When He's On . . .

. . . he's so on . . . watch out for that guy in Kentucky named Skeeter!

Yes, both parties just totally suck. 

Zero Dark Misdirection

America just can't seem to come to terms with the fact that the torture debate is not about ticking time-bombs or finding Osama: it's about the fact that when due process is denied and people are subjected to torture, the wheels come off not only on our own humanity but on the protections afforded us all under the constitution.  What Americans - including that imbecile Jon Stewart - can't seem to acknowledge is that innocent people, too - not just bad guys - were rounded up, detained indefinitely and tortured.  In some cases they were released, and in some they died.  Courtesy of The United States of America, the city on the hill.

Does Kathryn Bigelow even acknowledge this?  As far as I can tell, no. An admittedly unscientific analysis - googling "Kathryn Bigelow torture innocent" - yields "hits" from Kathryn that puts torture in the context of  the innocents lost in 9/11, an apparent appropriation of the logic of the Cheneys, but no mention is made of the many innocents who were subjected to indefinite detention and torture. The only "hits" touching on this less convenient truth are some scattered expressions of outrage in reaction to the film - not that it depicts torture, but rather at the gaping hole in humanity that seems to have taken root in America.

Me Neither

So very sad, and not too unusual in America.  

Powerful

Pretty much how I feel - no-one likes to have others' "values" shoved down their throats.

Is it just me . . .

. . . or is it indeed ironic that everyone is baying for Lance Armstrong's blood when this kind of bullshit is allowed to go criminally unaddressed?  The deferral and obfuscation preventing us from getting to bottom of the great Iraq misdirection are a wonder to behold.  Well, at least we got to see Alistair Campbell cry - even if those were tears of self-pity.  Not to mention just a perpetuation of the same old misdirection.

Yep, He's Still the Tool He Always Was

Just checking . . . .

Not fun for everyone

Getting drunk and driving 100 miles an hour is also fun, but it’s still illegal. Same with crystal meth. The point is there is a social cost to allowing recreational gun ownership, and gun owners need to acknowledge we are all paying a certain price for their entertainment. For those of us who never have and never will own a gun, it is most definitely not worth it.

Sandy Hook

I continue to be amazed that people's commitment to orthodoxy, against all available evidence, comes before their commitment to their children. Consider our approach to global warming (and environment policy generally), birth control, the education system, social security, fiscal policy, gun control, etc. What binds these together is, basically, we really don't care about our kids all that much when it comes down to it, and this seems more true in America than in any other western society.

Of Fiscal Cliffs and Talmudic Interpretations

Classic Josh, but I'm not sure he should leave the Jesuits out of this.

No Comment Necessary

Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi!

Beirut!

The 1983 attack on US Marines barracks in Lebanon that killed 241 Americans. (Two hundred and forty one Americans killed, in a single attack -- the deadliest single attack on US troops overseas since WWII.) Was Reagan a closet-Muslim sympathizer? We need hearings to find out what really happened in Beirut, who knew what and when, and why the American public was not informed earlier. We're concerned about 241 Americans who died in Beirut. Their families need to know the circumstances, why it happened, how it happened, and where responsibility lies. That's all. That's all that we're seeking. We're not seeing a confrontation with anyone. We're not trying to quote 'take on anyone.'

Was There an Election?

Haven't Checked in with the General Recently

Forgive me, General, for thou art always entertaining.

Biggest Mistake of Obama's Presidency

Selecting a bunch of anti-Keynesians and following their advice early on was a bone-head move.  I posted at the time that Obama should have listened to - instead of rudely denigrating - Krugman's warnings that Obama's inaugural budget was not remotely bold enough.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that Obama is only a pale imitation of a Keynesian in comparison with the GOP's hero, Ronald Reagan - such is the insane era we live it when one can say that Obama's biggest mistake was lacking the courage to be half the Keynesian Ronald Reagan was.

It's not so funny when you start to think about it

. . . and realise just how accurately it describes the state of our democracy.

Yawn . . .

This evidently comes as a surprise to people.

Who ever could have guessed such things go on in the halls of power?

Meanwhile, back in the U.S. of A., the only surprise these days is that some in Rupert's own family appear to have briefly strayed off-message:

"[Matthew] Freud told the New York Times he was "ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes's horrendous and sustained disregard of the journalistic standards that News Corporation, its founder and every other global media business aspires to [cue stifled gag reflex]".

Freud, who is married to Elisabeth, Rupert Murdoch's second daughter, was speaking to the NYT for a profile of Ailes, who is President of Fox News, and prefaced his comment by saying that he was "by no means alone within he family or the company" in holding such hostile views of Fox News.

I suspect Wendi has been dispatched to deal with Freud's intemperate remarks.  She is definitely the one to fear:

Wanker of the decade

Congratulations, Tommy - no-one deserves the honour more than you.

"The legal opinions have grave weaknesses"

So, belatedly, a memo is now in the public domain. In truth I can't understand why this makes much of a difference. Okay, yes, perhaps this is a smoking gun signifying the Bush administration was told point-blank that its policy amounted to war crimes:

"We are unaware of any precedent in World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, or any subsequent conflict for authorized, systemic interrogation practices similar to those in question here."

And, yes, the Bush White House did everything possible to destroy all copies of this particular memo, figuring it might be difficult to explain to a media, even one as craven and compromised as ours turned out to be.

But, on the substance, there is nothing new here that we didn't already know. As early as April 2009, Philip Zelikow wrote, despairing, about this systematic and brazen violation of some of America's most core principles:

". . . [T]he issue is not about who or what [the detainees] are. It is about who or what we are."

Mr. Zelikow chaired the 9/11 Commission, which suggests he is someone who is relatively unimpeachable even by today's woeful standard of political discourse.

In 2010, the Obama White House decided officially to turn a blind eye. The legal memos justifying state-sanctioned torture - the ones that were released - were on their face patently ridiculous, so much so that the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility recommended disciplinary action against the responsible lawyers. Obama's Assistant Attorney General overruled the OPR in a stunning display of political cynicism. John Yoo (Bush's Assist. Attorney General who was most directly responsible for justifying torture, and who seemed to revel in his role) continued to double down, insisting that the U.S. president is not bound by archaic constraints like laws when there are wars to fight, including those without end, like our current Global War on Unspecified Threats. And, sure enough, the incompetent newbie lawyers brought into the Justice Department to write the travesties masquerading as legal opinions that enabled these state-sanctioned crimes, lawyers who were barely-trained but nevertheless unleashed on an unsuspecting world courtesy of the Federalist Society and third-rate law schools, have gone on to comfy sinecures elsewhere.

It was at about this time that I lost faith in Obama.

Unravelling

Thoughtful essay from Edward Luce. The money quote:

In daggers-drawn Washington, Democrats and Republicans have been able to agree only on a certain type of spending cut. The bulk are targeted at the one slice of the federal budget that qualifies as investment – “domestic non-defence discretionary spending”, which accounts for only 12 per cent of the pie. This includes research and development, infrastructure and education programmes – areas that matter greatly to America’s future competitiveness. They could be described as the “tomorrow” part of the US budget. The remainder, which is mostly healthcare for retirees, pensions, defence and interest payments on past debt, might be seen as the “yesterday” portion. Yet Washington’s first instinct in the new era of austerity was to shortchange the future. There will be more to come even if Obama is re-elected.

Abiding genius

. . . I continue to wonder at how he gets away with it . . .