Tuesday Reads: Russia and Ukraine, Obama the Weak Dictator, and Fat Tuesday
Posted: March 4, 2014 Filed under: Barack Obama, Foreign Affairs, morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Bacon with a side of hand gun, Crimea, fat tuesday, mardi gras, New Orleans, Russia, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin 59 Comments
How Europeans picture an American breakfast
Good Morning!!
I saw this photo on Twitter yesterday, and I couldn’t resist sharing it. The comments were pretty funny too. Several people noted that the gun goes on the left; others said the gun should be turned over for quicker access if needed. Others said the bacon was just right but there should be a couple more eggs and some doughnuts.
I feel like I’m writing for an exclusive group this morning; we seem to have lost a lot of our regular commenters over the past week or so. I hope it wasn’t something I said.
Maybe it’s just that we’ve reached the dregs of a very long and exhausting winter. I must admit that yesterday I was selfishly relieved to see a nasty storm coming across the country that didn’t involve the Boston area. Nevertheless, I know it did affect places where we have readers, and I am well aware of how very depressing and tiring it can feel when the snow, ice, and cold just won’t quit.
The political news isn’t exactly cheery either–It’s mostly endless civil wars in the Middle East accompanied by the one here at home in the Republican Party; constant attacks on President Obama for being either too wimpy and weak or a vicious, drone dropping, privacy-invading dictator; and the press digging up old Clinton smears in preparation for Hillary running for President in 2016.
Right now, the main focus is on the events in Ukraine–Syria and Egypt are all but forgotten by “journalists” who seem unable to focus on more than one story at a time. Somehow, they never fail to find a way to blame everything on Obama though, no matter what crisis they are reporting.
Even Dana Millbank, who often judges Obama harshly has noticed: Obama, the feckless tyrant.
President Obama is such a weak strongman. What’s more, he is a feeble dictator and a timid tyrant.
That, at any rate, is Republicans’ critique of him. With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Obama’s critics pivoted seamlessly from complaining about his overreach to fretting that he is being too cautious. Call it Operation Oxymoron.
Last Wednesday, I sat in a House hearing and listened to Republicans describe Obama exercising “unparalleled use of executive power” and operating an “uber-presidency.” They accused him of acting like a “king” and a “monarch,” of making the United States like a “dictatorship” or a “totalitarian government” by exercising “imperial” and “magisterial power.”
But after events in Ukraine, this very tyrant was said to be so weak that it’s “shocking.”
“We have a weak and indecisive president that invites aggression,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) proclaimed Sunday on CNN.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told the annual gathering of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on Monday that Obama has “a feckless foreign policy where nobody believes in America’s strength anymore.”
For once Millbank, the ultimate Villager, hit the nail on the head. On Twitter over the last few days, I’ve even seen people complaining about the White House photo of Obama in shirtsleeves talking on the phone to Putin, because it supposedly shows how weak and unprofessional Obama is.
Michael Cohen at the Guardian has it right, IMO : Don’t listen to Obama’s Ukraine critics: he’s not ‘losing’ – and it’s not his fight.
In the days since Vladimir Putin sent Russian troops into the Crimea, it has been amateur hour back in Washington.
I don’t mean Barack Obama. He’s doing pretty much everything he can, with what are a very limited set of policy options at his disposal. No, I’m talking about the people who won’t stop weighing in on Obama’s lack of “action” in the Ukraine. Indeed, the sea of foreign policy punditry – already shark-infested – has reached new lows in fear-mongering, exaggerated doom-saying and a stunning inability to place global events in any rational historical context.
This would be a useful moment for Americans to have informed reporters, scholars and leaders explaining a crisis rapidly unfolding half a world away. Instead, we’ve already got all the usual suspect arguments.
Cohen offers a number of examples:
Personality-driven Analysis
Let’s start here with Julia Ioffe of the New Republic, a popular former reporter in Moscow who now tells us that Putin has sent troops into Crimea “because he can. That’s it, that’s all you need to know”. It’s as if things like regional interests, spheres of influence, geopolitics, coercive diplomacy and the potential loss of a key ally in Kiev (as well as miscalculation) are alien concepts for Russian leaders.
Overstated Rhetoric Shorn of Political Context
David Kramer, president of Freedom House, hit the ball out of the park on this front when he hyperbolically declared that Obama’s response to Putin’s actions “will define his two terms in office” and “the future of U.S. standing in the world”.
Honorable mention goes to Ian Bremmer of Eurasia Group for calling this crisis “the most seismic geopolitical events since 9/11”. Putting aside the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the Arab Spring, Syria’s civil war and tensions in the South China Sea, Bremmer might have a point.
Unhelpful Policy Recommendations
Admiral James Stavridis, former Supreme Commander of Nato, deserves a shout-out for calling on Nato to send maritime forces into the Black Sea, among other inflammatory steps. No danger of miscalculation or unnecessary provocation there. No, none at all.
Much more panicky heavy breathing at the link. Does anyone in Washington recall what happened when George W. Bush was president and Russia attacked Georgia?
Here’s a great example of Obama-blaming at Politico. Their top “morning brief” is DoD suspends military relationship with Russia
The Pentagon is putting on hold its military-to-military relationship with Russia over its incursion into Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, according to Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby. “We have, in light of recent events in Ukraine, put on hold all military-to-military engagements between the United States and Russia,” Kirby said in a statement last night. “This includes exercises, bilateral meetings, port visits and planning conferences.”
Kirby also said there’s been “no change” in U.S. military posture in Europe or the Mediterranean, despite speculation in the news media about possible ship movements. “Navy units continue to conduct routine, previously planned operations and exercises with allies and partners in the region,” he said.
But apparently the Politico gang doesn’t see how that new could relate to President Obama, the Commander In Chief of our armed forces. Here’s what they say about Obama in the same “morning brief.”
AT THE WHITE HOUSE, the big question is whether President Barack Obama has what it takes to unite Europe behind a package of sanctions that would, in his words, “isolate Russia.”
Because Obama has no balls, get it?
Sigh . . .
At Time Magazine, Simon Shuster notes that Putin is also being judged harshly at home, despite the efforts of the Kremlin-controlled media: 4 Reasons Putin Is Already Losing in Ukraine.
At home, this intervention looks to be one of the most unpopular decisions Putin has ever made. The Kremlin’s own pollster released a survey on Monday that showed 73% of Russians reject it. In phrasing its question posed in early February to 1,600 respondents across the country, the state-funded sociologists at WCIOM were clearly trying to get as much support for the intervention as possible: “Should Russia react to the overthrow of the legally elected authorities in Ukraine?” they asked. Only 15% said yes — hardly a national consensus.
That seems astounding in light of all the brainwashing Russians have faced on the issue of Ukraine. For weeks, the Kremlin’s effective monopoly on television news has been sounding the alarm over Ukraine. Its revolution, they claimed, is the result of an American alliance with Nazis intended to weaken Russia. And still, nearly three-quarters of the population oppose a Russian “reaction” of any kind, let alone a Russian military occupation like they are now watching unfold in Crimea. The 2008 invasion of Georgia had much broader support, because Georgia is not Ukraine. Ukraine is a nation of Slavs with deep cultural and historical ties to Russia. Most Russians have at least some family or friends living in Ukraine, and the idea of a fratricidal war between the two largest Slavic nations in the world evokes a kind of horror that no Kremlin whitewash can calm.
Indeed, Monday’s survey suggests that the influence of Putin’s television channels is breaking down. The blatant misinformation and demagoguery on Russian television coverage of Ukraine seems to have pushed Russians to go online for their information. And as for those who still have no Internet connection, they could simply have picked up the phone and called their panicked friends and relatives in Ukraine.
And at Quartz: The markets are punishing Russia more swiftly than diplomats ever could.
Strongly worded statements, threats of travel restrictions, and summit no-shows. So far, these are the relatively mild diplomatic implications for Russia of itsincursion into Ukraine, as few in the West can stomach an open military confrontation with Moscow over its apparent occupation of Crimea.
But the markets are punishing Russia much more swiftly than the diplomats. A wide range of Russian assets—stocks, bonds, and the ruble—plunged in value today. To shore up the ruble, which is plumbing record depths, Russia’s central bank unexpectedly hiked interest rates today. It ratcheted up the benchmark one-week rate from 5.5% to 7%, and traders report that the central bank has also been spending billions of dollars in currency markets to stem the fall in the value of the ruble.The two main Moscow stock markets, the Micex and the RTS, have fallen by more than 10% at the time of writing, in a broad-based selloff. Big Russian companies like Gazprom and Sberbank saw their share prices plunge as traders dumped their shares.
King Cake
Is there any other political news? Not much to speak of, so I’m just about to wrap this up. But first, today is Fat Tuesday and, despite the bad weather Mardi Gras is going forward in New Orleans. From ABC News: Cold, Gray Morning Won’t Stop Mardi Gras Revelers.
A cold, gray day greeted revelers gathering Tuesday along parade routes as the Carnival season in New Orleans headed to a crest with the unabashed celebration of Mardi Gras.
The first street marching groups — including clarinetist Pete Fountain’s Half-Fast Walking Club — were to begin their marches along oak-lined St. Charles Avenue and into the business district. Later, the floats of the Zulu and Rex parades and hundreds of truck trailers decorated by family and social groups would wind down St. Charles Avenue.
Light rain began to fall early in the morning, but revelers were still expected to gather by the tens of thousands in the French Quarter, where the bawdy side of Mardi Gras was expected to be on full display.
Mark Nelson of St. Louis said he would be in the mix even in a downpour. It’s his first Mardi Gras.
“That’s why God made washing machines,” said Nelson, who was sipping on a daiquiri as he enjoyed the sounds of trumpeter Kermit Ruffins and the Barbecue Swingers, who performed at the Lundi Gras festivities Monday along the Mississippi River.
For those of us who can’t get down to NOLA, the LA Times offers Mardi Gras: Celebrate with king cake and 16 additional recipes!
So . . . what’s on your mind today? Please let us know in the comments. We want to hear from you!
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Have a great day, and for those of you down South, please stay warm and safe and keep your children home from school. I feel for you, believe me!
It’s Primary day in Texas and our polls won’t open until 11:00 because of weather. Been a cold couple of days 🙂
Does this involve Wendy?
She’ll win anyway but the usually horrible vote count may be even lower than usual. The only primary race I’m concerned about is the US Senate candidate. There is an African American woman running who is a LaRouchite, anti-Obamacare and wants to impeach Obama. She’s run before and is the best known candidate. That’s gonna be a real test for identity politics. Not to mention, how many Republicans will skip their primary and vote for her to embarass the Democrats to the bone?
Ugh
One other race of interest is on the GOP side. Will Lt Gov David Dewhurst lose or get into a runoff with Sen Dan Patrick? I expect a runoff and Dewhurst might well lose in that case. If Patrick is the GOP candidate then Leticia Van de Putte has a shot at knocking him off. Go Leticia!
That would be great!
It is cold and the rain is a cold nasty drizzle. I’m binge watching Game of Thrones and grading papers. I’m not going out in this at all. I guess I’m way too old and been here too long.
This was a great post BB, I have been busy with my own Bebe. Her pleurisy and tietze syndrome has brought about the anxiety disorder and we have had to increase her zoloft. Needless to say it has been hellish lately.
I haven’t been able to “read” anything online, all I can do is look at pictures on pinterest, or spend my time watching TCM. All the news is too newsy and is all the same shit.
Anyway, I am working on the post for tomorrow…
So sorry to hear that, JJ. I hope things will settle down with Bebe soon. How long will the pleurisy last?
Whoa!
Scott Walker’s little-known scandal: When he treated welfare recipients like dogs
Did anyone see the youtube video I put on yesterday’s thread late last night? A couple of cops were generally dickish to a couple passing through Electra, TX for no real reason. The citizens found the video and cleaned up, police chief and cops were fired along with the county attorney over it.
Missed that. Will go find it.
Daily Beast: How ‘True Detective’ Will End
More speculation for True Detective fans. This one is very plausible, I think.
Come on Ralph – the puzzle will not be solved. That way they go for another series! But really I get some strong vibrations that a disaster is waiting to happen, one of their relations, either Woody’s or Rust’s family tree. The breeding ground will be in their back yard, right under that grand old tree, and will haunt them for the rest of their lives, until the crack of doom.
Haha, that’s my theory, among the many.
I think it’ll get solved because next season will have a new plot with new characters. Or so I’ve heard anyway.
I wonder where they will film it. It’s so absolutely creepy for me to watch this movie be creepy and seeing sites I used to see every day that I drove to Hammond LA when I taught there. Then, a little bit south of there which is where I usually take visiting friends to see plantations, and eat real cajun food, and see cajun music, etc. I knew about the Hosanna Church abuses … they were awful at the time. A sheriff’s deputy was involved as well as the women that watched the kids in Sunday school nurseries and stuff. It was an awful thing. BB said folks were looking at that and I had totally forgot about it until she did. It’s one of those things you want to drive from your memory if you can.
Probably over in Duck Alley, La.
I think Maggie will be involved. If her father abused Audrey then he must have abused Maggie too.
She told the writer that her whole family would be involved in the upcoming episode. That seems like a pretty good clue.
This piece pretty much lays out what I’ve been thinking.
Most plausible theory I’ve read yet, I think.
New Yorker: Russia’s Invasion Uncorks Ethnic Strife in Crimea
This article contains no ridiculous foreign policy advice.
This sounds like a heck of a confrontation in Crimea. From Simon Shuster, Time Russia correspondent. Here’s his Twitter feed with some photos of the action.
LOL
Simon Shuster @shustry 3h
My 2000+ word analysis of #Ukraine is more popular on http://time.com than news of ScarJo’s pregnancy. There is hope for this world.
BB. You have no idea how much I appreciate you pointing out the on-going hypocrisy and the Paradox that is the GOP/TP when it comes to Obama. These people just don’t fucking listen to themselves speak. This GOP lunacy has been happening ever since he became POTUS and it is the biggest reason I backed up and took a second look at him and began to try to give him the benefit of the doubt. How could any reasonable person accuse Obama of governing like a Dictator playing 12 dimensional chess in the morning and criticize him for being a naïve, stupid, fearful, feckless leader in the afternoon?
The bottom line is they hate Obama with a vengeance and a madness that renders them totally incapable of fairness and good sense.
It really is based on hate. Whatever Obama does is. by definition, automatically wrong. They cannot admit any different even for a minute.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116852/merkel-was-right-putins-lost-his-mind-press-conference
Putin’s Press Conference Proved Merkel Right: He’s Lost His Mind
He sounds afraid and “confused”. He’s the guy who has crawled out onto the 20th floor window ledge and permanently sealed the window behind himself. Nowhere to go but down if he isn’t rescued and who is there to rescue him? Maybe he can pull his shirt off and do one of his bare chested chest thumps. And this is the guy who the GOP is afraid of????
His economy is starting to tank. His corporate gangster friends can’t be too happy about that and he still has to pay for that disaster of an Olympics.
But he’s “winning” in the Charlie Sheen sense.
I just read the article and Putin sounds like one of the RWNJs here trapped in their own information bubble of truthiness. A good Republican.
That was my reaction when I read the article. Putin sounds like he’s been watching FOX News, reading Breitbart and WND, maybe even Jeff Rense or Alex Jones. He’s really way, way, way far out there.
He actually could be doing all that and it would have an effect like he displays.
Or . . . more likely, he’s been talking to Edward Snowden.
Yup.
http://www.nola.com/mardigras/index.ssf/2014/03/for_mardi_gras_cop_trades_case.html
New Orleans Police Detective Winston Harbin, now internet famous for his Mardi Gras wobble, has added the Cupid Shuffle to his burgeoning line-dance arsenal.
Posted on Jackson Avenue for the Zulu parade this morning, Harbin joined in an impromptu shuffle to the delight of revelers in the area.
Conservatives, Wake Up: The Republican Party Uses Religion To Manipulate You
http://www.forwardprogressives.com/conservatives-wake-republican-party-uses-religion-manipulate/
Excellent read. I could argue it’s not just the Republican party but the entire evangelical apparatus as a whole who are manipulating and fleecing their sheep.
That’s basically what the Roman Empire constructed Christianity for and the entire “church” set up. It was designed to spread Roman Culture and tell the sheeple to stay in their place, pay up, and wait patiently for a reward in their graves.
Rome fell, maybe theirs will as well.
http://globalnews.ca/news/1186193/female-westjet-pilot-receives-sexist-note-from-passenger-no-place-for-a-woman/
Identified only as @David, the note to Steacy reads:
“To Capt. / WestJet:
The cockpit of airline is no place for woman. A woman being a mother is the most honor. Not as ‘captain’. Were [sic] short mothers not pilots WestJet.”
The note also references Proverbs 31.
I don’t know how well known it is but,military testing has shown women to generally be better pilots than their male colleagues. They were found to be more precise and hold concentration longer and better among other traits..
Economists Say Paul Ryan Misrepresented Their Research –
See more at: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2014/03/04/Economists-Say-Paul-Ryan-Misrepresented-Their-Research#sthash.QvpxPixA.dpuf
He’s basically cherry picked the data.
Not surprising since he hasn’t been honest about anything else.
Simon Shuster: The Standoff at Belbek: Inside the First Clash of the Second Crimean War
How one Ukrainian commander stared down Russian forces occupying Crimea and avoided bloodshed, at least for one day
Check his twitter feed I posted upthread. Sounded really tense.
I never heard of him before I linked to him in the morning post.
ooops! I was already following him on twitter, lol!
This 10-month-old baby ‘hates’ Brian Williams
http://boston.com/community/moms/blogs/parent_buzz/2014/03/this_10-month-old_baby_hates_brian_williams.html
DMN: Patrick, Dewhurst headed to runoff election for lieutenant governor
Good news for Leticia Van de Putte! Wendy Davis and Greg Abbott had clean wins.
More good news for Democrats. David Alameel beat the LaRouchie for a clean win in the US Senate primary.
@jamesrhenson: RT @rossramsey: Somebody needs to tell the Chamber of Commerce contingent that somebody stole their lunch money. #txlege #tx2014
Dewhurst v Patrick in TX Lt Gov runoff becomes what Molly Ivins called the choice between the evil of two lessers.
8:41 p.m. by Alexa Ura
Wendy Davis takes stage to thank supporters:
“When I look at you, I know in my heart that we are going to do this,” Davis said.
She also came out swinging against her Republican opponent, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, criticizing him for defending steep cuts made by the Legislature to public education in 2011 in court in response to a lawsuit filed by a coalition of school districts who say the state’s education system is flawed and doesn’t appropriately fund schools.
“And there’s Greg Abbott … he’s defending those cuts,” Davis said. “Cuts that laid-off teachers and forced our kids into overcrowded classrooms.”
She also made mention of the ongoing abortion debate in the state — the issue that pushed her into the spotlight last summer when she filibustered a restrictive abortion law. Davis bashed Abbott for his anti-abortion stance, saying that Abbott wants to “dictate for all women, including victims of rape and incest.”
“I will be the governor who fights for the future of Texas,” she said, adding that “Greg Abbott is a defender of the status quo.”
“I want you to know this: I am ready to fight for you and to fight for every hardworking Texan across this state. Now is the time to fight for our future. This is not a time to stand still.”
Despite New Law, Algebra II Still a College Requirement
Thank goodness some people are using their heads. Thanks to the stupid Lege, we may have TX high school graduates who don’t qualify for admission to a TX college.
If we can’t vote these people out, I’ve gotta get myself the hell out of here.
James Moore: A Cold Day in Texas
He’s forgotten more about Texas politics than most ever know and this is a great post about Abbott running himself into the ditch.