One thing that unites the Fox News-addled gerontocracy that has seized control of the U.S. government is a reflexive “tough guy” stance. That’s why it’s jarring to hear Rex Tillerson recommend self-reflection as the remedy for Russian meddling in elections worldwide:
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Sunday suggested that in order to deter further electoral meddling, Russia “needs to confront” its own interference in the 2016 U.S. election as well as upcoming elections in Europe.
“This is something that Russia needs to confront themselves and I think examine carefully as to how this is helping them achieve their longer-term objectives,” Tillerson said on ABC’s “This Week.”
He said the U.S. will “continue to talk with” Russian officials “about how this undermines any hope of improving relations not just with the United States,” but appeared to suggest that self-reflection will be a stronger deterrent than external pressure.
“It’s pretty evident that they are taking similar tactics into electoral processes throughout Europe and so they’re really undermining any hope for improved relations with many European countries as well,” Tillerson said.
OMFG! Since when did the “Daddy Party” become the excuse-making parent who regards his rampaging toddler’s attempt to stuff all the candy in the checkout aisle down his pants as an interesting developmental phase that yields many teaching moments?
Of course, it’s all bullshit. Russia is getting exactly what they want out of these “relationships” — they’ve sowed chaos and discord in their chief rival by helping to elevate an impulsive, unqualified, compromised moron to the presidency, and they’re hoping to replicate that wildly successful strategy across Europe.
Team Trump’s astonishingly tolerant stance doesn’t just extend to Russia’s meddling in the domestic affairs of the U.S.; Tillerson took a similar tone yesterday when discussing Russia’s complicity in the chemical attack in Syria:
“I hope Russia is thinking carefully about its continued alliance with Bashar al-Assad, because every time one of these horrific attacks occurs, it draws Russia closer into some level of responsibility.”
“Some level of responsibility” must have Putin quaking in his boots. It’s widely speculated that Team Trump will use this situation to negotiate an end to Russian support for Assad in exchange for the U.S. lifting sanctions on Russia, which would work out well for Trump, Putin, Tillerson and assorted cronies.
Tillerson’s blather about self-reflection is just another species of deference to Putin. And at this stage, it counts as further evidence that, where their interests don’t naturally converge, Putin has Trump’s balls in a vise and therefore has nothing to fear.
Personally, I wasn’t even in favor of the extraordinarily circumscribed actions the Obama folks took to bolster the anti-Assad forces, and I disagreed with Hillary Clinton’s proposed strategy since it entailed expanding U.S. military involvement. But at least those were coherent strategies.
Tillerson’s positive parenting approach is pretty fucking ironic coming from the gang who constantly harped on the Democrats’ alleged “weakness” on the global stage. Projection, as usual.
schrodingers_cat
They can’t upset their real boss too much, can they?
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Well, weakness is only weakness when it’s Democratic weakness. Republican weakness is strongness! Also strength. And toughness. Mustn’t forget toughness. When Donald Trump whines about how mean everybody is to him and hurts his feelings, he’s showing us how strong and manly he is. Real men pout and whimper when somebody calls them names!
MattF
I think the whole Trump/Putin/Russia/Syria business is a complete wtf. It’s entirely possible that each and every one of the relevant actors are lying. Or not. So, wtf?
Corner Stone
I don’t know if I have ever seen a person in so public a job look so fiercely like he does not want to be there. If Tillerson is still there by July 4 it will be a surprise, IMO.
randy khan
They’re utterly clueless. And that’s the most charitable explanation.
Big Ole Hound
We should have taken out Assad 10 years ago. Any regime would be better than his. This is not “nation building” but rather elimination of a murderer which would have saved thousands of lives with a snipers bullet no matter what the United Nations says. I know this goes against everything we stand for but we killed many folks with bombing, so why not the right one.
Corner Stone
Putin has no downside in any of this. There will be some “tough talk”, and some “tension” and a few rounds of “high stakes negotiations”. And then Putin will offer up Assad on a platter, broker a deal that looks like peace in Syria but is meaningless and unenforceable. Trump will declare Putin a “Partner in Peace” and we will then lift the sanctions on Russia.
The only way that doesn’t transpire is if we can somehow impeach Trump before the shitshow goes too much further.
gvg
I don’t have the impression that most Trump appointees really know what Trump wants. Trump wants attention and money. He doesn’t seem to really have a coherant policy on anything so how can anybody do what he wants? he is bad for our foreign policy because he can’t be relied on by our allies greatly reducing our power. Trump react emotionally to events. he doesn’t really plan. Russia has more freedom with us reduced to idiocy. I wonder if Putin has realized that other richer countries might realize Trump can be bought and Putin outbid. Gah! I can’t believe my fellow Americans were this stupid. Why are so many people anti knowledge and expertise? Its so dangerous.
Corner Stone
I don’t think history is going to be very kind to the Obama administration wrt Syria.
Iowa Old Lady
I thought that same thing. It was like Tillerson wanted Putin to go to his room and think about what he’d done.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Does “First Lady” count as a public job? I guess considering the expense….
What freaks me out is he took the job because his wife told him “God’s not done with you”. So he was doing the Lord’s work while plundering the Earth itself. Whatever happened to the old school plutocrats who didn’t bother with religion? Like Monty Burns:
Kropadope
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
When I read this, I laughed. Yet, I thought it was missing something…
NAILED IT!!!!
gvg
@Big Ole Hound: There is no consensus among Syrian’s as to whom or what kind of government they want. Killing Assad means who gets the job? We tried some of this meddling in Iraq and it didn’t work so well. For that matter Iran way back and Afghanistan and etc. Syria is more fractured than Iraq, that’s why they are still warring and haven’t settled on something themselves. I am seriously against us getting involved in a way that ties us into lots of soldiers in the country. I would be against it even if it was someone competent. We really can’t fix this, and a simple killing would really not be simple. Actually I think this is almost always the case and this is why the convention arose where smart governments don’t do that. they like to call it civilized, but I would argue it’s just smart.
We should take in more refugees and help the neighbors of syria handle theirs.
schrodingers_cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: God talk is to keep the rubes happy as are the racist policies. Rich People’s Party is interested in one thing only to make the rich (0.1%) even richer.
zhena gogolia
Well, Stalin did write poetry.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Big Ole Hound: Because a) nobody has any idea what happens next and/or what to do in a power vacuum, and b) it’s Abu Ivanka al-Amriki who’ll be pulling the trigger. Additionally a “light-touch” involvement presents the same basic problem as Libya, in that it would require relatively intensive follow-up in order for it to be effective. And once again: Abu Ivanka.
ETA: What gvg said.
SenyorDave
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: What freaks me out is he took the job because his wife told him “God’s not done with you”.
I’m hoping the “God’s not done with you” part is something like a heart attack or dementia, anything to get him and his corrupt fat ass out of the WH (yes, I know Pence is horrible but he’s conventionally horrible, and it would get the Trump spawn out of the WH).
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Even history’s monsters like Stalin and Hitler were not scions of rich daddies with everything handed to them on a platter.
Corner Stone
@gvg:
I know, right? What I wouldn’t give to have Saddam back. He was so good with the children. How bad a guy could he be?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and IIRC the most potent foreign ally Saddam had was the King of Jordan, who was pretending. There was a story, which I believe, George W Bush didn’t know about the schism between Sunni and Shia a few weeks before the invasion. Not that he didn’t understand the theological and historical details, he didn’t know there were two dominant divisions within Islam. I suspect Trump has even less of a grasp of the far more complex nature of Syria
Kropadope
@Corner Stone:
What do you know of kindness?
@gvg:
Yup.
Oh, yeah.
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: She doesn’t have any actual power or responsibility. Tillerson is supposed to….shit, I don’t even know what he’s supposed to be doing. But I am sure Sec State used to have a job doing something, somewhere.
hovercraft
The tough guy thing was always an act, they just finally met someone who called their bluff. The GOP has always been full of it, they pick on the little guy, but never anyone who can fight back, unfortunately for them, the little guys they keep picking on have all fought back too. Leaving them always searching for that one country or group they can “defeat” to show what big tough guys they are. Putin is a real tough guy, he’ll kill anyone who gets in his way, he doesn’t need to talk about it or posture, he just does it. These assholes believed their own hype, they thought being tough in the board room meant something out here in the real world. Wasting 100 million to show your strength doesn’t scare Putin or Assad, but if it makes Twitler feel better, have at it, Putin will use the tantrum to claim the moral high ground, something that should be impossible, but hey Twitler is very talented.
Telling Russia to go to their room and think about it, is about as weak as you can get, and the entire world knows it. This supposed show of strength has if anything shown the world just how weak and ineffective Twitler is.
Corner Stone
She’s beautiful…She’s powerful…She’s…Complicit
schrodingers_cat
@Corner Stone: Let’s not forget that Tillerson was promoted by the so called responsible Rs like Baker and the editorial team of Washington Post.
MattF
@zhena gogolia: As did Mao.
cmorenc
@Corner Stone:
The fact that Tillerson comes from being the CEO of Exxon for a decade into such a Secretary of State position that is being so obviously and deliberately diminished in funding and influence under Trump – would tend toward predicting that Tillerson doesn’t stay aboard as SoS more than a year or two. I cannot see someone with Tillerson’s background gladly serving as Trump’s foreign policy gopher (as opposed to guide) for long, at most for just long enough to help secure some deal partnering American companies (such as Exxon) with Russian Arctic oil assets. But query if he lasts that long, should the cozy Trump-Russia bromance run aground against the rocks over Syria or the FBI getting uncomfortably warm on the trail of finding evidence of collusion between the two.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@Iowa Old Lady: I immediately imagined a teenaged Putin going to his room, then laughing while texting his friends about how he totally got away with everything, and making plans to do it all again this weekend.
rikyrah
I can’t believe that we have sunk so low.
I know we have.
But, it’s another thing to KNOW we have.
This muthaphucka here…..
Jim, Foolish Literalist
that was always a very one-sided bromance, a means to an end for Putin. I’ll be surprised if there isn’t some kind of embarrassing revelation about the trump campaign in the next couple of weeks. Not the OMFG bombshell that will lead to impeachment, but something to pout trump on the defensive politically at home.
hovercraft
@Big Ole Hound:
We took out Mohammad Mosaddegh, that got us the revolution in Iran.
We took out Gaddafi, and that’s gotten us the mess that’s still killing people daily.
We took out Saddam, and Iraq is still a giant clusterfuck.
We took out the Tailiban, and Afghanistan, is well, Afghanistan.
Taking out terrible leaders always sounds great for all sorts of reasons, be they humanitarian or geopolitical, the results are almost always, disastrous. Awful though it is to watch, change must come from within, it cannot be imposed by outsiders. We can pick sides and offer support, but even then, we need to understand that that very help may weaken those we seek to strengthen.
ETA: What Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD) and gvg said.
Corner Stone
@schrodingers_cat:
And all of them had one hand on their wallet. But “pay for play” is only an issue/crime if a D is involved.
mb
Maybe Putin could be required to do a self assessment and plan for improvement. Or, better yet, he could appear on a very special episode of TLC’s Intervention.
rikyrah
@cmorenc:
He’s the Secretary of Exxon, plain and simple.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Remember when the R’s told us that Obama wasn’t respected on the world stage, and trumpy told us we were going to get very tough, folks.
rikyrah
The Media’s Reaction to Syrian Strikes Was Right Out of the Washington Playbook
by Nancy LeTourneau April 10, 2017 10:03 AM
When uber-hawk Lindsay Graham suggests that Syrian President Assad is saying a big “F you” by continuing to launch military attacks against his own people from the air base the U.S. just struck with Tomahawk missiles, we can be assured that Trump’s military intervention didn’t work out very well. But I suspect that, when it comes to the American media and his political fortunes, the president got exactly what he wanted out of them.
Margaret Sullivan summarized a few of the reactions.
The cruise missiles struck, and many in the mainstream media fawned.
rikyrah
The question we should be asking:
If Russia secured Syria’s chemical weapons, why does Syria still have chemical weapons?
— Jason Kander (@JasonKander) April 10, 2017
schrodingers_cat
@Corner Stone: They all are either 0.1% or exist to serve their interests. Every single one of them. It would also be best to tune out the “they” as in the media since they are the propaganda arm of the Rs.
bupalos
When you look for any coherence to what this administration says and does, the only policy that seems to be consistently pushing up stream is ending the sanctions that are blocking Exxon’s oil plays in Russia. It feels like gravity. It’s hard to see engagement with Russia in any way (including increasing opposition to their role in Syria) as anything other than the accumulation of bargaining chips on both sides that will eventually be used to cut a deal that includes the lifting of sanctions.
Does anyone know if any of the White House press gaggle have uttered the word “Rosneft” at Spicey?
hovercraft
@schrodingers_cat:
At this point the pickings for “responsible” republicans are so slim that Tillerson is a lot better than what we could have had. Think about that. John Bolton, Rudy, there are many worse picks he could have made.
jonas
Tillerson: Russia needs a time out, to spend some time in its room thinking about what it’s done.
schrodingers_cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Forget the world stage, T has a hard time getting the respect of a majority of his country men and women. I doubt if even his toadies respect him.
jonas
@Big Ole Hound:
Ten years ago, Assad was helping us disappear and enhancedly interrogate Al Qaeda suspects, so he was cool.
Villago Delenda Est
Tillerson needs to go. Away. To Siberia. Forever.
MattF
@schrodingers_cat: Word is that the Pentagon-hallway description of Trump’s Syria action was “Florida man fires missiles.”
SenyorDave
@rikyrah: Brian Williams, on MSNBC, seemed mesmerized by the images of the strikes provided by the Pentagon. He used the word “beautiful” three times and alluded to a Leonard Cohen lyric — “I am guided by the beauty of our weapons” — without apparent irony.
In a world of assinine media reactions this one stands out.
PPCLI
@jonas:
Mycroft: How’s your exile going?
Sherlock: I’ve only been gone 4 minutes!
Mycroft: Well, I hope you’ve learned your lesson. You’re needed.
Villago Delenda Est
@rikyrah:
“I love the bullshit” Zakaria continued. “I want to eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I am such a Villager lickspittle, I revel in it”.
You’re on the manifest now, Fareed. In indelible ink. Just more Villager vermin who has demonstrated his willingness to be a court fop for the Donald. Like Van Jones, who is dead to me now.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@hovercraft: From what I recall Mossadegh wasn’t a terrible or even especially bad leader, his ouster bearing much closer to Arbenz’ in Guatemala rather than any of the guys mentioned above. And the 2003 Iraq intervention was also fundamentally horseshit. Really, the only intervention listed primarily based in humanitarian concerns was Libya — although again, the central point stands.
Corner Stone
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:
Just think. If we could have somehow managed to get teenage Putin a few Beatles records and some Levis…
rikyrah
Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley expected to resign this week amid scandal, @aldotcom is reporting https://t.co/VfkKkKjX7z
— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) April 10, 2017
Betty Cracker
@MattF: That’s funny. But as a Floridian, I reject the notion that the Queens, NY-born motherfucker with a golden tower in Manhattan is a Floridian, despite the location of his Disgraceland winter palace.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I believe the weight of accumulated evidence suggests that that boy ain’t right.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@hovercraft: Makes me wonder how Serbia went so “well,” comparatively.
low-tech cyclist
Since when did the “Daddy Party” become the excuse-making
parenttoddler who regards his rampagingtoddler’sparent’s attempt to stuff all the candy in the checkout aisle down his pants asan interesting developmental phase that yields many teaching momentssomething that must be OK because Daddy Putin is doing it?FTFY, Betty. ;^)
Villago Delenda Est
@Corner Stone: ZOMG, governance by Goldman Sachs and Exxon. Thank Cthulhu we didn’t elect the email lady to the Presidency!
Villago Delenda Est
@Corner Stone: Affluenza epidemic strikes Moscow! World concerned!
MattF
@Villago Delenda Est: Yes. I was rather surprised by Zakaria’s enthusiasm, but– live and learn, I guess.
rikyrah
Sessions orders Justice Dept. to end forensic science commission, suspend review policy
By Spencer S. Hsu
April 10 at 9:30 AM
Attorney General Jeff Sessions will end a Justice Department partnership with independent scientists to raise forensic science standards and has suspended an expanded review of FBI testimony across several techniques that have come under question, saying a new strategy will be set by an in-house team of law enforcement advisers.
In a statement Monday, Sessions said he would not renew the National Commission on Forensic Science, a roughly 30-member advisory panel of scientists, judges, crime lab leaders, prosecutors and defense lawyers chartered by the Obama administration in 2013.
A path to meet needs of overburdened crime labs will be set by a yet-to-be named senior forensic adviser and an internal department crime task force, Sessions’s statement said.
The announcement came as the commission began its last, two-day meeting before its term ends April 23 and as two of its most wide-reaching final recommendations remain hanging with the department. Two officials said no decision has been made one calling for the Justice Department to set written standards for examining and reporting forensic evidence in criminal courts across the country. A second proposal to more fully disclose the statistical limits of results is to be voted on by the commission Monday.
“The availability of prompt and accurate forensic science analysis to our law enforcement officers and prosecutors is critical to integrity in law enforcement, reducing violent crime, and increasing public safety,” Sessions said in the statement. “We applaud the professionalism of the National Commission on Forensic Science and look forward to building on the contributions it has made in this crucial field.”
The action marked the latest break by Sessions, a former federal prosecutor, with Obama-era priorities. The former Alabama senator last week announced top aides will review agreements reached with troubled police forces nationwide to ensure the pacts to overhaul departments do not counter the Trump administration’s goals of combating violent crime and promoting police safety and morale.
Mike in NC
Meddling in other peoples’ civil wars has never turned out well for the meddlers. Apparently something American politicians just cannot grasp.
Cacti
@hovercraft:
Indeed.
For the board neocons who say “We should have taken out _________ and things would surely be better in _________”:
All they have weighing against them is U.S. foreign policy, 1946 – present.
hovercraft
STINK FROM THE HEAD
The Trouble With Trump’s White House Is Donald Trump
If Bannon is cut loose, the old Washington adage of ‘better to have your enemy inside the tent pissing out’ will come into play.
Rick Wilson
04.10.17 1:13 AM ET
It took Donald Trump 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles to buy himself one day of kind coverage at the end of another otherwise terrible week. But what the president himself described as an impulsive reaction to heartrending photos of Syrian children gassed by Assad on his watch isn’t a coherent strategy to punish Assad for using chemical weapons.
Even supporters who hoped the strike would show Trump as a he-man leader willing to grasp the saber of state in his tiny hands and rattle it firmly, it failed to paper over the political crisis consuming his White House as his staff and family have become warring factions seeking his favor so that the story has become not about the president’s goals, policies, or accomplishments, but a group of people around him who make the Borgias look like the Brady Bunch.
Trump is faced with terrible options when it comes to rearranging the deck chairs on the SS White House, and those of us who warned you this was inevitable are ordering popcorn. The cancer in the presidency isn’t his staff—though they reflect his shoddy intellect, his shallow impulsiveness, his loose grasp of reality, and Chinese-menu ideology. The problem is Trump himself, and nothing and no one can change that.
Let’s start with the leader of the Pepe Army sleeper cell at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Steve Bannon. If Trump keeps his chief strategist, he keeps the poisonous, post-conservative nationalism and thinly-veiled racial and religious animus that helped put him in the Oval Office. Bannon was great at running a conspiracy blog, but his political instincts are those of an arsonist, not a strategist. He has led Trump into a series of unforced political debacles, tainted relations with Congress, and alienated members of America’s new royal family.
He’s already become persona non grata in Congress for his absurdly villainous performance trying unsuccessfully to browbeat them into accepting the ludicrously unpopular Trumpcare bill, and his economic nationalism is big-government statism wrapped in populist trade and industrial policies. Bannon is a famous brawler, and like many brawlers after too many beers, he lashes out any anyone for lookin’ at him funny. A Bannon power center in the White House is as dangerous as its vacuum.
If he fires Bannon, Trump should prepare for war. The information warfare architecture Bannon built with the money of Robert and Rebekah Mercer is already restive and nervous that Trump has been co-opted by (((them))) and lured into being a more conventional president. Since the Trumpbart/Bannon/Mercer propaganda platform helped elect Trump with its lurid “reporting” and its troll army (shoutout to Putin!), it can just easily be turned against him. Trump’s social media power was always boosted by—if not contingent upon—this system, and the idea of a vengeful Bannon turning those tools against him should keep Donald awake at night.
If Bannon is cut loose, the old Washington adage of “better to have your enemy inside the tent pissing out” will come into play. The coverage of Trump in the Bannon/Mercer echo chamber will go from “gushing hagiography” to “more in sorrow than in anger” to “Trump is now a globalist cuck shill for the ZOG” faster than Andrew Breitbart can rotate in his grave.
Another reason firing Bannon is fraught with risk: Bannon is running the Russia pushback operation from inside the White House. He’s up to his ample ass in the Nunes shenanigan with NSC staffer Ezra Cohen-Watnik and White House Counsel’s Office staffer Mike Ellis. Bannon doesn’t just want to protect Trump over the Russia allegations; he wants to protect Russia, a nation he sees as an essential ally in his new alliance of white Christian nations against the Muslim horde. Does Trump really want Bannon, angry and in the wind, declaring his own jihad?
What about Jared Kushner, the new golden child of the Celebrity White House?………………..
Click over to read the rest, it’s a longish read.
rikyrah
DeVos praises this voucher-like program. Here’s what it means for school reform.
By Emma Brown
April 9 at 10:13 PM
Florida has channeled billions of taxpayer dollars into scholarships for poor children to attend private schools over the past 15 years, using tax credits to build a laboratory for school choice that the Trump administration holds up as a model for the nation.
The voucherlike program, the largest of its kind in the country, helps pay tuition for nearly 100,000 students from low-income families.
But there is scant evidence that these students fare better academically than their peers in public schools. And there is a perennial debate about whether the state should support private schools that are mostly religious, do not require teachers to hold credentials and are not required to meet minimal performance standards. Florida private schools must administer one of several standardized tests to scholarship recipients, but there are no consequences for consistently poor results.
“After the students leave us, the public loses any sense of accountability or scrutiny of the outcomes,” said Alberto Carvalho, the superintendent of Miami-Dade County public schools. He wonders what happens to the 25,000 students from the county who receive the scholarships. “It’s very difficult to gauge whether they’re hitting the mark.”
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, a longtime advocate for school choice, does not seem to be bothered by that complaint.
Mnemosyne
@MattF:
I was talking to my recovering Republican brother this weekend, and he was enthusiastic about the bombing. There are a lot of people who were genuinely horrified by the use of chemical weapons and desperate for something, anything to be done to punish Assad.
The fact that the bombing didn’t do jack shit will eventually dawn on them.
hovercraft
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
I was not listing “bad” leaders, I was pointing out where we’ve done regime change for whatever reason we claim publicly, and it’s gone badly. Our public reasons are almost always bullshit, we go in when we want something and said “bad guy” is not cooperating, more often than not oil.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Cacti: [Only] plausible counterpoint: The Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@hovercraft: Thanks, though the OP wasn’t especially clear to that effect.
Cacti
@hovercraft:
As a matter of fact, Syria was the first middle eastern nation where we helped topple a nascent democratic government in favor of an autocratic ruler (1949). It was the warm up for Iran 4-years later.
germy
Tillyson’s soothing tones remind me of how white people addicted to drugs are treated today vs. how people of color addicted to drugs were treated twenty years ago.
low-tech cyclist
@hovercraft:
In addition, I’d note that it’s almost always a bad idea to argue with Thomas Hobbes. He’s been dead for centuries, but interventionists should keep him in mind when they start playing their geopolitical games.
Hobbes’ thesis was that any government, no matter how tyrannical, was better than no government at all. It was in the ‘state of nature,’ the absence of government, that human life would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
The 20th century produced some legitimate counterexamples to that thesis: Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot. But IMHO, that’s the level of violence against its own people a government has to get to, for Hobbes to be wrong.
Even life under Saddam and Qaddafi, vicious bastards though they were, was better for the vast majority of Iraqis and Libyans than the ‘war of all against all’ that resulted from their removal. Most people could keep their heads down, avoid criticizing the government, and go about their lives. In Iraq, women could go to university, hold jobs, and travel unescorted. By mid-2003, thanks to us, they could no longer do that; have they ever regained that sort of freedom?
An intervention like Kuwait in 1991 worked because we were restoring a government that was regarded as legitimate. But when we replace a strongman with nothing, everything goes to shit in a big hurry.
ruemara
@Betty Cracker: You’re correct. He’s our shame. Which makes the fact that no one paid attention to the fact that we all hated him even more strange.
lollipopguild
@Villago Delenda Est: Because if we had elected that nasty woman e-mail lady President we might be at war with Russia or something.
JPL
@SenyorDave: I live in the 6th district and just received a robo call from Pence. I listened to the part where he said his name, and then click.
hovercraft
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
That was a true international coalition, and the fat that it was in Europe’s back yard gave them added incentive to be all in.
bemused
@Mnemosyne:
A huge deficiency in rightwing thinking is not asking “what comes next?”, ‘what could possibly go wrong?” ever or way late in the game. When our kids were growing up, we stressed a lot of “what if” scenarios with them. If you do this, then what might happen? Seems like basic reasoning skills that adults should have learned in childhood.
hovercraft
This is a few days old.
Floundering Like a Fox
Don’t Get Fooled, Trump Is Winning
While the focus is on a few high-profile losses and messes, the president is quietly, steadily racking up big wins.
Matt Lewis
04.07.17 1:00 AM ET
Despite evidence to the contrary, President Trump is making changes in his first 100 days that will affect America for decades to come.
One of his key weapons has been the Congressional Review Act (CRA), a 1996 law that allows Congress to repeal recent regulations. Before Trump took office, this law had been used just once. Since taking office, however, President Trump has signed 11 of these CRAs into law, effectively reversing several last-minute Obama-era regulations.
The window for using this tactic is closing; the CRA can only be used within 60 days of Congress being informed of a new regulation. But here’s where things have the potential to get very interesting: Once a regulation is repealed, agencies are also banned from issuing new rules that are “substantially similar” to the one that was just vetoed.
Behind the scenes, some shrewd Republicans are quietly toying with the idea of anticipating liberal regulations and preemptively introducing them. It’s like the PreCrime unit in “Minority Report.” A Republican Congress and president would effectively sow the earth with salt to prevent any future regulation from being introduced. It would be a bold gambit, but this would transform the CRA from a purely defensive weapon into an offensive one…………
……….While the media has focused on the shiny objects—the scandals and legislative failures—they have all but ignored the fact that the Trump administration has been quietly changing America. Whether by design—or by coincidence—Trump’s gains have been overshadowed by the chaotic, the urgent and the interesting.
In a world that fetishizes positive action and putting points on the board, there’s endless breathless play-by-play for a game where the trash-talking, flashy quarterback is sacked repeatedly. Meanwhile, the real action is taking place under the radar, where the team is assembling an impressive roster of defensive linebackers who can handle blocking and tackling in the trenches for years to come.
Although this stands in sharp contrast to Trump’s action-oriented rhetoric, it doesn’t lessen the fact that, slowly but surely, he is moving the country in a more conservative direction. There’s no telling how many federal judges, never mind Supreme Court Justices, he might appoint. There’s no telling how many bureaucratic regulations he might repeal.
Most political change is incremental. The greatest trick Donald Trump ever pulled was convincing the world that his presidency was floundering.
MattF
@bemused: Most people have a vast capacity for wishful thinking. If you really really really want something, it takes more than boring logic and boring facts to persuade you that it’s not going to happen.
rikyrah
Cook County judge shot dead, woman wounded outside South Side home
By Elvia Malagon, Jeremy Gorner and Megan Crepeau•Contact Reporters
April 10, 2017, 9:50 AM
A Cook County judge was killed and a woman was wounded in a shooting outside the judge’s South Side home Monday morning, a police source said.
Associate Judge Raymond Myles, 66, and a 52-year-old woman were found outside the home in the 9400 block of South Forest Avenue around 4:50 a.m., police said.
Myles suffered several gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, police said. The woman was hit in the leg and was taken to Christ in serious condition.
Police roped off much of the block as investigators combed the backyard of the judge’s two-story brick home with its manicured lawn and well-maintained shrubs.
No one was reported in custody.
…………………………….
The same neighbor said residents at a recent block club meeting had discussed installing cameras on the block in response to an uptick in home burglaries.
“Yeah, the area is going down, that’s for sure,” she said.
Most of the homes on the block are owned by their original owners, Patterson said. She has lived in her home since the 1970s. It’s only been in the past five years that she’s noticed crime in her neighborhood.
“We’ve never seen this before,” she said.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Not just the right wing. “We have good intentions” was a justification for the Iraq invasion, before and after the fact, for Tony Blair and a whole lot of center-left Americans.
lollipopguild
@MattF: A lot of conservatives think that they are Entitled to run the country and make all of the decisions. Why? Because!
germy
They’re attacking Ossoff. So I guess that means they see him as a serious threat.
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
Hoocoodanode that the Republicans would be the party of big business?
MattF
@germy:
Hmm.
hovercraft
@germy:
Not just Ossoff, they’re also running scared in Kansas.
Republicans scramble to hold on to seat in ruby-red Kansas
04/10/17 10:00 AM
National Republicans are wading into a Kansas congressional race few analysts thought would be competitive ahead of Tuesday’s vote.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas will join Republican candidate Ron Estes at an airport rally Monday in Wichita, a day before voters in southern Kansas head to the polls to pick a new congressman. Vice President Mike Pence is also scheduled to record a robocall on Estes’ behalf, according to a state party official.
Cruz’s appearance comes on the heels of last-minute spending on television ads by the National Republican Congressional Committee and a fundraising push by U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin on Estes’ behalf.
Kansas’ 4th congressional district, home to tomorrow’s special election, is R+15. That’s the sort of number that ordinarily ends a race before it starts.
And yet, here we are. Republicans have nominated State Treasurer Ron Estes, someone who’s already won two statewide elections, while Democrats are running James Thompson, a civil rights attorney. (Kansas Democratic leaders originally eyed a center-right Dem for this race, but local party activists rallied behind Thompson.)
It’s admittedly hard to imagine Thompson prevailing, but the evidence can’t be ignored: if Republicans were confident of a successful outcome, we wouldn’t see Pence, Ryan, Cruz, and the NRCC rushing to intervene on Estes’ behalf.
Of course, what should terrify Republicans is the fact that they’re having to work in this district at all. A lot can and will happen between now and next year’s midterms, but if the GOP has to worry about R+15 districts, 2018 will not be a good year for the Republican Party.
By Steve Benen
NorthLeft12
Poached this from a Digby article;
I’ll skip the obvious and go to a related feeling in America; the outright contempt for and downplaying of intelligence and competence and its importance in society. That is why these plain folks despised President Obama and passionately hated Secretary Clinton. Well, there was also the race and woman thing too.
Anyone who makes these people feel small and ignorant will be a target for their hostility.
And to think, at one time, intelligence and education was greatly valued and appreciated.
hovercraft
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
These are the same democrats and centrists who applauded the missle strikes, i guess some people are incapable of learning.
@lollipopguild:
Well actually it’s because they are white and represent the WWC, or at the very least pretend to. Who they actually represent are the moneyed interests, who are the “true” owners of America.
rikyrah
PTSD in black women needs attention, study of South Side group says
By Grace Wong
Chicago Tribune
March 23, 2017, 12:10 PM
Nortasha Stingley doesn’t remember a lot about the weeks after her 19-year-old daughter was shot and killed nearly four years ago. All she could do was cry. All she wanted to do was scream.
After Stingley lost 40 pounds in a matter of weeks, her sister finally took her to see a doctor, and she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
“It’s still a battle,” said Stingley, 40. “I died and they just forgot to bury me. It’s a struggle.”
Like Stingley, many African-American women in disadvantaged neighborhoods have PTSD, experts say. A recent Northwestern Medicine study that examined the South Side neighborhood of Oakland found that 29 percent of the 72 African-American study participants have the disorder and an additional 7 percent exhibited a large number of signs that are part of a PTSD diagnosis. Researchers said they believe that points to a need for more mental health services and screenings in poor neighborhoods.
NorthLeft12
@germy: Heh.
Republicans just can’t hide their complete contempt for the voters and public at large, can they?
lollipopguild
@NorthLeft12: People who are intelligent and educated are less likely to worship Fox News or get their thoughts from Rush.
SatanicPanic
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: In their defense, it’s hard to look at some of the these people and not wish them gone. Putin, Kim, Assad- they’re evil and deeply offensive to our consciences. The fact that we wouldn’t know what to do after getting rid of them should prevent us from actually supporting any move to take them out, but I understand why people would want to.
J R in WV
@Big Ole Hound:
So you believe that the military has developed an intelligent Assad-seeking missile which can find a national head of state in a huge city with many secure locations? ETA: Or perhaps you are saying that carpet bombing Damascus, and killing hundreds of thousands of innocent Syrians in the process on the off-hand chance that we would eventually kill Assad is a good bet?
I have some property of great value that you will be interested in buying, call me!!
I have seldom seen such an ill-thought-out comment outside right-wing nut-job habitats. So I am left to conclude that you are a Russian troll, which explains your very poor English usage. Or perhaps you are from Kansas.
bystander
@Iowa Old Lady:
Worked for Ward Cleaver. Come to think of it, Tillerson does sort of resemble Hugh Beaumont. Evil Hugh Beaumont.
ETA Our laws prevent us from assassinating foreign heads of state. I still think that the repubs hoped Obama would take action, including having Assad killed, after they turned him down and they would use that as a basis to impeach him. If he sent his top assassin HRC it would have been a double ceremony.
Peale
@hovercraft: I’m not getting my hopes up until after the elections next November. Seen this play too many times. We win 1 or 2 off cycle elections and victory is OURS! The GOP shuts down the government and Victory will be hours. The GOP voters will not punish the GOP. Our voters will evaporate in all of those D+1 districts. Because deep down inside, lots of Democratic voters want the GOP to succeed in destroying the Democratic party, apparently.
hovercraft
This is just wow!!
Tom Friedman Wants MOAR Strife In Middle East
Tom “Six Months To Turn A Corner” Friedman is clearly quite disappointed at the toothlessness of Trump’s strike against the Syrian airfield, telling This Week host George Stephanopoulos, “[Secretary of State Rex Tillerson] also made clear was that right now this administration is not interested in going any further than the Obama team did in terms of actually changing the balance of power on the ground between the
opposition forces, the pro-American opposition forces there, the Assad regime, and the Russians and the Iranians who are backing them.”
You know, one thing I’m asking myself today is where are Trump’s — where is Trump’s Twitter feed when we need it?
You know, if I were Trump right now, I’d be hammering Putin on the fact — and the Iranians. You are a protector of someone using poison gas. Putin, you were either feckless and didn’t know your ally was doing this, or you’re complicit.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@SatanicPanic: I agree, but I think especially in the case of Assad and Kim (and always I don’t pretend to any expertise) I have no confidence that getting rid of those individuals would significantly improve the situation. They’re both surrounded by cronies– in each case, I believe, including their uncles and other relatives– and generals who have been part of the power structure longer than they have.
and we have so many very recent examples of what happens when you cut off the head of the snake and hope for the best. I’m still surprised about Kerry and Clinton being so gung ho..
schrodingers_cat
@hovercraft: Matt Lewis is a self proclaimed conservative. I do not trust anything a professional conservative has to say, including and, the. If winning means lining his pockets and destroying democratic institutions, then yes T is winning. Also, I just can’t with the stupid football analogies.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
good lord, does the Pulitzer committee have a repo program?
hovercraft
@Peale:
It’s meant to give us hope. but as we see in both these districts, they have loads of money and can come in to lie and destroy our candidates. But and it’s a big but, forcing them to spend money in every district will give us a fighting chance. A R-15 shouldn’t need to call in the big guns to get a hold. It won’t be easy, but this shows with a lot of work we at least have a chance.
bemused
@MattF:
Money and power are potent persuasions. It’s amazing how easily people will give up their humanity to get both.
schrodingers_cat
@hovercraft: That make Matt Lewis seem like Einstein. Kay is right, our elites are so F grade. Plus, NYT continues to be as awful as ever.
rikyrah
Mitch McConnell secures an ignoble place in political history
04/10/17 11:21 AM—UPDATED 04/10/17 11:31 AM
By Steve Benen
As the contentious drama surrounding the Neil Gorsuch’s Supreme Court nomination unfolded in the Senate last week, many found themselves asking, “How did things get this bad? How did the breakdowns in our politics become so severe?”
These are, of course, complex questions with multifaceted answers, but it’s not unreasonable to start the conversation by taking a closer look at one individual. The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank had an important piece over the weekend on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), whom the columnist described as a man who effectively “broke America.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@hovercraft: also, at least in GA-6, we can’t get the (I think) four other Dem candidates to drop out. The good news is, the eight R’s are fighting among themselves.
randy khan
@hovercraft:
And it appears that there’s something of a boycott of the Administration among the “not incredibly crazy” wing of the Republican foreign policy establishment. You may remember that article from a prominent R foreign policy guy warning people away from the Trumpists, and I suspect that’s just the tip of the iceberg. My guess is that one reason the apparent choices included Bolton and Rudy was that other potential candidates either were disqualified by publicly distancing themselves from Trump (since loyalty is the most important qualification from the Trump perspective) or never threw their hats in the ring, particularly after seeing the dominance games Trump played with Romney.
SatanicPanic
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: well yeah. Kim especially- we have so little information about the relationships between people in power there. It’s a tragic situation there but one we probably can’t fix, and that’s hard to accept. Us Americans think we can fix everything.
randy khan
@Betty Cracker:
Florida just naturally attracts certain kinds of people.
hovercraft
@schrodingers_cat:
But Tom “Six Months To Turn A Corner” has the highest most qualified person on his side to validate him, John McCain! And did you know he was a prisoner of war, though he never talks about it or uses it for political advantage.
Fucking warmongers all of them!!
Ruckus
@SenyorDave:
Are you sure they would be ousted? Dense didn’t achieve that name without working for it. And if he did replace them, with who? Someone better? Please.
All that said, I don’t disagree that he couldn’t possibly be any worse. OK just typing that makes me nervous.
Patricia Kayden
@MattF: Trump benefited from the Syrian strikes though so all is well. His approval ratings have ticked up and 57% of Americans agree with the strikes. Yippee!! We’ve learned nothing from the Iraq fiasco.
Sigh.
Chris
Remember in the Bush years when conservatives were mocking anyone who didn’t want to bomb the wrong country for “wanting to give terrorists therapy?”
J R in WV
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Mr. Williams is 57… perhaps early onset dementia of some sort? Losing his even keel at first, but still able to pretend he knows what is going on around him?
ETA: Because I agree, there is something seriously wrong with this guy, looking at his work over the past few years, and he seems to be getting worse rapidly. Beautiful missile launches? Really?
randy khan
@hovercraft:
The idea of using the CRA offensively is interesting, but since almost no agencies are staffed adequately, and since it actually takes surprisingly long to adopt regulations, I’m going to guess that it’s not likely to be put into effect any time soon.
I have a more general comment about these kinds of articles, though, which is that they’re all about details. Yes, it’s terrible that Congress is abusing the CRA, and yes, it would be terrible if the Administration coordinated further abuse, but the reality is that these are just details of the general terribleness of both the Administration and Congress. We’re not going to win on most things – we’re especially not going to win on day-to-day administrative actions where there are essentially no checks on what the Administration does. But we can win on some things and we should focus on getting as many of those wins as possible, and then taking Congress back and then taking the Presidency back.
low-tech cyclist
@hovercraft:
Apparently Friedman hasn’t realized that Trump isn’t interested in being even mildly critical of Putin. This amounts to “If I were Trump, I’d have an entirely different set of values and goals than Trump does. I’d be an entirely different person!” What a dummy he is.
hovercraft
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It’s like the GOP with “supply side economics”, it’s been proved time and time again that they don’t work, it gives us a short term boost if that, but does not produce the stupendous growth they always claim it will, but they will not give it up.
FP experts refuse to believe that they cannot impose a new system and new leadership in foreign lands. We’ve been trying for decades with very little if any success, but all the “serious” FP people keep trying to do it. If we just try harder it will work, just this or that tweak and this time. It doesn’t work. As @low-tech cyclist: pointed out, ” Hobbes’ thesis was that any government, no matter how tyrannical, was better than no government at all.” Any government we install is illegitimate, because of our interference.
Jeffro
@gvg:
Actually, Trump does have a coherent policy…of visiting Trump-branded properties every 2.8 days and golfing every 5.6 days. Mrs. Trump has a coherent policy of staying the heck away from Mr. Trump as much as possible. Ivanka has a policy of spouting moderate-sounding nonsense as cover for her dad, plus a policy of being at any state visit from Justin Trudeau. LOL
randy khan
@J R in WV:
One Tom Clancy novel more or less ends with President Jack Ryan giving a speech about how the U.S. is going to target leaders of bad countries from now on, while two CIA operatives light up the place where the guy running Iran is with a laser to guide a cruise missile (or maybe it’s a bomb – it’s been a long time) to the building, with the result shown on live TV. IRL, it’s not remotely that easy.
Chris
@hovercraft:
See, that’s the key phrase for me: “all in.” If I thought the U.S. had what it took to commit itself fully and for the long run to occupation and nation-building/rebuilding, post-1945 style, then the argument of “is it worth intervening?” might be worth having.
But, who are we kidding? That’s not going to happen, and if it did, it certainly wouldn’t be with a Republican administration at the helm.
J R in WV
@hovercraft:
Unless Bannon is in jail for, well, something. I’m sure the Honorable Mr Jefferson Beauregard Sessions could gin up some kind of charge with no chance of bail. That’s what the FBI is for, isn’t it?
After all, Bannon has filled out many forms under penalty of perjury already, with more to come. And that would just be the start of the interviews.
ruemara
@hovercraft: Always remember that fear & panic is part of the industry of political writing.
Jeffro
@hovercraft:
Ok, now that is a great take (and 100% true, too)
Chris
@hovercraft:
And for those of us who aren’t interested in recreating the Cuban missile crisis, that’s a good thing.
This guy is confirming one of my earliest post-Trump-election thoughts: don’t count on the VSPs to be a moderating influence on Trump. They’re just as crazy as he is and possibly more. (See also Bush administration and the cabinet of “experienced” “insiders”).
low-tech cyclist
@hovercraft:
I can’t see that this guy supported his thesis at all.
Sure, the Republicans are using the Congressional Review Act quite a bit. But repealing regulations from the last few months of the Obama Administration is a victory for the GOP that’s pretty limited in scope. Yeah, I’m unhappy with these actions myself, but it’s not like this represents some sea change in governance.
I guess we’ll see if they can turn the CRA into an offensive weapon. But here’s the deal: they’d need people in government to actually write the regs that they’d want to repeal. Given their lack of interest in staffing even the upper reaches of the bureaucracy, this might be a challenge.
ETA: Looks like randy khan made this last point already.
schrodingers_cat
@low-tech cyclist: ML is not too bright and IIRC, a libertarian. So whatever he says can be taken with a grain of salt.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodingers_cat: IIRC Lewis is the one who got all excited about trump’s stammered and badly read statement on the bombing because he, thump, mentioned “the Almighty”
Betty Cracker
@hovercraft:
LOL! What a steaming pile of horseshit from Lewis.
low-tech cyclist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Me too.
It matters who’s running this show. Even assuming something positive can be done in Syria (which I doubt, but it’s clearly where Clinton and Kerry are coming from), it would require a very deft hand managing our approach. Even if Clinton or Kerry thinks Obama could have pulled this off as President, or if they think they could have pulled it off as President, neither they nor Obama is President. Trump is, and he’s almost guaranteed to make a hash of it. Any endorsement of Trump’s actions in Syria that doesn’t take that into account is stupid and dangerous.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@schrodingers_cat: I think it’s Matt Welch who’s libertarian and Matt Lewis who’s conservative.
Mom Says I'm Handsome
“Hey, baby, did you graduate from film school? Because you’re super-good at projection.”
Villago Delenda Est
@randy khan: Everything that is written in the anticipation of being a movie has nothing to do with real life. This is why Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising were half way believable. Then Clancy got the Hollywood disease and it was all downhill from there.
hovercraft
@schrodingers_cat: @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
A grain of salt, I’d say a mountain. Pieces like this are to boost morale among the faithful. Not necessarily the Twit supporters but disenchanted “conservatives”, hey look, he may not be our ideal, and he may be flailing, but look he’s still undoing the Obama presidency! Matt Lewis is an idiot, but he’s speaking to and for idiots.
@Betty Cracker:
The Twit is definitely no Keyser Söze
sukabi
Fixed it. You’re welcome.
Patricia Kayden
@rikyrah: McConnell is in control of the Senate and has gotten what he wanted. I’m sure he’s happy with his actions and will go even further to make sure that Republicans get their way. Democrats should take a page from his book when they control the Senate and run it with an iron fist. There is no reason to be polite anymore.
schrodingers_cat
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): So many idiotic Matts, so little time and brainspace to remember who is what.
piratedan
what strikes me as significant is the amount of outrage we see for anything and everything that the GOP is peddling. They’re pissing off everyone in the nation with the exception of bigots, religious ideologues and really rich people.
Is their end game to set up a pseudo theocratic apartheid state? That seems to be the direction, where sluts are shamed but made plentiful by keeping a goodly portion of poors available to attend to their licentious needs. The color of one’s skin determines if they’re second class citizens because now we have everything we need, there’s no need to develop, create and strive. I’m waiting for the next bill that states that only white Republican Christian males can own guns since that appears to be their own supposed pinnacle and everyone else is a minion of some stratified archaic structure of conflicting equivalencies. On the arc that we’re traveling, considering their rigging of an election and SCOTUS seat is anything off the books for simply attempting installing themselves permanently?
My biggest fear is that we do determine that the GOP itself willingly colluded with Russia to get this outcome, thereby making them traitors to the country and the supposed ideals that our country stands for. Is there the political will necessary to prosecute them for their crimes?
hovercraft
@Patricia Kayden:
ruemara
@schrodingers_cat: And so little desire. I’m of the slaughter them all and let destitute Ayn Rand sort them out.
@piratedan:
Answers in order of questions given.
1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. No.
Summation, we’re looking at a perfect storm to create a violent overthrow of an oligarchical government, as opposed to the normal peaceful transfer of power. And America did it to itself. And that’s why working now to win every election is critical. We can outvote them, I just don’t think most Americans think they actually have to do anything besides share a meme.
ruemara
Alright, Alain. Stop working on the backend during the day. And I don’t like the giant space on the right hand.
Brachiator
@Jeffro:
I hear that Ivanka is working on a Pepsi commercial.
Patricia Kayden
@hovercraft: This is what we knew when Trump won — that he would wreck this country as quickly as he could. Our only hope is that Trump is not an intelligent, efficient person and that he lacks self-control which is why he hasn’t done more damage. But yeah, our side certainly expects Trump to wreck and destroy. That should motivate us to resist and to work our butts off to flip the Senate next year (and the House, if that is even remotely possible).
JMG
@hovercraft: Man, left wing fretting never stops, does it? No matter what, their side cannot be portrayed as holding its own, let alone as winning. It’s not like folks aren’t aware of this stuff. But for the minority to sideline one of the majority’s top priorities is a damn big win on any terms.
Peale
@hovercraft: REPEAT AFTER ME, TOM!!!! “THERE ARE NO “PRO-AMERICAN OPPOSITION FORCES”. Jesus, Moses and Elijah on a hockey stick.
PJ
@hovercraft: Fundamentally changing governments and political habits can be done (Germany, Japan) but it takes a serious commitment and a lot of time (say, 25 years) to take root. The problem with other “regime changes” the US has been involved in is that voters typically have short attention spans and memories and honestly don’t give a rat’s ass about any other country they do not have relatives in or which they are not planning to vacation in. Also, occupations are expensive and often dangerous. So, after an initial intoxicated “woo hoo! we’re number 1!” moment following a military operation, after a few years, people start to wonder what they hell we are doing there, even if they are the ones who were gung ho about intervention in the first place.
The most successful US military intervention in recent memory was in Bosnia, and more than 20 years later, it is still occupied by NATO troops, because everyone is afraid that if NATO leaves, the killing will start again.
hovercraft
I guess this is buck up the troops day, it’s all about reminding them of no matter what anyone says he’s doing what he said he’d do. And they’re even rolling out the “black conservatives”, yay!
Via American Stinker, you’ve been warned!!
April 10, 2017
Why Do Leftists Hate America?
By Lloyd Marcus
Sorry about that, but his rant was um, something.
These are the people, I’m supposed to deal with respectfully, take seriously? Hell no. They are insane.
Chris
@PJ:
The problem is also that we’re currently being run by a political class that literally doesn’t understand that governments are supposed to govern. They don’t grok the concept of nation-building at home, so how can they be expected to on the other side of the world?
It’s no accident that the big success stories of the last century, Germany and Japan, were rebuilt by New Dealers, while Iraq was rebuilt (or not) by “drown the government in the bathtub, the Invisible Hand will take care of everything” cretins. That’s another thing you’re not allowed to comment on on national television, because it highlights that Democratic ideas are vastly superior in practice to Republican ones, and that’s uncivil and partisan.
MattF
@Patricia Kayden: In fact, the Gallup daily poll has stayed flat.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@PJ: Also note that the countries had to be razed and subjected to a Carthaginian peace in order for deprogramming to be (mostly) effective.
Miss Bianca
@hovercraft: WHY DO CHRISTIANS HATE AMERICA, WHY?? is the title of my new “think piece”.
JGabriel
Rex Tillerson:
Dear Vlad,
We’re not mad, just disappointed. Very, very disappointed. Next time you decide to meddle in American elections to help Republicans, please, please, do a better job of concealing it.
Love,
Rex
hovercraft
@PJ:
Spot on, regime change is not for the faint hearted. We want instant gratification, and we don’t want to spend the money.
prob50
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yeah, but Dick Cheney told him our Iraqi ex-pat friend Chalabi could just waltz in and run things just how we would like it.
Besides, W really, really wanted to be a “War President” and Iraq was just the most handy place at the time.
lollipopguild
@Chris: The folks in Iraq were going to create a democracy in minutes and allow us to take the oil out of Iraq without paying for it. Magical thinking!
lollipopguild
@Miss Bianca: They hate America because it is not a Right Wing dictatorship. We have a lot of americans who’s idea of democracy is a one party right wing dictatorship that gives them everything they want by stealing everything away from everyone else.
Jack the Second
@schrodingers_cat: Republicans don’t care about the 0.1% – they only care about the 0.00000001% of the population: themselves, each of them only caring about their own pasty white ass.
hovercraft
The Decision to Send a U.S. Navy Fleet Toward the Korean Peninsula Has Made Seoul Nervous
Feliz Solomon
Apr 09, 2017
A U.S. naval fleet moving toward the Korean peninsula has alarmed South Korean politicians, who warn Washington against any unilateral action targeting Pyongyang.
The Carl Vinson strike group, which includes the supercarrier it is named after, was dispatched Saturday from Singapore toward Korean waters, a move viewed by many as a show of force by the administration of President Donald Trump in the face of an increasingly provocative North Korea.
The Korea Times reports that politicians across party lines in the South Korean capital Seoul, including the country’s presidential front-runner Moon Jae-in, are alarmed by the new naval presence, which comes one day after Trump ordered a missile strike on an airbase in Syria without first seeking congressional approval.
Korean leaders worry that Trump may be more inclined than his predecessor to use military might against North Korea, which has conducted several missile tests in recent months and is believed to be nearing nuclear capability.
“South Korea should be the owner of North Korean issues and take the lead in dealing with them rather than letting … countries such as the U.S. and China manage them,” Moon told reporters on Saturday, according to the Korea Times.
If he clinches the presidency in South Korea’s national election next month, Moon, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, is expected to pursue a strategy of engagement with Pyongyang.
Trump met last week with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the U.S. leader’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, where the threat of a nuclear-armed North Korea was high on the agenda. Reuters reports that the two leaders “agreed” to step up efforts to curb Pyongyang’s nuclear program, though it is unclear what steps will follow.
coin operated
@Villago Delenda Est:
I’d add Clear and Present Danger to the list, if only for it’s present-day connotations. President’s National Security Advisor is compromised by a foreign adversary.
schrodingers_cat
@hovercraft: Is Lloyd Marcus a real person or this satire?
Villago Delenda Est
@hovercraft: Naturally, the comments are moderated at that shitbird site of Leninist assholes.
Gretchen
The Kansas race is interesting. Estes is appearing with Cruz at the airport today. His appearances have all been ticket-only. The Libertarian and Dem have held numerous debates, while he’s been a no-show, which doesn’t play well in this time of demanding town halls. Thompson has been out and about every day talking to everyone who will talk to him. I can’t wait to see the results tomorrow. I hope I won’t be disappointed.
japa21
@hovercraft: Notice, Seoul is nervous, not North Korea.
Gretchen
Trump won KS-04 by 27, while he was within 1 with Clinton in Georgia-06. I’m so impressed with candidate Thompson’s story and his hard work, so I’m hopeful.
Gelfling 545
@Corner Stone: I’m reasonably certain that he and others have been told not to actually say or do anything lest it make Trump look bad, the fact that Trump regularly makes himself look bad not withstanding.
MattF
@Gretchen: Apparently, the key for the Democrat is to tie Estes to Brownback– who is epically unpopular, even with Republicans. We shall see.
Elie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think that the “rocks” in the Russian/Trump relationship is for show only. They just want to get people off the scent of the Russian/Trump collusion trail. All of this was a “wag the dog” to give the media a shiny object to follow — Everything about this administration is a lie to perpetuate old man Trump’s political ass. They will zig and zag through any mine field of issues no matter how inconsistent, to assure that. I hate these mothas and the sycophant media that buys the lies every fucking time!
randy khan
@Villago Delenda Est:
At a certain point, the books became cartoons (not comics, which these days have much more interesting and complicated plot lines). I will admit I kept reading them because believability was not the reason I picked them up in the first place. (And politics actually were kind of amusing in their naivete, although I do give him credit for writing female characters who were achievers in traditionally male-dominated fields.)
As a side point, I seem to recall that Red Storm Rising actually was based on a table-top gaming scenario, back in the days when there was a huge effort to make combat games have realistic outcomes.
Gelfling 545
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: I pictured him in the time out chair being told to think about why what he did was naughty!
MattF
@Elie: That’s a plausible explanation. Unfortunately there are various other explanations that are also plausible. We’ll know eventually, but right now it’s just a tar pit– maybe X, maybe Y, maybe Z, maybe who knows?
japa21
Just one quick comment about Clinton. She almost has to show a tough side, but specially in regard to Syria, I think something else is at play. One of the big regrets of Bill’s presidency, and I think it is shared by both Clinton’s, is that they did nothing about the ongoing genocide in Rwanda. It wouldn’t surprise me if this isn’t in the back of her mind when she sees the attacks on civilians in Syria.
Kay (not the front-pager)
Russia probably needs to write a paragraph about what they did wrong and draw a picture of how they can handle the situation better next time. That always worked so well when my sons got into conflicts with other kids in elementary school.
MattF
@Kay (not the front-pager): Several paragraphs. And the pre-written theme sentence of each paragraph starts with ‘I lied about…’.
Spanky
Is our Democrats learning? Apparently not, judging by this email I just got “from” Tom Perez:
Immanentize
I am just here to add, I am so sick of the CW — evident even above — that Obama’s Syria strategy was so horrible. It wasn’t. Syria is horrible. It is a civil war fueled primarily by drought. No one on any side is an honest broker. Arming one group today is arming tomorrow’s enemy. The weather, not the regime, started this. Same in Yemen. And Saud is not immune. I predict the weather will end it all over the peninsula and no amount of blaming Obama is going to make any of this less than a huge unmanageable and unwinnable disaster.
Immanentize
@japa21: This describes Samantha Powers’ position perfectly.
Chris
@randy khan:
It’s actually a fascinating novel series in that as you read on, you can literally see the transformation of the writer from a guy who was conservative but not an idiot and wrote fairly good books, to an ideological cretin whose political tracts take up more and more of the book and that one suspects his ten-years-ago incarnation might’ve whacked over the head with a rolled up newspaper.
Brachiator
@Chris:
The rebuilding of Germany and Japan took place under Truman and Eisenhower. To attribute this to the magic of the New Deal is weird.
Everything about Iraq was a disaster. The idea of regime change or nation building is absurd. No American government could achieve this because the aims with respect to the Middle East are fundamentally illegitimate.
SatanicPanic
@Spanky: What’s the big deal? Not seeing a problem
Chris
@Immanentize:
Worse than that, Obama’s strategy wasn’t even Obama’s strategy. Good idea or bad, he requested congressional authorization to take military action against Assad, and Congress said no. Within those constraints, he did what he could. Everyone whining “Trump did what Obama should’ve” should immediately be asked “then why did your party prevent him from doing that when he tried?”
(Trump didn’t ask for authorization, but Trump has the luxury of a Congress that’s made it abundantly clear that it wouldn’t act against him even if he started executing congressmen on national television).
lollipopguild
@randy khan: I was reading a lot of these WW3 books at the time and Red Storm Rising was one of the best. When the commies gave up he and other writers had to find new bad guys. Fame and hollywood went to his head.
Jeffro
@hovercraft: That is some crazy, misleading, twisted stuff ol’ Mr. Marcus put out there.
Here, I’ve bolded everything that is a lie and italicized everything that’s pure projection:
I gave up halfway through…it should all be bolded, and half-italicized…jeez these people are nuts…
Miss Bianca
@Chris: They might care if he started executing Republican congressmen. But only then.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@japa21: @Immanentize: Of course it is.
Patricia Kayden
@Jeffro: Why are you torturing us with such raging nonsense? Leave that nonsense on Rightwing websites where it belongs. All they do is lie and demonize. This is why it’s dangerous when they run things. They are not living in reality.
PJ
@Chris: Well, that was certainly one of the larger ironies of the Iraq war, that the people who hated government wanted to go about creating one in Iraq, where everything would be privatized and the market would miraculously make everything better. Not caring about actually providing for the security or welfare of Iraqis was the biggest problem (including securing conventional weapons and sending enough soldiers to keep the peace), but, on top of putting someone like Paul Bremer in charge, staffing the Coalition Provisional Authority with Heritage Foundation interns who believed that the way forward was by empowering vulture capitalism was bound to doom the project.
catbirdman
@Corner Stone: I think we all need to remember how anti-intervention our populace had become by 2013. The last two words ANYONE, of any political stripe, wanted to hear in the same vicinity of each other were “regime” and “change.” Obama wasn’t going to go there alone, and Republicans in congress and the country at large were not going to back him, so what were his realistic options? His only error, in retrospect, was bluffing on the “red line” comment. He got called on it, but was there any real cost to that? He still got his deal for Assad to hand over all those chemical munitions, and we had about four years without any major chemical attacks. That broke down this month, of course, but I’m not ready to blame Obama for failing to magically solve, on his own, what seems like an insoluble problem.
Patricia Kayden
@hovercraft: Please don’t torture us with that nonsense. We know crazy Rightwingers exist but we don’t need to antagonize ourselves and destroy our blood pressure with it. We have nothing to say with people who have gone over the deep end and spew lies like that.
Elie
@MattF:
I am afraid my cynicism is the strongest sense I have left… In any case, whether it is wag the dog or not, this administration is ill equipped to manage any aspect of foreign policy. Did you note, hardly any statement about the Chinese President Xi’s visit? Nothing much happened? Who knows? Trying to figure out anything will always be an adventure with this gang! And I continue to have my low opinion of Rex Tillerson confirmed. Dude is clueless and keeping everything on the down low so that he can try to keep his incompetence less obvious. Every foreign country already has read that and I believe our weakness in policy and incompetent leadership is setting us up as we speak for some harrowing times to come…
Chris
@Brachiator:
The idea that the reconstruction of Germany and Japan were part of the New Deal programs is, of course, ridiculous, but isn’t what I said.
How Germany would be rebuilt was determined in large part, on the American side, by the Roosevelt administration, i.e. the same people who carried out the New Deal. When Roosevelt died soon before V.E. day, the person who actually implemented them was Truman, who was of the same ideological stripe, and it was then carried on by Eisenhower, who was also largely in the same ideological vicinity both domestically and internationally. (And Western Europe was, at the same time, also embracing a more statist model).
That makes a huge difference when it comes to “how are we going to rebuild this country,” in basic terms of what it is that makes a country work.
randy khan
@Chris:
That’s a great point. The devolution is pretty clear.
randy khan
@Brachiator:
Well, Truman’s Administration (the first 7 years after the war ended) was, in fact, filled with New Dealers, which is what the original post said, and it set the tone and the basic plan. The Marshall Plan was conceived and brought to life under Truman.
lollipopguild
@Chris: We wanted to do a very GOOD job of rebuilding Germany and Japan so that we would not have to fight either one ever again. They both became key allies in the world, a world that donnie dumbass is trying to destroy.
zhena gogolia
@hovercraft:
Whoa, that’s an excellent piece. I’m sure the author is a scoundrel, but still.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
My RWNJ mom said something like this back when I was 16, took her new Firebird to my friend’s Christmas party and then
– Drank lots of beer
– Guzzled Rum
– Guzzled whiskey
– Guzzled champagne
– Devoured pot brownies made from some shit ass ditch weed
all before making my friend drive it in the direction of home before missing the window and puking all over the interior, obliterating the new car smell (my friends helpfully hosed out the interior at a car wash before driving my drunk ass home at 6 am).
I didn’t feel bad about her guilt trip – dad’s method involved some physicality that caused me to pay a bit more attention…. ;D
AxelFoley
@Corner Stone:
Please. What the hell was he supposed to do, get us in another Middle Eastern quagmire?
Fuck that noise. Obama did the right thing.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Big Ole Hound: Why do you think Assassad wouldn’t be replaced by another muderous thug? That region has a tradition of strongman rule back to the Assryians.
AxelFoley
@Villago Delenda Est:
Exactly. Van’s been doing this shit for a while now, so I’m not shocked by him sucking up to Trump and the GOP, but I’m severely disappointed in Fareed. Especially after his “Trump’s a bullshitter” moment.
How the fuck do you go from knowing Trump’s a bullshitter to saying he’s presidential? You fucking KNOW he’s a bullshitter, but you get swayed by said bullshit?
Yeah, Fareed’s dead to me now, just like Van.
Elie
All the bullshit stops when one of North Korea’s trial missiles lands in the Sea of Japan a mile or so from the island. All the idiots will be running around in a circle chasing their asses. No one to blame then. But what will they DO? (besides blame Obama again).
Chris
@GrandJury:
Appetite for more military action in yet another country is still quite low. People loved this because all we did was fire a bunch of inanimate objects and thump our chests about it. Serious military action of the kind that might remove Assad (i.e. boots on ground)? I don’t think that would get much more support now.
Brachiator
@Chris:
Some of the people were the same. OK. New Deal mindset or principles at play? Hmm.
Also, because of lingering resentments, Japan was not a big beneficiary of the Marshall Plan. Some of the emergence of Japan can be related to its help in providing military equipment used in the Korean War.
Still, all this is irrelevant to Iraq. There is no nation building that could have succeeded. No American government could impose its will on Iraq and put an end to the religious or secular and tribal conflicts there.
Gelfling 545
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: My father’s method was to greet the offender bright and early with a list of usually pretty disagreable chores to be completed before the sufferer was allowed to slink off to bed. I was smart enough to avoid the situation. One brother had it happen twice before he realized it was a losing position. Second brother needed repeated applications but eventually learned to at least be home before Dad was likely to be up and around. (Dad was an early riser. 5 am was not unusual.)
Brachiator
@Corner Stone:
Syria is complex. I’m not even sure that it could be said that uncertainty on Obama’s part created a vacuum that permitted Russia to more overtly come to Syria’s aid (with Iran as a partner). Putin seemed committed to expanding Russia’s influence and just strengthened prior commitments to Assad.
However, Trump doesn’t seem to have even an outline of a foreign policy in mind. I avoided most tv over the weekend, but whenever I peeked in, idiot pundits were filling the emptiness in Trump’s mind with their own wildly inconsistent ideas about what “message” Trump was sending.
schrodingers_cat
@Jack the Second: I disagree. They care about their corporate and mega rich donors. All their legislation is geared for their benefit, deregulation, tax cuts etc., etc.
PJ
@Brachiator: I’m no expert on Iraq, but I did live through the Iraq War, and I don’t think this is correct. No ethnic/religious/class hatreds need last forever (cf. France and Germany) – in fact, they had to be stoked in Iraq by the US, Iran, Saudis, etc. If the US had sent in enough troops (per the numbers Shinseki was talking about, based on extrapolations from Bosnia and other peacekeeping missions) and had had paid attention to the massive State Department guidelines that they dismissed out of hand, and had secured conventional weapons during the invasion, and had not disbanded the Iraqi military, and had placed a priority on the security and welfare of Iraqis, and had not instituted a policy of torture, and had staffed the provisional government with persons with more experience than college Republicans, and had not pursued a policy of laissez faire bandit capitalism with national assets, and had been willing to stick around for 20 years or so, I think that Iraq would have had a decent chance at establishing a secure, democratic state or states.
We’ll never know, because the Bush Administration was always going to be incompetent, cruel, and stupid, but the mistakes made were all obvious. Prior to 2002, I thought that going to war to make Iraq the first “project’ in the New American Century was wicked and idiotic; in the run-up to the war in 2002 and 2003, it was clear that many more troops than Rumsfeld was willing to use would be needed to secure the country, and that without them, and with a cretin as President, the war was going to be a failure (particularly when Bush could never articulate a strategic goal for the war that held water); but I knew it was totally fucked when looting started in 2003 and the Army did nothing to stop it, with Rumsfeld saying, “Free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.” If I could see that the US didn’t give a shit about the Iraqis, then surely every Iraqi could see it too, and would take steps to protect themselves or seize power or settle scores as they saw fit.
Brachiator
@PJ:
Since I don’t see a legal basis for sending in any troops, I don’t see that some magically higher number would have made a difference. We don’t have secure peace in Afghanistan, and how long have we been there?
I don’t think that ethnic/religious/class hatreds need last forever, but I am not seeing any resolution of Islamic schism currently.
I cannot imagine many Iraqis thinking, “I want the US to invade my country under a bullshit pretext, and then show that they care about me.”
PJ
@Brachiator: We also never gave a shit about the Afghanis. That’s another case where, if the people involved had had half a clue, things might have gone differently. After we invaded, people were actually looking for the US to establish peace and security (the Taliban were only supported because at least they brought law and order, even if it was oppressive.) But the US was only interested in scooping up “terrorists” to be tortured, and you can see the result.
The number of troops isn’t magical, it’s about having a sufficient police presence to keep the locals from killing each other. It does make a difference. If we’d left just ten or twenty thousand troops in Europe after WWII who looked the other way while the locals settled scores, I think post-war Europe would have looked a lot different.
And nobody wants to be invaded, that’s a given. But if you’re going to do it, at least bother to learn something about previous interventions, military history, local history and politics and history, etc., so that you can actually accomplish your policy. But our policy in Iraq was never much more than, “let’s kill us some Arabs and get us some more oil and power.” We did the killing Arabs part well, but only squandered our wealth and power.
Captain C
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Did Elliot Cutler move to Georgia and clone himself a few times?
Tehanu
@hovercraft:
Nailed it. Thanks.