Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Too little, too late, ftfnyt. fuck all the way off.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

It’s possible to be a liberal firebrand without crapping on the party.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Monday Morning Open Thread: Genuine Accomplishments

Monday Morning Open Thread: Genuine Accomplishments

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gop pretending instead of regulating sargent
(Ben Sargent via GoComics.com)
.

Jonathan Chait, at NYMag:

… On January 20, 2009, when Obama delivered his inaugural address as president, he outlined his coming domestic agenda in two sentences summarizing the challenges he identified: “Homes have been lost, jobs shed, businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly, our schools fail too many, and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.” Those were the four major areas of domestic reform: economic recovery measures, health-care reform, a response to climate change, and education reform… With the announcement of the largest piece of his environmental program last Monday, Obama has now accomplished major policy responses on all these things. There is enormous room left to debate whether Obama’s agenda in all these areas qualifies as good or bad, but “ineffectual” seems as though it should be ruled out at this point…

All of Obama’s domestic reforms involved compromises and imperfections, a quality they have in common with every major accomplishment in history. Also like the major accomplishments of the past, Obama’s will undergo future revision. All will continue to generate some level of conservative recrimination — one can still find conservatives here and there determined to phase out Social Security or outlaw the U.S. income tax. Most of them will recede into the backdrop of the policy landscape and eventually serve as the baseline against which to portray future liberals as the true radicals, just as Republicans now embrace Medicare. It is also possible that the remaining two and a half years will envelop Obama in some kind of disaster, like Iran-Contra, Vietnam, or Watergate. What’s no longer possible is to imagine that historians will look back at Obama’s presidency and conclude not much got done.

***********
[My emphasis] By all means, read the whole thing (it’s not long!).

A resolute spirit of positivity having been established, what’s on the agenda for the start of the new week?

Reader Interactions

64Comments

  1. 1.

    sharl

    A preemptive ‘good morning’ to you, raven! Here is some news regarding your favorite military-scholar-turned-raving-gun-nut, per a comment by Cole in an earlier post:

    I deleted him from the blog roll a couple days ago.

    By the way, I took a look over there (it’s been a long time), and he is soliciting contributions to keep the joint running. I don’t recall him doing that before, at least not back when I followed him. I can’t believe he needs the money; I suspect rather that the blogging has ceased to be a labor of love for him.

    ETA: Ha, I see you already found the good news.

  2. 2.

    raven

    @sharl: I just read that and I’m happy as a hog rootin in manure! It’s been a long slog and I was determined not to go emailing John and bugging him about it. Thanks John!

  5. 5.

    MikeJ

    All of Obama’s domestic reforms involved compromises and imperfections, a quality they have in common with every major accomplishment in history.

    Sure, they call it a Great Wall, but have you looked, I mean really, really looked, at the masonry on it? There are stretches in its 5000 mile run where the sand to water ratio was wrong! Why did they even bother? Worse than Bush. Kill the wall.

  6. 6.

    Chris

    What’s no longer possible is to imagine that historians will look back at Obama’s presidency and conclude not much got done.

    That, at least, is very true.

  7. 7.

    raven

    The tragedy in Las Vegas unfolded Sunday afternoon as two police officers ate lunch at CiCi’s Pizza — a world away from the glitz and glamour of the Las Vegas strip.
    Without warning, they were fatally shot at point-blank range by a man and a woman who then swiped the officers’ weapons, ammunition and badges, according to the Review-Journal. “This is a revolution,” one of the suspects shouted, according to witnesses.
    The couple then reportedly covered the officers’ bodies with a cloth showing a Revolutionary War-era flag.
    The newspaper reported it was the Gadsden flag, a yellow background with a coiled snake above the words, “Don’t tread on me.” Named for Christopher Gadsden, the Revolutionary War general who designed it, the flag has been more recently associated with the American Tea Party movement and, by some, with the Confederacy.
    Sheriff Doug Gillespie identified the slain officers as Alyn Beck, 42, and Igor Soldo, 32.
    “They were ambushed,” Gillespie said, but he did not provide information about the shooters’ motive. ”My officers were simply having lunch when the shooting started.”
    The shooters, who have not been named, then fled to a Wal-Mart where they killed a third person. Police responded, exchanging fire with the shooters. During the shootout, the female suspect killed the male suspect and then turned her gun on herself.
    The Wal-Mart patron who was killed has not yet been publicly identified.
    Although still sketchy, details have emerged about the shooters.
    On Sunday night, investigators searched the married couple’s apartment, just four miles from the scene of the shooting. Police allegedly found swastika symbols and are looking into their links to the white supremacy movement, the Review-Journal reported:
    Neighbor Krista Koch described them as ‘militant.’ They talked about planning to kill police officers, ‘going underground’ and not coming out until the time was right to kill.
    Brandon Monroe, 22, has lived in the complex for about two weeks. He said the man who lived in the apartment that was being searched often rambled about conspiracy theories. He often wore camouflage or dressed as Peter Pan as a … street performer. A woman lived with him, Monroe said, but he didn’t see her as often.

  8. 8.

    Patricia Kayden

    The passage of the ACA is in my opinion the most significant accomplishment for President Obama’s legacy, as well as winding down two wars and not getting us into any new ones.

  9. 9.

    HomerUK

    Sorry to say that even The Guardian my favourite newspaper in the UK is jumping on the Obama is incompetent meme….

    History will look extremely kindly on his Presidency from withdrawing from Iraq, healthcare, student loans, stimulus, recovery, banking regulations, saving the US auto industry, taking on coal, addressing climate change, and on and on and on….

  10. 10.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @raven:
    I am thankful that there are not enough of these zealots to wage the revolution or even Nazi-style campaign of intimidation they yearn for. The current conservative movement is almost defined by its chickenhawks. This is cold comfort, since there are plenty enough to cause the deaths or terroristic harassment of random innocents.

  11. 11.

    raven

    Now Joe wants the military to take care of the desertion issue but is focused on the father. . .like a pretzel.

  14. 14.

    Schlemizel

    @raven:
    The tree of liberty must occasionally constantly be watered with the blood of the innocent to satisfy the ravings of the insane for the benefit of their leaders.

  15. 15.

    PurpleGirl

    @raven: WTF is the problem with Mr. Bergdahl… that he didn’t shave for the time his son was held hostage, that he wears a ponytail, just what is wrong with him?

    By my thinking, his growing the beard is for a better reason than the Duck Dynasty fellow… for the optics of a family looking like “mountain men”. There have been pictures of the various men in pre-show days without the beards.

    ETA: Good morning folks.

  16. 16.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven: They’re always horrified, but Dog forbid anybody do anything because “FREEDOM!!!” ™

  17. 17.

    Matt McIrvin

    @PurpleGirl: He appeared on TV with Barack Obama and spoke a sentence in Arabic. From that moment he was anathema. He seems to have been the kind of guy conservatives profess to love up to that moment.

  18. 18.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @PurpleGirl:

    WTF is the problem with Mr. Bergdahl

    He doesn’t watch TV, he reads books, and he actually thinks about things rather than just accept the proffered narrative. In other words, I smell treason.

  19. 19.

    Mustang Bobby

    A brush fire 20 miles northwest of downtown Miami has the city under a pall of smoke, and the place smells like someone is burning newspapers. It’s getting into the buildings and making those of us sensitive to smoke miserable. So my agenda for the day is to breathe without sneezing the wax out of my ears.

  21. 21.

    Baud

    Pop Bergdahl needs to shave his pubes and tell everyone who is concerned about his hair to suck his bald balls.

    ETA: In English and Pashto.

  22. 22.

    Davis X. Machina

    @HomerUK:

    Sorry to say that even The Guardian my favourite newspaper in the UK is jumping on the Obama is incompetent meme….

    Incompetent-from-the-left? Or incompetent-from-the-right?

    In the first case, they do have a point. 5+ years on and Obama still hasn’t — and this is what you’d expect a U of C law professor to do — seized the commanding heights of the economy in the name of the workers.

  24. 24.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    The “peace corps with guns” phrase is interesting. It comes up again and again.
    If you go the original NYTimes story, it doesn’t seem like anyone actually said that. Instead, it originated when the Times interviewed his sister in 2012, and she said “I don’t think he knew what he was getting into”. The Times writer then interprets that as “a kind of Peace Corps with guns”.

    Mr. Cornelison made it his job to get to know the men he might someday have to save. He said Sergeant Bergdahl was cagey, never telling anyone his full personal story, sharing a snippet with one soldier, another snippet with someone else.
    “He got excited during certain parts of fighting, but for the vast majority of the time, he was disillusioned when we had to be boots-on-the-ground infantrymen,” Mr. Cornelison said. However, he said, Sergeant Bergdahl showed more interest in humanitarian activities, like passing out food or medical supplies to Afghan villagers or helping Afghan soldiers repair their buildings, and seemed disappointed that the Army was not more like “a kind of Peace Corps.”

    Here’s The Guardian stating that he thought the military was ” a kind of Peace Corps with guns” which they took from the 2012 NYTimes story.

  25. 25.

    Botsplainer

    So at what point does some trigger-happy concealed carrying 60 something visiting a Chilis make the not wholly unjustified conclusion that a thirty something OCT protestor is a bad guy with a gun and blows his brains out, only to go down in a hail of gunfire from the dead guy’s friends?

    From a utilitarian standpoint, it’s a really perfect solution – the world is out two douchebags who won’t be missed, the shooters of the old white guy lose their guns and their vote (a twofer!), OCT dies, and serious talk about rifles and high cap mags can start.

  26. 26.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Botsplainer: Just a bit of a mess to clean up, then again the local strip club that got coated in crude oil a few weeks back is up and running again.

  27. 27.

    Anya

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Some people in Mika’s family needs to do an intervention for her. That woman has an abusive relationship with her co-host.

    @Baud: In reality yes, but considering what we constantly hear from the media, republicans and some in the left, it needed to be said.

    @Baud: He needs to start with “In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful” but in its original Arabic.

  28. 28.

    Iowa Old Lady

    We were on a Rhine River cruise last week which was, as you might expect, full of Republicans. I overheard two guys talking about getting solicitations for money from the R party because they’ve donated in the past. They agreed the party was a mess. One of them said he sent back a note saying if the party “gets its act together” he might consider donating again. I suspect they’re old time Rs who actually recognize the crazy. They most likely will never vote D but, presented with a Tea Party candidate, they might stay home.

  29. 29.

    Southern Beale

    Don’t know if this is true but have heard that the Las Vegas shooters draped the cops they killed with a Gadsen flag and told neighbors they’d been kicked off Cliven Bundy’s ranch.

    This would not surprise me in the least, were it to be true.

  30. 30.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: I was referring to Bob Bergdahl. His son seems like a gentle soul, and all such people suffer more in war. I only wish he had done a little more thinking before he joined up.

  31. 31.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Yeah, I know you were talking about the father. I just find the narrative-making really fascinating, how it comes about and spreads. I figured he didn’t shave off the beard because it’s a symbol of solidarity and the soldier isn’t home yet. Like shaving your head in solidarity with a cancer patient.

    They really latched onto “walked off the base” too, media. That phrase all by itself doesn’t mean anything specific or actionable, but listening to them it was always presented as “walked off the base”, all kinds of import, as proof positive of something or other.

    They do it a lot. The entire IRS fake-scandal is based on the word “targeted”. That doesn’t mean anything sinister in that context. An ordinary interpretation (and what actually happened) would be “the IRS targeted a certain tax status for review”. Media just took “targeted” and ran with it, as meaning targeted certain ideological groups.

  33. 33.

    raven

    Hours after a man and woman killed two police officers at an east Las Vegas pizza restaurant and then gunned down another victim at a nearby Wal-Mart before killing themselves, a picture of the shooters began to emerge.

    Residents at an apartment complex where it appeared the two lived together said they had a reputation for spouting racist, anti-government views, bragging about their gun collection and boasting that they’d spent time at Cliven Bundy’s ranch during a recent standoff there between armed militia members and federal government agents.

  34. 34.

    raven

    Oak Tree resident Sue Hale said the two told her they were in Bunkerville during the standoff, which occurred in April after federal authorities began conducting a roundup of Bundy’s cattle. Bundy had defied the government by grazing the cattle on public land without a permit.

    “Yap, yap, yap. They were always running their mouths,” Hale said.

  35. 35.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: The media is always trying to evoke an image to give their narrative “meaning”. That usually means turning a phrase that will mean different things to different readers/listeners/viewers. Accuracy is not the objective. I have read that the “base” he walked off of was little more than some humvees parked in a circle.

    And yeah, you are dead on about the IRS scandal. It was all about the “Conservatives as victims” thing.

  36. 36.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven:

    “Yap, yap, yap. They were always running their mouths,” Hale said.

    Too bad they stopped running their mouths.

  37. 37.

    Chris

    @Kay:

    They do it a lot. The entire IRS fake-scandal is based on the word “targeted”. That doesn’t mean anything sinister in that context. An ordinary interpretation (and what actually happened) would be “the IRS targeted a certain tax status for review”. Media just took “targeted” and ran with it, as meaning targeted certain ideological groups.

    The only shady thing about that entire story is that none of the teabagger groups “targeted” were, in fact, stripped of their tax-exempt status. Really, you’re calling yourselves a Tea Party group and I’m supposed to believe you’re an apolitical nonprofit organization? For fuck’s sake.

  39. 39.

    Schlemizel

    @PurpleGirl:
    “Santa Clause has a red suit
    he’s a communist.
    And a beard and long hair
    must be a pacifist”

    – The Pause Of Mr. Clause, Arlo Guthrie

  40. 40.

    raven

    But the rancher’s wife denied a link between the armed protesters and the fatal shootings.

    “I have not seen or heard anything from the militia and others who have came to our ranch that would, in any way, make me think they had an intent to kill or harm anyone,” Carol Bundy said.

    hahahahaha

  41. 41.

    rikyrah

    Our View: Demonizing the Bergdahls
    June 08, 2014 2:00 am • Times-News Editorial Board

    The rush was on to blast the White House last week and congressional Republicans couldn’t care less who got hurt. But the fact that Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl and his parents, Bob and Jani, were the collateral damage in the GOP’s ruthless campaign to lampoon President Obama is vile.

    For five years, lawmakers on the Hill blasted the Obama administration over the Hailey native’s continued Taliban confinement. It only took a few hours following his release last Saturday before Fox News talking heads had Bergdahl labeled a traitor or even a collaborator. Some literally called for blood.

    Meanwhile, Republican powerhouses, such as Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, were lambasting the administration for swapping five Guantanamo Bay prisoners for Bergdahl. The five are the “Taliban Dream Team,” Graham said. McCain, only a few months before Bergdahl’s release, told CNN he would support a swap much like the one that got the only American prisoner of war out of captivity. His pivot, and the rest of his party’s, is about attacking the president. Bergdahls be damned. They’re expendable, says the national Republican machine.

    magicvalley.com/news/opinion/editorial/article_8a5920ce-84a1-5d7a-8dda-1fb1ebafc115.html#.U5SyKgCKDI…

  42. 42.

    Schlemizel

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    My oldest joined in ’98. We had several long talks about this while I tried to dissuade him. He wanted to go to an out of state U that was nearly 3 times more expensive than an in state one and knew we could not afford the difference. He got into the clutches of a recruiter & signed up for ROTC & Reserve. I explained to him that meant the army owned him & could do what they damn well please college or not. I explained to him that the recruiter was a liar paid to get kids to sign away their life & would say anything to make that happen. But no, the recruiter was a good guy & besides the world was at piece so don’t sweat it pops.

    He learned immediately after arrival at boot camp that recruiters lied, even to the Army, to get their quotas but no worries, we are at peace even in 2000. But then he never did finish college after getting yanked out of school. He too enjoyed the good thing he was able to do for the people in the countries he was visited upon and made many dear friends with a bunch of locals. There but for the grace of marinara . . .

    TL;DR: 18 YO kids are not worldly, they do stupid things without fully understanding the consequences or their ability to deal with them. That kid might have done something very stupid if what is being said is mostly true. If so I think we should hope he can get help & recover. Chances are he will have to go into some sort of witness protection as the loons will be looking for him the rest of his life.

  45. 45.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Schlemizel: I was at a pizza joint with my 2 teenage sons in STL when Bush the Lesser came on the TV and announced the beginning of the Iraq war. After his speech, somebody in the crowd said, “God bless America”. I said “Fuck Bush.” Somebody else said, “WHO SAID THAT?” I jumped up and said, “I DID!!! AND I HAVE 2 SONS WHO COULD END UP IN THAT MESS!!! WHAT DO YOU HAVE?!?!?!???”

    He looked at me, shut up, and walked out the door. Good thing too ’cause I was too pissed to care and he would have killed me.

    At any rate, from that day forward I promised myself that my sons would not end up in that mess or any other Dick Cheney wet dreams. Sad, because I had always wanted the boys to have the option of joining.

  49. 49.

    Emma

    @Davis X. Machina: One of the things that flies under the radar is how much the Guardian dislikes America on principle. In the immortal words of TNH, just because you’re on their side it doesn’t mean they on your side.

  52. 52.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Emma: True not just of the Guardian but lefties everywhere in the world. For example, read The Hindu, which is like India’s Guardian. I always found the Guardian tending towards firebaggery since Obama took office.

  53. 53.

    D58826

    @rikyrah: Faux news is already talking up the possibility of a firing squad. After all we shot deserters don’t we. Why we did it the last time in 1945 and even then it was controversial. These folks are sick

    Impeachment continues to be a favorite topic. One theory is Obama hasn’t been impeached because he isn’t white. Of course none of this is about race.

  54. 54.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah: Welcome back, Bowe.

    Those are the last words in that article. Nearly all of us here at BJ have been greatly upset. Why can’t we start a “Welcome back, Bowe”, well, something.

    Take up a collection and we run a full page ad in the new york times. Take up a collection and run a full page ad in Bowe’s hometown paper, and every other Idaho paper we can afford, with our names and the state where we live so they know that people all over the country support them.

    Design a bumper sticker and sell it. Something. This impotent rage is eating me up. Let’s do something.

    Add Welcome back, Bowe in big letters to the BJ page. Encourage other blogs to do the same. Something.

    We cannot let the haters hold the floor on this indefinitely. We have to fight back.

  55. 55.

    Paul in KY

    @raven: Performing as Peter Pan will do that to people sometimes…

    Non snarkily, what a tragedy for those officers & their families. Any loser with a firearm can end your life on a whim (the new American creed).

  56. 56.

    Paul in KY

    @Mustang Bobby: I drove thru one of those on Alligator Alley at about 3 or 4 in the morn. Fires burning in distance on both sides of road, lots of smoke. Was pretty freaky.

  57. 57.

    HomerUK

    @Emma: I don’t think that’s especially true. I think it was true during the Bush years but all in all the commentary has been relatively positive about the US since then; they are also the only British paper (AFAIK) that has a specific US team focussing on the US much more than other British nationals. However, they have been consistently down on Obama since the first inauguration mainly from the left (repeating some of the – in my view – lazy critiques about Obama being worse than Bush!!). The article I read yesterday to which I was referring (I can’t find the link but read it in the hard copy Observer) basically was patterned on Obama trying to resurrect his second term by ‘going it alone’ (i.e. executive orders etc.) but completely mangling it up because he should have known the Republicans would have been in uproar about him bypassing Congress and that he should have known that Republicans who had spent months, if not years, begging the White House to get Bergdhal back by any means necessary, would then completely flip-flop and declare Obama a commie, terrorist loving dictator who breaks laws but is too weak to actually do anything and is so incompetent that he managed to get the soldier back but without increasing the minimum wage at the same time – or something like that. Plus NSA! Drones! and psst….immigration reform is dead and that’s all because Obama is so alone and doesn’t like politics.

    Honestly it’s exhausting…

  59. 59.

    Emma

    @HomerUK: For all their expertise they have crap-all understanding of American politics. It’s like talking to someone from Europe about the US legal system and pointing out that no, Law and Order doesn’t really reflect reality.

    *edited for clarity*

  61. 61.

    Cassidy

    @OzarkHillbilly: Being in the Army means dealing with a lot of boredom, even down rang. “Hurry up and wait” is a joke for a reason. Every unit has a guy like SGT Bergdahl: smart, in shape, varying levels of advanced education, always asking questions, always volunteering for details, always coming up with better ways to build the mousetrap. Personally, I never had a problem when I had Soldiers like that, but lots of NCO’s and their peers are intimidated. Oftentimes it leads to a very messy blowup and the NCO has to pull rank to end it. From that perspective, I have a pretty good idea what the dynamic was within his platoon. He was the butt of jokes and he probably was always pissed because he was doing the grunt work with no appreciation.

  62. 62.

    NonyNony

    @D58826:

    One theory is Obama hasn’t been impeached because he isn’t white. Of course none of this is about race.

    … The Fuck?

    Republicans control the freaking House. If they want to impeach they can just go ahead and vote on impeachment. Then it can go to the Senate where it will, as it was with Clinton, be voted down overwhelmingly.

    I mean Jeebus – they can’t help but wear their goddamn racism on their sleeves can they?

  63. 63.

    lol chikinburd

    Turns out that the recent Wisconsin ruling doesn’t leave us with twenty states with marriage equality, but more like nineteen-and-a-half. Some county clerk’s offices are issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples and some aren’t (with a periodically-updated tally of which are and which aren’t here), pending AG Van Hollen’s appeal and stay request. It’s mostly big counties (including Waukesha!) who are issuing licenses, with some exceptions (Racine, La Crosse). The Dane County office has reportedly been getting calls from outside Dane, with callers sobbing and saying they can’t get married in their own counties.

    It’s all a huge spite-driven and intentionally divisive clusterfuck, because of course it is.

  64. 64.

    Bob In Portland

    The only difference between Republican and Democratic foreign policies now is a matter of speed in killing people who live on top of oil/gas reserves. Republicans like to kill faster, Democrats are a little more desultory. However, even that difference is narrowing.

    The killing continues. Kiev is now trying to assassinate leaders in the east.

    What is the strategy here? Does Kiev expect to subjugate the people in the east? Will all of the east be forced into Ukrainian language classes? Will this new batch of oligarchs, backed by the US and IMF, bring joy or despair on the people of Ukraine? Does anyone at BJ see any eventual solution to this that doesn’t involve killing lots of people?

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