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Open Thread
by John Cole| 26 Comments
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Nothing worth doing is easy.
Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?
Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.
It’s the corruption, stupid.
You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.
Republicans do not pay their debts.
This blog will pay for itself.
Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard
They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.
We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.
“Squeaker” McCarthy
This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.
I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.
The revolution will be supervised.
No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.
Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.
And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.
Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.
It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.
Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?
Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.
Good lord, these people are nuts.
“woke” is the new caravan.
After roe, women are no longer free.
Dreggas
right now on Olbermann (am on the west coast) John McCain pretty much agreed that we need to reinstate the draft…
Dave
Tubbs died. RIP.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/20/rep-tubbs-jones-in-hospit_n_120121.html
Ned R.
Blah.
Cosign. Just feel tired and exhausted. (And not just from the campaign.)
Noah
Howard Wolfson has a new indie rock blog! Oh the horrors!
iluvsummr
Mikhail Gorbachev on the Russia-Georgia war and the Russian perspective on NATO expansion.
Laura W
If you need a laugh, Comedy Central’s roast of Bob Saget will deliver one or two. Cloris Leachman ROCKED it. I can’t remember when I have literally laughed so hard I cried, except for maybe when I saw Eddie Murphy’s “Raw” for the first time all those years ago. And maybe the occasional Stewart/Colbert riff that nails it.
You can’t believe how funny she was on that thing.
TCG
Neocon on Neocon action with VDH being mocked about his prediction for the imminent demise of the West (again).
But apparently Russia may have its own reasons above and beyond VDH’s concerns for its behavior. Demographics, man.
Ninerdave
Why are we arming Poland?
Seriously is Bush trying to start WWIII before he leaves office?
Incertus
PETA says it has a
suckerdonor who wants to blow some money in a really stupid way. Nothing new, I know, but this is pretty funny.Dreggas
They should make em all transformers. The dolphins can form the arms and shamu the body and they can be one of those megabots.
Xanthippas
I’m not sure why Russia making ridiculous claims about targeting Poland with their nukes means we should NOT arm Poland with anti-ballistic missiles. I really think we should be careful not to oversell the idea that Russia is solely reacting to moves that we’ve made in Eastern Europe. Russia is more powerful than they were ten years ago, they haven’t forgotten their little Soviet empire (or hell, even their empires of the 18th and 19th century) and they are now in position to do things they’ve wanted to but couldn’t before. Trust me, they’d be pestering their neighbors whether we had anything to say about it or not.
binzinerator
I’d love to see the face of every chickenhawk fucktard with a yellow fake-ribbon magnet on their car when they realize ‘Holy shit that means my son and daughter might have to go!!!!’. The piss will run right down their legs. There’s their real yellow ribbon of support.
Those dumbasses will suddenly see Cindy Sheehan as their guiding light. Funny how things change when the ‘we-support-the-troops’ bullshit might cost them way more than a buck ninety-nine. It’s gonna be different for most of these twits when it’s no longer other peoples’ kids doing the dying.
Hell yeah I’m all for a draft right now as long as every fucking chickenhawk and every armchair war supporter under the age of 43 — and their sons and daughters including the Bush twins, Jenna’s gooper hubby Henry Hager, and Mary Cheney — gets a draft number in the single digits. John Yoo — he looks young enough — his ass goes, too. Feith too looks young enough — his ass is out of here. Coulter is young enough, Goldberg although chubby is prime age, the army will slim him down unless his mom can get him installed as Quartermaster of MREs, and both shills are past due to get a first-hand taste of what they’ve cheered for — ship those fuckers out. Any kids of draft age by Rummy, Addison, Wolfowitz, Kristol, Krauthammer? They go in the first wave. Condi is too old, so give her some lame honorary commission so she can ride up in front, the better to slow down the incoming RPGs, and sling that fat ass Limbaugh underneath to absorb the mine blasts.
And 18 years from now, when we’ll still be in Iraq, Dick Cheney’s grandson damn well better be out there riding patrol in some cobbled-together hillbilly-armored vehicle. (Do you think that’s harsh? That it’s unfair to pin that on his grandkid who’s an infant now? Well don’t be so fucking stupid. Dick will have no such concerns whatsoever when your babies are drafted to Iraq when they’re finally of age.)
They want the draft now? Now after 5 unnecessary years of sticking the volunteers into the neocon’s incompetent and fetid bucket of shit, now they want to make everyone’s kids go and give their blood to turn that shit into oil?
Fuck these morons. They still don’t even know what they’re fighting for. For victory? Never been defined. To secure the country so a political solution to the anarchy, terrorism and sectarian violence caused by our own invasion can be found? They would need a half million men and even then it still can’t be done.
rawshark
or why they lost Afghanistan.
TenguPhule
How about for starters that the system doesn’t work in real life?
Why piss off the Russians when we don’t have to?
Ninerdave
Well Russia’s threats began after signing the agreement with Poland
Ninerdave
Because bringing on Armageddon didn’t work by destroying Iraq. He’s trying to up the stake and time’s running out.
w vincentz
Gosh, I wonder if Russia will be putting their anti-missile system in Cuba. Seems fair to me.
Kevin
Added for emphasis.
Conservatively Liberal
Unlike the prez of Georgia, lets not give them an excuse to do so. Georgia gave Russia the perfect cover to act and they pounced on it.
That’s what I told my wife and our daughter, and they agreed that we are being the provocateurs by basing our missiles in Poland. We raised hell over 45 years ago about the Russians basing nukes in Cuba. As Kennedy said at the time:
If we ignore Russia and go ahead and arm Poland, and the Soviets view that as a threat to their security, the prevailing logic of the Bu$h administration would be that Russia has a right to take out any possible threats to their nation. At least the Russians would be doing so after having proof that we delivered the missiles, unlike our attacking Iraq without any evidence to back up the claims.
How things have turned. We are on the low road and it makes Russia look like they are on the high road. As belligerent as our country has been since Bu$h took office, some nations now believe that they are justified in viewing America as an out of control nation. This only provides cover for Russia as they can claim to be supporting ‘the little guy’ against the ‘big, bad Uncle Satan’ when they confront us.
Damn right, and if they can make our life miserable like we did theirs you can bet they will leap at the chance to do so.
I know the missiles that are to be based in Poland are interceptors, but the Russians can argue that they could be used as adjuncts in a first strike attack with nukes. Weapons are weapons, it is all in how they are used.
Ninerdave
Of course it’s important to note that aside from the Patriot Missiles that we are giving them, the actual “missile defense” program that we are supposed to be deploying there is years away from working. Even McCain doesn’t want to fund the actual program until it’s proven. I’m sure McCain will be quickly flipping on this position at his earliest convenience.
You should read the transcript of Mr Neocon Fred Kagan vs John Isaacs on the News Hour I linked above. It’s as craven as you’d wanna be.
binzinerator
No he’s too arrogant and stupid to think what he is doing will lead to WWIII, even if it actually might.
What he’s after is some kind of war or even the threat of a looming war. I mean other than the ones he’s already started.
The usefulness of this in boosting McCain and the gooper brand has already been demonstrated with the war Georgia/Russia.
I’ve been expecting this sort of thing. You can be sure Bush will keep right on poking at the Bear to keep the war fears running high and super hawks like McCain controlling the narrative. Just when he was floundering on the economy and looking clueless about shia and sunni in Iraq, lo! along comes a very convenient change-up. Gosh. And just in time for the Dem convention.
And of course the Bushies would do this, that is, risk WWIII for domestic political advantage.
Recall how Bush and the whole gooper leadership had a special night session to intervene in a husband’s decision to pull the feeding tube on his braindead wife. That was to gain political points with their fundie base.
Recall these people had no qualms about fabricating evidence and lies to gin up a pretext to invade a country that never attacked us, a country they knew beforehand had no WMDs. Rove realized, among other things, the war would ensure another term for Bush.
Recall how the Bushies faked reports of yellowcake to support their lies about the threat of Iraq, and how they blew the cover on one of our own spies to strike at her husband who questioned the authenticity of the yellowcake peril. This was done to preserve their viability in the 2004 election as well as support for the war.
Recall how a bumbling and slow response to Katrina caused many african-american — read Democratic — neighborhoods to be destroyed. Rove was put in charge of operations after Brownie was scapegoated. Rove was not there to ensure N.O. came back, but to ensure N.O. came back more republican.
If they are willing to do all these evil things, running terrible risks for the nation for GOP political gains, with utter callousness for the lives they destroy, then why wouldn’t they do something as evil and calculating as provoke another armed crisis?
By the way, what is the downside for Bush and the goopers? The Cheney-cons want war with Russia. And at the very least, McCain and the GOP gets a stick to hit Obama with and make themselves look better.
Osama bin Forgotten, so a new bugaboo must be found. Fearmongering of the Ruskies always worked, so here we are, watching the Bushies trying to restart the cold war.
Conservatively Liberal
Exactly. They need a cold war, and the war on terrorism is just a war in lieu of the cold one that they prefer. They have started two wars and are now chomping at the bit to start a third one (that could go nuclear), and that is just insane. It seems that they are ready and willing to plunge the world into war just to suit their own ends.
You just can’t go around the world kicking people in the nuts and not expect a swift kick right back, maybe twice as hard. More than likely it will come when we are not looking since most nations know that they can’t go up against us one on one. They would be insane to, but they can target our civilian population and really make us hurt.
That is what is so stupid about Bu$h and his policies (if you want to call them that). He is making us less safe by going around the world and pissing everyone off. He is doing it, but we get the results. He has pissed off so many nations and people that I have no doubt that we are being targeted by more people than ever before.
The Republican leadership are a morally and intellectually bankrupt bunch of losers, and their hard-core supporters are not much better. Unfortunately, the Democrats are not much better but we have to work with what we have and hope that we can get the idiots to wake up and start leading for once.
Marshall
The claims are not ridiculous. The Russians are not saying that they would attack Poland just for putting in the interceptors, but that these strategic US military assets would have to be added to their lists of strategic targets. I see no reason to doubt that this is true.
Interceptors in Poland would be well placed to intercept an Iranian missile aimed at New York or Washington, which would pass about 1000 km overhead. (They would not, by the way, be well placed to stop an Iranian missile aimed at the West Coast; I guess our friends out there are on their own.) They in theory would also be useful against Russian IRBMs aimed against Western Europe, although with only 10 of them the utility would be rather small.
Since there are at present no Iranian ICBMs and no Iranian warheads either, and no evidence that Iran has any intention of changing this any time soon, I have to say that I see this as mostly an attempt to funnel a few more billion USD into the hands of well connected contractors. That it annoys the Russians is probably just seen as a pleasing side-benefit to the 13 year old children who apparently run our foreign policy.
Xanthippas
You’re probably right on both counts. And others are right that the neocons very badly want the Russians to be enemies again, and their super-nationalist counterparts in Russia apparently want us to be enemies again, and so it shall be. But my larger point is that Russia’s resurgence is coming as a result of changes in their geopolitical standing in the world that we really haven’t had much to do with. Although I agree that that Bush administration has handled just about every interaction with Russia poorly and thus has only exacerbated what ought to be minor conflicts in the past, the fact is Russia is supremely confident of their military and economic power at this point and would be reasserting themselves no matter what we chose to do about it. Let’s not forget that Russia has been meddling in South Ossetia since Georgia became an independent country, and in no small part provoked Georgia’s foolish invasion by arming South Ossetian rebels and sponsoring attacks on Georgian forces in South Ossetia. Now you could argue that they responded with greater hostility to Georgia because Georgia was transforming into a democracy that was hostile to Russia’s imperialism, and now they are more hostile to us because we supported that transformation. But were we NOT supposed to encourage the development of a nacent democracy?
I guess what I am saying is we should remember two things: the Bush administration isn’t really to blame for the fact that Russia and Georgia don’t get along, nor are they to blame that Russia seeks to reassert itself over it’s former vassals. I mean, does anybody think that if we keep Georgia out of NATO and not put missiles in Poland, Russia will then be content to leave their neighbors alone?
Punchy
Best Song by Rage Against the Machine: Vietnow.
Almost wrecked this morning car-dancing to it.
Discuss.
Original Lee
Basically, the problem with our foreign policy nowadays is that the Russians are playing chess, but Bush is playing Parcheesi.