It would seem that what the Petit Trianon fantasy was to pre-Revolutionary France’s aristocracy, the Hollywood myth of the Gunslingin’ Wild West is to our modern kakistocrats. (Also: The Mercers, they be cray-cray.) Zachary Mider, for Bloomberg, explains:
Robert Mercer probably would have flown into Roswell. From there—1,800 miles from home—he would’ve traveled south through the high desert plains of southeast New Mexico, flat as a tortilla, past abandoned homesteads and irrigation machines moving in slow circles.
His phone reception would’ve gotten spotty when he turned left off Highway 285. He would’ve seen the bare limbs of a pecan orchard and a graveyard decked in plastic flowers. At the town hall in Lake Arthur, population 433, he would’ve met Police Chief William Norwood, the department’s sole full-time employee, a barrel-chested man with two spare rifle magazines on his belt. There, Mercer, the fabulously wealthy computer scientist who helped bankroll the election of President Donald Trump, would’ve reported for duty as a volunteer policeman.
If Mercer’s trips to Lake Arthur resembled my recent visit, he might’ve climbed into the passenger seat of Norwood’s police truck, whose black-and-white paint job is fading in the wind-whipped sand. He and Norwood might’ve rolled past the house where someone reported spotting a stolen car—a false alarm, it turns out. While monitoring radio chatter, the plutocrat and the chief might have jawed about the latest news in a town so small it has no stores: the recent pursuit of a motorist across half the county; the record of the high school’s six-man football team; reports of stolen pecans. Pulling up a chair at an Italian restaurant in nearby Hagerman, the chief might’ve urged Mercer to try the lasagna.
For most of the past six years, as Mercer became one of the country’s political kingmakers, he was also periodically policing Lake Arthur, according to the department. If he followed Norwood’s protocols—and Norwood insists no volunteers get special treatment—he would’ve patrolled at least six days a year. He would’ve paid for travel and room and board, and supplied his own body armor and weapon…
I was surprised when I first heard about Mercer’s sojourns in Lake Arthur, but then I’m used to his surprises. During the two and a half years I’ve covered Mercer, I’ve come to think of him as a hard-right version of that guy in the beer commercials, the Most Interesting Man in the World. There seems to be an inexhaustible supply of incredible-but-true Mercer stories, including his pioneering research that begat Google Translate, his funding of a stockpile of human urine in the Oregon mountains, his million-dollar model train set, and his habit of whistling constantly, even during work meetings. The common threads in these stories are a fierce intelligence, a wide-ranging curiosity, and an utter indifference to the judgment of others. The story of his adventures in Lake Arthur, which hasn’t been previously reported, adds yet another strand. It shows just how far a man of means will go to get something he can’t buy: the right to carry a concealed firearm anywhere in America.
The Mercers don’t talk to the press, and Robert Mercer wouldn’t tell me why he started volunteering for the Lake Arthur police. When I went there to see for myself, I found that it was unlike any police department I’d come across. Norwood and three part-timers are buttressed by 84 reserve officers, most of whom live hundreds or even thousands of miles away. There are Lake Arthur reservists in San Diego and Virginia Beach. Several are among the most elite soldiers on Earth—former U.S. Navy SEALs. Many are high-dollar bodyguards or firearms instructors, and almost all of them are serious gun enthusiasts. On that count, Mercer fits right in. He once built a personal pistol range in his basement. Through a company he co-owns, Centre Firearms Co., he has a vast collection of machine guns and other weapons of war, as well as a factory in South Carolina that makes assault-style rifles…States vary widely in their approaches to regulating concealed weapons. But in 2004, Congress passed the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act, declaring that police officers can carry concealed guns in any state with no need of a local license. The law applies to officers who are off-duty and out of their jurisdiction—and includes volunteer reservists.
The law made a police badge an immeasurably valuable item in places such as Suffolk County, N.Y., where Mercer lives, and where concealed-carry permits are granted only rarely. Applicants must prove they face “extraordinary personal danger”; in 2016 the county rejected the request of a man who had helped the FBI take down an outlaw biker gang. Even if Mercer did get a local permit, it wouldn’t be valid if he traveled to New York City or to most other states. For people in Suffolk who want to carry, the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act is a tantalizing way to cut through all of that—if they can find a police force that will grant them its tin…
Many of Mercer’s links to the gun world flow through [George] Wells, who’s married to the youngest of Mercer’s three daughters, Heather Sue… She married Wells, one of the family’s bodyguards, [in 2011].
Wells had previously worked as a firearms trainer and a security contractor in Iraq, and he once had a sideline making concealed-carry holsters out of elephant and ostrich skin. Soon after the marriage, he got a new job: Wells and Mercer joined with other investors to acquire Centre Firearms, a longtime Manhattan dealer that specialized in outfitting movies and TV shows, and Wells became its president. Mercer and Wells wanted to expand beyond props, and they soon entered talks with Daniel Shea, a Nevada arms dealer who had a world-class collection of machine guns…
Mercer didn’t get into the gun business to get rich; the Bloomberg Billionaires Index values his wealth at almost $1 billion. But his family seems to be having fun. They’ve shown off their guns to political allies, taking them to a vault deep under the streets of Manhattan or to the warehouse near Las Vegas and pointing out some of the more remarkable weapons. Visitors, speaking on condition of anonymity, say the spaces are laid out like high-end clubhouses, with fully stocked bars. And in January, Mercer’s manufacturer rolled out a new product: a civilian version of the German submachine gun known as the MP5. It offers a 30-round magazine and an optional threaded barrel for attaching a silencer. It retails for $1,899…
Just imagine the “fun” party chat between Bob Mercer, Erik Prince, and the Trump sons!
Chip Daniels
His own private Westworld.
I for one, am rooting for the robots.
piratedan
well, perhaps he can be run over by one of Uber’s self driving cars….
Adam L Silverman
If he ever confronts someone who actually wants to do violence, his reliance on the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act isn’t going to help him. He basically found a way to get national reciprocal carry rights for doing cosplay. It doesn’t mean he isn’t actually a danger to himself if he actually had to defend himself. Targets don’t shoot back. Targets don’t cover 30 feet in less time than it takes to unlimber one’s firearm and bring it on target. Targets don’t have the ability to shrug off pain and the much ballyhooed hydrostatic shock, rip your arms off, and feed them to you.
Another Scott
Example 238871 of the principle that “The Rules Only Apply To The Little People.”
Grrr…
Thanks, AL.
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@piratedan: That’s Arizona, not New Mexico.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: In this case, provided you qualify and are willing, you too can become a volunteer/auxiliary officer or deputy. If you can find a jurisdiction that will take you.
Adam L Silverman
The Intercept has now hosed a second source:
And did it the same way: by not curating the leaked material!
Baud
@Adam L Silverman: They really don’t want to hear about Russia.
NotMax
Shill Street Blues.
Adam L Silverman
@Baud: Actually, the only leaker who they’ve gone out of their way to protect and take care of is part of a Russian active measure. That right there should tell you everything you need to know.
Baud
The Apple audience in this msnbc interview is creepy.
ETA:. Apparently, high schoolers.
Baud
@Adam L Silverman: Good point.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman: At some point you’d think folk would stop talking to them.
germy
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.” ― Anatole France
I’m sure Mercer made it worth the good Sheriff’s time.
Cheers,
Scott.
sigaba
I was recently re-watching “Death Wish” with my gf (she like movies that show seedy old New York for some reason) and Bronson’s character has this weird experience early on where his wife’s been raped and murdered, but he doesn’t know what to do about it. He goes to New Mexico for a business trip and the local land developer he meets there is a total caricature “Western” type: he has a huge Stetson, he drives around in a station wagon with TWO sets of longhorns. The guy takes him to an old western town and they see a super-stagey western gunfight done for the tourists.
What’s weird is that this is played completely straight, in that, the local guy is a buffoon, and the stage gunfight is a complete farce, as if Michael Winner (the director) is trying to deconstruct the myth for us, which makes Bronson’s behavior afterward, where he seems inspired by what he’s seen, seem psychotic and deluded. That original movie is a lot more complicated than it gets credit, if you’re watching it I think there’s a fair argument to be made that Bronson’s character is a psychopath who’s merely high-functioning until his family is attacked, and that tears back the veneer.
Yarrow
A look into Lake Arthur Police Chief William Norwood’s finances could be interesting. All those rich police volunteers that live elsewhere. Something’s not right there.
Adam L Silverman
@Baud: They’re students a high school with a tech focus.
germy
Baud
@Adam L Silverman:
They laughed too hard at Cook’s jokes.
rikyrah
@Adam L Silverman:
Uh huh
Uh huh ??
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: One would indeed.
Baud
@germy:
Notice how all the bros who made Snowden and even Manning into heroes won’t care about these two whistleblowers.
JWR
@Adam L Silverman:
Which is why I never bother with The Intercept, and why I don’t have it bookmarked. Heck, if I want to know what’s up over there, I can always tune in Democracy Now!, (with all apologies to the excellent work Amy Goodman sometimes does.)
Adam L Silverman
@germy: And if that is the case, he should have hired one of the well known and highly regarded firms that handle Federal whistleblowers who handled classified information. Those people will keep you out of prison. Going to The Intercept will ensure you go to prison.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: Perhaps.
TenguPhule
@?BillinGlendaleCA: We have people here who still use them as a source.
Adam L Silverman
@germy: Pretty much.
Baud
@TenguPhule: People here still use the NYT as a source too. That won’t land you in prison though.
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: Is that an agreeing with me uh huh, uh huh or a disagreeing with me uh huh, uh huh?
Adam L Silverman
@JWR: Grim’s okay. Most of the time.
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
Well, body armour, a gun, room and board, ammo, are not “cheap” enough to engage in this sort of cosplay for a lot of ammosexuals.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: Uh huh, uh huh. I hope that helps.
Amir Khalid
You know what they say about fools and their money. This is the only kind of machine gun that any civilian needs.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Very much. Thanks for the assist!
Jay
@TenguPhule:
There’s areas of investigation and exposire where The Intercept is good, but National Security is not one of them.
mai naem mobile
@germy: why the fuck would he have leaked to the Intercept ? I would have leaked to the Guardian or some other European publication.
Patricia Kayden
@Adam L Silverman: Leakers should stick to interacting with non-Russian apologist media. Glenn Greenwald has made it clear that he will ignore all evidence of Trump-Russia collusion even if it makes him look ridiculous and biased.
JWR
@Adam L Silverman:
I notice that Digby links to them quite often, but seldom, maybe never, if it’s to Lee Fang or the gggrrreat GG.
Mike in NC
Mercer is a Steven Sagal wannabe!
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: I don’t know. People can always use a Tommy Gun.
Anne Laurie
@Adam L Silverman: Well, the new victim is African-American, and Winner is just a woman. You don’t expect the men of the Intercept to worry about what happens to people like that, do you?
(Yeah, yeah, I’m bitter. And it’s part of my job, on this here blog.)
Jay
@mai naem mobile:
The Intercept rode wikileaks, Snowdon and other whistleblowers, to fame and profit.
However, careful parsing of their record, shows that they have a National Security “agenda”, which means they are only interested in “some kinds” of leaks.
I am “certain”, ( nudge, nudge, wink, wink) that they only bury the “wrong kind” of leaks for perfectly valid business model reasons and burn other leakers purely through incompetence.
The thing is, not everybody does due dilligence.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anne Laurie:
Why the comma?
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: OT: You asked the other night about legitimacy of developing courses of actions for moving US backed, US, and/or coalition forces into contact in East Ghouta. This is why:
raven
Or just a machine gun
Major Major Major Major
Can we at least have better oligarchs?
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
“That deaf, dumb and blind kid sure shoots a mean MG.”
;)
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: Okay. You know me. Liberal interventionist at heart.* My concern is always – can we actually make a difference or will our showing up make things worse? Just war tenets and all that.
*I tried to withdraw my army resignation letter on the condition that I could go with the forces I was sure we were going to send to Bosnia. It turns out that the army doesn’t do conditional withdrawals of resignations and we weren’t really going to do fuck all in Bosnia at that time anyway.
Matt
IMO the gun permit is the nicest possible reading; it seems entirely possible the dude is really hoping to get to bag a brown person.
raven
The trouble started in cell block no. 4
It spread like fire across the prison floor
I said “;Come on boys, get ready to run –
Here comes the warden with a tommy gun”;
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: @NotMax: gotta be careful around those or you might lose your head.
raven
His comrades fought beside him
Van Owen and the rest
But of all the Thompson gunners
Roland was the best
So the CIA decided
They wanted Roland dead
That son-of-a-bitch Van Owen
Blew off Roland’s head
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman: At least its a step up from chemical weapons. //s
TenguPhule
@Baud: But we always say FTFNYT.
Intercept is still treated by some people as not a bunch of ratfuckers.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: @raven: Heh. I was just looking for that one.
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: I win! Yay, needed a win.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: I went home with a waitress. . .
good night Miss Calebash, wherever you are.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: I am so happy for you.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: one of my college roommates was in the army reserves. The army pulled him out of law school two days after his first child was born and shipped him to Bosnia. He did not enjoy it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: What year?
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: the nice thing about there not being a sarcasm font is I can interpret that however I want.
sdhays
OT: Raoul from an earlier thread mentioned that Scott Walker is backing off from challenging the rulings forcing him to set special election dates no later than Thursday at noon. According to WPR, Walker is not backing off. He’s just not bothering anymore with the courts and will just have the bill passed in the extraordinary session retroactively nullify anything he temporarily has to do. And there’s a Supreme Court special election coming up next week (oh, the irony) and I think they want to keep the Supreme Court out of this until after this.
Scott Walker Republicans – putting the CON in WisCONsin for nearly a decade…
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: mid ‘90’s. Forget the exact year.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: The nice thing about there not being a sarcasm font is I can be enigmatic.
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: there are actually many nice things about there not being a sarcasm font.
Oklahomo
Police cosplay can get people killed: Tulsa
Adam L Silverman
@Anne Laurie: Please show me on the doll where GG touched you.//
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: My attempted resignation withdrawal was in ’92. We went in years later. Not when it could have really helped.
ETA: Did you do something for a few years between undergrad and law school?
martian
So, I’m seeing that Trump ousted the head of the V.A. and is going to appoint his personal physician to lead it instead. Jackson, the honourable military doc who said Trump’s “incredibly good genes” meant he could live 200 years if he only ate just a leeeetle bit better.
Nothing hinky happened there, I’m sure, all appearances notwithstanding.
J R in WV
Is it just me, or is this a really weird thread??
I know it’s partly the topic, and the facts lead where they lead… but still, so strange! Mercer is so strange there’s no predicting where he’s going nor why. And who knows where he’s been?
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: No worries. I understood the question, which, I think, was clear in my answer the other night. But I saw this and figured I’d share. As for doing any good, I don’t know as I have no idea what is in the planning.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: Yep.
Adam L Silverman
@sdhays: He’s likely to get ruled in contempt of court if he jerks these judges around.
Omnes Omnibus
@J R in WV:
Aside from David Anderson (if he exists) threads, what threads here aren’t weird?
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/lessons-libya-how-not-intervene
“• The Intervention Backfired. NATO’s action magnified the conflict’s duration about sixfold and its death toll at least sevenfold, while also exacerbating human rights abuses, humanitarian suffering, Islamic radicalism, and weapons proliferation in Libya and its neighbors. If Libya was a “model intervention,” then it was a model of failure.
• Three Lessons. First, beware rebel propaganda that seeks intervention by falsely crying genocide. Second, avoid intervening on humanitarian grounds in ways that reward rebels and thus endanger civilians, unless the state is already targeting noncombatants. Third, resist the tendency of humanitarian intervention to morph into regime change, which amplifies the risk to civilians.”
My GP is a Syrian Refugee. Assyrian Christian. His son “dragged” the whole Family to the Tarihr Square protests. When he saw who was leading and coordinating the protests, he made arrangement’s to get the whole family out to Beruit, ASAP. Took them two weeks, then 2 1/2 years in a Refugee Camp in Lebanon, then to Canada. Board Certified in another year.
Steeplejack
@Adam L Silverman:
Disagreeing would be “uh-uh.” Or “nuh-uh” for a snarky twist.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay: You also have to make the call with the facts available at the time. What should we have done in Bosnia in 1992?
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: Or “uh huh” with a sarky tone.
Jay
@TenguPhule:
The Intercept’s “good” on race, pollution, corporate malfeasance.
Not so much politics or National Security outside the Failed Wars of Choice.
Every “New Media Model” has areas where they have an agenda.
Unlike, say Briebart, or Red State, there are places where The Intercept’s reporting is good and solid, and you won’t see it anywhere else until the MSM starts piggybacking off it.
Adam L Silverman
Oh goody!
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
Eh, I think the meaning came through loud and clear.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: That I was really happy for him? I was so worried.
Anne Laurie
@Adam L Silverman: Not in this timeline, sirrah, nor in any one you’d want to visit!
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: I went straight through; graduated from law school and started practicing at age 24. Friend did time in the army before going.
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Scotius
Since Mercer was born in 1946, that would have made him prime draft age during the peak of the Vietnam war. Does anybody know if her served in the military, or did he acquire his taste for firearms after the danger passed?
piratedan
@Anne Laurie: AL, if you haven’t stumbled to this title yet, please check it out….KARAKAI JOZU NO TAKAGI-SAN
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
As the Belfer Center study shows, there was a large IC presence in Lybia, and there were “boots on the ground”, from Qatar within days.
The jihadi’s played the MSM, because the MSM wanted to be played,
The jihadi’s played Western Governments because Western Governments wanted an excuse to take out Quafaddi, no matter the cost for Lybians.
One would think some things would have been learned by now from Powell’s UN Presentation.
Hopefully, you will take a lesson from my Syrian GP. When you head downtown for the anti-Government march, if you see the RWNJ’s, ammosexuals and Christian Evangellical’s off in the wings, directing the crowd in violent protests, you’ll figure out some way of getting refugee status for yourself and your family.
marv
@sigaba:
Wonderful commentary on that movie
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
Good thing the “Shadowbrokers” wern’t Russian GRU,
oh, wait, they are GRU.
Adam L Silverman
These have got to be some of the dumbest attorneys ever!
Steve in the ATL
@Jay: wife left the hospital today after an eight day stay. Among the doctors, nurses, PA’s, NP’s, and even cleaning people we dealt with in that time, you could count the Americans on one hand.
This is a pro-immigration thread, right?
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: I did what he did. I was 31 when I got out of law school.
SiubhanDuinne
O/T, but the last few days (even more than usual), everyone over at Hullabaloo has been in exceedingly hair-on-fire/sky-is-falling panic mode. Not just Digby. All of them. I’m going to have to take the site off of my usual rota for a while. It’s too depressing, and
I can get that here just as easily.Plus recipes, flowers, pets, music, travel pics, and LOL funnies.Japa21
Earlier someone posted a Hannity tweet about big news on his show tonight. Anybody know what it was?
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay: You haven’t responded to my question about Bosnia. Oddly, it and Rwanda color some people’s views. It doesn’t make them right, but it should tell you where we are coming from.
Steve in the ATL
@SiubhanDuinne: I have given up on hullabaloo and Washington monthly and daily kos and eschaton and LGM and every other political site other than this one.
Life is too short for that much shrill.
cthulhu
@sigaba:
You are correct about this. This was certainly the intention of the author of the book (Brian Garfield); he was pretty upset as to how the public responded to the story and wrote an even more scathing commentary on vigilantism as his next novel. It was not an easy movie to get made and while certainly Winner deviated from the intent of the source material, some ambiguity as to the morality of the main character’s behavior comes through. Of course the sequels and the recent remake ignore any of these philosophical questions. And it should be remembered that this was also the era of Dirty Harry.
You can’t really control how character gets received by the general public. Famously, Normal Lear could not believe people in general found Archie Bunker to be “lovable.”
Jay
@Scotius:
While getting his degree, he coded for the USAF Weapons Laboratory,
So he likely had multiple exemptions.
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: And jackals.
efgoldman
@Major Major Major Major:
One of which is
there isSteeplejack
@Scotius:
Distilled from Wikipedia:
Mercer got his bachelor’s degree in physics and mathematics at the University of New Mexico. “While working on his degree he had a job at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base” doing computer programming. That probably got him a deferment (if he didn’t already have a student deferment).
SiubhanDuinne
@Steve in the ATL:
Eight days in hospital? Wow, long stay (I had, I think, four nights — possibly five — when I had a quadruple bypass 18 years ago)! Hope she’s doing better now. Good wishes to you both.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: Boeing is publicly playing this down, but this is now the third reported cyber breach in the past week that I’ve heard of. City of Atlanta got hit with ransomware and Baltimore’s 9-11 system got taken down. Coincidence takes a lot of work.
Semi break
Was it you that I talked to from Canada about looking to make a professional move?
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Jackals, to be sure. Life is hardly worth living without daily jackals.
MisterForkbeard
@Japa21: Hillary did something again, I’m sure.
Omnes Omnibus
O completely T: I told my mom on Sunday that I wasn’t working today. At 9:00, she called and told me that, since it was a beautiful day, she and my dad were going go for a drive and come see me and take me to dinner. I spent the whole damn day cleaning. It was a nice visit and good dinner though. Now my place is clean. woohoo!
Steve in the ATL
@SiubhanDuinne: thanks. They spent five days doing tests and then three days treating the symptoms since they couldn’t find the cause (this is why I was near your Local; don’t normally venture that far up 141!). Very frustrating.
Next stop: Mayo Clinic.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: Jebus.
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
I haz a confused now. If there’s no contract, how come there’s a lawsuit over a breach of it?
Scotius
@Steeplejack:
Thanks. It’s a pity that mean old Air Force kept giving him deferments. It sounds like he has a pent up need to prove himself a tough guy. A few tours of duty in Vietnam could have gotten that out of his system.
Mary G
@Steve in the ATL: This. I am changing desktop computers and opened up an old list of book marks and then just deleted the whole thing. Half are gone and the other half unreadable.
SiubhanDuinne
@Adam L Silverman:
Hadn’t heard about Baltimore 911. I don’t live within the city limits of Atlanta, so was not affected by the malware/ransomware attack, but in the past week it’s managed to fuck up everything from court calendars to water and sewage billing and payments to just routine email traffic. And the ransom is for a pretty nominal amount, < $60,000 IIRC. I guess most functionality was restored late this afternoon, but the ripple effects will last for weeks, probably.
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid: Ask OO or SteveATL, there the currently on call legal fleegles.
Adam L Silverman
@SiubhanDuinne: I would expect we will see more and more of these. I also expect we’ll see Putin decide to really screw around with systems during the next major natural disaster. Imagine what the hurricane response last year would have been like with Russian intel actually controlling the emergency alert messaging going out from Federal, state, and local officials?
Steve in the ATL
@Amir Khalid: sometimes one has to sue to determine whether or not there is a contract
SiubhanDuinne
@Steve in the ATL:
I’m pretty much at the point of Balloon Juice and Wonkette, and that’s it. Still enjoy Charlie Pierce on occasion, but not the way I used to. The others you name are just depressing, as, increasingly, is Ed at Gin and Tacos.
MomSense
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ha. She had a feeling your place needed a spring cleaning. Sorry you missed the sunshine though.
Adam L Silverman
This was worse than I thought!
SiubhanDuinne
@Steve in the ATL:
Wow. So sorry. That sounds worrying.
Steve in the ATL
@Amir Khalid: on a different subject, what’s the deal with randomly capitalized words in German? “Ich habe Brot!” “Die Frau!”
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: Dude, i spent the day cleaning in advance a short notice Momnibus visit. I am spent as a force. Loved seeing the ‘rents, but much work was required.
Calouste
@Steve in the ATL: It’s not random. All nouns are capitalized in German.
Omnes Omnibus
@MomSense: This was the first time she was at my place since 2011. Health and schedules. etc. I achieved a ” I just cleaned the bathroom because you are a bit nuts about that but the rest of the place has been cleaned in the last week or so” look.
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: Yeah, if he really fucked things up then half of Puerto Rico would have no power or water six months after the storm.
Ryan
@Steve in the ATL: They have wingnuts too don’t they?
Omnes Omnibus
@Ryan: They excised a bunch a few years ago.
hervevillechaizelounge
@germy:
I can’t decide who’s stupider; a source who’d leak to the Intercept despite their history of burning sources or anyone who still reads the Intercept since it’s clearly a Russian propaganda outlet.
Seriously, I don’t care how good their coverage of some subjects is; as an American patriot my valuable clicks are NEVER bestowed on any publication speckled with Putin’s fingerprints.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: You are not required to answer any question. And I’m sorry you had that happen to you.
I have to bake a bunch of stuff tomorrow for someone else’s Passover seder on Friday night.
No Drought No More
I had a friend and roommate long ago who was a card carrying white punk on dope-pot smoking hippie hybrid at that point in his life. To my no uncertain surprise, he joined a local Bay Area PD as a reserve cop, both to earn some extra cash and for the hell of it. He actually passed muster with law enforcement professionals, and was handed a badge and gun. Drug testing you wonder? There was no such thing in the mid-70’s. One night, when he was on patrol with a real cop, the real cop busted a (real) mutual friend of ours for possession of marijuana. The mutual friend, who had smoked grass at our apartment many, many times, was holding maybe an ounce on him at the time, tops. On top of that, he was just another harmless, good guy. Anyway, when the real cop was momentarily of earshot, our mutual friend begged my roommate to bail him out of the jam, but, of course, there was nothing a reserve officer could do about it. As we use to say back then, it was a real bummer of situation. I wish the story had a happy ending, but sorry to say, it didn’t. The mutual friend soon after joined the army- whether coerced or not as a result of his arrest, I never knew- and was later killed when a jeep overturned in Texas. It wasn’t long after that my friend turned in his badge, too, to begin a successful career as a salesman. Or, given he was inexplicably hired by a PD in the first place, it’s probably more accurate to say he continued his sales career in more lucrative ventures. He was still smoking pot, too, when I last saw him years ago..
Steve in the ATL
@Calouste: huh. How odd. Or how normal, if you’re German.
@Ryan: laut lachend!
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
I can’t really fairly comment on Croatia and Bosnia. Tito set up the YNA around the core concept of “Peoples War” against foreign invasion, so because of the Ottoman/Austro-Hungarian/WWII effects on ethnic populations, “everybody” had their local militia and weapons stockpiles.
Read the Battle of Medak Pocket, by Carol Oft for some of the complexity.
A lot of the Croat dirtbags key to the Croat Government and Military, were from the Croat diaspora in Canada, after WWII, who fled to the West because they were Ustache and complicit in genocide, but were welcomed with open arms, because they were “anticommunists”.
Germany backed Tudgman, with ex East German arms, and brokered a deal between Tudgman and Milosovich, in part, because a united Yugoslavia in the EU was a threat to German economic primacy.
Under UN orders, the Princess Patricia Light Infantry, was sent to recapture and defend a Russian Oil pipeline pumping center, taken by Serb paramilitaries, bypassing a known Serbian paramilitary “rape camp”, on the way.
Belatedly, the Canadian’s were sent to take back the Medak Pocket and restore the Dayton line, from the Croats, who had been armed, trained and their offensive planned and managed, by Dyancorp, on a US State Department contract. The Canadian’s had to fight their way in, killing a lot of Croat paramilitaries, only to find that the Croat’s had already murdered all the Serb civillians.
Keep in mind, both the Serbs and the Croats attacked Bosnia, and Plan A for supporting the Bosnians, was to have the CIA smuggle in Saudi supplied weapons and ex-Afghan jihadi’s, which of course, worked out just great and is still causing problems to this day.
And of course, Bosnia’s not a unified country to this day.
There’s a lot of old grudges, based on old Empires, shifted borders, and ethnic divisions still today outside of “traditional” Western Europe. Europe after Hitler, is an excellent read on the whom, what, where, how and why, and where there are divisions Authotarian “Nationalists” can exploit. WWII ended, and the largest ethic cleansing operations in modern history began. Over 22 million people were moved, but many did not stay moved.
Did you know that the Flemish have their own Nazi ProIndependence Party, and it’s the second largest Flemish political party?
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
Did this have the “But let’s not open that closet” rider?
But kudos on crisis averted. I, too, have known the horror of the moment when you realize that “bachelor comfy” is not going to pass muster.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: Mom was not disapproving, so i did it right.
Another Scott
@Steve in the ATL: :-(
Best of luck to Mrs. in the ATL, and to you.
Cheers,
Scott.
Steve in the ATL
@Another Scott: thank you!
Steve in the ATL
@Jay: clusterfuck.
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
Yup, I’ve been looking, but a bunch of the big projects are on hold, the RCAF, RCN and RA are cutting back on contracting, there’s a ongoing Naval Procurment Scandal that has people hunkering down, and the RMC’s, probably your best fit, won’t be posting course submissions or empty posts until May-June.
Unlike in the US, the cash flow up here goes in fits and starts, and right now, it’s having a fit.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay: Okay, at this point, I have to ask, what is your point?
@Steeplejack: “Don’t open the bedroom door,” My dad had been here many times, mom had not.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: In the US, the funding has been nothing but fits and starts for almost five years between the sequester and lurching from one CR to another. Hence part of the reason I’m looking to make a move. I appreciate you keeping an eye out.
I sent you a test message to the email address you use to comment here. Please let me know that you got it.
Thanks.
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well, if anything, my point is I was there from day one, 8 tours, ususal nightmares, and luckily, I didn’t also get strange cancers like many of my comrades. I was supposed to go to Royal Roads for my Master’s when I got back, but for about 4 years after, the best I could do, was sometimes drive short haul.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay: Actually, fuck you. i was a 27 y/o Gunner Lieutenant. I wasn’t in on the historical shit. OTOH, I could have done something. If I had been allowed to do it.
ETA: I wasn’t allowed. And then I signed on with Samantha Power
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
It’s good you didn’t go. I came back hating everyone, and not just former Yugoslavs.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay: Okay. So how should it have been handled? Recognizing that you were there. Apologies for the fuck yous.
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: @Jay: Does this help?
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay: Eh?
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
The West was not “unified” in response to the break up of Yugoslavia,
The “mission” was not clearly defined, the purpose was vague, the deployments were too late, there was “National Interest” fuckery at all levels, from the UN, the EU, the US, even in the mission components. Sanctions were a joke, consequences were not enforced, disarmament was a joke.
“The West” should have dictated the peacable terms of democratic separation, loaded up with Election Observers, from day one with a robust military response to military action or ethnic cleansing.
The UN Mission, didn’t make a difference. At the end, at best, it froze the conflict along the lines won by ethnic cleansing, genocide and war.
I was part of a Reinforced Company, ( a Regular Army core, topped up to Company Strength, with reservists ( Militia) from all over Canada. As best as I can tell, out of all the guys I served with, 1/3rd are dead, suicide by cop, suicide by alcohol, suicide by drugs, suicide by Vehicular accidents, suicide by gun), mostly, roughly half of those in the first 5 years back, with about another, and a significant number of the later dead from cancers and weird internal diseases, because everybody, Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, all poisoned the water, the ground, the villages, every chance they got.
About 1/3 are barely functional. When I moved here, by chance I met a former Corporal I served with in Bosnia. He came in via the Rocky Mountain Rangers, local small town boy, did two tours and was cashiered out. We have a pint from time to time and don’t talk about Bosnia. He has a menial but okay job, a house, wife, 2 kids and spends most nights, sleeping in the cab of his truck with the doors locked.
The rest, seem to be doing okay, for now.
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
Got it, sent you a reply.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay: I expected a real NATO response in ’92. More fool me.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: Got the reply and have replied to it.
frosty
@SiubhanDuinne:
Interesting. I’ve gone on exactly the same arc, except for occasional dips into Talking Points Memo and Booman I thought it was just me.
Another Scott
@Jay: Horrorshow.
I don’t know how we square the circle of standing up for the international order, human rights, and our national interests in supporting allies and not enabling (through passivity) tyrants while not being able to impose peace for an acceptable cost. It seems like “limited” wars have become increasingly problematic in so many cases since 1945, and we still haven’t figured out all the necessary lessons from Vietnam.
To be clear, I agree with OO’s inclination to try to help. I just don’t think we know how to do so in general given all the constraints (time, budget, domestic politics, international politics, the need to minimize casualties, etc., etc.), and we know even less about how to “win the peace” when we can’t impose “unconditional surrender”…
I don’t see the problem getting easier in the future.
Cheers,
Scott.
SiubhanDuinne
@frosty:
It’s not easy to find that sweet balance. On the one hand, it’s wise to be realistic about the current situation, about the hard work ahead of us, and about our likelihood of prevailing; it can so quickly tip over into despair, gloom and doom, and “what’s-the-use?” WASF negativity.
On the other, there’s a fine line between being positive and upbeat and optimistic, and being in ostrich-like denial. The combination of good humor and high intelligence among the jackals helps me stay close to the balance point, at least emotionally.
Jay
Turkey and Saudi Arabia backed Bosnia, who had claims on Serbia and Croat territory, Germany, France and the US backed Croatia, who had claims on Bosnian and Serb territory, Russia and some of the other soon to be NATO Eastern European nations backed Greater Serbia.
Nobody in the West wanted a Unified Yugoslavia, not ever a EULight Association Agreement, nor did they want a Greater Serbia. They didn’t want to get deeply involved, they were too busy trying to loot Russia, but they were more than willing to “meddle”, including illegal arms shipments to their preferred factions.
Western “pundit’s” would travel to Sarajevo, Belgrade, or Zagreb, comment on how cosmopolitan it was, how “Western European”, how modern and civilized it was. Meanwhile, out in the countryside where most people lived, somewhere a Pig Farmer was feeding the body of his daughter to the pigs, murdered for falling in love with the wrong Ethnicity or Religion neighboring Pig Farmers son, just as they had been for the last 800 years.
All the lessons of Yugoslavia from day one of WWII, to the last days of WWII were ignored or forgotten, and everybody ignored how Tito had “fucked up” the nationalism “question” clinging to power in the last decades of his rule.
I lost a great guy from my 2nd Platoon, B Squad, when he went back to Saskatoon on leave, and discovered the local Croatian Cultural Center was holding fundraisers for Canadian Croats to buy weapons in the US, to smuggle to Croatia, so the Croat Paramilitaries could kill Canadian Peacekeepers. He got caught burning the place down.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: There are four separate issues. The first is that there is always an outcry for someone to do something, usually the US. And this outcry is both domestic and international. The second issue is that we have the capability to quickly and efficiently bring a conflict like in the Balkans or Iraq to a quick stop. However, to do so the operations require moving fast and breaking a lot of shit. This leads to the third issue, which is really the first complication: operating this way is unacceptable. If we go in and apply overwhelming force it won’t play – in Peoria or in Paris. The fourth complication is that while we are good at being able to go in and stop hostilities, we are not good at securing the peace after we do. Because any order we impose is from outside of the indigenous population and as a result it is resisted while we’re there and then fully rejected once we leave.
Jay
@Another Scott:
Yup. French “peacekeepers” are still the prime suspects in the downing of the Rwandan President’s plane.
From the Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center’s report:
“The conventional account of Libya’s conflict and NATO’s intervention is misleading in several key aspects. First, contrary to Western media reports, Qaddafi did not initiate Libya’s violence by targeting peaceful protesters. The United Nations and Amnesty International have documented that in all four Libyan cities initially consumed by civil conflict in mid-February 2011—Benghazi, Al Bayda, Tripoli, and Misurata—violence was actually initiated by the protesters. The government responded to the rebels militarily but never intentionally targeted civilians or resorted to “indiscriminate” force, as Western media claimed. Early press accounts exaggerated the death toll by a factor of ten, citing “more than 2,000 deaths” in Benghazi during the initial days of the uprising, whereas Human Rights Watch (HRW) later documented only 233 deaths across all of Libya in that period.
Further evidence that Qaddafi avoided targeting civilians comes from the Libyan city that was most consumed by the early fighting, Misurata. HRW reports that of the 949 people wounded there in the rebellion’s initial seven weeks, only 30 were women or children, meaning that Qaddafi’s forces focused narrowly on combatants. During that same period, only 257 people were killed among the city’s populationof 400,000—a fraction less than 0.0006—providing additional proof that the government avoided using force indiscriminately. Moreover, Qaddafi did not perpetrate a “bloodbath” in any of the cities that his forces recaptured from rebels prior to NATO intervention—including Ajdabiya, Bani Walid, Brega, Ras Lanuf, Zawiya, and much of Misurata—so there was virtually no risk of such an outcome if he had been permitted to recapture the last rebel stronghold of Benghazi.”
https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/lessons-libya-how-not-intervene
All of this was known and reported at the time, by regional experts, but the sane voices were buried under the propaganda, political campaigns, venom and hysteria.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: When I was in grad school, your first theater commander assigned to the peacekeeping coalition came to give a talk. This was in Autumn 1994 and by this time he was retired. One of the things he said was just how disjointed things were. That he once had to get the Defence Minister out of bed in Ottawa because he had troops in contact taking fire and he had to get permission for them to defend themselves.
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
Then he didn’t really cover it far enough. Ottawa’s DND couldn’t give him permission, but they could contact the MoD, who could ask the UNSC Chair, who could then ask the UNPROFOR Chair, who could then enquire of the UNPROFOR Mission Commander, if shooting back was really the “right response” to the situation. If the UNPROFOR Chair gave the okay, 2 to 8 hours later we would get the response back to respond to an attack that had ended hours ago.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: Actually he went through all of that. I just didn’t figure I needed to type it.
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
After decades of UN Deployments, Ottawa finally figured out by 2002, that ROE had to be clearly defined, cover self protection, and the Canadian Theater Commander had the authority to change the ROE.
Everybody shooting at us knew the situation. When the Vandoo’s got to tag a Serb position that was using plunging AK fire and an ATGL to harass them all night, just as dawn came up. Everybody who heard about it, cheered. When they cleared the position, they found that the Serb’s forgot to wind their alarm clock. We all got an extra beer, mission wide that night.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: Tracking. I would have hated to be a senior advisor to a commander that had to negotiated that type of restrictive ROE. Would have made doing anything almost impossible.
And with that, I’m to bed.
Anne Laurie
@piratedan: Thanks, I’ll get the Spousal Unit to look it up!
(We’re heinously behind on new anime… it’s something we do together, and he’s been busy with work and other stuff.)
Kathleen
@Baud: One of whom is black and one of whom is a woman. Coincidence?
ETA: AL beat me to it!
Anne Laurie
@SiubhanDuinne: To be perfectly honest (since very few people will ever see this), that’s the main reason I’ve mostly switched from reading blogs to reading selected Twitter feeds. The tweets are a pretty good RSS replacement, and since they’re so much shorter, less depressing.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Adam L Silverman: targets don’t sucker punch you while you are distracted. On the other hand, it’s great for dick wagging at the other sedentary middle aged plutocrats.
This is also the same weasel game Ted Nugent plays.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@martian: Even if it’s on the level, this is Tranactional Trump thinks. The doctor did him good in the examine, to Spanky has to get the doctor a good job now.