Link Bundle #4

A computer crash didn't lose all my tabs, so while I'm waiting for my replacement computer, here's me clearing out more tabs with the laptop...

Republicans, when they lose an election, do everything in their power to obstruct the winners. When they win an election, they demand that they be allowed to enact their full agenda without dissent.

Pro-Trump vandalism and terrorism, example Nth.

Charitable giving peaked in 2006. It was never sufficient to meet the needs of the poor and sick. It's even less so now.

One of the reasons Trump won: although Obamacare is better for some than what came before, it's still a crappy system with a LOT of people who lose out because of it. Here's one example.

Don't expect the Israeli peace process to advance one inch while Trump's in power, if this is the kind of diplomat he wants.

Remember: Republicans only support freedom of speech if it's the freedom of straight white Christians to persecute people not of their own kind.

Another example of Republicans eager to block free speech if it challenges white supremacy.

Seriously, Jeff Sessions is so blatant about it that he calls for free speech for conservatives while denouncing blacks attempting to use it... IN THE SAME SPEECH.

This article references Chuck Coulson, the Nixon aide who went to jail as part of Watergate, got religion, and then used his religion to advance the same politics he supported under Nixon. His foundation today is the principal funder of Rev. Donald Wildmon's American Family Association and Bryan Fischer's American Family Radio, with their motto of "muscular Christianity." In the end it's all the same thing: using God's name to justify hate, bigotry, and fear.

Thesis for three books: the single greatest political disaster of America's 20th Century was the day Ford pardoned Nixon. Since then, accountability in high office has been a dead letter, and conservatives have felt no compunctions about breaking both the spirit and letter of the law ever since.

The free market creates poverty traps- in fact it ENCOURAGES poverty traps like, for example, mobile home parks. Only by people working together for a common good, and taking power away from unaccountable landlords, can they reclaim control of their own lives.

Republicans try this every year, because they believe women and children should be property. They also try things like this with much more success.

Tom Price, Trump's secretary of Health and Human Services, wants to make it easier for medical corporations to bankrupt elderly Americans. He also wants to push people out of group employer plans and into more expensive, less comprehensive individual plans, because even voluntary, market-based collective action is intolerable to him when there's medical profits at stake.

Quote:

“No people ever recognize their dictator in advance,” she reflected in 1935. “He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship. He always represents himself as the instrument [of] the Incorporated National Will.” Applying the lesson to the U.S., she wrote, “When our dictator turns up you can depend on it that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American.”

Yet another example of how useless the Democratic Party is, with a quarter of its members in Congress supporting Trump's ignorant nativism. These Congresspeople need to be thrown out.

This cartoon pretty much sums up the modern Democratic Party; ignore or stifle the little people until you need to fundraise.

Reminder: Trump is using the Presidency to add to his personal wealth.

Seriously, a lot. Probably illegally, but Trump and the Republicans control the machinery that would (or won't) prosecute.

After Trump refused to mention Jews in his Holocaust speech, Democrats tried to get Congress to pass a resolution correcting the matter. Republicans blocked it, because they know they need to obey the racists they've been encouraging for forty years.

This is the kind of thing that goes on when a mentally lazy person becomes President.

"Why don't they come here legally?" Because most of them CAN'T.

A reminder that, for all the logjams in Congress, Trump is still making a lot of major changes to America. This is the damage he did in his first two weeks.

OK, time to get back to work...

I repeat: with an ally like this, who needs enemies?

Daniel Larison has an excellent article on the totally one-sided, dysfunctional relationship the United States has with Israel.

I especially like this point, which needs to be made and trumpeted to the skies:

Dependence of one state upon another creates perverse incentives for both. The unconditional backing of one side in a conflict does not encourage compromise but devotion to maximalist positions. Likewise, if a patron receives no reciprocity for its support, only the client state benefits from the relationship, creating an increasingly untenable situation for the patron. Maximalist demands backed by a patron’s support tend to be detrimental even to the client state in the long run—because they shield the client from the consequences of its actions.

In other words, by protecting Israel when its government pisses off the rest of the world through blatantly outlaw behavior, the United States is in the long run weakening Israel. This protection only encourages Israeli governments to become more radical, more intransigent, and more bigoted against Palestinians- and even Arabs with Israeli citizenship. The final result: a government which, without American support and protection, would drown in civil war and invasion from furious neighbors.

And this protection certainly does nothing whatever for the United States, either. Israel has done nothing- absolutely nothing- to help America protect its interests or achieve its goals abroad. Indeed, in one of its main goals- stabilizing the Middle East- Israel has been a consistent and unyielding opponent, continually dispossessing Palestinians of their lands, expanding settlements illegal even by Israeli law, and committing violations of the peace such as the invasion of Lebanon two years ago, the massacres of the recent Gaza assaults, and the Mossad assassination of a Hamas leader in Qatar last month.

Do we gain economic benefits from Israel? No. Granted, we have a large trade surplus with Israel... but this is paid for entirely though American tax dollars, used to fund the single largest foreign aid recipient we have. Israel manufactures virtually nothing, has virtually zero natural resources, and has a labor pool too distant and too expensive to compete with either domestic labor or nations such as China, India or Indonesia.

Military benefits? HA. The very fact that we continue to defend Israel and pay it as much as $4 billion per year in foreign aid makes almost every other nation in the Middle East a default enemy. In order to maintain even minimally friendly relations with those countries willing to talk to us at all, we have to decline all offers of Israeli military support in our wars. Add to this the fact that Israel's intelligence network only shares information with the United States when it serves their own interests, and Israel as a military ally is on a par, in practical terms, with the armed forces of East Timor.

So, from our unique and totally one-sided relationship with Israel, the United States gains absolutely nothing. On the debit side, of course, we pour billions of dollars of money into the Israeli government. We gain the ongoing enmity of virtually the entire Muslim world. We lose diplomatic points with the rest of the world when we protect Israel from its policies of land theft, political imprisonment, and denial of basic civil liberties.

So, in every single practical measurement, the United States relationship with Israel is entirely to our severe DISadvantage.

And Israel, happy in the knowledge that the radical right religious forces in the United States, combined with American Zionists and their own deep-pocketed lobby groups like AIPAC, will keep this relationship comfortably one-sided and unconditional, has absolutely no interest in making things any better for the United States.

Obama of course knows this: that's why, after the initial posturing, he and his White House have shut up about Israel- backing down, yet again, from the shouting of the Republican right and the Israel lobby and their paid mouthpieces.

It's long past time for the United States to give Israel an ultimatum: get serious about peace with the Palestinians, or else lose their foreign aid and UN Security Council veto. Unfortunately, neither party is going to do that- which means, no matter what our own voters do, on foreign policy the President of the United States remains Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Unwanted Return of Cull Day

Too many bookmarks and open browser windows, and I have to shut down the machine come morning to go work at a convention (because that's what I do).

So, I declare today a Cull Day- when I take all the bookmarked stories and stuff I won't be able to make a full-length post on anytime soon, and hand them to you, my handful of readers, with a few personal notes.

Beginning with Rep. Bart Stupak (D in name only-M). One day he claims to anticipate a compromise on his holding out for an amendment to the Senate health care bill to essentially ban all insurance coverage for abortions (so that federal subsidies and tax breaks can't be used to pay for abortions). Today he says there's no compromise in sight, and that he and eleven other Democrats will still vote no on health care over the abortion issue. Well, thank goodness he's getting a serious primary contender... maybe I should send off a campaign donation.

Texas judge rescinds anti-death penalty ruling - See, this is why judges should NOT be elected. At most a recall or retention election might be a good idea... but subjecting the justice system to political pressure, and allowing scum like Goodhair Perry to appeal to the ignorance of the people to threaten the tenure of a sitting judge, is a HORRIBLE way to ensure that justice is done.

Alan Grayson introduces Public Option Act - Why can't I have THIS guy for my representative? Well, besides the fact that he's from Florida. Anyway, it's not even the classic public option- it's literally Medicare For All, except that those under 65 would have to pay premiums if they want in, so that the expansion is revenue-neutral.

Fired Up - Andrew Sullivan is glad to see Obama finally taking his fight for health care reform to the people. I'm not so enthusiastic- mainly because Obama has fought to kill any publicly-funded competition to insurance corporations while doing absolutely nothing to prevent healthcare providers from jacking up their charges once this passes- you know, like they did in Massachusetts, when pretty much an identical health insurance reform was enacted, and health care costs promptly jumped 60% in three years. But more to the point: why, exactly, has Obama remained silent until his cornerstone program was in imminent threat of total collapse?

Creeping Clintonism; Or How Rahm Is A Scaredy-Cat - This time I agree with Sullivan so completely that I have absolutely nothing to add.

The Pro-Israel Lobby And The New Israel - Another Sullivan post- I'll quote my favorite bit here:

Nothing illustrates better the total bizarreness of the US-Israel relationship. No one in Washington - apart from a few Likudniks and Palinite end-timers - actually supports more settlements or any settlements i the West Bank. At the same time, Washington exercizes a UN veto to protect Israel from international law, funnels a vast amount of foreign and military aid to the country, helped finance the pulverization of Gaza last year, provides absurd international cover for Israel's 150 nukes, has worked tirelessly to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear capacity, and on and on.

In return? Fuck you, Obama. To which the overwhelming response in Washington is: Obama screwed up.

Cornyn Pledges GOP Will Run On Repealing Health Care Reform - And this, folks, is why health care reform SHOULD take place IMMEDIATELY... and not be postponed until (under the most current version) 2018, after Obama is long gone. It's almost certain to be repealed by a Republican Congress and a Republican President before then- and there WILL be such a combination, because the health care reform package is going to remain deeply unpopular unless it contains a public option or unless the individual mandate is repealed. Only when (and if- I have the liveliest doubts) the reforms prove their worth in making health care affordable for everyone will they become too popular to repeal... and that won't happen, by DESIGN, for ten years.

GOP Lawyer's Latest Gambit: State Bill That Could Tie Up Health-Care Reform - Nullification lives, despite being quite obviously and blatantly unconstitutional... and can secession be far behind?

Waterboarding for dummies - Yes, despite what we were told, the American version of waterboarding turns out to actually have been MORE cruel than methods used by the Spanish Inquisition, the Imperial Japanese Army in World War II, and the Khmer Rouge. But not to worry, torture advocates- your poster boy's former boss is still on the Supreme Court, still ruling that torture is perfectly legal.

On a similar note, you simply must read this essay by Andrew Sullivan about what torture is doing to our nation. Especially since, despite the uncontested evidence, every door that might lead to justice keeps being slammed shut.

Virginia AG To State Colleges: Scrap Protections For Gay Workers - To explain, a quote:

In a letter to the state's institutions of higher learning, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli argues that the schools lack the legal authority to ban anti-gay discrimination, because only the state legislature can do so, the Washington Post reported over the weekend. That's a step that the GOP-controlled legislature recently declined to take.

Now, in my book this isn't just an order to all the colleges in Virginia to take away protections against discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation. This is, in effect, a direct order to begin/resume discriminating against gays. Cuccinelli is saying that colleges do not have the authority to NOT discriminate. And this is after the newly elected governor of the same state repealed all anti-discrimination protections for homosexuals. Republicans prove themselves once again opponents of freedom and advocates of fear, hatred and evil.

That's all for now- see you all next week.

The Minnesota Crazy Rides Again.

Talking Points Memo's Eric Kleefeld reports on two, count 'em, TWO examples of the shining wisdom of the US Representative for Minnesota's Seventh District, Michele Bachmann.

First, Bachmann actually goes beyond the rest of her party in calling for the complete and total abolition of Social Security and Medicare:

Bachmann spoke this past weekend at the right-wing Constitutional Coalition in St. Louis, Missouri, and put forth her plan. "So, what you have to do, is keep faith with the people that are already in the system, that don't have any other options, we have to keep faith with them. But basically what we have to do is wean everybody else off," said Bachmann. "And wean everybody off because we have to take those unfunded net liabilities off our bank sheet, we can't do it. So we just have to be straight with people. So basically, whoever our nominee is, is going to have to have a Glenn Beck chalkboard and explain to everybody this is the way it is."

And then we find out that Bachmann fears America will be cursed if we don't unquestioningly follow, obey and support Israel...

"I am convinced in my heart and in my mind that if the United States fails to stand with Israel, that is the end of the United States . . . [W]e have to show that we are inextricably entwined, that as a nation we have been blessed because of our relationship with Israel, and if we reject Israel, then there is a curse that comes into play. And my husband and I are both Christians, and we believe very strongly the verse from Genesis [Genesis 12:3], we believe very strongly that nations also receive blessings as they bless Israel. It is a strong and beautiful principle."

With insanity as blatant as this... what can I add?

(Except despair that this woman was actually ELECTED to office...)

Israel- an apartheid state?

Remember when we levied sanctions on South Africa for its racist apartheid regime?

Well, what will we do when Israel institutes it?

Defense Minister Ehud Barak's comments came in an address to a security conference north of Tel Aviv.

. . .

"The simple truth is, if there is one state" including Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, "it will have to be either binational or undemocratic. ... if this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state."

Technically Barak is calling for renewed peace negotiations... but only on Israel's terms, i. e. no ban on continued Israeli settlements in Palestinian lands. This is pretty obviously setting peace talks up to fail, by setting a condition that Israel knows the Palestinian Authority cannot accept.

And let's not forget Avril Lieberman, the openly racist minister of state in Benjamin Netanyahu's government. He's called for the forced expulsion not just of the Palestinians, but of all voting citizens of Israel who aren't Jewish. And Netanyahu himself is a long-time opponent of peace talks and advocate of a "hard line" approach to the Palestinians.

Barring a change in government- which won't happen for at least four more years, which is how long Netanyahu can postpone holding new elections for Parliament- we're either going to see an apartheid Israel...

...or, and I suspect this is much more likely, someone in Netanyahu's government is going to suggest a final solution to the Palestinian problem.

Will we continue to bow and scrape to everything Israel wants when this happens? Or will we, for a change, stand up for the American ideals we claim to believe in- the rule of law, equality, and justice?

Just Too Much to Choose From Today...

Tomorrow's Corn Flake, barring new developments, is going to be a couple weeks old- but you've doubtless heard of him.

For today, though, I'm finding so much relevant news that I just can't pick one story to focus on. This isn't a Cull Day thing- this is just all stuff which I don't want to hold and wait until more stories come out.

For an appetizer, let's start with this story about the United States' carbon emissions dropping in 2006- the first time since 1990 they've dropped, according to preliminary numbers from the US Energy Dept.

Two points to consider, though: (1) Isn't this the same Energy Department run by some guy who used to be an Exxon executive? (2) Isn't it a bit early for George Bush to be crowing about his initiatives (none of which have been enacted that I know of) reducing carbon while emissions continue to rise in Europe... when even his puppet agency claims the reduction is primarily due to lower energy demands caused by a mild winter and summer in 2006? This story, combined with the word "preliminary"- that is, subject to wild and radical change without warning- smells like bullshit to me.

Over to the Levant for the second story: Israel arrests over thirty Hamas leaders, including members of the Palestinian Parliament. Let me get this out on the table now: I support an Israeli state in the Levant. I support its right to exist. I do NOT, however, approve in any way, shape or form of how the government of Israel acts- basically, like a little bully who knows nobody will punish him because his daddy is an even bigger bully. For years now Israel has had it both ways- blame the Palestinian Authority for not enforcing laws against terrorist groups, while at the same time sabotaging every effort the Palestinians make to police their own streets and negotiate with splinter groups to end the ongoing entefada. If Israel isn't going to treat Palestinians as equals, they might as well withdraw recognition of the Palestinian Authority and declare an end to the two-state policy. If, on the other hand, they really do want an independent Palestine, they need to stop doing dumb shit like this crackdown... this crackdown that makes Hamas, people who use Mickey Mouse look-alikes to call for the massacre of everyone who doesn't agree with them, look like the victims.

Back to the USA now: Reports surface showing that George W. Bush was warned- repeatedly- before March 2003 that taking out Saddam would create an incurable quagmire and sectarian civil war in Iraq. The most relevant paragraph: A former intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the decision to go to war had been made months before the 2003 papers were drafted and analysts had no delusions that they were going to head off military action. Rather, the official said, they hoped their warnings would be considered in the planning.

That's right: yet more proof that the decision to go to war in Iraq had been made months, even perhaps years in advance. More proof that George W. Bush had no intention of negotiating in good faith for weapons inspection, sanctions, or international support for ousting Saddam Hussein. Most damaging, more proof that Bush and his cronies had determined to have a war regardless of all other considerations- including the safety of American soldiers and the American people.

This story comes from an anomymous source, but keep your eyes out when the report this info comes from is released either late this week or sometime next week.

Finally, closer to home... Remember my posts about Houston's sex business ordinance, which is a direct attack on the ability of those businesses to operate at all? Well, the state legislature has squeezed through a new sin tax at the last minute before the session ends- a $5 per head tax on everyone who sets foot in a titty bar.

No, I correct myself: strip club. Even places that don't serve booze have to pony up the dough.

Prize-winning quote from the article at the end, from State Senator Dan Patrick- not the one from ESPN, but he also STILL HAS a radio talk show:

"I don't want the fact that the government is making money from them to make them harder to close. I would rather see the businesses close down," he said after the vote. "If we base our budget on a combination of sin taxes, we are kind of supporting the sin."

Mr. Patrick has forgotten the old adage: the power to tax is the power to destroy.

Mr. Patrick is also one of the supporters of efforts in this legislature to severely restrict or outright ban abortion... and to provide tax dollars to pay women to carry their child to term.

Oh- and although Mr. Patrick is a Republican, the author in the Texas House and the bill's sponsor in the Senate are both Democrats. The state House has to vote to approve Senate changes, so I don't know the final vote there, but only one state senator voted against the bill.

With both parties voting to continue the Iraq war in Washington, and both parties voting to tax people for being horny in Houston and Austin...

... does anybody still really believe Libertarians can change anything unless Libertarians get ELECTED?