to shield them from mounting (and real) threats to their freedom of speech and worship. Trump fits that role nicely, better in fact than many church-going Republicans. For eight years, there was a born-again in the White House. How’d that work out for Christians, here and in Iraq?

I’ll give Carlson credit here. He nailed it. This perfectly describes why evangelicals prefer Trump to Mike Huckabee or Ben Carson. They’re like the small business that goes to the Mob to solve their shoplifting problem. The pastor wasn’t going to deal with the thugs, and prayer wasn’t working.

So, this election season is really developing into a story about things coming to a head. We’ve been telling ourselves that we’re structurally doomed to live with red state/blue state gridlock and that the country is divided roughly fifty-fifty.

I don’t think the country is looking for someone who is satisfied with that answer even if it’s accurate. And that’s why Trump is doing so well, and also why Hillary Clinton is going to have a bigger challenge than many people realize.

Trump refuses to debate on Fox News tonight, so Ted Cruz challenges him to a series of mano a mano debates. Trump thinks about this for three seconds, and comes back…

This is like swatting flies.

The Democrats better have a more effective answer to dealing with this than any of the midgets in the Republican field.

I did change the headline as put forward by cable news channel CNN te better highlight the message on Holocaust Day.

With the failed attempts to turn dictator states in the Middle East into a democracy American style, the 21st century has turned hope for humanity into a disaster for millions of people. No European state is showing leadership and take responsibility for military failures. In hindsight, the costly endeavor by president Bush in Iraq offers a better contrast to the awful R2P hands-off policy during eight years of the Obama administration.

○ Ambassador Susan Rice advocating for R2P response in Libya and Syria

Obama has responsibility for the resurgence of Al Qaeda in Anbar province which led into a proxy war with Western allies (NATO partners and GGC states) and the Syria/Iran/Hezbollah alliance. The sad state of affairs in Turkey and its blatant support for Sunni jihadists, both al Qaeda and ISIS,  made the sectarian war a slaughter fest by the most extreme foreign militants. An estimated 6,000 men from Tunisia joined the Islamists in the Levant to establish a caliphate. With Russia stepping in with military power, the civil/sectarian war may yet end through a political/diplomatic solution.

In all fairness, the Jewisdh state of Israel also evolved into an undemocratic state of oligarchs with misogyny, racism and Islamophobia. The European Nations are falling over one another to respond with harsh measures to the Syrian refugee crisis crossing from Turkey into Greece, a Schengen nation of Europe. Europe needs a wake-up call, I am quite distressed we have crossed a point of no-return.

Anne Frank’s stepsister compares European refugee response to era of Nazi Germany

(CNN)–In an essay to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Anne Frank’s stepsister accused Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump of “acting like another Hitler.”

Eva Schloss, now 86, was a friend of Frank’s in Amsterdam after their families fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Her mother, Fritzi, would marry Otto Frank, Anne’s father, after World War II.

“If Donald Trump become(s) the next president of the U.S. it would be a complete disaster,” she told Newsweek on Wednesday. “I think he is acting like another Hitler by inciting racism.”

European response to refugee crisis similar to era of Nazi Germany

Schloss survived Auschwitz while Frank and her mother died at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, and Anne Frank’s diary became a famous account of life as a Jewish family under Hitler’s Nazi Germany.

Schloss, who lives in London, also criticized the U.S. and Western European governments for their response to the Syrian crisis, likening the refugees’ experience in 2016 “to what we went through” in Nazi-controlled Europe.

“I remember how upset the world was when the Berlin Wall was erected in 1961,” Schloss said. “And now everybody is building walls again to keep people out. It’s absurd.”

Eva Schloss: The Stubborn Girl In Auschwitz

Eva Schloss was Anne Frank’s stepsister and a prisoner of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The friendship as well as the abuse in the concentration camp have cast long shadows over her life. But writing about it, helped her heal.

“Children, I promise you this: everything you do leaves something behind; nothing gets lost. All the good you have accomplished will continue to lives of the people you have touched. It will make a difference to someone, somewhere, sometime, and your achievements will be carried on. Everything is connected, like a chain that cannot be broken.”

Sitting in a sofa in the Dutch city of Amsterdam, these were the comforting words by Eva Schloss’ father a night in May 1940. The Jewish family was fleeing the Nazis. The 11-year-old Eva and her three-year-older brother Heinz were extremely anxious as to what would happen to them.

They had fled their hometown of Vienna when the Nazis invaded Austria in 1938. Now Hitler’s troops had reached Amsterdam, and their father and mother could guarantee them neither safety, nor an everyday life or simply a future. But what they had was the love of parents. Their father held them in his arms in that sofa and gave a promise that their lives, now that their faith was uncertain, would have a meaning, after all.

“But at that point, I had not achieved anything yet,” says 85-year-old Eva Schloss today.

The entire family was captured and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland. Eva and her mother survived nine long months in the camp – her father and brother died.

Eva Schloss is sitting in a brown leather chair in her living room in a small apartment in one of London’s nicer neighbourhoods, reflecting on that particular night in May more than 70 years ago. Despite the distance in time and the traumatic experiences she has been through, she still remembers very brightly the very last, safe moment she had with her family.

“I am very stubborn. It helped me survive. And I remember sitting there in the camp’s misery thinking that if I were to die now, nobody would remember me. So I decided to live,” says Eva Schloss, with a strong Austrian accent despite having lived in London for the past 40 years.

○ USHHM: The Liberation of Auschwitz
○ Liberation of Auschwitz – Heroic Deed of Soviet’s Red Army

My recent diaries:
○ Statement Ban Ki-moon at UNSC on Israel’s Occupation West Bank
○ War Talk by Joe Biden In Turkey Ahead of Syria Conference

When you’re trying to convince Iowa Republicans to come out in the cold and spend some time caucusing for you, it makes a certain amount of sense to say that you’re the most anti-abortion, anti-Planned Parenthood candidate in the race, particularly if you don’t think you have the luxury of worrying about how that will play in the general election. So, I get what Ted Cruz was doing last night. It makes me sick, but I get it.

However, Carly Fiorina is just a piece of work. I’ll admit, she fielded a pretty offbeat question:

Matt Johnson, an organizer with the group Direct Action Everywhere, was the last person Fiorina called on during her town hall at the Iowa Pork Congress, an annual event celebrating Iowa’s sprawling pork industry. Johnson read from a piece of paper to ask Fiorina how it could “ever be acceptable” to kill pigs “simply because they’re in a weak and vulnerable position.”

“These animals are individuals with unique personalities,” Johnson said. “They like to play, and oftentimes many of them are very affectionate. They have a vibrance about them and an emotional intelligence and a curiosity about them, very similar to cats and dogs, and similar to children. Knowing this, how could it ever be acceptable to unnecessarily exploit, harm, and kill someone simply because they’re in a weak and vulnerable position and they happen to be born differently than ourselves?”

Sounds like a playful way of using the language of the pro-life movement to support animal rights. Was he hoping to reach the audience’s moral compass or simply punking them?

In either case, Fiorina didn’t get the irony.

“I really wish there was that much passion in that young man for unborn children as there are for pigs,” she said. “We have to take back the character of this nation.”

To make the episode picture-perfect, as he was escorted out, Matt Johnson held up a poster of two cute little piglets.

If Fiorina had just declared that she’s pro-bacon she would have won the argument without looking like a humorless fool who doesn’t understand when she’s being mocked.

The only upside for her was that her response won’t earn her any more Pinocchios.

In the January/February issue of our magazine, president elect of the Association for Evolutionary Economics James Galbraith has a review of James Angelos’s new book: The Full Catastrophe: Travels Among the New Greek Ruins.

Journalist James Angelos’s The Full Catastrophe, a book of seven vignettes, recounts the author’s experiences as a visitor to Greece from 2011 through 2014, the years of economic collapse. They sketch, as vignettes do, a portrait of the country; the picture is not pretty.

Angelos, a Greek American, traveled first to Zakynthos, an Ionian island, to report on the sale, by an ophthalmologist and island prefect, of blindness benefits to hundreds of sighted residents. He went on to explore tax evasion (“a national preoccupation”) and corruption in military procurement; a village mayor’s murder by two local treasurers who continued, even in prison, to receive salaries; the zealots of the Orthodox Church; the plight of immigrants; and the rise of the fascist Golden Dawn party. Apart from the story of Manolis Glezos, the nonagenarian Syriza member of the European Parliament (MEP) who as a boy in 1941 scaled the Acropolis to pull down the Nazi flag, there is little to admire here, and even in the case of Glezos, Angelos is scathing: “I found Glezos’s energy and passion admirable, and I wanted to admire him.… But this desire ran up against the reality that I often found Glezos to be wrong, if not actively misleading, and populist.”

The book also contains an epilogue that explores conditions in Greece at the time of the January 2015 elections that brought Alexis Tsipras to power.

If you’re interested in the financial collapse in Greece, this review will help you weigh some interesting questions, including how to allocate culpability between the Greeks and their European overlords, and also a chance to explore what the financial and political hardship has done to the Greek people and how its impacting their attitudes towards immigrants, the European Union, and their own image of themselves.

Make sure to read the whole thing.

(There is a point to this.)

In the past 104 years:

1. How many tickets were a Senator (POTUS)/Governor (VP) combination?
2. Name the winning Presidential nominees that had never before held elective office or been out of elective office in the prior three or more years.
3. Name the losing Presidential nominees that had never before held elective office or been out of elective office in the prior three or more years.
4. How many wining and losing Republican VP nominees had never before held elective office or been out of elective office in the prior three or more years?
5. How many wining and losing Democratic VP nominees had never before held elective office or been out of elective office in the prior three or more years?

6. How many tickets included a sitting US House Rep as the VP and how many won?

Update: The answers and the points

1. How many tickets were a Senator (POTUS)/Governor (VP) combination?

Answer: Two. Harding (Sen OH)/Coolidge (Gov MA) (R) and MCain (Sen AZ)/Palin (Gov AK) (R).

2. Name the winning Presidential candidates that had never before held elective office or been out of elective office in the prior three or more years.

Answer: Hoover (R) (none), DDE (R) (none), Nixon (R) (eight years), Reagan (R) (six years)

3. Name the losing Presidential candidates that had never before held elective office or been out of elective office in the prior three or more years.

Answer: Charles Hughes (R), John Davis (D), Wendell Wilkie (R), Stevenson (D) ’56, Mondale (D), Romney (R)

4. How many wining and losing Republican VPs had never before held elective office or been out of elective office in the prior three or more years.

Answer: Three winners and five losers. Winners: Dawes (R), GHWBush (R), Cheney (R); Losers: Butler (R), Fairbanks (R), Knox (R), Lodge (R), Kemp (R)

This one was a bit of a trick question because the 1912 GOP VP nominee was James Sherman, the sitting VP. He died a few days before the general election and Butler was selected as the substitute.

5. How many wining and losing Democratic VPs had never before held elective office or been out of elective office in the prior two or more years.

Answer: Zero winners and two losers. Cox/FDR, McGovern/Shriver

6. How many tickets included a sitting US Rep as the VP and how many won?

Answer: Four and one winner. FDR/Garner (D), Goldwater/Miller (R), Mondale/Ferraro (D), Romney/Ryan (R)

Note: Garner was the sitting Speaker of the House in 1932.

————-

Observations (for the 1912 – 2012 period):

A Sen/Gov ticket is rare. This is somewhat counterintuitive because we tend to think that Presidential tickets strive for some balance and the VP is expected to bring in a state or region that might otherwise be out of reach for the POTUS nominee. Formally, the VP is president of the US Senate and therefore, would be expected to be engaged on The Hill. Practically, there’s not much in the way of official duties for the VP to perform in the Senate. So, it’s a bit of a mystery why such a ticket doesn’t get more consideration. (But maybe after McCain nobody will want to go that route again for a long, long time.)

Democrats didn’t nominate a single presidential candidate that had never held elective office, and only three that were not in office when nominated. John Davis had been a House Rep 1911-13 and US Solicitor General 1913-18 when he was nominated in 1924. Stevenson IL Gov 1949-53 and out of office for three years when nominated in ’56. Mondale VP ’77-81 and out of office for three years in ’84. Note: all three lost. All winning DEM national tickets were comprised of two individuals that were in elective office during the campaign.

Republicans have been more flexible in who they nominate for president and VP. No experience in elective office and gaps between last office held and the nomination are frequent enough that they aren’t disqualifying for candidates. On the no elective office experience, they’ve won two out of their three attempts and the one loss was against FDR. They’re two for four among those that were out of office when nominated.

To be accurate it must also be noted that those with no prior elective office experience had served in appointed offices. Therefore, someone like Trump would be unique. The wealthy businessman nominee that comes closest to Trump served as Secretary of Commerce in the preceeding eight years. (That should give voters pause.) Hoover chose a Senator for his VP. (If Trump succeeds in getting the nomination would he be similarly conventional?)

In 1960, JFK broke that presidential religious barrier for non-Protestants. Although he wasn’t the first Catholic nominee. Reagan broke the “thou shall not be divorced” barrier. Catholics and divorcees have been nominated since then. None have won. Romney was the first Mormon and he lost as well.

Obama was the first mixed race nominee and by winning, he established two precedents.

How many new precedents can a national ticket set and succeed at getting elected? For the nomination, it would be one for Clinton, a woman. John Davis was out of elective longer than Clinton has been and as long out of an appointed office. Stevenson and Mondale were out of elective office for half as long as Clinton will be. If elected, she would be the first Democrat to do so while out of office. So, if elected that would be three precedents for her.

Julian Castro as her VP would present additional precedents. First Latino. Only nominee with elective office experience limited to the local level and out of elective office for three years.

The winning DEM tickets have been Gov/Gov, Gov/Speaker, P/VP, P/Sen, Sen/Sen, and Gov/Sen. And all of the candidates were in office when they ran on the presidential ticket.

Records are always there to be broken. But until they are, the odds are long.
———–

Or you could risk warping your brain reading NYMag – The Strongest Candidate Is the Strongest Candidate. A survey of IA and NH GOP voters.

Overall, ignorant and confused:

One of the biggest issues for me is gay marriage. I considered switching to the Democratic Party because of that alone. The Republican Party has been on the right side of social issues for the last 200 years, and this is just the one time when they’re on the wrong side. It’s a generational issue. I’m not going to let it define me politically.

Hey dude — the GOP hasn’t even existed for 200 years. And they have been on the wrong side of every social issue for the at least the past fifty odd years.

Ted Cruz is the most conservative guy in the bunch and he’s frankly the smartest guy in the bunch. I was leaning toward Rand Paul until Rand started to give me the impression that he was a little soft. Largely, the reason why I’m a conservative is because I’ve been on public assistance my whole life, and I have always felt ashamed of it. I have two major health conditions — cerebral palsy and an injury to my left hemidiaphragm. The whole idea of welfare and entitlements is to create a permanent underclass. They’ll give you plenty of handouts, but they won’t give you any hand-ups.”

Dude – a Cruz hand-up would be a bus ticket to Canada.

Supporting: Undecided, leaning toward Trump

“I’m more involved in this election. This is my first time voting, because I wasn’t a naturalized citizen before. I just got my citizenship a couple years ago. So now I’m even more excited.”

(She doesn’t appear to be white.)

“I just want to feel safe like I felt like I did with George W. after 9/11.

Dude — you live a thousand miles from NYC, GWB did nothing to prevent 9/11, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, and we’ve spent $4 trillion bombing Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and not one of those bombs in any way made you “safer.” Your “feelings” are really fucked up.

Supporting: Paul

“I first learned about Rand Paul in the ‘08 election. One of my friends told me, ‘Hey, this guy is talking about legalizing everything.’ I was like, ‘That’s awesome. I want to check that out.’”

Dude — Rand Paul wasn’t a candidate, or even a politician, in ’08. And his daddy Ron Paul was never about “legalizing everything” or much of anything for that matter.

Okay — that’s as many of the mushy-muddled personal opinions in the article that I can stand to read.

Bottom line — they want a winner that can kick butt:

In DC – “You’re Fired!” Get rid of all those lazy government employees.

In the US – “You’re out of here!” If you don’t have papers. “Refugees? Don’t even think about coming here.”

In the world – “You’re dead!” If you mess with the US in any way and violate any rules we make up.

There are a couple of firsthand accounts of what happened yesterday out in Oregon and how Robert ‘LaVoy’ Finicum wound up getting shot and killed. The accounts differ substantially. I’ve seen a lot of emotional reaction to the standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, and I’ve haven’t cared for any of it. I’m upset that Mr. Finicum lost his life regardless of whether he’s wholly responsible for his death or not. I think the guy was disturbed and needed help. And I don’t think anyone was in a real position to give it to him except the other folks who were occupying the refuge with him, and they all seem to be nearly as far gone as he was.

I understand that it’s upsetting that these people can defy the federal government, local and state police, issue threats, wave their guns around, and get treated with caution and deference when some of our citizens get gunned down by police without so much as a warning. I still think it’s a moral failing for anyone to call for these people to be shot or to celebrate when they get killed.

I don’t agree with what they’re doing on any level. I think a lot of these people are bad apples. Some of them are mentally imbalanced. Some of them are simple criminals who have now crossed a line and deserve to be incarcerated. But the proper thing to do is to be patient and try to negotiate with them because we shouldn’t be issuing death sentences to people just because they’re breaking the law. And there’s no vital interest here that dictates that law enforcement needs to risk a shootout that puts many lives at risk.

I’m very disappointed in people who have been calling for the government to bring the hammer down. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

And, as careful as the government has been, now we have a martyr and things could escalate as a result. The important thing is to try to defuse the situation so it stays isolated.

And, these principles are universal. So, yes, urban police forces should be using similar amounts of patience and restraint in dealing with potentially violent people. The answer to Tamir Rice isn’t to race in and gun down the remaining folks at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. The answer to Tamir Rice is to do what the Feds did at Malheur. Don’t shoot first and ask questions later. Form a perimeter, assess the danger, protect civilians, and negotiate if possible.

We shouldn’t have a death penalty at all, but particularly not without legal due process. If you don’t have to put yourself in a situation where you may have to kill someone, then avoid it.

Back in June 2012, Eric Benson sat down with Michael Dukakis in anticipation for that year’s heated general election campaign. They discussed the role of negative political advertising, and when you’re talking on that topic with Michael Dukakis, you know that Willie Horton is going to come up.

BENSON: During the 1988 presidential election, a group backing George H.W. Bush launched an attack ad holding you responsible for the crimes of a Massachusetts inmate named Willie Horton who committed rape and assault after fleeing from a weekend prison furlough. When that ad hit, what were the conversations like between you and your staff?

DUKAKIS: We didn’t have them. I made a decision we weren’t going to respond. That was it. About two months later I woke up and realized I was getting killed with this stuff.

It’s refreshing to see a politician take responsibility for his own failings. But it’s more important to understand the kind of misguided reasoning and advice that put Dukakis in the wrong frame of mind.

BENSON: Why didn’t you respond right away?

DUKAKIS: Frankly it was my own damn fault. I’m not sure I can explain it to you at this point. Maybe I thought, Hey, this is the presidency, maybe we can avoid this kind of stuff. I thought the country was tired of the kind of polarization we’d had under Reagan. So I made the decision that I was not going to respond to the attacks, which turned out to be the biggest mistake of my political career. Earlier in the campaign, Mario Cuomo said to me, “Don’t pay attention to that stuff. Nobody’s going to believe it. Keep it positive.” We were campaigning together in Queens four days before the election, and he said, “That’s the worst advice I ever gave you.”

Also important, what did Dukakis learn from the experience?

BENSON: What advice do you wish you’d gotten?

DUKAKIS: You’ve got to be ready for the attacks, and you’ve got to have a carefully thought-up strategy to deal with them. In ’92, Clinton had a group of ten people that called themselves “the Defense Department.” All they did was deal with the Bush attack campaign, which if anything was tougher on Clinton than it was on me. But you didn’t have the impression that it was because the Clinton campaign was all over the attacks within seconds after they appeared.

Clinton’s Defense Department operated in a War Room down in Little Rock. Legend has it that Hillary Clinton came up with the military theme. In any case, it worked. And it made a complete convert out of Dukakis.

BENSON: So what would you say to people like Cory Booker who have denounced the president’s attack ads?

DUKAKIS:…Look, when Clinton ran for reelection, he was hammering Bob Dole early. You may or may not like that, but that’s what he did. And with all due respect to the folks of the Beltway, you’ve got to anticipate these attacks—and that includes the president of the United States. Obama’s got to make sure he doesn’t let happen to him what happened to me.

Now, I bring this history up because I think it might help us arbitrate a dispute in this morning’s Washington Post between The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel and columnist Dana Milbank.

Milbank says that he adores Bernie Sanders and he agrees with him on many issues. He finds Hillary Clinton a “dreary,” “calculating and phony,” “cautious and uninspiring” candidate whose “reflexive secrecy causes a whiff of scandal to follow her everywhere.” But, despite this high opinion of Sanders and brutally low opinion of Clinton, Milbank argues that the Democrats would be clinically insane to nominate a guy who has referred to himself as a socialist.

Watching Sanders at Monday night’s Democratic presidential forum in Des Moines, I imagined how Trump — or another Republican nominee — would disembowel the relatively unknown Vermonter.

On the other side, Ms. vanden Heuvel’s column was part publicity for the fact that The Nation has endorsed a candidate in the primaries for only the third time in the magazine’s long history. In making the decision to get behind Bernie Sanders, they had, of course, considered the electability argument.

Put aside the irony of Clinton dismissing the electoral viability of someone she might lose to. Clinton has inevitable baggage of her own that raises doubts about her electoral prospects. And Clinton’s decision to present herself as the candidate of continuity in a time of change is problematic. In contrast, the positions Sanders champions — Medicare for All, cleaning up politics, curbing Wall Street, a less-interventionist foreign policy, rebuilding the United States, tuition-free college, fair taxes for the rich and corporations — are all extremely popular. Furthermore, Democrats have a natural electoral majority if they turn out. Even the Clinton campaign worries about her ability to rouse the young and people of color as Obama did. In contrast, Sanders has clearly electrified millennials with his message and integrity. A voter using his head rather than his heart might well be conflicted on the question of electability.

Part of the problem here is that vanden Heuvel is a much better writer than Dana Milbank but that doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s right about which candidate is more electable. It does mean that she marshals a more convincing argument. And, I think that if Democrats ever become convinced that vandal Huevel is correct that Sanders is the safer bet, it will be game over for Hillary Clinton for a second time.

What Milbank doesn’t mention is Bernie Sanders’s position on negative campaigning and negative advertising. Of course, you also have to be able to pay for that advertising.

So, on the one hand you have Sanders saying that he’s proud that he’s never run a negative ad in his entire political career and that he hopes that he won’t have to in this campaign, and on the other you have him eschewing a Super PAC and large donations that would give him ammunition he might need even he ultimately decided not to use it.

Yes, of course, you can talk about how this principled thinking is a key part of his appeal and a major contributor to why he’s electable. But you can just as plausibly say that it makes him look like a sitting Dukakis when the party has the founder of the War Room sitting right next to him.

Either way you come down, this is a valid part of the overall electability argument.

Also, I think Clinton can use some more enthusiastic backers than Dana Milbank.

Statement by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the Security Council on the Situation in the Middle East [as delivered]

New York, 26 January 2016

Sadly, 2016 has begun much like 2015 ended – with unacceptable levels of violence and a polarized public discourse across the spectrum in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory.

Stabbings, vehicle attacks, and shootings by Palestinians targeting Israeli civilians – all of which I condemn — and clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces, have continued to claim lives.

But security measures alone will not stop the violence. They cannot address the profound
sense of alienation and despair driving some Palestinians – especially young people.

The full force of the law must be brought to bear on all those committing crimes – with a
system of justice applied equally for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

Palestinian frustration is growing under the weight of a half century of occupation and
the paralysis of the peace process.

Some have taken me to task for pointing out this indisputable truth.

Yet, as oppressed peoples have demonstrated throughout the ages, it is human nature to
react to occupation, which often serves as a potent incubator of hate and extremism.

So-called facts on the ground in the occupied West Bank are steadily chipping away the
viability of a Palestinian state and the ability of Palestinian people to live in dignity.

In an effort to overcome the political impasse, Quartet Envoys met Israeli and Palestinian officials on 17 December last year.

They reiterated the urgent need for significant steps, in line with previous agreements, to strengthen Palestinian institutions, security and economic prospects while addressing Israel’s security concerns.

Changing Israeli policies is central to advancing this goal, particularly in Israeli-controlled Area C, which comprises 61 percent of West Bank territory and is home to some 300,000 Palestinians.

Approvals of master plans for Palestinian sectors of Area C would allow for much needed growth in these areas and prevent demolitions.

Progress towards peace requires a freeze of Israel’s settlement enterprise.

Continued settlement activities are an affront to the Palestinian people and to the international community.  They rightly raise fundamental questions about Israel’s commitment to a two-state solution.

I am deeply troubled by reports today that the Israeli Government has approved plans for over 150 new homes in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

This is combined with its announcement last week declaring 370 acres in the West Bank, south of Jericho, as so-called “state land”. These provocative acts are bound to increase the growth of settler populations, further heighten tensions and undermine any prospects for a political road ahead.

I urge the Israeli Government not to use a recent decision by the Israeli High Court affirming a large tract of land south of Bethlehem as state land to advance settlement activities.

The demolitions of Palestinian homes in Area C of the occupied West Bank continue.  So do the decades-long difficulties of Palestinians to obtain building permits.

The Bedouin community, in particular, is paying a heavy price.  I reiterate the UN’s call for an immediate end to Israeli plans to forcibly transfer Bedouin communities currently living within the occupied Palestinian territory in the Jerusalem area.

At the same time, the humanitarian situation in Gaza remains perilous.

○ Israel to appropriate West Bank land near Jericho
○ US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro leveled fierce criticism at Israel
○ E1 corridor – Israel building new settler homes on Palestinian land
○ Rebuttal Netanyahu – refers to UN statement as “support” for terror

Continued below the fold …

Eighteen months after the end of hostilities, conditions have not significantly improved. I condemn the continuing rocket fire into Israel from militant groups in Gaza.

Chronic security and governance challenges and funding shortages have slowed the pace of reconstruction.  Much work remains to be done.  Meanwhile, the people of Gaza face dire unemployment, water and electricity needs.

Meeting these concerns must be a top priority.  However none of this can be accomplished without critical support from donors, the fulfilment of pledges from the Cairo Conference, as well as the full return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza.

I continue to strongly believe that conditions in Gaza pose a severe threat to long-term peace and security in the region.

Palestinians must also demonstrate commitment to addressing the divisions among Palestinians themselves.

I strongly urge the Palestinian factions to advance genuine Palestinian unity on the basis of democracy and the PLO principles.

Reconciliation is critical in order to reunite the West Bank and Gaza under a single legitimate Palestinian authority.

Healing Palestinian divisions is also critical so that Palestinians can instead focus their energies on establishing a stable state as part of a negotiated two-state solution.

Genuine unity will also improve the Palestinian Government’s ability to meet pressing economic problems, which are adding to the frustration and anger driving Palestinian violence.

The international community also has a responsibility – not least by responding generously to UNRWA’s recent emergency appeal of over $400 million to support vulnerable Palestinians.

And as we continue to uphold the right of Palestinians to self-determination, let us be equally firm that incitement has no place, and that questioning the right of Israel to exist cannot be tolerated.

In an already tense regional environment, it is imperative to promote and consolidate stability wherever possible.

In Lebanon, I urge all political leaders to work with Prime Minister Tammam Salam and to intensify efforts to resolve the presidential crisis.

The Syria Donors Conference on 4 February in London will be an important opportunity to mobilize support.  This must include meeting neighbouring countries huge humanitarian, infrastructure and stabilization needs in light of the refugee crisis.  We are all aware of the strains on Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey.

I welcome the resumption of calm along the Blue Line and in UNIFIL’s area of operations following the serious incidents of 20 December and 4 January.

All parties have a responsibility to uphold the cessation of hostilities and to ensure full respect for Security Council resolution 1701.

On the Golan, it remains critical that parties to the Disengagement Agreement maintain liaison with UNDOF.  They must refrain from actions that could escalate the situation across the ceasefire line.

Some may say the current volatility across the region makes it too risky to seek peace.  I say the greater peril is not seeking a solution to the Palestinian question.

Some say the two sides are entrenched in their respective positions.  I say that we must not succumb to passivity, resignation or hopelessness that a comprehensive resolution of the conflict is not achievable.

A lasting agreement will require difficult compromises by both the Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

Yes — but what are the alternatives?

The continuing deadly wave of terror attacks and killings?

The possible financial collapse of the Palestinian Government?

Ever greater isolation of the Israeli Government?

A further deterioration of humanitarian conditions in Gaza and the agonizing build-up to another terrible war?

A hollowing of the moral foundation of both Israeli and Palestinian societies alike, a creeping moral blindness that ignores the suffering – and indeed the humanity — of one’s neighbour?

More unilateral acts by each side, intentionally designed to pre-empt negotiations and provoke the other side?

The parties must act – and act now — to prevent the two-state solution from slipping away forever.

[Upholding] and implementing this vision – two states living side-by-side in peace and security – offers the only means by which Israel could retain both its Jewish majority and democratic status.

As the wider Middle East continues to be gripped by a relentless wave of extremist terror, Israelis and Palestinians have an opportunity to restore hope to a region torn apart by intolerance and cruelty.  I urge them to accept this historic challenge in the mutual interest of peace.

The support of regional partners in this pursuit is essential. The Arab Peace Initiative provides a valuable basis for broader support.

And finally, the whole international community must be ever more committed to actively help Palestinians and Israelis to rebuild trust and achieve an enduring peace before it is too late.

Thank you.  

Israel to appropriate West Bank land near Jericho | Ynet News |

Israel confirmed it was planning to appropriate a large tract of fertile land in the West Bank, close to Jordan, a move likely to exacerbate tensions with Western allies and already drawing international condemnation.

In an email sent to Reuters, COGAT, a unit of the Defence Ministry, said the political decision to seize the territory had been taken and “the lands are in the final stages of being declared state lands.”

The appropriation, first reported by Army Radio, covers 154 hectares (380 acres) in the Jordan Valley close to Jericho, an area where Israel already has many settlement farms built on land Palestinians seek for a state.

 « click for more info
Israel Confirms New West Bank Land Grab Near Jordan (Credit: The Forward)

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon issued a statement denouncing the land seizure, which is the largest appropriation in the West Bank since August 2014.

 “Settlement activities are a violation of international law and run counter to the public pronouncements of the Government of Israel supporting a two-state solution to the conflict,” Ban said in a statement.

The United States, whose ambassador angered Israel this week with criticism of its West Bank policy, said late on Wednesday it was strongly opposed to any move that accelerates settlement expansion.

US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro leveled fierce criticism at Israel during a speech
at a security conference, accusing it of adhering to ‘two standards of law‘ in the West Bank

Israel has not built settlements in E1, with construction considered a “red line” by the United States and the EU. It could potentially split the West Bank, cutting Palestinians off from East Jerusalem, which they seek for their capital.

Israel says will seize West Bank land; demolishes EU structures

E1 corridor – Israel building new settler homes on Palestinian land

Israel’s Ministry of Housing has been working on plans for thousands of housing units in the controversial E1 corridor despite the cancellation of tenders for the units in 2013, a settlement watchdog reported.

International condemnation of settlement construction in the controversial area led Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cancel the tenders at the time.

Israeli watchdog Peace Now [pdf] reported that the Ministry of Housing began “quietly” planning for 8372 housing units in the E1 area in November 2014, hiring architects to work on many of the plans that had been cancelled.

The revelations are likely to spark controversy, as construction in E1 would effectively split the West Bank into separate northern and southern parts, making the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state nearly impossible.

The ministry’s plans include moves to retroactively legalize a number of illegal outposts in occupied areas, as well as to create urban continuity between illegal settlements to Jerusalem, the watchdog said.

One of many plans underway would place 800 housing units between Palestinian areas of Al-Jib and Biddu, connecting the illegal Givat Zeev settlement to Jerusalem, preventing a potential Palestinian West to East corridor, Peace Now said.

Israel planning housing units in the controversial E1 corridor | Times of Israel |  

Rebuttal Netanyahu – refers to UN statement as “support” for terror | BBC News |

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of “encouraging terror”.

“The comments of the UN secretary general encourage terror,” Mr Netanyahu said in a statement. “There is no justification for terror.”

More than 155 Palestinians, 28 Israelis, an American and an Eritrean have died in violence since October.

So cautious in his use of language for so long, Mr Ban seems determined to speak more plainly as he prepares to leave office, says the BBC’s Nick Bryant in New York.

Israel-Palestinians: How to untie diplomacy’s Gordian knot?

Former Education Ministry Official Praises Bernadotte Assassination, Hints Swedish Foreign Minister Deserves Similar Fate | Tikun Olam |

Zvi Zameret, the former director for instruction for the Israeli education ministry has written an op-ed in Makor Rishon, Sheldon Adelson’s pro-settler newspaper, praising the 1948 assassination of UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte by Yitzhak Shamir’s Lehi gang. Zameret accuses Bernadotte of being an anti-Semite and claims that his views originated in a Swedish society that was suffused with this perspective. He claims that ridding the world of the Swedish Count was necessary to protect Israel’s new existence.

He wends his way through a long historical discourse involving material already well-known related to Bernadotte’s proposals, which were rejected by Arabs and Jews alike. Then he brings us up to the present day by alleging that remarks of the current Swedish Foreign Minister, Margot Wallstrom, demanding that Israel be held accountable for the 160 Palestinians killed over the past two months in the latest Intifada, stem from the same well of Swedish anti-Semitism.

Zameret hints that FM Wallstrom herself should share a similar fate to UN peacemaker Folke Bernadotte.

Mission of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg saving 100,000 Hungarian Jews from the Nazi death camps

Kerry says ‘fight’ with Netanyahu over, Obama to visit Israeli Embassy

WEF Davos 2016 – CNN Interview with Benjamin Netanyahu

○ Israeli largest circulation newspaper Hayom suggests Swedish foreign minister deserves assassination for questioning Israeli policy
○ Israel’s Ya’alon advocates use of Sunni proxies to fight ISIS and Iran
○ Israel and Saudi Arabia: ambiguity in bilateral relations related to Iran’s resurgence

Oregon standoff spokesman Robert ‘LaVoy’ Finicum killed, Bundys in custody after shooting near Burns | The Oregonian |

BURNS – Oregon standoff spokesman Robert “LaVoy” Finicum was killed and other leaders of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation were arrested Tuesday after the FBI and state police stopped vehicles about 20 miles north of Burns.

Authorities did not release the name of the person who died at the highway stop, but Finicum’s daughter confirmed it was Finicum, 55, of Cane Beds, Arizona, one of the cowboy-hat wearing faces of the takeover.

“My dad was such a good good man, through and through,” said Arianna Finicum Brown, 26, one of Finicum’s 11 children. “He would never ever want to hurt somebody, but he does believe in defending freedom and he knew the risks involved.”

…
At the refuge Tuesday evening, occupier Jason Patrick reported no unusual activity. “It’s pretty quiet here,” Patrick said. He said no one was leaving as of 6 p.m.

Hours later, Patrick said the refuge remained quiet but “we’re all standing here ready to defend our peaceful resolution.” He wouldn’t elaborate.

In the meantime, Operation Mutual Defense, a network of militias and patriot sympathizers, issued a call on its website for help at the refuge. The post was written by Gary Hunt, a board member from California who has expressed support for Timothy McVeigh, who bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City and had ties to the patriot movement.

“You have an obligation to proceed to the Harney County Resource Center (the wildlife refuge) immediately,” Hunt wrote. “If you fail to arrive, you will demonstrate by your own actions that your previous statements to defend life, liberty, and property were false.”

In Burns, Oregon State Police also arrested Joseph D. O’Shaughnessy, 45, Cottonwood, Arizona, known in militia circles as “Captain,” and Pete Santilli, 50, of Cincinnati, an independent broadcaster known for his aggressive manner and live streaming refuge events. They face conspiracy charges of impeding federal officers.

Jon Ritzheimer, 32, a key militant leader, surrendered to police in Arizona on the conspiracy charge. He gained national fame for complaining on a video about the delivery of sex toys to the refuge in response to the occupiers’ plea for supplies.  

○ Robert ‘LaVoy’ Finicum, killed in Oregon shooting, was Arizona foster parent and rancher
○ Reactions pour in after death, arrests in Oregon standoff