Best political cartoon I've seen in a long time. pic.twitter.com/LEjK1URjpk
— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) March 1, 2015
The things all “major powers” have in common… From Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan, at Gizmodo:
Saudi Arabia is building a great wall — or rather, a great chainlink fence with razor wire — to “protect against ISIS” in Iraq. And it’s not the only country investing in very expensive walls right now, even though they probably won’t work. Why? Because walls aren’t just about security. They’re also powerful symbols…
…[H]ere’s the funny part: Even though walls aren’t as infallible as they were two centuries ago, they’re absolutely exploding across the world. Besides obvious examples like Israel’s “separation barrier” in the West Bank and the United States’ own farcical partial wall at the Mexico border, there are dozens of other countries building walls around themselves right now. There’s the 1,050-mile-long fence between Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, There’s the 700-mile trench being dug between Afghanistan and Pakistan. There’s the wall that Greece put up along its border with Turkey. North Korea and South Korea, too.
Walls are springing up across our world with incredible speed, which contradicts many cliches about globalization. Sure, the world is getting smaller; it’s also getting more carefully delineated and guarded. The French historian Jacques de Saint Victor came up with very snazzy term for this phenomenon in an essay called The Return of Walls: A Closed Globalization?. He describes it as the “neo-feudalization of the world.” Even though it’s draped in technology and futurism, the construction of carefully controlled walls is all about imposing order on the chaos of poverty-stricken, war-torn groups of people.
“These walls are usually built along borders where there is a sharp wealth discontinuity across the border with a wealthy state directly beside a poor state,” Jones told me over email, adding that Saudi Arabia and Iraq have “one of the widest wealth differences in the world,” with GNI per capita at $53,640 and $14,930, respectively. The same goes for the US-Mexico border, and the South Korea-North Korea border, too. “Typically the country building the wall describes the threat on the other side as an uncivilized and violent people living in an ungoverned space,” he writes…
Reps. Peter King (Long Island) & Steve King (Iowa) — not to mention Louie Gohmert — approve this message!
rikyrah
Interesting, but it will not work.
rikyrah
Watching the new season of The Following. Already creeping me out.
Southern Beale
Breaking news from New York Times:
Hillary Clinton Used Personal Email at State Dept., Possibly Breaking Rules
And there goes her White House dreams …
Baud
@Southern Beale:
My lord, that was one of the worst hit pieces I’ve seen recently.
Kropadope
New wallpaper!!!
beltane
Elizabeth Warren will not be attending the Netanyahu concert tomorrow.
Southern Beale
Some walls must fall.
Southern Beale
@Baud:
Twitter is going nuts over this right now.
Baud
@Southern Beale:
Figures. I guess the theme for next year’s RNC convention will be “You didn’t preserve that!”
Mike in NC
Is John McCain still walking around saying “Just build the dang fence!” to anybody willing to stick a microphone in his face?
beltane
@Mike in NC: I think he’s gone back to his “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” number, but he might be willing to do the “Dang Fence” routine if the audience claps loudly enough.
Kropadope
@beltane:
He’s been making a killing on that one for years. He must owe the Beach Boys royalties.
Another Holocene Human
Gated communities.
@rikyrah: almost goes without saying
Another Holocene Human
@beltane: I’m disappointed that he’s forgotten all about his old anti-Amtrak routine. The oldies but goodies. *sniff*
yodecat
@Southern Beale: Lady, I don’t think so.
Baud
I think moats would be cool. Walls are depressing.
Southern Beale
Oh, the Fox News folks are high-fiving each other. And of course … Benghaaaaaaaaziiiiiii
But it was fucking stupid. Why would she even do that? I don’t get it. I feel like there’s more to this story.
Baud
@Southern Beale:
Probably.
Kropadope
@Southern Beale: She had to have known that wasn’t OK. Perhaps Congress blocked funding for her official email account for her entire term.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Southern Beale:
IF it’s true — and I definitely will want more information, especially given the NY Times’ history of basically making shit up about the Clintons — at least the story came out now before the primaries and not in, say, October of 2016.
Southern Beale
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini):
It’s a bizarre story. She didn’t even HAVE a government email address? Didn’t even HAVE one? And nobody knew about it for 4 years??
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): I am curious as to what the New York Times has made up about the Clintons.
Don’t get me wrong, I totally think this could be made up. When I think of Hillary Clinton, the first phrase that comes to mind is “good judgment.”
Tree With Water
I drove down the street of a small, fairly affluent town this afternoon that suddenly dead-ended at a gated community. Without anger (or even any particular rancor) I heard myself utter, “you assholes”. I think I’d feel trapped and surrounded by the wrong sort of people if I lived in one of those places.
JGabriel
Not every one demands a wall, or even wants one. For instance, where I live – the open, generous, welcoming of your poor, your huddled starving masses, NYC – we have a moat.
Wait … that wasn’t where I intended to go with that.
Southern Beale
I think the problem is going to be this:
Just not looking forward to another year of right-wing “the Clintons are crookety-crok-crokk-crooks” BS.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Kropadope:
They made up Whitewater out of whole cloth. The Clintons were victims of the scam and lost money, but somehow the NYT twisted it into them being ringleaders of it.
Also, Wen Ho Lee purportedly being a spy for China, which supposedly proved that Bill was selling us out to the Chinese. Lee was acquitted of everything except sloppy security practices.
Peale
@Southern Beale: while technically a nothing, it is incredibly dense on her part. Was there no e-mail during her time in the Senate?
Baud
@Southern Beale:
Sadly, I fear that the other shoe will drop soon. That private email address — AOL.com.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): Hmm, I’m a little too young to be familiar with the NYT’s coverage of that matter. I’m willing to bet, however, that it didn’t rise to the level of full-on libel. Just excessive credence to GOP talking points in the name of even-handedness, as is de rigeur in modern political reporting.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Southern Beale:
Yeah, that seems weird as hell. Working in the corporate world, VIPs (like CEOs etc) generally have at least two corporate email addresses, an “official” one that goes to their assistants, and a real one that reaches them directly. It seems bizarre that the IT department at State didn’t set an email address up for her as a matter of course.
I also realized an interesting thing about that story: it mentioned Colin Powell and John Kerry by name, but not Condoleezza Rice. So where are Condi’s emails? Did she use a personal or .gov account? Why not mention the Secretary of State who immediately preceded Clinton rather than Powell?
Kropadope
@Peale: This isn’t a nothing. Record keeping is very important in many professions, particularly among high-ranking political officials. I work in healthcare and I have to document every little interaction I have with an entity outside my office.
Baud
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini):
I don’t know whether there is any there there, but that reporter reeks of hackitide.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Kropadope:
There’s a whole book about it if you’re sufficiently interested:
http://www.amazon.com/Hunting-President-Ten-Year-Campaign-Destroy/dp/0312273193/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425353020&sr=8-1&keywords=Hunting+of+the+president
Corner Stone
@Kropadope:
Shut up, you stupid fucking moron. You don’t even know about Whitewater or Wen Ho?
How about Karl Rove using an entirely separate email system to engage donors/bigwigs while GWB was in residence?
They torched those fucking servers when discovered. Just shut the fuck up.
Chickamin Slam
I think walls eventually will be built around individual states here. In the future apocalyptic tales will be told of people trying to cross the Blatnik Bridge from Superior, Walkerstan to Duluth, Minnesota.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope:
Of course not. The Clintons were/are public figures; it is very hard to libel a public figure.
Mike G
The Bush White House was notorious for using private emails to bypass public records laws. So let’s see how far the rightie hypocrites want to take this.
Tree With Water
@Southern Beale: If accurate, it was a move worthy of Dick Cheney. Public documents and documentation being vital to the survival of what’s left of our constricting democracy, and all.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): While that does seem interesting, my existing book backlog is already too big.
PhoenixRising
This wall? Will the Saudis hire Iraqi laborers to build it?
Bill Richardson, may he rest in peace*, referred to the wall W’s Border Patrol appointee wanted built on the Mexican border as ‘the inspiration for a 14 foot ladder’. For once, he nailed it.
*Technically, he may be alive, but until he’s present at a 2016 debate it’s hard to say for sure. /Proud to be from a state with 2 former governors in Presidential primary debates arguing for marijuana legalization…one from each party. Because that’s how we roll.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Mike G:
Like I said, I find it fascinating that Condi Rice is completely left out of the article. Shouldn’t knowing how the person immediately preceding Clinton in the same office handled her email be a vital part of the story? Why skip over Rice?
PhoenixRising
@Kropadope: If you’re not old enough to remember Whitewater, the scandal in which no one made any money when they failed to exploit their public office for personal gain, I look forward to your comments on the ’16 primary. This ought to be entertaining.
/snark off/ The fact that this is the Boomers’ country, and the rest of us just live in it, might warrant a bit of attention to the ’92 campaign from anyone who cares about the outcome next time.
Mandalay
@Peale:
You are very mistaken if that story in the NYT is accurate. This is a big deal, and Clinton’s credibility will deservedly take a big hit. Her opponents will now pound her as acting as a elitist with a sense of entitlement right up to the election.
An unbelievably stupid and incompetent thing to have done.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The thing I’ve always liked about Hillary Clinton was her brains. I’ve always thought of her as much smarter than her husband. But this is about fifteen different kinds of stupid. The explanation hinted at on the O’Donnell show was her paranoia about the sort of stuff outlined by Lyons and Conason, but that’s a long way from being a justification for using a private email account for State Dept business.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Kropadope:
Make sure to keep in mind as we roll towards 2016 that when Hillary Clinton said there was a “vast right-wing conspiracy” working against her and Bill, she was not exaggerating one iota.
Tree With Water
@PhoenixRising: “The fact that this is the Boomers’ country, and the rest of us just live in it, might warrant a bit of attention to the ’92 campaign..”.
I’ve read that a few times now, and can make no sense of it whatsoever. And I remember the ’92 campaign.
Kropadope
@Corner Stone:
I know about Whitewater. I was 10 when it started to become an issue and didn’t read about it in the newspaper, but learned about it later.
I’m aware of plenty of instances of the Bush administration engaging in poor recordkeeping and criminal destruction of evidence. I never said they didn’t and didn’t try to absolve them of this in any way.
Your example, however, is a terrible example. Soliciting donors is not an official government function and I’m pretty sure may be legally done on a private email. In fact, I’m pretty sure that it should not be done on an official government email.
PsiFighter37
Not using a government email the whole time? Damn that’s stupid.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): The vast right wing conspiracy is so much bigger than Bill and Hillary Clinton. That is Hillary’s solipsism talking.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Kropadope:
It’s a violation of federal election law for political parties to use a private email address to solicit donations for a candidate. They have to use a party address. So, yes, Rove was at best in an ethical violation and probably violated federal law as well.
PhoenixRising
@Tree With Water: He doesn’t and is too busy to read a book about it.
Corner Stone
@Kropadope:
I….I…shit, I don’t even know where to go with this anymore. You know absolutely nothing about any of this, do you?
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Kropadope:
Dude. Read. The. Book. I realize you’re ignorant of the history, but Jesus, at least admit that instead of digging the hole deeper.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope:
Dear god.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini):
So, not the email address he uses for his official duties of office. Just like I said. What I didn’t say is “personal” email, which seems to be what you are trying to rebut, so nice straw man.
Political parties are private entities. Maybe private wasn’t the best descriptive word to use with respect to the email address he should be using, but maybe Corner Stone might be inclined to find a better descriptive word than be an asshole about it.
Chris
@beltane:
Bless her.
She ain’t perfect, on Israel or in general, but damn if she’s not closer than most anybody else in the freaking madhouse that is our great congress.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope: Stop digging.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): Nothing I’ve said has had anything to do with Whitewater. So, I really don’t see the pertinence of that book to this conversation.
Chris
@PhoenixRising:
“Great King, do we pick Sunni Iraqis or Shi’a Iraqis? If we pick Sunnis, they may be ISIS sympathizers, but if we pick Shi’a, they may be Iran sympathizers.”
“Pick both. Hopefully they’ll kill each other.”
“But then the wall won’t get built.”
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Kropadope:
Look, if you don’t understand what the Bush White House was accused of doing, don’t comment on it. You’re not doing yourself any favors, especially when you get pissy with people who try to correct your misapprehensions.
And, no, the RNC is not a “private” address under election law.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Kropadope:
Really? I show you that the New York Times has a history of making up fake “scandals” about the Clintons and you have no idea what possible relevance that could have to a potentially scandalous story about Hillary Clinton?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): who wrote the “if there’s this much smoke, there must be fire” whitewater editorial. Howell Raines?
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): It’s also not his official government email address, which is what I was trying to explain to Corner Stone. It would also be illegal for him to use his official government email for soliciting donations.
I used the term “private,” as I explained, for lack of a better word. I even went so far as to ask for a better word. Instead of providing me with a better word, you continue to misconstrue (I must now assume deliberately) what I said.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Kropadope:
The Bush administration, led by Karl Rove, used RNC email and servers to conduct official White House business. Not elections or donations, but official business. They also used personal — not RNC — email addresses to organize and coordinate election activities so those activities could not be tracked by the Federal Elections Commission.
Do you understand that it was wrong for them to do that, and possibly illegal?
Corner Stone
@Kropadope: You obviously do not need any assistance in being a clueless asshole.
What the fuck are you even trying on, anymore? You don’t know anything about what your blatherings are scarcely referring to.
Don’t put this on me, friend. You just don’t know anything about what your argument is feebly trying to tie into.
Not me, here.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope: Dude, you are getting CS and Mnem on the same side of an argument; It’s hard to be that wrong. Congrats, I guess.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): Right. I then told you that I was unfamiliar with their particular coverage of the matter and haven’t said anything about it since, other than to note that those claiming I know nothing about it are also wrong. One can acquire knowledge about something without reading the newspaper the day that it’s happening.
I have taken pains here to point out what I know and what I don’t know. I’m not sure why, but you seem to be going out of your way to lie about what I’m saying. Cut the crap.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope:
Easily the worst Clash album.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini):
Yes, I do. And that was one of the many, many disclosure problems they had that I was referring to when I said:
In fact, that is the very reason I knew that:
As I stated at least twice.
Corner Stone, however, said this:
That’s precisely the opposite of the ethical breach you and I described, if I’m not mistaken.
It’s OK to admit that you misinterpreted what I said, but now it’s time for you to stop digging.
Corner Stone
@Kropadope: Congrats! I am completely flabbergasted.
xenos
Man, listen to ro the x’ers school the millenial on 90s trivia.!
On a more serious note, I am suddenly getting a lot less ready for hillary. After Bush my tolerance for this sort of cynical and systemic misconduct is really short. I sure as hell do not trust the Times here, but this reminds me of how much I appreciate the professionalism of the Obama people.
catclub
@Mike G: Yep, I think all of Karl Rove’s email was held in an RNC server that just … vanished.
Good question on Condoleeza Rice’s accounts.
PIGL
@Corner Stone: The fuck? Off your meds? Or maybe you haven’t opened your nightly fifth of cheap gin?
PurpleGirl
@JGabriel: Ah, but we have bridges and tunnels which connect the islands over and under the “moats”.
Corner Stone
@PIGL: What, Piggy?
J R in WV
@Kropadope:
You would be wrong. By the time “whitewater” was done, Clinton was accused of being a cocaine smuggler, killing people to hide his cocaine business, using whitewater real estate as an airport for smuggling airplanes, and this leaves out the wierd stuff.
Much of this was made up by people in Arkansas and picked up by Drudge, then it ran in Fox media, then the mainstream media picked it up because “everyone is talking about these new charges!”
There is nothing, NO Thing that is too strange for Clinton to have been accused of it. Oddly, many Republicans believed every word of it. He is a Demoncrat, you see.