Thursday Reads: The Campaign That Can’t Shoot Straight

Posted: September 13, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, Egypt, Foreign Affairs, Libya, Mitt Romney, morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , | 55 Comments

(Cartoon from the Hartford Courant)

Good Morning!!

After watching Mitt Romney’s undignified behavior in horror yesterday morning, and thinking about it for much of the day, I finally came to the conclusion that Romney is a spoiled teenager in an adult man’s body.

This man has been cosseted and catered to throughout his life. Everything has been handed to him on a silver platter–early on because of his father’s money, power, and influence and later because he was a wealthy and powerful CEO who could shout orders and expect instant obedience.

It has been evident to me for a long time that Romney is still the same bully who rounded up a group of classmates to hold down a younger student whose clothing and hair had drawn Romney’s disapproval and cut his long hair off. His wife and children have frequently talked about how he still loves to play “practical jokes” and “pranks” on family and friends. I honestly don’t think Romney has matured emotionally since those high school days.

As far as we know, Romney has never faced a serious life problem except for a car accident he got into in France while he was on his Mormon mission there. Yes, his wife Ann has had serious health problems, but I’m not sure Mitt has enough empathy for that to affect him personally.

In my opinion one of the most important ways people grow emotionally is by going through serious problems. But even after that accident, Romney didn’t have to do much. His father sent people over to handle the situation and bring Mitt back home. Although a woman was killed in the accident, and Romney was driving, he apparently never even contacted the woman’s family to offer condolences. So the main challenge Romney faced was simply to recover physically. When his wife Ann was sick, Mitt had all the money in the world to make sure she had the finest health care.

Romney’s behavior on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning suggests to me that he has an even more serious problem than his obvious emotional immaturity. He seems unable to inhibit his impulses and delay gratification, at least in the context of the presidential campaign. We saw this play out over the past two days in his gleeful reaction to the tragic events in Libya, treating them as an opportunity to launch political attacks on the Obama administration.

On Tuesday night Romney’s staff e-mailed a statement to news organizations, but told them to embargo it until after midnight, presumably to avoid a negative attack on 9/11. But a short time later, the campaign removed the embargo and told the media to release it. The statement was issued around 11PM, before Romney knew what had actually happened. Did Romney himself make these decisions on his own because he just couldn’t wait to get his nasty message out? Here’s the gist of the first statement.

“I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi,” Romney said in the statement. “It’s disgraceful that the Obama Administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”

This attack was based on a statement issued by the American Embassy in Cairo in an attempt to prevent protests that happened a few hours later. Here is the statement.

The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.

According to Politico, the State Department tried to dissuade embassy officials from releasing the statement, but they went ahead and did it, probably hoping to stave off an attack like the one that happened later in Libya.

Again on Wednesday morning Romney quickly arranged a press conference in order to get his message out before President Obama spoke. By this time, Romney knew that the the American ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens had been murdered, along with three other embassy employees. But instead of changing course, he continued the same attack on President Obama that he had begun the night before, claiming that somehow the statement from the Cairo embassy demonstrated that Obama was “apologizing for American values.”

You can read the full transcript of the press conference here. The gist of Romney’s attack:

America will not tolerate attacks against our citizens and against our embassies. We’ll defend also our constitutional rights of speech and assembly and religion.

We have confidence in our cause in America. We respect our Constitution. We stand for the principles our Constitution protects. We encourage other nations to understand and respect the principles of our Constitution, because we recognize that these principles are the ultimate source of freedom for individuals around the world.

I also believe the administration was wrong to stand by a statement sympathizing with those who had breached our embassy in Egypt, instead of condemning their actions. It’s never too early for the United States government to condemn attacks on Americans and to defend our values.

The White House distanced itself last night from the statement, saying it wasn’t cleared by Washington. That reflects the mixed signals they’re sending to the world.

The attacks in Libya and Egypt underscore that the world remains a dangerous place and that American leadership is still sorely needed. In the face of this violence, American cannot shrink from the responsibility to lead. American leadership is necessary to ensure that events in the region don’t spin out of control. We cannot hesitate to use our influence in the region to support those who share our values and our interests.

What did Romney think he would gain from these false and undignified attacks during a time of national crisis? Why couldn’t he wait a few days for events to play out and then attack if it made sense? I think it is because Romney just doesn’t have and adult ability to control his impulses. We’ve seen this again and again, particularly on his disastrous trip to Europe. He simply says whatever comes into his head, with seemingly no ability to adjust his words to what is appropriate to a situation–or even to stick to basic facts.

Michael Cohen of the New York Daily News asks rhetorically:

Within hours of finding out that a U.S. ambassador was killed in the line of duty, Romney is engaging in a rather naked and blatant political attack against the President. It’s the type of criticism you might expect from a pundit or a back-bencher in Congress, not from a man who aspires to be President of the United States. It makes Romney look small and inclined to put politics ahead of the national interest. It is the equivalent of John McCain’s suspension of his 2008 campaign during the financial crisis and should be treated as such.

But aside from the politics of this, what does it say about a candidate who would issue a statement based on incomplete information and then double down on it even after it’s been disproven? What does it say about a candidate who actually accuses the President of openly siding with those who would harm U.S. diplomats? What does it say about a candidate who would, in a moment of grief over the death of U.S. personnel serving overseas, take the opportunity to cravenly engage in a dishonest political attack?

What it says to me is that this is a man who simply is not up to the awesome responsibilities of being President of the United States.

I’ve thought that for a long time. Now the mainstream media is beginning to understand how disastrous it would be if Romney managed to win the election and become president. A president needs to be able to stop and think before talking or taking action. Romney is apparently incapable of that level of self-control. as a child and young man, he had all his needs met by others. As an adult, he has been accustomed to issuing orders and having them followed immediately by “the help.”

Quite simply, Romney is temperamentally unsuited to the presidency. As a nominee of a major party Romney will soon receive intelligence briefings. Can he be trusted with such confidential information? Remember when he was in Great Britain and he revealed that he had had a secret briefing with MI6?

Fortunately, it looks like Romney has destroyed his credibility with the media, and he isn’t likely to recover it. He’s falling behind Obama in the polls, and unless something very dramatic happens to turn things around, it sure looks like he’s toast. But I won’t feel safe from this blundering doofus until the returns come in and he’s forced to concede the election the night of November 6.

This is a fast-moving story, so I’m sure there will be stories breaking rapidly today. But here are a few links to get you started this morning.

CNN: Romney’s political pretzel over Libya. That’s a bit of a timeline of the events of this Romney attacks and events in Egypt and Libya.

A very detailed timeline from TPM: A Timeline Of The Attacks In Libya And Egypt — And The Responses

Politico: Mitt Romney digs in on Obama ‘apology’

Washington Post: FACT CHECK: Mitt Romney rhetoric on Egypt, Libya out of step with timeline of events

The New Republic: Former Romney Adviser on Libya: “They Stepped in It”

Bloomberg Businessweek: Anti-Islam Filmmaker Who Provoked Attacks Used Pseudonym

At TPM Josh Marshall discusses some odd switches in the NYT coverage of the Romney/Libya story.

[E]arlier this evening the Times ran a story entitled “Behind Romney’s Decision to Attack Obama on Libya.” The byline was David Sanger and Ashley Parker. The big news out of the story was that Romney himself had been the driver of last night’s decision making. That and a lot of other color and interesting news. As I write, it’s still that piece and lede that’s on the front page. But now it’s been replaced (same url) by an almost unrecognizable piece entitled “A Challenger’s Criticism Is Furiously Returned”, bylined by Peter Baker and Ashley Parker….

The thrust of the piece is dramatically different and, unless I’m missing something, leaves out this critical quote from a Romney senior advisor explaining their rationale. “We’ve had this consistent critique and narrative on Obama’s foreign policy, and we felt this was a situation that met our critique, that Obama really has been pretty weak in a number of ways on foreign policy, especially if you look at his dealings with the Arab Spring and its aftermath.” [….]

What happened to the other story? Pieces get rewritten all the time, especially with a breaking news story. But this would seem to require some explanation.

Here’s a satirical piece from the LA Times: Mitt Romney should triple-down on Libya: Rally with Rev. Jones!

Mitt Romney’s campaign to make the world safe for anti-Muslim hate speech breaks new ground for a presidential nominee.

But why won’t the former governor of Massachusetts take his brand of audacious truth-telling to its logical conclusion?

President Obama, or at least his State Department, is “apologizing” for the video that makes the prophet Muhammad out to be a cretinous, bed-hopping party fool — so says Romney. So why wouldn’t Romney (who has twice affirmed his critique of the administration) triple-down — with a more explicit endorsement of the talented artists who put together the 14-minute “Innocence of the Muslims.”

I’m recommending, of course, a joint rally featuring Christian Pastor Terry Jones and his proxy, former Massachusetts Gov. Romney.

This one from ABC’s The Note is scary: Who’s Advising Mitt Romney on Foreign Policy? Here’s a list from Romney’s website. Some of the names are very familiar. Eight of them were members of the Project for a New American Century, the group that pushed for Bush to attack Iraq.

Cofer Black
Christopher Burnham
Michael Chertoff
Eliot Cohen
Norm Coleman
John Danilovich
Paula J. Dobriansky
Eric Edelman
Michael Hayden
Kerry Healey
Kim Holmes
Robert Joseph
Robert Kagan
John Lehman
Andrew Natsios
Meghan O’Sullivan
Walid Phares
Pierre Prosper
Mitchell Reiss
Daniel Senor
Jim Talent
Vin Weber
Richard Williamson
Dov Zakheim

I’ll wrap this up for now, and check for breaking news in the morning. So…what are you reading and blogging about today?

Was the Embassy Assault a Planned Attack?

Posted: September 12, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Egypt, Israel, Libya | Tags: , , , , | 82 Comments

We’re beginning to hear more interesting news about how an obscure, bad, insulting–but expensive–film made its way to Egypt and how the seemingly related US embassy assault in Libya may have been a planned attack.  Curiouser and curiouser sez Alice.  Some are even suggesting this may be a false flag psyops on the part of Israeli and US neocons to prop up the miserably flailing Romney jerk-a-thon. I noted in my previous post how neocons are dying to start a war with Iran and have been so obvious that the Israeli opposition party leader  Shaul Mofaz asked Bibi Netanyahu “Who are you trying to replace? The Administration in Washington or in Tehran?”

The Obama administration suspects that the fiery attack in Libya that killed the American ambassador and three other diplomats may have been planned rather than a spontaneous mob getting out of control, American officials said Wednesday.

Officials in Washington studying the events of the past 24 hours have focused on the differences between the protests at the American embassy in Cairo and the attack on the consulate in Benghazi, the Libyan city where Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and the other Americans were killed.

The protesters in Cairo appeared to be a genuinely spontaneous unarmed mob angered by an anti-Islam video said to have been produced in the United States. By contrast, it appeared the attackers in Benghazi were armed with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. Intelligence reports are inconclusive at this point, officials said, but indications suggest the possibility that an organized group had either been waiting for an opportunity to exploit like the protests over the video or perhaps even generated the protests as a cover for their attack.

Would they actually try to blame Al Quada for an operation that could have entirely different roots?

So, there are some interesting entrails found in the mystic and real search for Sam Bacile–an anagram for Cabal is Me–the figure supposedly behind the Terry Jones pushed, anti-Muslim movie that started a series of protests in Egypt and other Muslim countries.  Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic is leading a pack of journalists who are trying to determine his real identity and his real purpose.

As part of my search for more information about Sam Bacile, the alleged producer of the now-infamous anti-Muhammad film trailer “The Innocence of Muslims,” I just called a man named Steve Klein — a self-described militant Christian activist in Riverside, California (whose actual business, he said, is in selling “hard-to-place home insurance”), who has been described in multiple media accounts as a consultant to the film.

Klein told me that Bacile, the producer of the film, is not Israeli, and most likely not Jewish, as has been reported, and that the name is, in fact, a pseudonym. He said he did not know “Bacile”‘s real name. He said Bacile contacted him because he leads anti-Islam protests outside of mosques and schools, and because, he said, he is a Vietnam veteran and an expert on uncovering al Qaeda cells in California. “After 9/11 I went out to look for terror cells in California and found them, piece of cake. Sam found out about me. The Middle East Christian and Jewish communities trust me.”

Klein told me that Bacile, the producer of the film, is not Israeli, and most likely not Jewish, as has been reported, and that the name is, in fact, a pseudonym. He said he did not know “Bacile”‘s real name. He said Bacile contacted him because he leads anti-Islam protests outside of mosques and schools, and because, he said, he is a Vietnam veteran and an expert on uncovering al Qaeda cells in California. “After 9/11 I went out to look for terror cells in California and found them, piece of cake. Sam found out about me. The Middle East Christian and Jewish communities trust me.”

He said the man who identified himself as Bacile asked him to help make the anti-Muhammad film. When I asked him to describe Bacile, he said: “I don’t know that much about him. I met him, I spoke to him for an hour. He’s not Israeli, no. I can tell you this for sure, the State of Israel is not involved, Terry Jones (the radical Christian Quran-burning pastor) is not involved. His name is a pseudonym. All these Middle Eastern folks I work with have pseudonyms. I doubt he’s Jewish. I would suspect this is a disinformation campaign.”

Cannonfire even suggests that it may be a psyops campaign.  Supposedly, the elusive Bacile is ‘hiding out’.

Bacile, a California real estate developer who identifies himself as an Israeli Jew, said he believes the movie will help his native land by exposing Islam’s flaws to the world. “Islam is a cancer, period,” he said repeatedly, his solemn voice thickly accented.

The two-hour movie, Innocence of Muslims, cost $5 million to make and was financed with the help of more than 100 Jewish donors, said Bacile, who wrote and directed it. The film claims Muhammad was a fraud. The14-minute trailer of the movie that reportedly set off the protests, posted on the website YouTube in an original English version and another dubbed into Egyptian Arabic, shows an amateur cast performing a wooden dialogue of insults disguised as revelations about Muhammad, whose obedient followers are presented as a cadre of goons. It depicts Muhammad as a feckless philanderer who approved of child sexual abuse, among other overtly insulting claims that have caused outrage.

Muslims find it offensive to depict Muhammad in any manner, let alone insult the prophet. A Danish newspaper’s 2005 publication of 12 caricatures of the prophet triggered riots in many Muslim countries.

Though Bacile was apologetic about the American who was killed as a result of the outrage over his film, he blamed lax embassy security and the perpetrators of the violence. “I feel the security system (at the embassies) is no good,” said Bacile. “America should do something to change it.”

A consultant on the film, Steve Klein, said the filmmaker is concerned for family members who live in Egypt. Bacile declined to confirm.

Again, the Bacile facade appears to be unravelling.  Adrien Chen of gawker calls him a “ghost”.  Perhaps “spook” is a better moniker.

If Bacile isn’t Jewish, perhaps he’s connected instead to the Copts, the Egyptian Christian sect. The film has been promoted by the conservative U.S.-based Coptic minister (and friend of Terry Jones) Maurice Sadek. Bacile says he speaks Arabic and has relatives in Egypt, according to Klein—even though “fewer than 100 Jewish people” live in Egypt, according to journalist Laura Rozen.

Why did Bacile pretend to be an Israeli Jew? Maybe he cooked up the persona and shadowy cabal of Jewish funders in an attempt to further inflame the situation. The only thing we know for sure about Bacile: He’s a terrible filmmaker.

NPR is following the story also. They have some interesting information on the man named Klein interviewed by Goldberg.

Klein, by the way, was profiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which describes him as an “extremist” who has led anti-Muslim protests.

“In 1977, he founded Courageous Christians United, which now conducts ‘respectful confrontations’ outside of abortion clinics, Mormon temples and mosques,” the SPLC reports. “Klein also has ties to the Minuteman movement. In 2007, he sued the city of San Clemente for ordering him to stop leafleting cars with pamphlets opposing illegal immigration.”

I’ve just been pointed to this Right Wing Watch page by reader pdgrey. 

Morris Sadek, an Egyptian-American anti-Muslim activist, managed in one week’s time to take an overlooked YouTube video featuring a lame attack on Islam and turn it into a flashpoint with violent extremists, with deadly consequences. As the New York Times reported last night, Sadek drew attention to the obscure video clip “in an Arabic-language blog post and an e-mail newsletter in English publicizing the latest publicity stunt of the Florida pastor Terry Jones, reviled in the Muslim world for burning copies of the Koran.” Within days the clip was making the rounds in Egypt, prompting denunciations from politicians and generating press coverage, and culminating in protests and a deadly attack in Libya.

Sadek, who has worked with Jones in the past, says he is fighting for the rights of his fellow Coptic Christians in Egypt. Unfortunately he seems much more focused on attacking Muslims than helping the Copts. Sadek pulled his Facebook profile around 1 pm today, but we were able to take a look beforehand. Here’s what we found.
Sadek is a supporter of ACT! for America, which believes that President Obama has embraced the Muslim Brotherhood. The group rallied its supporters last month behind Michelle Bachmann’s anti-Muslim witch hunt against Huma Abedin and others. Here’s Sadek with ACT! For America president Brigitte Gabriel at one of the group’s 2010 events.

Sadek is a man of many interests. He’s a member of these groups, among many others: Islam is of the Devil, Warriors of Christ, and OBAMA IS THE WORST PRESIDENT EVER! Agree?. Sadek is also a fan of the Republican Party, George Bush, Allen West (for president no less!), and number of other Islamophobic, conservative and/or Republican institutions and leaders.

Cannonfire and other folks in the film business cannot believe that $5 million was spent on the film.  This begs the question “where did the money go”?

Though Bacile claims he spent $5 million on the movie — a figure that would put the film’s on par with the Toronto festival entrant Julianne Moore-starrer What Maisie Knew — the 13 minutes of footage available online look unprofessional. Furthermore, Bacile has virtually no footprint in the Hollywood community. The writer-director-producer has no agent listed on IMDBPro and no credits on any film or TV production.”

So, Joseph thinks this. I actually think this is a possibility.  Read my previous post on the NEOCON and BIBI hakas.  Romney has promised them a war.  Obama seems unlikely to start another one given he just would up one and is trying to wind up a second one.

You would have to be a child not to understand what’s really going on here. This is the most obvious psyop conspiracy I’ve ever seen.

Neocons in America and Israel concocted this plot long ago. I would stake my life on it.

We can state with the certainty of a geometrical proof that Sam Bacile is a Mossad asset — a “sayan” — and that he did what he did under orders, not of his own initiative. The motive is transparent: Likudniks want the United States to attack Iran, and they know that Obama won’t do it. Romney will. He has made that point very clear. Thus, Israeli war hawks concocted a plan to make sure Romney gets into office.

The conspirators made this film for the express purpose of provoking a violent reaction, which would, in turn give the Republicans a political cudgel to wield against the president.

I do not doubt for a second the presence of provocateurs on the ground in Cairo and Libya. (How did they even know about the YouTube clip?) I also believe that this plan would have remained “on hold” if Romney had attained a comfortable lead.

I’m pretty sure that CIA had nothing to do with this. Only Israeli intelligence is so reckless.

So, the next question is this.  Was Libya really an “Al Quada” thing or perhaps something else?  Does some one want to see the change of the Guard back to the good ol’ days of Rommie, Wolfie, and Bolton? Was this an attempt at a September Surprise that is going terribly wrong? Are these all ‘actors’ of sorts wearing topaz bronze make up and hoping for either the “end days” or the Likkud vision of the Middle east?

A Crisis made worse by Religious Nuts and Political Dunces

Posted: September 12, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 elections, Egypt, Libya | Tags: , , , , , | 93 Comments

We’re all still trying to unravel the reasons and events unfolding in Cairo and Libya.  The basics point to religious fundamentalism here and abroad fueled by irrational hate that’s being cynically exploited by politicians riding religious zealotry and bigotry to headlines. We have a nexus of religions that hate and politicians that thrive on hate.  It’s beyond disturbing.

First, we have a two religious extremists in the United States that produced and/or promoted a “movie” that shows a competitor religion in such an offensive light that it sets off the religious extremists in the other religion. Florida Christian whack job Terry Jones is well know for his adventures in Koran-burning.He’s been promoting a movie that vilifies Egyptian Muslims.  You can see bits and pieces of it at The Atlantic and read about some of the highly offensive content.

The movie is called Innocence of Muslims, although some Egyptian media have reported its title as Mohammed Nabi al-Muslimin, or Mohammed, Prophet of the Muslims. If you’ve never heard of it, that’s because most of the few clips circulating online are dubbed in Arabic. The above clip, which is allegedly from the film (update: Kurt Werthmuller, a Coptic specialist at the Hudson Institute, says he’s confirmed the clip’s authenticity) is one of the only in English.*  That’s also because it’s associated with Florida Pastor Terry Jones (yes, the asshole who burnt the Koran despite Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates’ pleas) and two Egyptians living in the U.S., according to Egyptian press accounts.* The Egyptians are allegedly Coptic, the Christian minority that makes up about a tenth of Egypt.

Obviously, there’s a lot to this story that’s still unclear. What we do know is that some members of Egypt’s sometimes-raucous, often rumor-heavy media have been playing highly offensive clips from the highly offensive film, stressing its U.S. and Coptic connections. In the clip below, controversial TV host Sheikh Khaled Abdallah (known for such statements as “Iran is more dangerous to us than the Jews” and that Tehran had engineered a deadly soccer riot in Port Said) hypes the film as an American-Coptic plot and introduces what he says is its opening scene.

As the fervor has built, both the Coptic Church and the U.S. embassy to Egypt issued formal condemnations of the film. The latter, made just this morning, began, “The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims.” The statement also noted the September 11 anniversary, adding, “Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy.”

I won’t print the descriptions of some of the most offensive things, you can go read it at the link. This is what set off the riots at the Cairo Embassy and has now led to the death of a US ambassador and 3 other diplomats in Libya. 

Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, was killed along with three of his staff members in a fiery and furious attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi on Tuesday night by an armed mob angry over a short American-made video mocking Islam’s founding prophet, the White House and Libyan officials said on Wednesday.

President Obama strongly condemned the killings and ordered increased security at American diplomatic posts around the world. American defense officials said 50 Marines were en route to Libya to strengthen security at United States diplomatic facilities.

The death of Ambassador Stevens was the first of an American envoy abroad in more than two decades.

“These four Americans stood up for freedom and human dignity,” Mr. Obama said in a televised statement from the White House Rose Garden where he stood side-by-side with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. “Make no mistake: we will work with the Libyan government to bring to justice the killers who attacked our people.”

Mr. Obama also offered praise for the Libyan government, noting that Libyan security forces fought back against the mob, helped protect American diplomats and took Mr. Stevens’s body to the hospital. “This attack will not break the bonds between the United States and Libya,” he said.

Enter the right wing kooks and we now see how extremely offensive and extremely connected to religious extremists that some of our own politicians can be.  We’re seeing this from two sources of extremely unhelpful people.  The first is Netanyahu who is under increasing criticism from the opposition in Israel for “wagging the dog” and being more interested in ‘regime change’ in the US than in Iran.  (“Who are you trying to replace?” Shaul Mofaz asked Bibi Netanyahu. “The Administration in Washington or in Tehran?”)  Netanyahu has invented a snub by Obama out of whole cloth and seems to be pressing the case for Romney who has pretty much guaranteed he’d join in a war against Iran and who knows else in the Middle east.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the White House had declined the Israeli government’s request for a meeting on the sidelines of a U.N. confab later this month in New York City. The White House cited a scheduling problem, but denied reports that they had refused to meet with Netanyahu in New York.

“Contrary to reports in the press, there was never a request for Prime Minister Netanyahu to meet with President Obama in Washington, nor was a request for a meeting ever denied,” the White House said.

The US and Israeli right wing press has gone crazy-go-nuts over another complete fabrication about Obama’s love of Muslim countries and distaste for poor little Israel and its leader’s lust for all out war in the middle east.  Read this analysis of NeoCon Benjamin Netanyahu at The New Yorker.

In his first term as Prime Minister, in the nineties, Netanyahu used to behave in such a high-handed way with White House officials that Bill Clinton left meetings with him bewildered and bemused, wondering who, in their relationship, was the leader of a superpower. But Netanyahu’s arrogance, in the guise of Churchillian prescience, has hardly receded over the years. Obama, in an attempt to cool the latest crisis, called Netanyahu last night and spent an hour talking with him.

Adding to the outrage is the fact that Netanyahu is performing not just for his allies on the Israeli right but for those he perceives as his allies on the American right, including those in the Jewish community. His performance is in the same neocon voice as the one adopted by the Romney campaign and in its opportunistic reaction to the attacks on the U.S. diplomatic outposts in Cairo and Benghazi, which left our Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three other consular employees dead. Unbelievably, the Republican National Committee chairman, Reince Priebus, took to Twitter and wrote, “Obama sympathizes with attackers in Egypt. Sad and pathetic.” Romney himself accused Obama of sympathizing with the attackers in Libya.

The neocon strategy, in both Israel and the U.S., is to paint Obama as naïve in the extreme. In this, Netanyahu and Romney are united—and profoundly cynical.

Meanwhile, enter our Republican whack jobs and the completely feckless and worthless bubble boy, Netanyahu fan boi, Mitt Romney.  How can one person have so much money and be so clueless about so many things? This analysis is by Josh Marshall at TPM.

As noted, we have two simultaneous crises washing over Washington tonight from the Middle East. First, the US-Israel blow up, which I discussed below. Next, riots which escalated into full-scale attacks on US embassies in Cairo and Benghazi, triggered by another stunt by Quran-burning ‘pastor’ Terry Jones down in Florida.

A State Department officer was actually killed in the attack on the compound in Benghazi.

In the midst of this, the Romney campaign put out this statement …

“I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi. It’s disgraceful that the Obama administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”So Romney jumps to politicize a genuine crisis in which a Foreign Service Officer has been killed. And the attack itself is based on a falsehood. The reference is to a statement released by the Embassy in Egypt which in fact came out before the attacks took place. The entire thing is based on a lie. Here’s our full story.

Here’s the latest entry in the Romney jerk-a-thon the Republicans are calling a presidential campaign from WAPO.

In a statement Tuesday night, Mitt Romney accused the Obama administration of sympathizing with the Libyan protesters who attacked a consulate in Benghazi, killing the U.S. ambassador and three other American diplomats.

“I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi,” Romney said. “It’s disgraceful that the Obama Administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”

Romney’s remarks came before the White House confirmed Wednesday morning that U.S. ambassador to Libya, John Christopher Stevens, was among those killed in the Benghazi attack.

Romney foreign policy adviser Rich Williamson told Foreign Policy magazine Tuesday evening, before the deaths were reported, that the attacks were related to Obama’s “failure to be an effective leader for U.S. interests in the Middle East.”

Romney has often tried to sharpen the contrast between his foreign policy and Obama’s by  arguing that the president is apologetic towards America’s enemies.

Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt responded a few hours later that it was Romney who was out of line. “We are shocked that, at a time when the United States of America is confronting the tragic death of one of our diplomatic officers in Libya, Governor Romney would choose to launch a political attack,” he said

I guess Romney doesn’t consider SOS Hillary Clinton to be a part of the Obama administration or something.  This is the next paragraph in the WAPO article cited above.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned the attack “in the strongest terms,” adding that  while the United States “deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others … there is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.” Wednesday morning, Obama released his own statement condemning “the outrageous attack.”

Speaking of Hillary, let’s just take a look at what James Fallows writes  at The Atlantic and a reminder of one of her best political ads of 2008.

On the longer-term temperamental politics, this is a very vivid example of what people mean when they talk about “the 3 a.m. phone call.” In these next few hours let us look very carefully at the first-reaction quick responses, and then the considered second-take positions, by the two candidates.* One or the other of them will be in charge of U.S. response to similar inevitable-surprise episodes in the next four years.

His article also reviews some of the various media responses to Romney’s stupid comments.  This one is on the Fox Propaganda Network.

Have just seen Jeffrey Goldberg’s report on an immediate response from the Romney camp. That is revealing and not encouraging. On the other hand, I am watching Fox & Friends right now to see how they are presenting things. They’ve just finished with a foreign-policy expert who urged Romney to stand down for a day or so. She says, “I am a hawk, but this is not the time to politicize the issue.”

Update-update. Here is the New York Times report on the Romney response Jeff Goldberg is referring to. Read this carefully. It is a “midnight phone call” rather than 3 am, but this tells me something:
Bracing for trouble before the start of the protests here and in Libya, the American Embassy released a statement shortly after noon that appeared to refer to Mr. Jones [the idiotic Koran-burning “pastor” Terry Jones]: “The United States Embassy in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims — as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions.” It later denounced the “unjustified breach of our embassy.”

Apparently unaware of the timing of the first embassy statement, the Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, put out a statement just before midnight Tuesday saying, “It’s disgraceful that the Obama administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.” Mr. Romney also said he was “outraged” at the attacks on the embassy and consulate.

Here’s one other thing that I’d like to share.  It’s a Politico story on the murdered US Ambassador Chris Stevens.

I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about all of this for some time.  I know two things.  I’m rooting for the Israeli Opposition and our State Department.  The last thing we need is for a bunch of lying war thumping neocons to start pushing lies again and drag us into the Religious Fantastic’s wet dream of the so-called ‘end times’.  Pray that the cooler minds prevail and the others STFU. The last thing we need is shameless exploitation of religious bigotry by folks whose voting base is filled with folks who would like to rid the world of all religions but their own.

Monday Morning Reads

Posted: June 18, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Egypt, Foreign Affairs, Greece, Middle East, Mitt Romney, morning reads | Tags: , , | 9 Comments

Good Morning!

Elections happened in Egypt and Greece.  Pro-Bailout Parties in Greece have taken the majority.  The Muslim Brotherhood candidate is ahead in the run off for the presidency in Egypt.

Greece’s largest pro-bailout parties, New Democracy and Pasok, won enough seats to forge a parliamentary majority, official projections showed, easing concern the country was headed toward an imminent exit from the euro. The currency rose on the result.

The election would give New Democracy and Pasok 163 seats if they agree to govern together in the 300-member parliament, according to the official projection by the Interior Ministry in Athens based on 63 percent of today’s vote.

“For markets, a majority for an ND-Pasok coalition would be a relief,” Holger Schmieding, London-based chief economist at Berenberg Bank, said in a note today. “It would very much reduce the risk of a Greek euro exit.”

The vote forced Greeks, in a fifth year of recession, to choose open-ended austerity to stay in the euro or reject the terms of a bailout and risk the turmoil of exiting the 17-nation currency. The election threatened to dominate a summit of world leaders that starts tomorrow in Mexico.

Krugman’s Op Ed today has a nice, succinct explanation of the Greek situation.

Fifteen years ago Greece was no paradise, but it wasn’t in crisis either. Unemployment was high but not catastrophic, and the nation more or less paid its way on world markets, earning enough from exports, tourism, shipping and other sources to more or less pay for its imports.

Then Greece joined the euro, and a terrible thing happened: people started believing that it was a safe place to invest. Foreign money poured into Greece, some but not all of it financing government deficits; the economy boomed; inflation rose; and Greece became increasingly uncompetitive. To be sure, the Greeks squandered much if not most of the money that came flooding in, but then so did everyone else who got caught up in the euro bubble.

And then the bubble burst, at which point the fundamental flaws in the whole euro system became all too apparent.

Ask yourself, why does the dollar area — also known as the United States of America — more or less work, without the kind of severe regional crises now afflicting Europe? The answer is that we have a strong central government, and the activities of this government in effect provide automatic bailouts to states that get in trouble.

Consider, for example, what would be happening to Florida right now, in the aftermath of its huge housing bubble, if the state had to come up with the money for Social Security and Medicare out of its own suddenly reduced revenues. Luckily for Florida, Washington rather than Tallahassee is picking up the tab, which means that Florida is in effect receiving a bailout on a scale no European nation could dream of.

Egypt continues to see stand offs between the judiciary, military rulers, and the electorate.  It appears that Egyptian elections may put a Muslim Brotherhood candidate into office just as the military rulers  disbanded parliament due to a ruling by courts.  Final election results are expected on Thursday.

In a final run-off election marked by relentless fear-mongering and negative campaigning on both sides of the contest, many polling stations remained near-empty for much of the two-day ballot – with potential voters seemingly put off by scorching temperatures, which reached 40C in the capital, and the increasingly oppressive political climate of military-led manipulation and national division that has gripped the country a year and a half after the start of its ongoing revolution.

As ballot counting began inside more than 13,000 schools nationwide, the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party insisted that its candidate, 60 year old engineer Mohamed Morsi, was on course for a clear victory unless state-sponsored electoral fraud dictated otherwise. But local media reports and anecdotal evidence suggested a far closer race, with millions turning out to back Ahmed Shafiq, Hosni Mubarak’s final prime minister and a polarising emblem of the old regime, in a last-ditch effort to prevent political Islamists from taking power.

Egypt continues on its course of political uncertainty.

The high court ruled that some provisions of the electoral law, which allowed political parties to compete with independent candidates for some seats, violated the constitution.

The ruling invalidated the 508-member People’s Assembly, chosen during a six-week election which began in November. It also voided the constitutional assembly which members of parliament agreed to last week and appointed on Tuesday.

SCAF said it will announce its own assembly next week.

The ruling was a blow to the entire transition process, but perhaps most of all to the Brotherhood, which controlled nearly half of the assembly.

Mohamed el-Beltagy, a senior FJP politician, called the rulings a “fully-fledged coup” on his Facebook page.

The Brotherhood issued a statement late on Thursday night warning that the court’s decision would undo the gains of the revolution and push Egypt into “dangerous days”.

The Economist has some interesting analysis on what might happen if the Roberts SCOTUS throws out portions of the Affordable Healthcare Act. You have to remember this is written in England where our health care system is considered something out of a dystopian science fiction horror novel.

Yet for all that, it is possible that the Supreme Court, by throwing a spanner into the works, may actually help Mr Obama as much as hurt him. For a start, the Republicans would suddenly find that they have a mess of their own making to sort out. If the Supreme Court does indeed strike down the Affordable Care Act, many popular provisions would fall with it: the one allowing parents to keep their children on their insurance policies until they are 26, for instance, and the abolition of lifetime ceilings on what the sick can claim. Both of those are already in force, and a ban on insurance companies refusing to insure the unwell is due to come in from 2014. Generous subsidies will help not just those who lack insurance, but also some of those who have it and find it hard to afford. And Mr Obama’s cost-control mechanisms, imperfect though they are, have a fiscally useful role to play in bringing down the costs of government-provided insurance for the poor and the elderly.

Even if only the “mandate” requiring everyone to buy health insurance is struck down as unconstitutional, the consequences of that could cause other parts of the bill to unravel, and would certainly lead to big increases in insurance premiums. One big insurance company has already said it would endeavour to keep some of the popular provisions intact: but it might not be able to. The Republicans have long said that they want to “repeal and replace” Obamacare, but they have been remarkably coy about what they would replace it with. If you break it, as Colin Powell remarked in another context, you own it.

So the danger to the Republicans of a backlash should not be discounted. And there is another, greater threat to them. Should Obamacare be struck down or crippled, the Roberts court will be seen by many as politically slanted. Arguably that has happened already, thanks to its recision of gun control in Washington, DC and Chicago in 2008 and 2010, and to its decision in 2010 to scrap limits on corporate (and trade-union) donations to political-action groups. And judgments on other highly political cases, on positive discrimination and on immigration, are expected before the election. Like the gun-control and campaign-finance rulings, these are likely to be “partisan” 5-4 decisions. A poll on June 7th found that 76% of people think that Supreme Court justices are sometimes swayed by their political or personal views, and that only 44% approve of the court’s performance. It used to be by far the most popular branch of government.

Romney just told us all not to worry our pretty little heads about his economics policy yesterday on Face The Nation.  He doesn’t want to give us any specifics and we should just “trust him”.  Does this sound like the guy you dated once in high school that didn’t think of much anything but getting a blow job from you or what?

Romney repeatedly refused to say whether he’d repeal Obama’s order to halt deportations of DREAM-eligible youth. He confirmed that he would not agree to even one dollar in new revenues in exchange for 10 dollars in spending cuts. And he again reiterated that his response to the crisis would be to cut government, in order to “ignite growth,” even though economists say that more austerity now would make the crisis worse.

But I wanted to flag this exchange in particular, in which Romney seemed to confirm that he will not be detailing how he would pay for his proposed tax cuts for the duration of the campaign:

SCHIEFFER: You haven’t been bashful about telling us yo want to cut taxes. When are you going to tell us where you’re going to get the revenue? Which of the deductions are you going to be willing to eliminate? Which of the tax credits are you going to — when are you going to be able to tell us that?

ROMNEY: Well, we’ll go through that process with Congress as to which of all the different deductions and the exemptions —

SCHIEFFER: But do you have an ideas now, like the home mortgage interest deduction, you know, the various ones?

ROMNEY: Well Simpson Bowles went though a process of saying how they would be able to reach a setting where they had actually under their proposal even more revenue, with lower rates. So, mathematically it’s been proved to be possible: We can have lower rates, as I propose, that creates more growth, and we can limit deductions and exemptions.

Romney went on to pledge, as he has in the past, that under his plan, the wealthy would continue to pay the same share of the tax burden as they do now. “I’m not looking to reduce the burden paid by the wealthiest,” he said. In other words, the disproportionally larger tax cut the wealthy would get from the across-the-board cut in rates he’s proposing would be offset by closing deductions and loopholes the rich currently enjoy. But asked twice by Schieffer how exactly he would do this, Romney refused to say, beyond noting that this has been mathematically proven to be possible. And in his first reply above, he confirmed that the details would be worked out with Congress when he is president — which is to say, not during the campaign.

As you may recall, Romney made big news when he was overheard at a private fundraiser revealing to donors a few of the specific ways he’d pay for his massive tax cuts. Since then, details have been in short supply. And today, Romney seemed to confirm that he sees no need to reveal those details until he becomes president.

You know.  If we don’t give him what he wants his balls will turn blue and it will be all our fault.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Friday Reads

Posted: February 24, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Egypt, GLBT Rights, Marriage Equality, morning reads, Tunisia, Women's Rights | 32 Comments

Good Morning!

It’s hard not to think we’re on the verge of civil war after watching the level of political nastiness around us these days.  The level of incivility and meanness just has me at a complete loss for words at times.  I am really glad there are no Republican primary debates scheduled for awhile.  I really can’t take the language of religious jihad any more. I’m going to start out with some sane people for a change. I’ve been dealing with religious nuts since the 1980s and it’s making me depressed frankly.  At least every one else knows about them now.

Maryland is going to be the next state to recognize gay marriages. A bill was approved by the Senate and goes to the Governor for signature.

The final vote by the state Senate ended a yearlong drama in Annapolis over the legislation, and marked the first time an East Coast state south of the Mason-Dixon line has supported gay nuptials.

With the vote, the measure moves to Gov. Martin O’Malley (D), who has said he will sign it.

Maryland would join the District and seven states in allowing same-sex marriages. Supporters have cast the bill as a major advance in equal rights. Opponents have called it a misguided attempt to redefine the institution of marriage.

Despite one of the largest Democratic majorities in any state legislature, backers of gay marriage in Maryland had to overcome fierce opposition from blocks of African American lawmakers and those with strong Catholic and evangelical views to cobble together coalitions big enough to pass both chambers.

Here’s some really interesting academic research from folks at UMass-Boston that shows that the increase in household debt isn’t because of undisciplined spending.  This comes from a guest post by JW Mason at Rortybomb and it’s very interesting.  Nice to see some one did the math and didn’t rely on tired Puritan stereotypes.  The reason is that key interest rates have been high, stayed high, gone higher. Also, flow of funds to households via savings and income increases have decreased while prices have not decreased.  Some prices on key household expenditures have increased.  So, the leverage increase has come more from the nature of already present debt.

First, as a historical matter, you cannot understand the changes in private sector leverage over the 20th century without explicitly accounting for debt dynamics. The tendency to treat changes in debt ratios as necessarily the result in changes in borrowing behavior obscures the most important factors in the evolution of leverage. Second, going forward, it seems unlikely that households can sustain large enough primary deficits to reduce or even stabilize leverage. Even the very large surpluses of 2006-2011 would not have brought down leverage at all in the absence of the upsurge in defaults; and in the absence of large federal deficits and an improving trade balance the outcome would have been even worse since reductions in household expenditure would have reduced aggregate income.  As a practical matter, it seems clear that, just as the rise in leverage was not the result of more borrowing, any reduction in leverage will not come about through less borrowing. To substantially reduce household debt will require some combination of financial repression to hold interest rates below growth rates for an extended period, and larger-scale and more systematic debt write-downs.

Farakh Shahzad has written a compelling article in Pakistan Today explaining why Gender Equality is an economic necessity.

Keeping in view the 51 per cent of the total population, it is a smart economics to ensure gender equality as a guarantee towards economic self reliance. By neglecting majority of the segment from the economic mainstream cannot produce better economic outcomes in this generation and the future. Social scientists are unanimous that implementation of gender equality has the potential and dynamics to double the GDP from four to eight per cent that is no less achievement in the current global scenario. For that matter, all you have to do is change the centuries old social misperceptions ingrained in the society. It is an undeniable fact that women in Pakistan remain at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder.

Femininity is measured to be the essential concern in the process of socio-economic infrastructure development. Therefore, investment in women’s empowerment in Pakistan is the key factor in improving the economic, political and social conditions in Pakistan. Hence, decision making processes for women empowerment; valuation planning and policy formulation should emphasis on main streaming gender equality around Pakistan.

Women empowerment is not limited to control over imitation or financial freedom only, rather it is a grouping of literacy, employment and health. Women empowerment is an important and functional concept in the development of a community as it represents women as active agents rather than inactive recipients of development policies …

Yup. It’s something they’ve noticed in all microfinance development strategies.  Giving women ways to earn a decent living for their families and all kinds of things improve.  But, it seems everywhere, there’s a back lash from hyperpatriarchal men.   Women across the MENA regions–including Tunisia and Egypt–are taking stock of their rights.  A series of protests and conferences are being held to ensure that the Arab Spring does not result in losses in human  rights or women’s rights.

Perhaps one of the most important questions for women in the Arab Spring region is: Has women’s involvement in bringing change to Tunisia and Egypt been undervalued?

“The March 8th call brought a few hundred women to the streets, [which is] nowhere near a million. This was not unexpected…,” revealed Egyptian author and Cairo University professor Dr. Hoda Elsadda in her latest book published by The Global Fund, “Telling Our Stories: Women’s Voices from the Middle East and North Africa,” a collection of articles that have gone deep to describe conditions for women on-the-ground in the region.

“… it was extremely unrealistic to imagine that the first sparks of a popular revolution would bring about overnight a radical transfor- mation in cultural attitudes towards women’s rights,” Elsadda continued. In January 2012 Elsadda was recently placed on the shortlist for her outstanding depth of writing by the Arabic Booker Prize. Her efforts to portray the real life and tone of Egypt have been outstanding.

“…What came as a surprise and a real shock, however, was the marked hostility and violence unleashed against women protesters who were harassed and shouted at by groups of men who encircled them,” Elsadda outlined in her book. “Egyptian women took to the streets to celebrate International Women’s Day [last year], in response to a call that was sent out on Facebook for a million women’s march.”.

Conditions for women in Tunisia have shown promise. “After 1956, we were given almost all the rights French women had,” said Staieb-Koepp during the Global Fund for Women event. “You can have an abortion, you can divorce… [even though] there has never been a very strong movement to get these rights,” she continued.

But Sraieb-Koepp also went on to convey that she worries that if Tunisian women are not especially aware, their rights could be taken away. According to Sraieb-Koepp Islamic fundamentalists in Tunisia are now arguing one of the best ways to cope with unemployment is to “keep women at home.”

While Tunisia and Egypt have different histories, Sraieb-Koepp sees the fate of women in both countries to be very similar, “…it is basically the same experience as [in] Egypt. Women took over the civil society activism and men were drawn to politics,” she added.

Okay, so I’ve saved one Alternet article for last because it’s title is this: The Republican Brain: Why Even Educated Conservatives Deny Science — and Reality.  The subheading reads: “New research shows that conservatives who consider themselves well-informed and educated are also deeper in denial about issues like global warming”.  I’ve often wondered how so many folks seem to completely ignore all kinds of things to hold some stupid ideas. This comes from an excerpt of an upcoming Chris Mooney book.  This section was inspired by a Pew Poll on global warming and the impact scientific data has on various people.

Buried in the Pew report was a little chart showing the relationship between one’s political party affiliation, one’s acceptance that humans are causing global warming, and one’s level of education. And here’s the mind-blowing surprise: For Republicans, having a college degree didn’t appear to make one any more open to what scientists have to say. On the contrary, better-educated Republicans were more skepticalof modern climate science than their less educated brethren. Only 19 percent of college-educated Republicans agreed that the planet is warming due to human actions, versus 31 percent of non-college-educated Republicans.

For Democrats and Independents, the opposite was the case. More education correlated with being more accepting of climate science—among Democrats, dramatically so. The difference in acceptance between more and less educated Democrats was 23 percentage points.

This was my first encounter with what I now like to call the “smart idiots” effect: The fact that politically sophisticated or knowledgeable people are often more biased, and less persuadable, than the ignorant. It’s a reality that generates endless frustration for many scientists—and indeed, for many well-educated, reasonable people.

And, of course, The Lorax is just one step in the indoctrination process to convince children that “industrialization is bad”.  I guess teh evil is no long Winky Tink or the Muppets.  It’s Doctor Seuss. Yes, Lou Dobbs at Fox has declared a war on Dr. Seuss.

On his Tuesday night show, Dobbs trashed the upcoming kids movies The Lorax and The Secret World Of Arrietty, accusing them of being liberal indoctrination that echoes the messages of Occupy Wall Street and President Obama. Dobbs didn’t appear to care that The Lorax is based on a book from 1971 and Arrietty is based on one from 1952 (and also, y’know, a Japanese film). Either that or the Occupy movement is much older than I thought.
Dobbs played clips from the movies and then drew the parallels.

“So, where have we all heard this before? Occupy Wall Street forever trying to pit the makers against the takers and President Obama repeating that everyone should pay their fair share in dozens of speeches since his State of the Union address last month.”

Guess there’s an occupy your local nursery and I missed the invite.  Yes, the Loras is yet another Kenyan born Muslim that wants to inflict Socialism on your children.

So, how do these people manage to drive and walk in a world with so many imaginary friends and enemies wandering around?  Is it something you have to have a special talent for like seeing dead people?

Anyway, that’s it for me on this Friday morning.  Let’s hear what’s on your reading and blogging list today!

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