Extremist Republicans Defanged By Democratic Women

Who would 'a thunk it? Once the Democratic women spoke out, front and center, it appears an agreement has been reached to head off a government shutdown. That is, if the crazies in the House Republican caucus agree to it. Let's face it, on the question of painful budget cuts, the House Republicans WON weeks ago when Mr. President cave-in basically told meek Harry to give them all they wanted sight unseen. Then he had the audacity of cope to come before us and boast about how "painful" these cuts are to Democrats. No shit, Mr. President. It's not as if you were prepared to draw any kind of line in the sand, is it?

That was left up to the Democratic women in the Senate. They marched out there and said, "ENOUGH" we're not going to take the right wing's radical social agenda to defund Title X health services for women — the "Health Services Act," passed in 1970, signed by President Nixon and endorsed by President Bush I — providing a wide range of health screening services for women — mammograms, uterine cancer tests, HIV/AIDS screenings, etc. and so much more — serving three million American women. This is what is at stake at this hour; "subsidized PAP smears." An investment in basic healthcare for women, and truthfully, one that saves hundreds of thousands of abortions by providing birth control, hence averting unwanted pregnancies for young women.

Guess what: Men use Planned Parenthood services, too. No, they're not cruising for chicks; they're getting prostate cancer screenings, also HIV/AIDS tests because that's what can happen — besides pregnancy — with unprotected sex. For those of you who live in the real world and not with your noses buried in the Holy Book, just imagine how extremely valuable the services provided by Planned Parenthood are. Even if you don't want to know about it, deep down you're still glad it's there.

The Republican MALE's obsession with abortion, the lie that these funds go toward abortion services by Planned Parenthood which would be, prima facie, a legitimate reason to cut its funding is what has driven these radical social engineers of the Right to reach into every woman's bedroom and private health space. In the real world a woman's Constitutional right to privacy in this country, on which legal abortion services are based, is a sham.

So the extremist Republicans would shut down the government to deny millions of women the essential health care provided by Planned Parenthood. Only three percent of what Planned Parenthood does are abortion services. And that is provided through private funding, mostly from the women who need it, not from goverment funds. The Hyde Amendment prohibits it, and if Planned Parenthood ever violated the letter of the Hyde law, these Republican extremists would be all over it, just as they drove ACORN to bankruptcy.

It took a show of force and resolve from the Democratic women to stop these bastards dead in their tracks. Liars like Mike Pence and one lying scumbag who claimed 90 percent of  what Planned Parenthood does are abortion services. These Republicans are despicable, grotesque LIARS. They will stop at nothing to ram their extremist social agenda down our throats. Being the cowards they are, maybe they thought women would be an easy target ... Uh-oh. Bad move. Because the Democratic women, who have mucho más cojones than the men — no offense Harry and Chuck — had had enough of these bastards.

There are a few more acts to this vile play left to act out for the Republicans. Like the bizarre appearance of the Republican wingnut women's caucus that, after a perplexed wife of the late Sonny Bono noted, it's the first time they all met (!), degenerated into chaos when a female reporter wanted to know, what about Planned Parenthood? That really rattled those wingnut women, and they were looking for the exits presto, trying to head for that tall grass. Here is the story and video.

"We really need to get a lot more fight in our game if we're going to defend the programs we care about," said Rep. Anthony Weiner, who is one of the few fighting men on the Democratic side. We shall see what this disgusting "deal" turns out to be. When it hinges on Harry Reid to stand firm and curb the President's enthusiasm to give these bastards everything they want, we're not where we need to be, as Democrats.

But our women are awesome, and they may save us yet.

If not, then it's party time for the Teabaggers! How will this Republican crap shoot end?

How Easy Is It To Steal An Election? Princeton University Gives Us A Tour

Perhaps not everyone (among those even aware of this issue) is as uneasy with electronic voting machines — the infamous, unstrustworthy Diebold touch screen things — as I am. And so unfortunately, the question of how easily these machines can be hacked and manipulated to steal elections has been relegated to dark conspiracist corners by the MSM. Which is the death knell for a critical area that should get much more vigorous media scrutiny: the integrity of our elections.

There has been sufficient evidence of widespread problems with the security and operation of these machines to convince some states, including Wisconsin, to enact laws after the 2004 presidential election (in which substantive claims of electronic voting fraud emerged) requiring a paper trail or record for every electronic vote cast. It certainly crossed my mind as I checked the AP county-by-county returns. One thing to keep in mind about electoral theft is, it can't easily be done when the winner's margin is above two percent, or higher. But when the margins are razor-thin, then the possibility of manipulating the machines becomes increasingly more likely. Whether or not this was the case in Wisconsin, remains to be seen.

Princeton University demonstrates in this video how very easy it is to hack these machines. This is a truly scary demo:

Voting The "Uncle Joe" Way In Waukesha County, Wisconsin

This is very suspicious: Over 7,000 Votes Magically "Found" For Prosser By Republican Waukesha County Clerk.

Given the Republican history of stealing elections, this is something we should have expected. After all the votes are in, suddenly Prosser gains 7,000 votes due to a "computer error" in the heavily Republican Waukesha County, magically swings the election back to David Prosser. I think we need to take a much closer look at Waukesha County for vote-rigging. Here's the story on Prosser's magical mystery victory. Kloppenberg has to ask for a recount, if she's on the wrong end of this final canvass, which seems likely. This is late-breaking news, but we'll just have to wait and see what happens now. According to some accounts, the law in Wisconsin requires that there has to be a voter-verified paper trail. The paper ballot in all computer voting is considered the official ballot. They'd better be able to account on paper for every single one of those 7,000+ votes. This thing isn't over.  It really stinks, though, doesn't it ... Or, as "Uncle" Joe Stalin used to say:

UPDATE — Wisconsion election law requires that "all direct recording electronic (DRE) voting systems [the touchscreen voting machine] produce a complete, permanent paper record showing all votes cast by the elector. The voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) is considered the official ballot and is to be used in a recount of each vote cast by the elector." This is the law in Wisconsin that was passed only a few years ago to require a paper trail for every electronic vote cast. According to reports from Waukesha, they ran out of paper ballots and had to revert to electronic voting. Whatever the case may be, the Waukesha County Clerk must produce a paper record of each one of these magically "found" 7,000+ votes for them to be considered the official ballot to be used in a recount. Your move, Waukesha County Clerk. Here it is; Page 12 of the Wisconsin Election Day Manual (2008):

Tripoli Rose: Could Libya’s Star Propagandist Be Ailes's Pick To Replace Beck?

She used to be a romance author before her gig with Harlequin Books fizzled out … or so it seems. But now she’s gotten her big break as Khaddafi’s chief propagandist. Look out Megyn Kelly who, it should be noted, endearingly, is Hala Misrati’s role model:

"Say the things that you said in your recordings!" she barked at the journalist, Rana al-Aqbani, apparently referring to taped recordings of al-Aqbani's phone calls, as she tried to make her acknowledge that she sought Gadhafi's ouster. Al-Aqbani, a Tripoli-based journalist, has since disappeared.

Misrati also called the woman who told foreign media she was raped by Kaddhafi’s thugs before they dragged her away, a “liar” and a “whore.” Naturally, she piqued Roger Ailes’s interest.

The Symbol of Progressive America Today

Her name is Joanne Kloppenburg. A month ago I had no idea who she was. When she emerged as the woman on whom Wisconsinites and progressives throughout this great land were pinning their hopes to stop and reverse the Scott Walker assault on unions and working families, not only in Wisconsin but across the nation, I wondered whether she was up to the task. Was she a good enough candidate or just another sacrificial lamb the Democrats hoped to contest a seat they thought they knew (and had reason to believe at the time) they could not win? 

But then some kind of wonderful happened. She was on the ballot, and she was our candidate. No ifs, ands, or buts. Joanne was up against incumbent Justice David Prosser, a conservative with statewide name recognition, former Speaker of the State House, and solid Walker man. He dismissed his opponent and proudly associated himself with Walker's toxic policies. The race was on. What started out as a comfortable 55-25 percent lead for Prosser vanished as Kloppenburg gained an amazing, jaw-dropping 30 points, pulling even with Prosser by election day, then pulling ahead, I predict, to win the final recount.

It was the  culmination of all those massive protests by tens of thousands of Wisconsinites in sub-freezing weather against Walker's war on unions and the middle class. It capped a triumphant pushback by progressives, energized and awakened from their slumber for the first time time since 2008. There's no other way to say it: It was one of the great victories in the history of the progressive movement in America. There were other great victories for progressives, but this one has an especially sweet flavor, because of the lessons learned by young people just getting involved in politics, in civics and democracy. Teachers protesting with their students were buoyed, saying it's not the kind of thing they can learn in the classroom or from a textbook. Until the protest movement was galvanized into action, this kind of thing for those students was the stuff of Hollywood and movies. They got their first taste of the real thing with Barack Obama's election, but then fell back into the routine of their lives, thinking their work was done until 2012.

Think about it. How many young people were drawn to the negative, racist, and selfish slash and burn message of the Tea Party? Not many. And then Gov. Scott Walker hands them a cause on a silver platter. I like the odds of this cause beating out the Paul Ryan and Tea Party "cause" because it's not top-down and it's not astro-turf. It's grassroots, bottom-up, spontaneous and organic.

Democracy requires constant attention, cultivation, tending to, or the seedling that was planted will shrivel and die. It's a simple lesson in concept but rarely followed through in practice. Joanne Kloppenburg's titanic struggle against the symbol of a repressive state, carried with her the hopes of hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin citizens and reached beyond its borders. I have no sense, still, of Joanne  Kloppenburg as a person or a candidate for the State Supreme Court. But the people of Wisconsin — those who know her best — embraced her candidacy. And she came through for them. For all of us: Progressives, union households, ordinary middle class Americans. Her victory was truly the people's triumph.

Joanne Kloppenburg, improbable, but magnificent, dragonslayer.

Young people not yet jaded by politics learned a great lesson in civics. If you cede to the opposition the policies and ideas that you so passionately fought for, they will quickly become imperiled. But if you engage, fight for what you believe in, and VOTE — then anything and everything is possible. Yesterday, Joanne Kloppenburg, America's accidental progressive, showed the way. Yesterday was a great day for democracy.

ACHTUNG! WATCHING RACHEL MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH ... AND/OR LIFE?!?

 ... Or Rachel's Unsolicited Brush With Fascist Amerika.

She can't say it on air, we know, but the sentiment is there, and if you were to ask people who have lived through it, this is a pretty accurate description of what goes on in a police state. Intimidation of workers and media through domestic spying has always been a cornerstone of authoritarian state control. First comes the realization that sends a "chill" up your spine, followed by the big chill recognition that "this is how they roll." Here's Rachel, none too happy to be caught up in the fascisti web:

It brings to mind this great "chilling" scene in All The President's Men in which Robert Redford who plays Bob Woodward meets with the shadowy 'Deep Throat' in a dark underground parking lot, learns the dimensions of the conspiracy, and is told that his life is in danger. The best part of that scene (not shown here) for me is, after Deep Throat slinks into the shadows, Redford hears the screeching of tires, runs out into a bleak, empty D.C. street (it's early morning), surrounded by cold, imposing concrete buildings. He looks all around, fearfully, Then the shot zooms out to show a Google Earth-like picture of a tiny solitary person, and we hear this jarring, reverberating bell sound: BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

It was a splendid depiction of the dread one feels, the sense of helplessness, when pitted against the power of an intrusive, criminal, police state. Redford appears as a small, ant-like creature that can be crushed at any moment.

Wisconsin Voters SLAM!!!!!!! Gov. Wanker!

You'd never know it getting your news from the MSM. A few days ago the PBS News Hour reached a new low when it attended the sham Teabagger demonstration in D.C. of 200 white bread imbeciles clamoring for a government shutdown, while ignoring the weeks of demonstrations in Wisconsin numbering 100,000+ strong by REAL AMERICANS (as a representative POPULAR movement) in Wisconsin.

The real battle for the hearts and minds of the American people is going on, right here right now in the HEARTLAND of America. The people are FIGHTING BACK against the overreach of the fascist — yes, FASCIST — Republicans and their radical agenda to kill democracy in this nation. First, the race for Walker's old job of Milwaukee County Executive was CRUSHED by the Democrat, slamming Walker's candidate with 60% of the vote. 

Next, and most remarkable, the State Supreme Court race in which the incumbent, David Prosser, who was closely associated with Gov. Walker was coasting to a ho-hum win — until Walker's assault on working people. Then the race went national and became effectively a proxy fight against Walker and a referendum against his union-busting draconian policies. The challenger, Joanne Kloppenburg, with little name recognition roared back from 30 points down in the polls to a dead heat finish in which there will be a recount, but I predict, when all precincts are in, she will have the lead in total votes. Here's why: With 99% of precincts reporting and a remarkable 1.5 million votes cast, Kloppenburg leads Prosser by 224 votes, BUT ... these are the outstanding districts, from the AP site:

Two counties in Milwaukee. HOLD IT RIGHT THERE, to quote Big Eddie. Milwaukee is (a) a Democratic big city stronghold, and (b) was carried by Kloppenburg (less the two districts yet to report) by 128,644 votes to 98,933, which breaks down to 57% for Kloppenburg, 43% for Prosser. With a recount possibly looming, whose candidate's shoes would you rather be on? I predict, with 100% of precincts reporting, Kloppenburg, an unknown and 30 points down a month ago, will have extended her lead over Prosser and will, in an honest recount, have won that state Supreme Court seat, and tipped the scales in favor of the people and against Walker's iron fist fascist rule. POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

Teabaggers, you're next. We're coming for you. We're going to DESTROY you at the polls and in the court of public opinion. People, just keep doing what you're doing: VOTE. VOTE. VOTE! The recall elections are next in Wisconsin, concurrent with a ballot referendum to defeat Ohio Gov. Kasich's anti-union bill. These are only the first steps. We're on the march, baby. We're coming for these extremist ratbastard Republicans!

Meanwhile, in the fantasy Tea Party/Idiot Punditocracy fairy dust kingdom of Washington, D.C., where  Paul Ryan is hailed by the three percentile [quote-quote] "journalists" as a "visionary," Rep. Anthony Weiner's takedown of the Idiot Punditocracy's adulation of Paul Ryan is sort of like filling the vacuum taken by the privileged faux Beltway Media. Disregard the next segment with Ron Paul, the libertarian's hero, and, of course, disregard Dylan Ratigan, the host. He worships the ground Stephen Colbert walks on, who in turn worships Ron Paul and vice versa. A confederacy of libertarian dunces. But Anthony is worth the price of admission:

The Teabagging imbeciles will get their wish, although they represent NOTHING but the most EXTREME wingnut element of the population — less than 20%. The Beltway Media, which rarely ventures outside its comfort Beltway zone, covered the astro-turf event in numbers, swelling the minuscule gathering attended by wingnut House members Bachmann and Pence, among others, cheering the Teabaggers on with their "close 'er down!" chants.

Republicans are already trying to preempt the message with propaganda. One wingnut called this a "diabolical plan" (doubtless a Frank Luntz 'special' buzzword) hatched by the Democrats after the November elections. Please. Gotta laugh — I WISH! As if the bumbling, endlessly bentover good government Democrats could EVER, IN OUR WILDEST IMAGINATIONS, come up with ANYTHING approximating the DIABOLICAL to hurl at Republicans. I only wish. If it were up to me, I'd say CRUSH AND DESTROY these bastards. That's what you do with people out to destroy the government, the economy, the middle class, and democracy itself. What would you call that? I call it TREASON. But Democrats insist on playing ball with traitors. And our President, I'm sorry to say, is his usual sellout.

The MSM totally neglects the voices of REAL AMERICANS in Wisconsin; rather it continues to give voice to a gathering of a few dozen fools, aka  TEABAGGERS, even interviewing these ignorant clowns in their ridiculous outfits while people out in the REAL WORLD are suffering through this economy and Republican plans to bring the axe down on more of them. They aren't abstractions; people actually DIE because of cuts to vital services such as Medicaid, Family Planning, food for the poor, aid to families with dependent children. It's ultimately about moral choices, what kind of society we are and want to be. And if the President seems upset, well that's too bad, isn't it. Because it's not that he's "loaded for bear" or moved by the suffering of ordinary Americans, except as his long term "North Star" abstractions. The long term 'North Star' cannot take care of people's immediate survival needs.

It's because Republicans aren't being reasonable in the face of President Obama's penchant for caving, that he may be forced to actually take sides. And act more like a Democrat.

Quotable: Big Eddie, On The Ryan Budget

"With all due respect, Mr. President, this is not a a haircut, this is a brutal scalping!"

Frankly, I'm frustrated with our shrinking violet President. When is he going to fight back against these radical, extremist Republicans? When is he going to stand up for people and stop caving to every outrageous demand by a party of extremists who control only one-third of the government? It's like Waiting for Godot.

Tea Party Remedial Education: SUCKERS!

That's what Paul Krugman said of the radical GOP budget plan crafted by the extremist/objectivist (Ayn Rand cultist) Paul Ryan, who has taken over the House Budget Committee:

"[F]or all those older Americans who voted GOP last year because those nasty Democrats were going to cut Medicare, I have just one word," wrote New York Times columnist, and Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman: "suckers!"  

HERE COMES EDDIE (PAUL RYAN) MUNSTER!

Here's the bait-and-switch Ryan pulled on all of you IMBECILES frothing at the mouth because it was a black man who initiated the middle-of-the-road healthcare plan (proposed by Bob Dole and enacted by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts) to ensure you keep your Medicare benefits, with modest reforms designed to keep this GREAT program strong for retirees well into the future. Instead of the so-called "Obamacare" you were brainwashed into fearing due to nonexistent "death panels" and the lies you would lose your Medicare ... well, now YOU'RE GOING TO LOSE IT FOR REAL, THANKS TO PAUL RYAN AND THE EXTREMIST REPUBLICANS YOU ELECTED.

But there's a catch. Ryan knows it and the older Teabaggers already on Medicare know it too, which is why they're such contemptuous, treasonous, selfish parasites:

Seniors, and others on Medicare, would be in a slightly different predicament. Currently seniors 65 and over are guaranteed a defined benefit program: taxpayers finance the system, and the government agrees to pay for seniors' health care services (though seniors have to pitch in too). Ryan's plan would leave that system intact for anybody currently on Medicare, or expecting to be on Medicare within 10 years. For everyone else the program would be radically overhauled.   

This isn't only just class warfare; it's generational class warfare. A totally new DOUBLE-DOWN concept. And it's being gleefully waged by the radical extremist Paul Ryan — no shit; this guy is way out there in the ideological extreme of right wing economics. Ryan's plan is what progressive Senator Bernie Sanders calls, "Robin Hood in reverse"— stealing from the poor and struggling middle class to give to the rich, beginning with a HUGE 10% cut from 35% to 25% in the top tax bracket,  financed by the rest of us.

The master plan is to demolish the New Deal, whose pillars are Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, financial institutions regulation, and workers rights laws, including collective bargaining — in favor of a third world-style oligarchical dystopia with feudal lords and serfs, in which most of us, the serfs, fund and facilitate with our subsistence wage tax dollars, the playgrounds of the rich. Ironically, for the rabid, anti-Obama Teabaggers,  Ryan's plan, proposed with Alice Rivlin, former OMB Director under Clinton, "basically turns Medicare into ['Obamacare']":

It’s the same idea — regulated exchanges offering certified insurance products populated by subsidized buyers. If Ryan-Rivlin will unleash ferocious innovation that holds costs down, then so too should the Affordable Care Act. So at the end of our conversation, I asked Rivlin, who supported PPACA, if I was missing something. She laughed. “I keep talking to Paul and trying to convince him of that,” she said. “But even if he agreed with me, he couldn’t say so.”

Medicare is the biggest driver of the deficit. In essence, had all the Teabaggers carrying anti-Obama signs provided by the corporations and their little hand-written signs, "HANDS OFF MY MEDICARE," signed off on the Obama plan we'd all be in a much better place today. As if — as if Democrats, who proposed and passed Medicare for the health benefit of millions of seniors since 1965, while beating back successive attempts by Republicans to kill it, as if the Democrats would do anything to harm the program. But noooo. The pasty white, racist, ignorant Teabaggers dove straight into the GOP shark-infested waters at the mere sight or mention of our African American President. And they're still doing it, giving Donald Trump the solitary reason for his ridiculous candidacy.

So here we are. The only ones standing between your Medicare being totally demolished and turned into a for-profit privatized plan to benefit the corporations and Wall Street, are the Democrats and President Obama. You can't count on the President. Not only have you pissed him off — who wouldn't be with all the verbal garbage and threats hurled at him — but despite your delusions, he is nowhere near a "socialist"; he's more like a moderate-to-conservative Republican. He might save some of your Medicare; not much. Your best bet now lies with Nancy Pelosi and the minority liberal Democrats in the House, and with Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate Majority Leader, who has a habit of being outflanked by Mitch McConnell.

Good luck with "Hands Off My Medicare" now that it's in the hands of Paul Ryan, elected by your ignorance and stupidity — along with the apathy and stupidity of Democratic voters, whose non-participation in the political process as a clear majority has contributed mightily to the nightmare we are living in at present. If you're not independently wealthy enough to substantially supplement the meager "voucher" Ryan wants to give you, you're TOAST; FINISHED. You might even DIE from your illnesses, if you can't afford your meds, doctor visits (they're free for preventive care under the despised 'Obamacare') or hospitalization. You're as good as DEAD much earlier than had you simply voted Democratic.

The Republicans call it "thinning out the herd."

Memo to Chris Matthews: There is a REASON some of your pundits of choice in the Beltway Media are known, collectively, as the Idiot Punditocracy. On Hardball you basically took the extremist Paul Ryan's position, in this exchange with Jeanne Cummings, Assistant Managing Editor of POLITICO:

MATTHEWS: Jeanne, just in strict analytical terms, watching these folks, I wonder if anybody who wants to get elected again in Congress is willing to put their hand up and say: “I want to cut the benefits going to people on Social Security. I want to cut the health benefits. You‘re not going to get dialysis for more than three months, X-many months. You‘re not going to get the artificial limb reworked after seven years. You‘re not going to get the following”?

CUMMINGS: in Washington, Chris, for the reasons that you make clear. It‘s politically very, very difficult. You have down in Florida Representative Allen West, who has actually talked—he‘s a Republican, a freshman—and he‘s talked more than many of them about some of the changes that would have to come to those programs. And the Democrats are immediately targeting him.  And that—those are the very issues they‘re using against him. 

Well, gollygeewhiz, let me think: Why in the world would Democrats be "immediately targeting" Allen West? Could it possibly be, Ms Jeanne, that West is the BIGGEST WHACKJOB in the House of Representatives? And to hold him up as a SERIOUS proponent of "entitlement reform"— just another euphemism for slashing and ultimately destroying Social Security and Medicare — is nothing short of incomprehensible for the "serious" journalist Ms Jeanne pretends to be. (When it comes to media outlets such as POLITICO and the Daily Caller, West's insane proposal to censor news agencies seems almost ... not so crazy.)

Shame on you, Jeanne, and the POLITICOs you rode in on. Want to know why we don't listen to what these idiots have to say, Chris? This is why. What are the odds we'll get sustained lovefest coverage of Paul Ryan from the Idiot Punditocracy? My odds: 1/9.

There is a very simple solution — favored in polling by solid majorities of the American people — to the Paul Ryan nightmare budget; one that Chris never mentioned: Raise revenues. make the rich pay their fair share. Roll back the tax rates for the top two or three percent to what they were during the Clinton presidency, and we'll be well on our way to solving our budget and deficit problems.

Here are the results of that CBS/Vanity Fair poll from January 2011 in graphical format (left) and by income level (right). Notice that Rep. Ryan caters exclusively to the "American people" constituting fewer than three percent of the population, which includes, of course, Chris and Jeanne:

Summing Up Moron Joe

Heard on Moron Joe signing off this morning:

Ken Burns, the shrewd and discerning filmmaker: "I learned that Willie Geist ('Weasel The Wingnut') is a shapeshifter."

Moron Joe: "(inaudible)"

Mika: "I've said enough already ..."

Mika Loses It On Moron Joe — Perfectly Understandable

Put yourself in Mika Brzezinski’s shoes, having to sit through the wingnuttery of her co-host Moron Joe and his loyal sidekick Weasel The Wingnut, day after day, hour by hour, minute by minute. And we're not even talking the second-string clowns, Pat Buchanan and Mike Barnicle.

Imagine Mika having to nod agreeably to their reactionary, sexist quips and the drumbeat of GOP propaganda talking points for which the show is a platform, trying to get a word in edgewise, and then oh, so agreeably. Imagine the multiple concessions Mika has to make to Moron Joe's moronic arguments because it would be mean to cut him down to size. For all this, Mika, the token liberal, gets little respect from her frat boy colleagues and takes it all in with classy stoicism. (Wingnuts are like immature frat boys; can you see Moron Joe and Tucker Carlson as two peas in a pod?)

Imagine being surrounded by wingnuts in your workplace, with little respite — A jolt of Joe in the morning and rabbit food for lunch. Sheer torture. At some point she’ll lose it, right?

Well, it happened this morning and it’s a gem. Notice that Mika’s wingnut co-hosts aren’t laughing. Only Carl Bernstein, one of the guests, did. He’s a good guy and definitely not a wingnut. Lawrence cracked a sideways grin; maybe he didn’t want to show up Moron Joe now that he has his own show on MSNBC. Mark Halperin is a distinguished member of the Idiot Punditocracy — kudos to him, his book is going Hollywood — and acts like one. I'm sure she'd be thrilled, but I’m with Mika. I was laughing out loud right along with her — I do have a strange sense of humor, though.

Here's some of the hilarious banter:

Moron Joe: “What’s wrong with you? You think that’s funny?”

Weasel The Wingnut: “I thought it was in bad taste.“

Moron Joe: “I thought it was mean-spirited and hateful. (Mika laughs uproariously, as Moron Joe adds) I thought it was hateful; I thought it was horrible.”

Weasel The (huffy) Wingnut: “What’s so funny; ‘America’ (a variation on ‘the American people’ theme the GOP spouts in its propaganda) wants to know.”

After Mika (sort of) explains through bouts of laughter it was “funny television” the wingnuts launch into a self-delusional spiel from Moron Joe about having “the most educated, upscale, smartest audience in the world — they watch Masterpiece Theater,” interjects Halperin. (Right. I had to laugh here. And if Moron Joe’s GOP cuts to PBS go through, we won’t be watching Masterpiece Theater, either.)

Weasel The Wingnut: “They know the show so well, we’re family, they know the characters.”

Mika: “Yeah. Pat Buchanan.” Ha! America's 'culture' warrior —I thought that was funny television, too! I was laughing too hard at this point to notice Mika mention Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, as a show-saving afterthought.

Was Pastor Terry Jones Responsible For The Deaths of UN Workers?

Of course he was. Anyone who argues that his free speech rights would be abridged if he had voluntarily decided not to stage a burning of the Koran does not understand that free speech isn't an abstract zero sum game in which the real world consequences aren't knowable and predictable. Instead, the media-seeking fundamentalist extremist went ahead with his mock trial and burning, and 20 people including nine UN workers (two of them beheaded) were mudered by a mob of religious fanatics in Afghanistan protesting the Koran burning. (Here is an interesting discussion of Pastor Jones's moral responsibility for the killings.)

To use the 'yelling fire in a theater' analogy, free speech can have deadly consequences. A person does not have an absolute right to pack more people into a theater, for example, than the fire codes permit. If the event is cancelled for safety reasons was their right to free speech violated? And metaphorically, if Pastor Jones "falsely" (because the Koran by generally accepted religious standards is not what he represents it to be through its burning) yells 'fire' in a crowded theater with his mock Koran trial and burning — that theater is the 'theater of operations' in Afghanistan where the killings occurred, and the theater patrons are U.S. and allied troops, UN and foreign aid workers, and every single person whose life is now greatly endangered by Pastor Jones's inflammatory speech.

THE DEVIL IN PASTOR JONES

In such cases, free speech can be circumscribed by safety considerations (fire codes) or voluntarily, when the commander of U.S. troops in the region, General David Petraeus explicitly said last September that “[i]mages of the burning of a Koran would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan—and around the world—to inflame public opinion and incite violence.” This wasn't empty rhetoric on the General's part; his prediction came true. General Petraeus did not have the power to compel responsible conduct from Pastor Jones. He was just asking. Most reasonable people, understanding the danger to human lives, would agree to show restraint. It happens every day. It is neither cowardly, as some have claimed, nor an abridgement of free speech.

But if wasn't only the Koran burning. The horrible images and story of the U.S. Army "kill team" published by Der Spiegel probably did as much to endanger the safety of Americans and UN workers, et al in Afghanistan as the Koran book burning. As did the killing of Afghan children. Petraeus can do something about these, as he should. He doesn't need a Pastor Jones headache to make his mission infinitely more difficult and challenging.

Moron Joe: MSNBC And The Scarborough Factor

Morning dolt and “libertarian” Republican Joe Scarborough must be chafing at the bit in MSNBC’s mildly P.C. liberal culture populated by smart, progressive women, including his co-host Mika Brzezinski. It seems Scarborough has been fuming “for a decade now” at being lectured by the Left  until, finally, he found an opening to vent his contempt for those odious liberals and progressives that he  co-habitates with. Or so he thought.

It's impossible to tell who or what sparked his rage, but Moron Joe used America's  humanitarian intervention in Libya as a pretext to lash out incoherently at liberals in the friendly anti-lib platform of POLITICO, the D.C. political gossip (m)ag favored by the Idiot Punditocracy. POLITICO attracts lots of cloaked wingnuts like Joe himself, and unfortunately provides much of the punditry seen on MSNBC’s IP parade — enabled by Matthews & Mitchell, et al.

Moron Joe’s rant is hardly worth comment except in the wider MSNBC context of a host writing a hit piece aimed squarely at several of his colleagues. It would be one thing it it were factual, thoughtful, or objective. It is none of these. Even by Scarborough’s low standards (POLITICO has none when it comes to attacking liberals) it was a piece unworthy of publication. It reads like the peckings of a drunk or someone who’s in a drug-induced altered state. Which could well be the case. Here are the lowlights:

The idiocy begins at the top with the non sequitur title, “The hypocrisy of the American left.” Huh? Even as a portentous title hook to make you read his illogical screed, there’s no there there. First, there’s no equivalence whatsoever between President Obama’s collective, UN-sanctioned limited action as part of a NATO force to prevent the imminent genocide of innocent civilians, and Bush’s unilateral invasion of a country with massive sea, air and ground forces — one that was based on a pack of lies about weapons of mass destruction which we were led to believe the dictator planned to use against the U.S.

Second, Moron Joe commits the classic error of every narcissist "libertarian" wingnut: He believes the Left to be as monolithic as the Right. He just assumed the Left would march in jack-booted lockstep — because that's how his comrades in the wingnut hive behave — the moment our President (Supreme Leader to the wingnuts) commits us to military action. So accustomed must Moron Joe be to the collectivist knee-jerk reaction of the Right he didn’t even bother to notice the deep fissures President Obama’s action in Libya opened in the Left. Instead, oblivious to the evidence of leftist discord all around him — Juan Cole's open letter to the Left (below) makes it crystal clear — Moron Joe charged ahead with his attack on liberals and progressives:

How can the left call for the ouster of Muammar Qadhafi for the sin of killing hundreds of Libyans when it opposed the war waged against Saddam Hussein? During Saddam’s two decades in Iraq, he killed more Muslims than anyone in history and used chemical weapons against his own people and neighboring states.

With the help of his equally despicable sons, Uday and Qusay, Saddam devastated Iraq, terrorized his people and destroyed that country’s environment. By the time American troops deposed him in 2003, Saddam had killed at least 300,000 of his own people — and human rights groups say that tally does not even include the million-plus casualties his invasion of Iran caused.

If Obama and his liberal supporters believed Qadhafi’s actions morally justified the Libyan invasion, why did they sit silently by for 20 years while Saddam killed hundreds of thousands?

Wow. I’m not quite sure which “left” Moron Joe is indicting here. Certainly not Rep. Dennis Kucinich. He has called for Obama’s impeachment. Did any Democrats call for Bush’s impeachment days after the illegal invasion of Iraq? Tragically, no. It was years after the war began before serious questions were raised by Democrats. In 2008, Rep. Kucinich introduced a bill with Rep. Robert Wexler which contained 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush. There was hardly any opposition from conservatives. Republicans and the Right, besides the few exceptions noted here, rubber-stamped everything Bush wanted.

So drop the pretense, Moron Joe. Dennis Kucinich wasn’t the only Democrat/progressive to oppose President Obama’s action in Libya. The clamor of opposition from the Left against the Libya military operation has been infinitely more vigorous and substantive than any Republican grumblings over Bush's illegal prosecution of the Iraq war. Ron Paul was just about the only active Republican member of Congress to make a fuss about it.

Most important, the Left's opposition to the Libya operation has been principled. Here’s but one example of how much (not!) the Left emulates the Right in goosestep lockstep when it comes to blindly supporting the authority of its leaders. This heated exchange between MSNBC's Ed Schultz (for intervention) and Jeremy Scahill of the Nation (against it) will tell you all you need to know about the often strong differences of opinion within the Left on matters of policy and high principle. Liberals and progressives are individuals who consider every issue on the basis of truth and principle. We are not like the wingnuts in their frat house hives poring over their Luntz talking points to tell them how to respond to a moral question.

Compare this to the reprehensible political posturing of the Right and the wannabe GOP presidential candidates. From the flip-flops of  Newt Gingrich and Rand Paul to the reflexive opposition of Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin, the lunatic Right has even floated outrageous charges alleging President Obama is helping Al Qaeda in Libya. Contrast these disgusting cheap shots against our President with the Left’s debate about our military commitment: How much will it cost? how many jobs could the  $1 million price tag for each cruise missile lobbed at Libya save? Are we getting mixed up in a civil war? How come we didn’t intervene against “friendly” dictators in Yemen and Saudi Arabia? What’s the endgame? The difference between Left and Right on this issue is striking.

The history of our involvement with Saddam Hussein goes back further than 20 years. In 1983, Moron Joe’s god, President Ronald Reagan, sent “special envoy” Donald Rumsfeld — the very same co-war  criminal completing the Bush-Cheney Iraq war trinity — to assure Saddam of our support against Iran with a handshake and a handwritten letter from the Gipper. (Hmm … I wonder if Saddan had it framed?) No one on the Left “sat silently” as this outrage unfolded.

Democrats and the Left decried the bloodshed in the Iran-Iraq war and worried about the spillover that could destabilize the region and draw Israel into the conflict. It was President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat who introduced human rights as an essential component of our foreign policy. Lessons learned from Vietnam, he said, are that “we must become more cautious about . . . interventions” and “ought not go plunging militarily into under-developed countries.” UN Embassador Andrew Young said the U.S. rejected “military activism.” True to his policies, President Carter’s only use of military force was an ill-fated attempt to rescue the American hostages held by Iran.

Carter’s human rights policy was thrown under the bus with a vengeance by the Reagan administration. President Reagan invaded Grenada, sent the marines into Beirut, crawled out after the terrorist bombing of the barracks, bombed Khaddafi killing members of his family and nearly killing the dictator himself, illegally sold arms to Iran (our avowed enemy) to fund the reactionary Contras in Nicaragua, and embraced the brutal dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, while arming his enemy and ours (Iran). And Moron Joe has the gall to accuse liberals of looking the other way to Saddam's atrocities (a lie) when his god, Ronnie, was blowing kisses at the Iraqui butcher, and after Democratic President Jimmy Carter, Reagan's predecessor, had enshrined human rights as an essential element of U.S. foreign policy?

Regarding Saddam's atrocities, Moron Joe suffers from an affliction particularly common to the Right and his collectivist comrades in the wingnut hives: selective memory. It wasn't the Left but the Reagan administration that turned a blind eye to Saddam's human rights violations. The Left had opposed Reagan's foreign policy misadventures, and referred to Saddam, contemptuously, as "our sonofabitch." Furthermore, Moron Joe conveniently overlooks the accurate estimates of Iraqui deaths after the U.S. invaded Iraq and deposed Saddam Hussein. As the Wall Street Journal reported:

WASHINGTON -- A new study asserts that roughly 600,000 Iraqis have died from violence since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, a figure many times higher than any previous estimate.
[…]
"Since March 2003, an additional 2.5% of Iraq's population has died above what would have occurred without conflict," the report said. The country's population is roughly 24 million people.

Human Rights Watch has estimated Saddam Hussein's regime killed 250,000 to 290,000 people over 20 years.
[…]
A Johns Hopkins survey of civilian casualties in Iraq, "The Human Cost of the War in Iraq," gave a 95% certainty to the figure being between 426,269 and 793,663, with the highest probability given to the figure of 601,027.

As a direct result of Bush-Cheney's criminal war on Iraq, between 310,000 and 350,000 more Iraquis were killed in Bush's war of choice than killed by Saddam in the previous 20 years. No wonder Moron Joe wants to lay the moral failings (and worse) of two Republican presidents (one of whom he reveres) at the doorstep of the Left. Such crude history FAIL might pass muster with the lazy anti-intellectualism and disdain for the truth of his comrades on the Right, but it doesn't make the grade with liberals and progressives for whom the truth is not a fungible commodity.

Furthermore, it is inaccurate for Moron Joe to call NATO’s intervention in Libya and its establishment of a no-fly zone to protect civilians an “invasion.” The NATO sorties over Libya are no more an “invasion” than Nazi Germany’s air war on the British Isles during the Battle of Britain. Had that been an “invasion” we’d all be speaking German and giving the Nazi salute today.

Once Moron Joe's major premise is shot down in flames, what remains are the barely coherent ravings of years of pent-up, internalized contempt for liberals and women unleashed in his primal scream. He begins by sef-righteously proclaiming that “[s]elf-righteousness is a dangerous vice [which] breeds arrogance and moral blind spots for those who come to believe they are superior to those who share different worldviews.” (Projection. Next.)

He decries televangelists “caught crawling on the ground outside a hooker’s hotel room” and “politicians (who) have also wallowed in the grandiosity of their moralistic worldview.” An interesting juxtaposition considering the televangelist thing is a Religious Right FAIL and the hooker  thing is a GOP politician FAIL. Moron Joe names no names, probably because most of his miscreants are fellow Republicans and Religious Right fanatics.  David Vitter, Ken Calvert, Duke Cunningham, Christopher Lee, the Craigs List Congressman are but a sampling of Republicans addicted to hookers. Here’s the comprehensive list. And unlike Democrats caught up in similar scandals (e.g., Elliot Spitzer), it's the hypocrisy of the family values “moralistic worldview” that is the greater sin — and a total Republican FAIL. Next.

Moron Joe asserts the usual wingnut false equivalence whining that George W. Bush “has been damned by the ministers of the far left as a war criminal, a fascist and a Nazi when labeling his policies as overly ideological and deeply flawed would have sufficed.” Ministers of the far left …WTF? Although, George Orwell’s 1984 Ministry of Truth is close at hand: FOX “News” at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in New York City. (You could do us all a BIG favor, Joe, and walk your resumé over there. They might anoint you the Fifth Wingnut at Fox & Friends.) Next.

Oh, yeah. How about some names please, Joe. No? Okay, my turn: Former Reagan Deputy Attorney General Bruce Fein called for the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, and the prosecution of Bush administration officials who carried out the executive branch’s criminal policies. Said Fein: “Bush claimed authority to say he can kidnap people, throw them into dungeons abroad, dump them out into Siberia without any political or legal accountability. These are standards that are totally anathema to a democratic society devoted to the rule of law.”

Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Treasury Secretary in the Reagan administration, said Bush should be tried as a war criminal. He has compared Bush to Hitler and Bush supporters (E tu, Joe?) to  “brownshirts with the same low intelligence and morals as Hitler's enthusiastic supporters.” Perhaps the bewildered Scarborough is acting out pent-up resentment over the harsh, venomous indictment of Bush by two prominent former Reagan administration officials.

Yes, the Left said it first, Joe, but don’t blame the messenger. Not when your conservative colleagues agree with the Left — chapter and verse. Imagine how uncomfortable it must make Moron Joe, Reagan idolater that he is, to see two fellow travelers break Reagan’s 11th Commandment — “thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican” — with so much self-righteous malice. How did Moron Joe put it? — Ah yes, wallowing in the “grandiosity of their moralistic worldview.” Next.

 As for the Hitler and Stalin allegations — names, please Joe. The fact is, we’ve all seen the hideous racist and violent signage of the Tea Party. There’s nothing, nada, from the Left that compares to that, and I challenge Scarborough to either put up or shut up. PERIOD. Next.

We know Moron Joe couldn’t pass up slamming a leftie woman’s group, right? I mean, Mika in her infinite ‘boys will be boys’ patience says he’s “raised the bar” (for wingnuts?) and calls Moron Joe sidekick Mike Barnicle “my mysoginist.” So she’s got Joe’s henpecked back for this:

“That extremism required that the Bush years be filled with images of CODEPINK protesting on Capitol Hill, anti-war activists clogging the streets of New York City and left-wing commentators beating their chests with the self-righteous indignation of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker … But in the morally murky afterglow of the Obama years, the certainty of these secular saints has melted away. President Barack Obama bowed to his generals’ demands by tripling troops in an unending war. CODEPINK did nothing.”

Wow. Now this one's really getting into psycho-babble territory. For the Left, CODEPINK, the feminist activist group, is just a blip on our radar. They're in, they're out, they demonstrate, do their thing. Gone. For male wingnuts, however, these aggressive feminists and their street theater appear to be a threat to their very manhood. One after another, wingnuts from Scarborough to Limbaugh to Beck and everyone inbetween lash out at CODEPINK (hardly noticed at all by the Left) obviously not because of who they are, but what they represent. To the male wingnut, an angry CODEPINK feminist holding a sign and engaging in her little street theater can only mean one thing: emasculation.

The nonplussed Moron Joe never bothered to check his facts. For instance, the CODEPINK announcement that “Critics of President Obama’s decision to bomb Libya will speak in front of the White House about why they oppose the bombing campaign and what they think should be done instead. Speakers include Retired US Army Colonel and former U.S. diplomat Ann Wright and CODEPINK/Global Exchange cofounder Medea Benjamin.” How could Joe have missed it? It's right in their website. As to Guantanamo, CODEPINK gave President Obama a failing grade: “And when it comes to Home Ec, he's given the military an even bigger slice of the pie while the country is starved for dough. The former law professor has hardly made straight A's in upholding international law (Guantanamo still open) and civil liberties (cracking down on peace activists).” Oops.

(Wouldn't care to speculate on the Bakkers — again, of little consequence to the Left — and all that “secular saints” shit. Is Joe Scarborough Catholic? That might explain it. Believe me, I know.)

To be fair, Moron Joe did name one progressive — Katrina vanden Heuvel, publisher of the Nation — as “one of the few liberals to take a principled stand against what America is doing in Libya.” Katrina's entitled to her opinion. The point is, she's not “one of the few.” Nor are those who disagree with her motivated by a desire not to hurt the President's reelection chances. That is a fundamental misread of the debate raging on the Left; and hardly credible, considering that lately liberals and progressives have been the President's least enthusiastic supporters. And judging by Jeremy Scahill's reaction, the President's got a lot more fence-mending to do before this is all over. Suffice it to say, like every other wingnut out there —Moron Joe has issues. Which is fine by us. But when he mixes public policy with personal baggage and proceeds to lie about the history — then it becomes everyone's problem.

Boy Genius Out to Disprove Einstein’s Theory of Relativity

This kid, 12-year old Jacob Barnett, is hilarious — he’s a teaching fellow at a local university and is taking advanced courses in astrophysics. Here he explains a calculus problem that may (or may not) solve Dark Matter, with a warning: “For those of you who do not know very much math, and are having MATH PHOBIA, I recommend you GO AWAY RIGHT NOW.”

Cute kid. A Time article quotes “professors at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey — you know, the U.S. academic homeroom for the likes of Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Kurt Gödel — have confirmed he's on the right track to coming up with something completely new.” Thanks to Telemann for this.

Fantastic Guitar, Beautiful Melody, The Awesome Music of Brazil

This song, "Samba Em Prelúdio," was written by Baden Powell (yeah, named after the Scout Master), who was also the virtuoso of virtuosos in a nation of great guitar players. Here's one more, Paulinho Nogueira, who interprets Baden's song beautifully. The chords and melodies in Brazilian music, Samba, like Blues in America, are incomparable. Just watch and enjoy the instrumental version. It's awesome!

Juan Cole: An Open Letter To The Left On Libya And ... Learn to Chew Gum And Walk at The Same Time

I was contemplating a friendly slam of my pacifist anti-interventionist friends on the Left regarding their passionate opposition to America's military action in Libya, but fortunately for this weary blogger, Juan Cole has done it better, with all the authority of his intellect and scholarship. For those unfamiliar with Dr. Cole, he is one of the nation's preeminent authorities on the Middle East and a leading progressive with impeccable creds with the Left. There is a link to his blog in ours. Here is a brief bio of Dr. Cole, from Wikipedia:

John Ricardo I. "Juan" Cole (born October 1952) is an American scholar, public intellectual, and historian of the modern Middle East and South Asia. He is Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. As a commentator on Middle Eastern affairs, he has appeared in print and on television, and testified before the United States Senate. He has published several peer-reviewed books on the modern Middle East and is a translator of both Arabic and Persian. Since 2002, he has written a weblog, Informed Comment.

For all of their sound and fury, the usual charges of imperialism, neocolonialism, neconservatism, neoliberalism, that it's all about oil, that the West is extracting concessions from the Libyan insurgents that current contracts with Khaddafi must be honored, the flight of refugees beyond Libya's borders to Europe must be contained, and that, for good measure, we the liberal "hawks" are "innocents" or, to put it more bluntly, "fucking ignorant" — for all of this bluster and bravado from the facifists, I have looked and looked and looked, and have yet to find their answer to one simple question:

Is it your position that, given credible intelligence, knowing Khaddafi was poised to commit a monstrous massacre of  thousands upon thousands of defenseless Libyan civilians in Benghazi that only our military and our allies' could prevent — you would stand by and allow it to happen? YES or NO?

 Dr. Cole's full text is here. These are some excerpts:

"I am unabashedly cheering the liberation movement on, and glad that the UNSC-authorized intervention has saved them from being crushed. I can still remember when I was a teenager how disappointed I was that Soviet tanks were allowed to put down the Prague Spring and extirpate socialism with a human face. Our multilateral world has more spaces in it for successful change and defiance of totalitarianism than did the old bipolar world of the Cold War, where the US and the USSR often deferred to each other’s sphere of influence.

The United Nations-authorized intervention in Libya has pitched ethical issues of the highest importance, and has split progressives in unfortunate ways. I hope we can have a calm and civilized discussion of the rights and wrongs here.

The United Nations Security Council authorization for UN member states to intervene to forestall this massacre thus pitched the question. If the Left opposed intervention, it de facto acquiesced in Qaddafi’s destruction of a movement embodying the aspirations of most of Libya’s workers and poor, along with large numbers of white collar middle class people. Qaddafi would have reestablished himself, with the liberation movement squashed like a bug and the country put back under secret police rule. The implications of a resurgent, angry and wounded Mad Dog, his coffers filled with oil billions, for the democracy movements on either side of Libya, in Egypt and Tunisia, could well have been pernicious.

The arguments against international intervention are not trivial, but they all did have the implication that it was all right with the world community if Qaddafi deployed tanks against innocent civilian crowds just exercising their right to peaceful assembly and to petition their government. (It simply is not true that very many of the protesters took up arms early on, though some were later forced into it by Qaddafi’s aggressive military campaign against them. There still are no trained troops to speak of on the rebel side).

Some have charged that the Libya action has a Neoconservative political odor. But the Neoconservatives hate the United Nations and wanted to destroy it. They went to war on Iraq despite the lack of UNSC authorization, in a way that clearly contravened the UN Charter. Their spokesman and briefly the ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, actually at one point denied that the United Nations even existed. The Neoconservatives loved deploying American muscle unilaterally, and rubbing it in everyone’s face. Those who would not go along were subjected to petty harassment. France, then deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz pledged, would be “punished” for declining to fall on Iraq at Washington’s whim. The Libya action, in contrast, observes all the norms of international law and multilateral consultation that the Neoconservatives despise. There is no pettiness. Germany is not ‘punished’ for not going along. Moreover, the Neoconservatives wanted to exercise primarily Anglo-American military might in the service of harming the public sector and enforced ‘shock therapy’ privatization so as to open the conquered country to Western corporate penetration. All this social engineering required boots on the ground, a land invasion and occupation. Mere limited aerial bombardment cannot effect the sort of extreme-capitalist revolution they seek. Libya 2011 is not Iraq 2003 in any way.

Allowing the Neoconservatives to brand humanitarian intervention as always their sort of project does a grave disservice to international law and institutions, and gives them credit that they do not deserve, for things in which they do not actually believe.

The intervention in Libya was done in a legal way. It was provoked by a vote of the Arab League, including the newly liberated Egyptian and Tunisian governments. It was urged by a United Nations Security Council resolution, the gold standard for military intervention. (Contrary to what some alleged, the abstentions of Russia and China do not deprive the resolution of legitimacy or the force of law; only a veto could have done that. You can be arrested today on a law passed in the US Congress on which some members abstained from voting.)

The proposition that social problems can never be resolved by military force alone may be true. But there are some problems that can’t be solved unless there is a military intervention first, since its absence would allow the destruction of the progressive forces. Those arguing that “Libyans” should settle the issue themselves are willfully ignoring the overwhelming repressive advantage given Qaddafi by his jets, helicopter gunships, and tanks; the ‘Libyans’ were being crushed inexorably. Such crushing can be effective for decades thereafter.

Many are crying hypocrisy, citing other places an intervention could be staged or worrying that Libya sets a precedent. I don’t find those arguments persuasive. Military intervention is always selective, depending on a constellation of political will, military ability, international legitimacy and practical constraints. The humanitarian situation in Libya was fairly unique. You had a set of tank brigades willing to attack dissidents, and responsible for thousands of casualties and with the prospect of more thousands to come, where aerial intervention by the world community could make a quick and effective difference.

This situation did not obtain in the Sudan’s Darfur, where the terrain and the conflict were such that aerial intervention alone would have have been useless and only boots on the ground could have had a hope of being effective. But a whole US occupation of Iraq could not prevent Sunni-Shiite urban faction-fighting that killed tens of thousands, so even boots on the ground in Darfur’s vast expanse might have failed.

I would like to urge the Left to learn to chew gum and walk at the same time. It is possible to reason our way through, on a case-by-case basis, to an ethical progressive position that supports the ordinary folk in their travails in places like Libya. If we just don’t care if the people of Benghazi are subjected to murder and repression on a vast scale, we aren’t people of the Left. We should avoid making ‘foreign intervention’ an absolute taboo the way the Right makes abortion an absolute taboo if doing so makes us heartless (inflexible a priori positions often lead to heartlessness). It is now easy to forget that Winston Churchill held absolutely odious positions from a Left point of view and was an insufferable colonialist who opposed letting India go in 1947. His writings are full of racial stereotypes that are deeply offensive when read today. Some of his interventions were nevertheless noble and were almost universally supported by the Left of his day. The UN allies now rolling back Qaddafi are doing a good thing, whatever you think of some of their individual leaders.

Thank you, Juan Cole, for shining a light of clarity, prescience and common sense on this senselessly doctrinaire debate sweeping the Left.

Whenever I See Donald Trump's Mug I'm Reminded To Feed My Goldfish ...

His name is Sparky The Prognosticator, and he wants the Donald to know he's not buying his 'fish story' about President Obama's birth certificate being fake. Sparky's demanding to see all of Trump's tax returns for the past 20 years. Either that, or he'll consider dropping his demands in exchange for a 300 gallon fish tank. Sparky made a splash with his predictions during the last presidential campaign. He can be very persuasive about getting the MSM after those returns.

Heading Toward Chernobyl Territory ... But With Lots of Happy Talk

In relative terms, the effect of Japan's nuclear catastrophe on us will be minimal, "writ large" at least. Despite slightly elevated levels of radioactivity detected as far across the country as rainwater in Massachusetts, it's so diluted that there is no cause for alarm. Yet. The experts, including the few that I trust, such as Joe Cirincione, President of the Ploughshares Fund, have said as much. The best advice Cirincione gave is this: "At moments as serious as the nuclear crisis in Japan, we all — experts, journalists, officials, and corporate executives — have a duty to fully inform the public. And to trust them with the simple truth." All of us have different thresholds for what is, or isn't, safe to our health. Cirincione acknowledged this:

Just this morning, March 18, after I explained in detail over breakfast to a friend why any radiation from Japan would be greatly diluted by the time it traveled 5,000 miles across the Pacific, my friend — a successful businesswomen and breast cancer survivor — told me, "I don't have a margin of error here. I do not want to be part of anyone's science experiment. I don't want to be a nuclear lab rat." She has turned strongly anti-nuclear power overnight.

Some people in Japan — infants, the elderly and those with compromised immune systems — are at higher risk of health effects due to increased radiation exposure. Here's my problem with happy talk "expert" advice. From my layman's perch, I do not believe the directives issued by the Japanese government to residents of the area surrounding the nuclear disaster have necessarily been the best for their health. From the government's perspective, it must weigh the socio-political-economic consequences of a huge dislocation of the most endagered population — with no place to go, if an evacuation is deemed necessary by, what, multiple meltdowns? — with the possible health hazards of the people's exposure to high levels of radiation in the years to come.

What would you do if you were a government official tasked with making this call? Or an "expert" whose function is to offer objective reassurances — happy talk — and quash alarmist 'what if?' scenarios? It's a tough call for the Japanese government. They're not lying. They're simply weighing the risks against the costs to society at large of, e.g., an evacuation order, at a time of extreme crisis. In the last analysis, the residents in the danger zone must make their own decisions about the health hazards to themselves and their families based on inadequate, contradictory, and incomplete information.

The parade of disturbing information continues unabated. After reports of contamination to water and vegetables, the New York Times reports today "workers at Japan’s crippled nuclear plant piled up sandbags and readied emergency storage tanks on Tuesday to stop a fresh leak of highly contaminated water from reaching the ocean." Why? One "expert" after another has said it's a good thing that the radiation is going out to sea — at least the airborne radiation. Hasn't it occurred to anyone that the ocean is not a self-healing dumping ground and that all this radiation could severely impact marine life, including seafood consumed by humans? The article continues:

As fears of further contamination grew, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said his government was in a state of maximum alert over the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.

The Japanese government said the discovery of plutonium in the soil near the plant provided new evidence that the fuel in at least one of the plant’s reactors had experienced a partial meltdown. A full meltdown of the fuel rods could release huge amounts of radiation into the environment.

“There is a high possibility that there has been at least some melting of the fuel rods,” said Yukio Edano, the government’s chief spokesman. “That in itself is a very serious situation,” he said.

Partial meltdown. Plutonium in the soil. Continued concerns of a full meltdown that will release "huge amounts of radiation into the environment." And much too much happy talk. Obviously, for Americans to stock up on potassium iodide pills is an irrational and destructive response that could be hazardous to one's health if not used as prescribed. Worldwide supplies may well be limited. Before this crisis is over the people of Japan will most likely need potassium iodide pills in massive quantities. It would be irresponsible for anyone living in this continent, separated from Japan by a vast ocean, to clear the shelves of supplies that are most urgently needed by the Japanese victims closest to the nuclear plant disaster. The extent of Japan's loss is staggering. The National police Agency’s figures for casualties from the earthquake and tsunami, as of Sunday night, exceeds 27,000 killed or missing:

• Number of people killed 10,804

• Number of people missing 16,244

Rachel referred to Tokio Electric Power Company (Tepco) CEO Masataka Shimizu as "the Tony Hayward of this crisis." He has not been seen in public since March 13 and is reportedly suffering from exhaustion. Meanwhile, the executive charged with supervising the crisis in Mr. Shimizu's absence, Tepco Managing Director Akio Komiri, hasn't fared much better. The information coming from the company is yes, inadequate, contradictory, and incomplete by all accounts. A false reading on Sunday of a massive radiation release led to the temporary evacuation of the plant and an apology from the company.

 

In a country which has a more rigid, vertical executive corporate structure than most U.S. corporations, the top leadership of Tepco is down for the count. Considering Japanese culture, these top executives could well be under a suicide watch. The last notable Japanese citizen to commit seppuku, the Japanese ritual suicide to avoid family shame and dishonor, was Isao Inokuma, CEO of the Tokai Kensetsu company, "possibly due to the financial losses suffered by his company"— in 2001.

It's a familiar pattern. In the Gulf Oil spill, BP witheld information from the public and considered every disclosure from a public relations perspective. As a result, outside experts, including government officials could not get an accurate reading on the amount of oil spilled into the ocean until much later into the disaster. Tepco seems as reluctant as BP was to release accurate, timely information while the Japanese government is as unable to do much about it as our government was during the BP disaster.

This raises troubling questions about disaster preparedness and chain-of-command when these environmental catastrophes occur. Most disturbing of all is that the expertise for dealing with a catastrophic environmental crisis such as this one (and to a lesser extent the BP oil spill) is left to the private sector, where the profit motive is paramount even if it means cutting safety corners, while government regulation and oversight has grown increasingly ineffective in the course of decades of privatization and deregulation.

It's a recipe for disaster.

PS - Here's an example of why people who watch TRMS get proportionately smarter than people who watch Fox or believe anything the Idiot Punditocracy, aka Beltway Media, says at face value. (I was thinking the same thing, Rachel: Chris Hayes is a really SMART guy!)

Yo Wingnuts: What Page in the Karl Rove Dirty Tricks Manual Is "FALSE FLAG OPERATION" Under?

This is rich. Just as the wingnuts' screeching and bluster about fictional "thuggery" by union members at anti-Gov. Walker protests in Wisconsin grows more strident, we catch a rare glimpse of what real, organized thuggery against working people and public employees is, courtesy of the now unemployed former right wing deputy prosecutor in Indiana and self-described Republican "activist," Carlos Lam. Eager to help Gov. Walker out of his travails with those pesky constituents protesting his abusive and un-American policies, Lam the little fascist wannabe e-mailed the Governor suggesting he should stage a phony attack on himself from, you know, one of those "union thugs" our buddy Treach keeps dreaming up, in order to gin up sympathy for his cause and "discredit the public unions."

Nice. And the guy's a deputy prosecutor (or was) no less, himself a public employee paid by the taxpayers. Had to be a Republican rat-bastard. In his e-mail obtained by the watchdog group Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism Lam helpfully discloses how he's been "involved in GOP politics here in Indiana for 18 years" adding that the "situation in WI presents a good opportunity for what's called a 'false flag' operation." Here is the text of the e-mail:

“If you could employ an associate who pretends to be sympathetic to the unions’ cause to physically attack you (or even use a firearm against you), you could discredit the unions. Currently, the media is painting the union protest as a democratic uprising and failing to mention the role of the DNC and umbrella union organizations in the protest. Employing a false flag operation would assist in undercutting any support that the media may be creating in favor of the unions. God bless, Carlos F. Lam.”

There is a difference between the parties, not only on policy but in how they conduct political operations. Democrats will concentrate their energy and resources — volunteers, many of them from unions, for phone banks, distributing campaign literature — into getting out the vote, driving voters to the polls, informing them of the issues and running factual campaign ads. The GOP, on the other hand, has always been about suppressing the vote, with voter intimidation and harassment at the polls, outrageous robo-calls, and corporate-funded campaign ads that spread lies and misinformation about Democrats aimed, not only at ginning up their base, but keeping Democratic voters home and not voting. Because you see, there are more of us than there are of them.

And so GOP activists are ready to deploy their Rovian bag of dirty tricks. These include passing out pamphlets in heavily Democratic black or latino districts directing voters to go to the wrong precinct, or vote on Nov. 3rd rather than the 2nd, representing themselves as the Democratic candidate with some outrageously false claim against the community that is too big a lie to pass muster in TV ads, or trying to scare voters away from the polls by distributing a sheet with an official-looking state logo falsely informing them photo IDs or driver's licenses are required to vote. These are the "false flag operations" officially sanctioned by the GOP that Lam boasts of in his e-mail, in which individuals and groups will represent themselves to voters under a false and misleading cover: "If you could employ an associate who pretends to be sympathetic to the unions’ cause to physically attack you (or even use a firearm against you), you could discredit the unions." 

Is it just a coincidence that on the same day the e-mail went out, Jeffrey Cox, an Indiana deputy attorney general tweeted that police should "use live ammunition" against the protestors? He was fired the next day and Lam was forced to resign. So the next time wingnuts breathlessly pass along some ginned-up story about union "thuggery" you'll know what the brown-shirted pros in the GOP war rooms call it: a "false flag operation."

PS  - What kind of sickness, what kind of insanity is spreading from wingnuts like Beck and Limbaugh to GOP law enforcement officials working in a state attorney general's office, that they will suggest the use of  "LIVE AMMUNITION" and "employ an associate who pretends to be sympathetic to the unions’ cause to physically attack you (or even use a firearm against you)"? Anyone, wingnuts? *CRICKETS* — What a bunch of sickos.