The return of the regime changers. Missiles are flying again in Iraq.

“They're trying to kill me," Yossarian told him calmly.
No one's trying to kill you," Clevinger cried.
Then why are they shooting at me?" Yossarian asked.
― Joseph Heller, Catch 22

Pres. Biden and his newly-appointed Sec. of State Anthony Blinken seem bent on pushing the U.S. into a disastrous hot war with Iran. Biden has only been in office a couple of months and already missiles are flying again in Iraq and Syria. 

Yesterday a missile attack in western Iraq led to the death of a U.S. mercenary. 

Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said the contractor “suffered a cardiac episode while sheltering” and died shortly afterward. He said there were no service members injured and all are accounted for. British and Danish troops also are among those stationed at the base. 

The rocket attack was the first since the U.S. struck Iran-aligned militia targets along the Iraq-Syria border last week, killing one militiaman and stoking fears of another cycle of tit-for-tat attacks as happened more than a year ago.  -- AP

Now the Pentagon is surely preparing for another retaliatory move.  

It appears to me that this escalation was intentionally meant to sabotage the resumption of U.S. nuclear weapons talks with Iran. Blinken seems to be another regime-changer in the mold of Hillary Clinton.

All this begs the question, why are U.S. troops and mercs still in Iraq after 17 years, over a million deaths, and $4 trillion in taxpayer money wasted. BTW that's triple the money needed for pandemic and economic recovery. 

We should also remember that amid the fallout of the U.S. drone strike in Baghdad that killed Iran's General Qassem Soleimani a year ago, the Iraqi parliament voted to oust all U.S. troops stationed in their country. Trump's claim on Iraqi oil aside, it now seems like with the current escalation, Iraqis along with all other countries in the Middle East, already ravaged by the global pandemic, face the prospect of being drawn into all-out war again. 

The current escalation dashes the hopes of those who believed that the Democrats' victory would lead to at least a temporary halt to our failed imperialist adventures in the region and to the possibility of bringing our troops home and out of harm's way.

They should have known better. 

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

 

Tim Miller

 CPAC Was the Real Republican Party All Along. -- The Bulwark

Sarah Jones

Schools need to reopen, but the process is complicated by problems created by years of underfunding, not by teachers unions. -- New York Magazine

Tim Cadogan, GoFundMe C.E.O.

  “This is a war against a virus...If this were a war against another country at this scale, it would be no question what we would do, right? We would mobilize our society to defeat it.” -- New York Times

King James responds to Zlatan

"I’ll use my platform to continue to shed light on everything that’s going on around this country and around the world. There’s no way I would ever just stick to sports because I understand how powerful this platform and my voice are.” -- Sportsnet

Gross. Mike Pompeo at CPAC, brags about under Trump, they used “beautiful tomahawk missiles” to bomb Syria. MISSILES ARE NOT BEAUTIFUL! They are killing machines.

— Medea Benjamin (@medeabenjamin) February 27, 2021

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

This, in the era of mass school shootings...

Trump Junior

Donald Trump Jr. Rips Teachers Unions In Front Of A Gun Wall.

"The teachers' unions are out of control & are destroying our kid’s futures." -- Huffington 

 U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres

“White supremacy and neo-Nazi movements are more than domestic terror threats. They are becoming a transnational threat." -- Addressing U.N. Human Rights Council

Simon Tisdall on Iran nuclear agreement

Biden’s instinct to try to break this impasse and find a diplomatic way through – supported by the UK, Germany and France – is the right one. But words are not enough. As a sign of good faith, he should swiftly relax some sanctions and unfreeze Iran’s Covid-related $5bn IMF loan request. -- Guardian

 Yuh-Line Niou, a Democrat who represents New York City's Chinatown 

“They are all calling me asking me, 'How do I get this vaccine? What’s going on?' Then they will ask me, 'Hey, can you translate this site for me?'” -- USA Today 

 Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus 

“We can’t let one or two Democrats prevent the $15 minimum wage from being in the relief bill. It’s bad politics and bad policy.” -- The Hill

Talk about being anti-science. Now we assassinate scientists.

 

Well, at least now we know what Sec. of State Mike Pompeo and  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were secretly meeting about last week in Saudi Arabia. They were planning the assassination of another Iranian nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.   

Remember, Israeli Mossad agents assassinated a half-dozen Iranian nuclear scientists from 2010 to 2012. Then, in January, Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani, in violation of international law, claiming that the killing would "stop a war, not start one." Soleimani's murder occurred during the 2019–20 Persian Gulf crisis, which began after the U.S. withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran in 2018.

The difference this time is that there's little pretense about stopping a bomb or heading off an Iranian terrorist plot. Fakhrizadeh's killing, only weeks before the Trump/Pompeo gang will be forced to give up the reins of power, was simply a provocation aimed at sabotaging Biden's transition setting back any attempt at restoring the collapsed nuclear deal.

According to the New York Times:

 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, with the support of President Trump, seems intent on scorching the earth to make it harder for any return to diplomacy under President-elect Joe Biden.

Trump, in fact, appears to be hoping for retaliation from Iranian leaders which could then escalate the crisis and leave Joe Biden with a war on his hands when he takes over on January 20th. The Republicans' goal is to weaken Sec. of State Anthony Blinken's ability to negotiate a new nuclear agreement. 

Biden is already committed to reopening talks with Iran along with his European partners. Iran has said repeatedly that it would go back into full compliance with the nuclear agreement if the Biden administration agrees to do the same and lifts the onerous sanctions piled on by President Trump.

This latest provocation was predictable. Some even earlier expressed fears that a new attack on Iran would be used by Trump to use war-time powers to put off the election. Obviously, that was just a pipedream. 

Iran’s response to Soleimani’s killing was limited to a dozen missiles fired against two U.S. bases in Iraq. The hope is now that Iranian leaders will see the Trump/Netanyahu plot for what it is and be measured in their response again this time around. 

The story about Iranian election interference is borderline laughable

It looks like a record voter turnout and that could signal a crushing defeat for Trump and his down-ticket Republicans. That is, if all the votes are counted and if millions of voters aren't denied access to the polls (a big IF, I know).

Take North Carolina for instance, where more people have now early-voted than the total number of people who voted for Donald Trump in North Carolina in 2016. Nationwide, nearly 50 million people have already voted, including at least 21.2 million in battleground states

Registered Democrats are outvoting Republicans by a large margin in states that report such data. So Trumpers are resting their hopes on a huge Election Day MAGA turnout. 

But with Election Day only 10 days away, we're seeing a barrage of disinformation from DT's camp about "widespread voter fraud" and "foreign interference" that could tamp down Election Day turnout. This despite evidence coming from FBI director, Christopher Wray that such fraud just doesn't exist. 

The Republicans aim to spread last-minute chaos and confusion like they did in 2016 with then-Director James Comey's last-minute "expose" of Hillary Clinton's emails. All this to discourage an anticipated huge voter turnout. They know that the larger the turnout, the more likely a Democratic sweep.

Watch as...

MSNBC's Hallie Jackson cuts short interview with Trump spox Hogan Gidley after he peddles conspiracies about widespread voter fraud and then deflects when asked if Trump has confidence in his FBI director.

"Nope, okay, I guess you're not gonna answer that question then..." pic.twitter.com/NjzJs83cRB

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) October 22, 2020

With the voter-fraud conspiracy theories now largely debunked, the next phase of the disinformation campaign points the finger at "foreign interference." Actually, this is coming from both camps with Democrats are pointing once again at Russia while Trumpers at Iran. I don't doubt that there are efforts by foreign intelligence agencies to influence the outcome, one way or the other. But it's doubtful that these attempts will bear fruit.

United States national security officials said that Iran and Russia had obtained American voter registration data, and that Iran had used the information to send threatening, faked emails to voters. -- New York Times

But the current wave of hysteria about Iranian interference is almost laughable. With DT threatening to fire Wray and Atty. Gen. Wm. Barr unless they do something big at the last minute to help turn the election, the best they could come up with was an alleged Iranian scheme to send threatening emails, supposedly from the Proud Boys, to potential Democratic voters, warning us not to vote, "or else."

John Ratcliffe 

So it was left up to John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence, to sound the alarm. 

From NYT:

 ...spoofed emails, sent to Democratic voters, purported to be from pro-Trump far-right groups, including the Proud Boys. Iranian hackers tried to cover their tracks, intelligence and security officials said, first routing the emails through a compromised Saudi insurance company network. Later, they sent more than 1,500 emails using the website of an Estonian textbook company, according to an analysis by researchers at Proofpoint, a cybersecurity firm.

I mean, really? 1,500 emails? Anybody you know get one?

Sorry, I didn't mean to laugh but the thought of some Iranian hackers sitting in a room somewhere, thinking they could swing the election by trying to sound like American Proud Boys, and sending a tiny group of emails to us via Estonia, strikes me as funny. 

My take: If it's voting disinformation you're looking for, look no farther than the White House Communications Dept. 

New tactics called for in these difficult times

Homeless families threatened by coronavirus occupy vacant houses in southern California. 

"This is our moment to prove ourselves and a nation that, in Chicago, we may get bent, but we will never be broken." -- Mayor Lori Lightfoot

Brother Fred and I should be back on the air with Hitting Left by March 27th. Of course, we'll be doing the show from our respective homes so long as this sheltering-in-place (or as I call it, house arrest) remains in effect.

I understand, support, and am complying with the extreme measures called for here in Chicago by Gov. Pritzker and Mayor Lightfoot, necessary for containing COVID-19. But I worry about the unintended consequences and what the new, rapidly-changing conditions mean for us activists and organizers. The victories by Democratic Party centrist Joe Biden over Bernie Sanders in the primaries have progressives looking at new organizing and electoral tactics.

The collapse of the global economy could be catastrophic and will likely cause the death of nearly as many people as the virus itself, especially among the most vulnerable populations throughout the world and people currently incarcerated here in our jails, prisons, and immigrant detention facilities.

These consequences are exacerbated by the Trump gang's misleadership, political opportunism, racism, and propensity towards profiteering from the crisis. In January, millionaire Republican Senators Burr & Loeffler were given a briefing by Trump officials about the COVID threat. Then, as Trump was downplaying the risks, they dumped their stocks before the catastrophic market crash. And they weren't the only ones taking advantage of insider trading.

While some form of bailout may be necessary, it should be targetted at helping those most in need with controls in place on how that money is spent. One of the reasons industries are so short on cash right now is that they have spent billions in past bailout money, buying back their own stocks instead of investing in their workers or preparing for difficult times like these.

I'm also worried about Trump using the crisis as an excuse to suspend democratic rights, grab more power for himself, launch a war against Iran or other perceived enemies, and even canceling the November elections if it looks bad for him and the Republicans.

Some good news coming out of China where Wuhan officials have reported three straight days with no new COVID cases. Whether you believe these reports or not, it's clear that in China and South Korea, the virus now seems under control. Businesses are reopening, including American-owned companies like Apple stores. Apple just reopened 42 of them in China, while at the same time, closing all of its stores in the U.S. and Italy.

Trump and the Republicans, on the other hand (joined at times by leading Democrats), are continuing their anti-China polemics, even referring to COVID as the "China Virus." When asked to explain, Trump said, it was because the virus "originated in China." His explanation had some on Twitter referring to him as Buick Skylark and Motel 6.

Yes, humor, even dark humor, will help us survive all this.

But while Cold War and racist, anti-foreigner politics rule the WH, China and other countries continue to make progress against the disease. Chinese and Cuban doctors have been in Iran, Italy, and Venezuela recently, where they have offered their services and expertise. They have reportedly developed medical treatments that lower the fatality and suffering rates for those afflicted with COVID19, and are distributing them – without any patent or profit – to those in need. Iran and Venezuela are countries to whom the IMF has refused to offer loans under pressure from U.S.-imposed sanctions.

In Iran alone, the COVID death toll could rise to 3.5 million. But the U.S. has announced that it will be expanding its inhuman sanctions anyway.

Now, the epidemiologist who helped eradicate smallpox is calling Trump’s early handling of COVID-19 is "the most irresponsible act of an elected official that I've ever witnessed in my lifetime.”

Among the other unintended consequences...Hundreds of American troops are being withdrawn from Iraq in part over the coronavirus. And mother Earth is getting a breather from air pollution demonstrating the importance of and what's possible with a Green New Deal.

More good news... People here are creatively developing new ways to resist, carrying on political campaigns and where necessary, using Occupy tactics and other forms of direct action to support the homeless.

These new tactics for organizing, including a review of the March 18th NY Times piece by Astead Herndon, Progressive Ideas Remain Popular. Progressive Presidential Candidates Are Losing. Why?" will be food for our discussion on our upcoming Hitting Left shows.

Tune in on Fridays at 11a.m. CDT at WLPN 105.5 FM in Chicago or on livestream at lumpenradio.com.

Klobuchar was the worst of the six.

"And then when it comes to Iraq, right now, I would leave our troops there, despite the mess that has been created by Donald Trump." -- Amy Klobuchar at Des Moines debate.

Of the six candidates on stage in Des Moines Tuesday night, Amy Klobuchar was by far, the worst.

She outflanked the others on the right on nearly every issue, from war to the economy, to the environment. She doesn't support a wealth tax or Medicare for all, tuition-free K-16 public ed, and if elected, won't repeal Trump’s tax break for the rich.

She wants to keep troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and keep nuclear weapons in southern Turkey. She defended the assassination of Gen. Soleimani. She's a big fan of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians and says that as president, she would "bring in American support again in a big way for Israel." She wants to keep the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem and leave in place the Trump administration’s policies on Israeli settlements.

And on it goes.

In other words, Klobuchar represents a wing of the Democratic Party that stands in direct opposition to progressives like Sanders and Warren on most of the fundamental issues.

She even slams Warren personally for being "too wonky."

So my question is, why would Elizabeth Warren decide to block with Klobuchar against Sanders Tuesday night? Was it just to score a few quick points against her long-time political ally in order to supplant him as the current progressive frontrunner? Was it simply an act of retaliation for Sanders' alleged "a woman can't win" comment in a private conversation? If so, it failed badly. It was a short-sighted, opportunist move that will divide the progressive wing of the party and will likely hurt mainly her as well as Sanders' chances of winning the nomination.

I hope not.

Complicit Democrats can redeem themselves on Iran war budget vote

Senators Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna push anti-war legislation

"Every member of Congress who voted to give the most corrupt, unhinged, and unstable president in history $738 billion to fight endless wars...must never tell us that we cannot afford Medicare for All or a Green New Deal." -- Warren Gunnels, Sanders senior adviser

Despite their claims that congress wasn't consulted in advance of the latest U.S. aggressive moves against Iran, Democrats had a chance to make their voices heard. Instead, they are in many ways complicit.

For one thing, they passed on chances to constrain military aggression against Iran in the recent Pentagon budget debate. Only 41 House Democrats, voted against the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which increased the Pentagon budget by $22 billion, including billions for Trump's bogus Space Force. The final vote was 377-48. Democrats voted overwhelmingly for passage without any restrictions on the use of funds in a war with Iran.

One of the omitted amendments in the annual National Defense Authorization Act, sponsored by Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Matt Gaetz (R-FL), would have barred Trump from using federal dollars for military action against Iran without congressional approval. Although the measure was included in an earlier draft of the NDAA, it was later stripped out in the compromise version that Democrats voted for anyway.

Khanna, one of the members who vocally opposed the NDAA in December, argued that his amendment would have prevented the US from using government funds to conduct the strike against Soleimani. Whether his claim is real or not remains a question, given Trump’s potential for ignoring Congress and violating the Constitution.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) also sought to include an amendment in the NDAA that would limit the 2001 Authorization of Use of Military Force (AUMF), which permits the president to take action against anyone responsible for or associated with the 9/11 terrorist attacks, arguing that it was too broad. Administrations have since used the AUMF to wage military action across the Middle East, efforts that have been seen as further expanding the executive branch’s war powers.

More than 30 progressive and anti-war organizations — including MoveOn and Indivisible — expressed disagreement with the bill, too. “It is a blank check for endless wars, fuel for the further militarization of US foreign policy, and a gift to Donald Trump,” they wrote in their December statement.

On Sunday, Trump warned Iranian leaders against any military retaliation by boasting on Twitter that,

“The United States just spent Two Trillion Dollars on Military Equipment” and that if necessary he would use it to hit Iran “very fast and very hard.”

The $1.4 trillion spending deal for 2020 that became law in December includes about $695 billion for the Pentagon, an increase of about $19 billion from the 2019 level.

But Democrats still have a chance to redeem themselves in an effort to prevent all-out war with Iran by supporting a House bill introduced by Lee and Rep. Ilhan Omar and a Senate bill sponsored by Khanna and Bernie Sanders that would block funding for any military action "in or against Iran" without congressional authorization.

We should be watching closely and taking names on who votes which way.

🚨@SpeakerPelosi announced: This week, the House will vote on a #WarPowers Resolution to limit the President’s military actions regarding Iran. pic.twitter.com/gBH6WOy07A

— Christine Pelosi (@sfpelosi) January 6, 2020

.@RepBarbaraLee and I are introducing a War Powers Resolution in the House to prevent a disastrous war with Iran.

We in Congress must reassert our Constitutional authority and stop a disastrous war.

The stakes could not be higher.
#NoWarWithIran https://t.co/UXpKdbfk4R

— Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) January 5, 2020

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Evangelical Trump supporters at Miami rally, "He was sent to us."

Donald Trump

"God is on our side." -- N.Y. Times

Rep. Ilhan Omar

“‪Let’s not mince words: the assassination of Qasem Soleimani was an act of war undertaken without Congressional authorization, in violation of the Constitution of the United States of America. We in Congress must exercise our Constitutional duty—and do everything in our power to stop another disastrous war. ” -- Press Release

Adel Abdul Mahdi, Prime Minister of Iraq

Adel Abdul Mahdi recommended that the government establish a timetable for the departure of foreign troops, including the members of the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State militant group, “for the sake of our national sovereignty.”

“What happened was a political assassination,” Abdul Mahdi said. -- Washington Post

Sec. of State Mike Pompeo

Iraqis — Iraqis — dancing in the street for freedom; thankful that General Soleimani is no more. -- Twitter

Trump's Orwellian doublespeak on Iran attack

“War is peace/freedom is slavery/ ignorance is strength.” -- George Orwell's "1984"

Trump, the master of Orwellian doublespeak, claims that he assassinated leader, Gen. Soleimani in order to "stop a war, not to start one." But as a result of the attack, a new stage in the continuing and escalating "eternal war" in the middle east now seems inevitable.

Trump has now committed 3,000 more troops to Iraq and there's already been a second U.S. airstrike, this one against an Iraqi military convoy, yesterday. Trump's latest war provocation is not just directed against Iran, but against the Iraqi coalition government as well. Iraqi prime minister, Adel Abdul Mahdi, is moving ahead with legislation calling on all American troops to withdraw to leave the country.

For me, the most stunning part of all this has been the bipartisan cheering for the assassination of a foreign leader (where do they think that will lead?) and especially the wishy-washy response on the part of the Democratic Party leadership to Trump's war provocation. I shouldn't be surprised really, given how many Dems signed on to Bush's invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Chief among the assassination cheerleaders was, of course, Joe Biden.

"No American will mourn Qassem Soleimani's passing. He deserved to be brought to justice for his crimes against American troops and thousands of innocents throughout the region."

Nancy Pelosi's only issue seems to be Trump's failure to consult Congress first. It's a good issue but I wonder how Dems would have voted if he had. Didn’t they just vote with Republicans to approve the $1.48 trillion Pentagon war budget?

I'm pissed at Elizabeth Warren -- who until this week was one of my presidential faves -- after her initial response to Soleimani's killing echoed Trump's doublespeak. While Cory Booker was on CNN, justifying the assassination of Suleimani "as a bad man from a dangerous regime" at the same time expressing "concern" about the war, Warren was on Twitter doing the same.

Soleimani was a murderer, responsible for the deaths of thousands, including hundreds of Americans. But this reckless move escalates the situation with Iran and increases the likelihood of more deaths and new Middle East conflict. Our priority must be to avoid another costly war.

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) January 3, 2020

Yes, costly indeed. It took two or three more tries for her to come out with a clear statement opposing war with Iran.

Empty suit, Pete Buttigieg...

"The top priority of a Commander-in-Chief must be to protect Americans and our national security interests. There is no question that Qassim Suleimani was a threat to that safety and security, and that he masterminded threats and attacks on Americans and our allies, leading to hundreds of deaths. But there are serious questions about how this decision was made and whether we are prepared for the consequences."

As those who follow me on Twitter know, I've been tweeting about little else since the killing of Soleimani. One of my posts had to to with regime-change policy architect Hillary Clinton's threat to "obliterate Iran" in response to an attack on Israel. The genocidal language sickened me back in '08 when she was running for president against Barack Obama. and in many ways set the stage for Trumpian war talk today.

I was expecting strong pushback on this from the right and pro-Israel trolls. But the only negative reaction I got was from left/liberal think-tanker and former N.Y. teacher union leader, Leo Casey who accused me of buying "the Gleen Greenwald-Matt Tiabi line on how Clinton would take us to war, while Trump would give us peace?" Whatever the hell that means.

Of course, I never said any of that.

As expected, Bernie Sanders broke from the party line and was strong and clear from the start.

I am introducing a bill with Rep. Khanna to stop Donald Trump from illegally taking us to war against Iran.

It's working-class kids who will have to fight and die in a disastrous new Middle East conflict—not the children of billionaires. https://t.co/H6ZHjijCnj

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) January 4, 2020

Enough talk. Time for action. The family and I are about to head downtown to join Chicago's anti-war marchers. I hope to see you down there or wherever you are marching today.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unveiled a plaque marking the location of the newest settlement in the Golan Heights on Sunday.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez 

"Mr. President, you're from Queens. You may fool the rest of the country, but I'll call your bluff any day of the week."  -- Newsweek

D.T.

"There's never been a time in the history of our country where somebody was so mistreated as I have been." -- Interview with George Stephanopoulos

Eliot Higgins, of the investigative group, BellingCat

While we cannot be sure whether this is a Gulf of Tonkin-style incident, we can say for certain this is not the slam-dunk evidence that some would like to claim it is. -- New York Times

Baltimore police Sgt. Ethan Newberg

After more officers arrived, Dotson struggled with the sequence of events and asked why he was being taken to jail. “Just go to jail and take your charge like a man,” Newberg called out. -- Washington Post

Political analyst Don Rose

 As we approach next week's Democratic debates, recent polling shows that despite Joe Biden's consistent double-digit lead, a majority of Democratic voters prefers a clear-cut progressive rather than a mainstream, institutional liberal candidate as personified by the former veep. -- Chicago Daily Observer 

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Harold Washington and David Orr circa 1983

David Orr's letter to Harold Washington

You always said that Burke played the race card, while Fast Eddie was more about power. I know you’ll never forget the dirty deeds Burke did to you during Council Wars. It ticks me off that they held the city back during Council Wars, but you’re smiling and we’re finally going to get some justice. -- Sun-Times

John Bolton: "Bomb, bomb Iran".

Former U.S. Admin. Official

“It definitely rattled people. People were shocked. It was mind-boggling how cavalier they were about hitting Iran.” -Wall St. Journal

Guardian Opinion

 Above all, the teacher revolt expresses a rejection of the austerity and privatization agenda pushed by both Democrats and Republicans, particularly since the Great Recession. -- LA's teachers can teach the working class about the power of labor strikes

#SAGAFTRA - We’re wearing #Red4Ed to stand in strong #solidarity w/ our sisters & brothers @UTLAnow. Dignity & respect for educators is fundamental to student success! When we stand together, we win! #UTLAstrong join a picket line here: https://t.co/6R5D13SEgW @UTLAnow #SagAftra pic.twitter.com/MLaCMHmw6v

— Nancy Sinatra (@NancySinatra) January 11, 2019

Unlike a Rolling Stone...

Rolling Stone Magazine is pissing in the wind with their endorsement of Hillary Clinton. I doubt if many millennials among their readership base are buying. They just don't think another war hawk in the White House bodes well for their future. Neither do I.

Matt Taibbi writes in response to RS:

Hillary not only voted for the Iraq War, but offered a succession of ridiculous excuses for her vote. Remember, this was one of the easiest calls ever. A child could see that the Bush administration's fairy tales about WMDs and Iraqi drones spraying poison over the capital (where were they going to launch from, Martha's Vineyard?) were just that, fairy tales. 

Yet Hillary voted for the invasion for the same reason many other mainstream Democrats did: They didn't want to be tagged as McGovernite peaceniks. The new Democratic Party refused to be seen as being too antiwar, even at the cost of supporting a wrong one.

Kevin Drum, writing in Mother Jones, responds to Taibi with a pitifully weak -- she's not that bad --defense of Hillary. He even makes this concession:

On a policy level, I don't get the sense that her foreign policy instincts have changed much based on events since 9/11, and that's by far my biggest complaint about her. Finally, I'm not thrilled with political dynasties.

 The Iraq invasion: This one is totally fair. Hillary did support the invasion, and it was the wrong call. What's more, this is a good proxy for her general hawkishness, which is her weakest point among millennials and her weakest point among an awful lot of older voters too.

 Put this all together and here's what you get. Hillary's instincts on national security are troublesome. If that's a prime issue for you, then you should vote against her. 

Thanks Kevin. I already have.

Whose idea was this?

But it's not just about Hillary's foreign policy, ie. her support for the Iraq war; her prime role in the destruction of Libya as a viable state; her stated willingness to use nuclear weapons against Iran; her out-Trumping Trump in her pandering AIPAC speech; or the lunacy her policies helped create in Syria where forces backed by the CIA and battling forces backed by the Pentagon, that leaves me Hillary-horrified.

Unlike Drum, I can't separate foreign policy from domestic.

The toll of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the longest in modern history, in terms of blood and (at least $4 trillion) in treasury is unfathomable. Our inability to disengage in the slaughter, now called the eternal "war on terrorism", has not only brought that war home, but precipitated the massive structural imbalance in the U.S. and global economies, including the financial collapse, the great recession, bankruptcy of our public school systems, and steady downward pressure on wages and living standards.

As we learned during the Vietnam war, you can't have guns and butter both. Certainly not without an accompanying lost of freedom and civil liberties.

Hey Spike. Why not name the film, 'ChiRahm'?

The city has recorded 355 shootings this year as of Monday compared with 253 shootings for the first quarter of 2014, according to crime statistics released by the Chicago Police Department on Wednesday. Eighty murders were recorded in the first quarter of 2015. There were 62 in the same period last year. -- USA Today

But it was clear that the mayor was none too pleased. If he wants to press the issue, Emanuel could use the Hollywood pipeline provided by his brother, super-agent Ari Emanuel, to make his feelings known to Spike Lee. -- Sun-Times

Yes, Spike Lee is naming his new movie "Chiraq". That is, unless Mayor Rahm Emanuel calls brother Ari, out in Beverly Hills and asks him to pressure Spike otherwise.

Rahm calls Ari: "Hey bro, it's Rahmbo. I need you to put an arm on Spike Lee. He's naming his next film, 'Chirac' and that's going to scare tourists away."
Ari: "I'm on it little brother. He'll change the name or he'll be through in this town. He'll never set foot in Nate & Al's deli again."

Let's see how that works.

The mayor is pissed at Spike. He's afraid the word "Chiraq" will conjure up an unfair image of HIS city. Scare off potential visitors who might mistakenly think Chicago is a city where shootings are up by 40%  and homicides 26%  over a year ago. How silly of them!

He also calls on his pal, Sen. Double D to spread the good news:

“There’s no question that Chicago, as most cities, has its share of violence, but the honest answer is we’ve seen a decline in the numbers. . . . So I hope this is not creating an image of the city that is unfair.” -- Sen. Dick Durbin

Sen. Durbin and Sen. Kirk

Remember when Double D stood next to his buddy, Republican Sen. Kirk who called for the rounding up and jailing of 18,000 black men as a way to cut into Chicago's crime rate?

Then Rahm drudges up one of his city council puppy dogs, Ald. Anthony Beale (9th), to carry his water on this one. Beale tells the Sun-Times:

“We’re trying to attract tourism. We’re bringing jobs in to Chicago. The city is growing. We’re trying to promote the good things in this city every single day. To highlight the problems we’re having with that type of name is an insult.” 

Yes, Beale is so concerned with Spike Lee's threat to tourism that he doesn't mention the hundreds who have fallen victim to the city's pandemic gun violence, mostly black and Hispanic men between 20 and 35, many in Beale's own ward.

Beale says he also has a problem with the Constitution. Fran Spielman asks him: "What about the 1st Amendment?"

“Freedom of expression still does not mean you can insult the people of this city,” says Beale.

Rahm & Ald. Beale

He obviously never passed his high school civics class thereby making him extra-qualified to become a Chicago alderman..

I'm happy that Spike Lee is making his movie here and shining another light on the horrific conditions of violence and joblessness, especially for black and Latino youth in the city's neighborhoods. I predict filming it here will be great for tourism. It will also provide some jobs for lots of black actors and those working behind the cameras.

My problem with the name "Chiraq" is that may reflect badly on Iraq. It has been pointed out that young African-American men are statistically safer in Baghdad or Kabul then they are on the streets of Chicago.

I'm suggesting that Spike name the film, "ChiRahm" instead of "Chiraq". But I'm guessing he will tell me the same thing he tells Rahm and Ari.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES:

Fred Shavies

"That’s our Birmingham. So, twenty years from now this movement could be the turning point, the tipping point, right. It’s about time your generation stood up for something. It’s about time young people are in the streets. [...] Ya’ll don’t need to throw gas canisters into a group of people occupying an intersection."  -- Undercover Cop At Occupy Oakland Condemns Police Brutality

Mitt Romney

“Sometimes you wonder, would there be someway to introduce some private sector competition, somebody else that could come in and say, you know, each soldier gets X thousand dollars attributed to them and then they can choose whether they want to go on the government system or the private system and then it follows them, like what happens with schools in Florida where they have a voucher that follows them.” -- TPM

How He made his millions

“Millions for me, a pink slip for thee,” is the playbook of many private equity firms, and Romney was one of their savviest players. -- Columnist Robyn Blumner

Rick Perry

“I will defend waterboarding until I die.” -- At Republican debate

Michelle Bachmann

"America Should Be Less Socialist… Like China." -- TPM

Election banter

McCain’s surge…

From Frank Rich in NYT

It was laughable to watchjournalists stamp their feet last week to try to push Mr. Obama into sayinghe was “wrong” about the surge. More than five years and 4,100 American fatalities later, they’re still not demanding that Mr. McCain admit he was wrong when he assured us that our adventure in Iraq would be fast, produce little American “bloodletting” and “be paid for by the Iraqis.”

Even Brooks sees it…

In an otherwise insidious column on education, or as he calls it “human capital development,” conservative wing-nut David Brooks can’t help notice that his boy John McCain has nothing to contribute to the discussion.

If you look at Barack Obama’s education proposals — especially his emphasis on early childhood — you see that they flow naturally and persuasively from this research. (It probably helps that Obama and [University of Chicago researcher James] Heckman are nearly neighbors in Chicago). McCain’s policies seem largely oblivious to these findings. There’s some vague talk about school choice, but Republicans are inept when talking about human capital policies.

Inept? Geez, that’s mostly all they talk about. I mean who else views humans simply as capital?

So much for McCain’s solution to the energy crisis…

Chicago Tribune:

Stevens is the single most prominent advocate of oil drilling in protected areas, and charges that he took more than a quarter-million dollars worth of unreported gifts from oil services contractor Veco Corp. and its executives will play right into Democratic efforts to paint Republicans as a party captive to Big Oil.

Jed Report:

John McCain planned to visit a New Orleans area offshore oil rig...but suddenly canceled, blaming the weather. But it turns out that today it is 85 degrees and sunnypartly cloudly. Perhaps the fact that a huge oil spill has contaminated the New Orleans water supply and closed the Mississippi River has more to do with McCain's quick turnabout?

Russo’s backdoor pitch to stay home on election day

Electing more Democrats in November will create as many problems as it solves.

What problems are those, Alexander? Did you ever really have any problems with Bush and the neocons? If you did, maybe you should mention them every once in a while between Obama bashes.

Also, why are you still so worked up about the little snub by your anti-diversity soul mate Liam Julian, over at Fordham? Is their something festering beneath the surface that we don’t know about? A quid pro quo, maybe?

A sign of the times

The 800-pound militarization gorilla

The big news story over the weekend was Bush/Cheney apparently changing tactics and for the first time, sending a top diplomat to negotiate with the Iranians. Why the change now--pressure from the Obama campaign and overwhelming response to his speech in Berlin? Could it forestall a missile attack by the Israelis--an attack which would, in the words of UN atomic watchdog chief, Mohamed ElBaradei turn the whole region into "a ball of fire?"

*****

Clues may be found in the ongoing rift between the State and Defense departments, which has apparently been turned upside down. During Bush’s first administration, it was Colin Powell at State half-heartedly trying to put politics and diplomacy in command of U.S. foreign policy while Rumsfeld at Defense was pushing for his department to be the main policy driver and to militarize foreign policy.

Now its Defense Secretary Robert Gates who is talking openly in the Washington Post about “creeping militarization” of foreign policy.

"We cannot kill or capture our way to victory" in the long-term campaign against terrorism, Gates said, arguing that military action should be subordinate to political and economic efforts to undermine extremism… "As a career CIA officer, I watched with some dismay the increasing dominance of the defense 800-pound gorilla in the intelligence arena over years," said Gates.

Is it just me or does this guy sound a lot like Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who in his 1961 farewell presidential address, warned the nation, to no avail, about the emergence of that same “gorilla,” the military-industrial complex?