It's like I said before. Andrew Sullivan can never be trusted on the debt. In this matter, he is an intellectual fraud. He will only tolerate one opinion (his own), and no others. So in this matter I have no use for him.
But because the toxin of that idea is spreading to the rest of his ideas, I'm starting to question if he's someone worth reading at all.
After reading how Democrats were already ripping into Ryan's Budget Plan, Andrew wrote this:
We have a serious and flawed plan to get the debt under control - and the Democrats' immediate response is to go into total opposition. The president has been more muted in his response. But the onus is on him now to provide a plan that matches the impact on the budget that Ryans' does, with different emphases.
So where is that plan? Or does the president have none?
I'm sorry, but Ryan's plan projects 2.8% Unemployement in 2021. If you take a Budget Plan with a figure like that seriously, I'm sorry, but you can't be taken seriously.
Then again, if Andrew had spent a little more time looking on the Internets, he would have found where the President's plan was...with Kent Conrad, you know...the Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and the place where most likely, any long term, deficit reducing Budget Deal would originate:
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad is holding back the Senate Democrats’ budget plan to give a bipartisan group of senators more time to strike a deal on a long-term deficit-reduction proposal.
Conrad (D-N.D.) is one of the “Gang of Six” negotiators working on a budget deal based on the recommendations of President Obama’s debt commission. The group hopes to put the debt commission’s proposals into legislation that could win a vote from Congress.
If the group fails to reach a deal, Conrad said he might include portions of its work in his budget proposal.
“I’ve prepared several different budget resolutions,” Conrad said. “I’m trying to give the Group of Six effort every chance.”
Conrad said he has not made a final decision on whether to use the Senate Democratic budget proposal to advance the recommendations of the fiscal commission.
Conrad made clear on Tuesday, however, that he would not advance Medicare overhaul such as that proposed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) or former Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and Alice Rivlin, a former Democratic White House budget director.
I'm really getting tired of Sullivan's bullshit deficit scolding. I'm also tired of his tendency to leap before he's looked. (Betcha wish you had this one back...or maybe you don't).
On Deficits, he doesn't get to tell me what level of pain is acceptable. He hasn't been in this country long enough to wag his finger about deficits at any citizen. More to the point, the people he's supported in the past are the ones who spent us into this position.
For him to get high and mighty on the spending is as vile, and as typical and anything any other Republican has coughed up the last ten years.
It's not like Keith is under a Network's time constraints. He could have put it in there. It's not like he had a Producer saying "Hey, we have to trim five seconds off Worst Persons". So, the only excuses for Keith were that either he didn't want it in there, or he forgot.
"We're expecting the equivalent of a regular presidential election," Horvath said in regards to the Madison polling place. "Seventy-five to eighty percent is what we are guessing."
President Obama strongly scolded congressional Republicans on their failure so far to reach a budget compromise that would avert a government shutdown by the end of the week, instructing them to start acting like "grown-ups" and to stop playing political games.
"We don't have time for games," he told reporters during a rare appearance in the White House briefing room. "We don't have time to score political points."
Obama, who met with Republican and Democratic leaders at the White House Tuesday, said he would make himself available to meet again Wednesday and Thursday if lawmakers cannot come to some consensus today. He also criticized Republicans for saying they don't agree to the $33 billion in cuts that Democrats have agreed to and for including extraneous politically motivated policy riders.
"What we can't do is have a my way or the highway approach to this problem," he said. "If we start applying that approach, that we can't get 110 percent of everything we want, than we're not going to get anything done this year."
The basic play is the Republicans and Democrats have hashed out a figure of around $33 Billion in cuts. It would be the largest single cut of the Federal Budget in U.S. History, even if we're talking 1-4% of the total budget.
One, the Democrats want that number to be at least somewhat temporary, i.e. when they win Congress next time, they don't want to have to pas another law in order to get those cuts restored. Boehner is saying no.
Two, I'm pretty sure Boehner is okay with the $33 Billion number, but his caucus isn't...particularly the incoming Tea-Party Freshmen. They're demanding all of their cuts from H.R. 1, things that the Senate is never going to pass.
Three, Boehner is demanding all his noxious, toxic riders, like the NPR and Planned Parenthood defunding. Democrats are balking at that.
In the end, there is no resolution in sight to any of these problems. The House seems fixed on its solutions, seeming to forget that identical bills must pass the GOP-led House and the Democratic-led Senate. A compromise MUST be in the offing for anything to pass. (That means, we're not going to get everything we want either, fellow Libruls.) But the House GOP is in no mood to compromise, and may actually want a Shutdown. Boehner is cornered. He knows what damage a shutdown will do to both parties (but his in particular). Still, if he doesn't go to balls-to-the-wall to show he fought the White House every step of the way, he'll be ousted as Speaker...and Lord knows, his being Speaker is the most important thing right now, isn't it?
Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four co-defendants accused of planning the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks will be prosecuted in a military commission, a decision that reverses the Obama administration’s long-held goal of bringing the men to trial in federal court as part of its overall strategy of closing the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced the decision during an afternoon news conference. He blamed barriers thrown up by Congress for the administration’s abandonment of one of its signature goals.
Holder called Congress’s intervention “unwise and unwarranted” and said he continues to believe that the case could have been tried in federal court in Manhattan or, as an alternative he proposed, in upstate New York. He said the Obama administration would continue to work for repeal of the restrictions Congress imposed and would prosecute other terrorism cases in federal courts.
But he said he decided that prosecution should go ahead in a military tribunal because the restrictions were unlikely to be repealed any time soon and because the families of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the Sept. 11 attacks have already waited too long for justice, which he said is “long overdue.”
You thought I was talking something else, weren't you?
The Attorney General "changed his mind" after Congress "imposed a series of restrictions"? That's a bit like saying I changed my mind about getting up after I was tied to my chair.
Holder told reporters this afternoon that his original decision was still the right one, but blamed Congress for "tying our hands."
He happens to be right. Even today, Holder wants to do the right thing, and so does President Obama. And yet, Gitmo is open today, and KSM will be subjected to a military commission in the near future, not because of an administration that backed down in the face of far-right whining, but because congressional Republicans orchestrated a massive, choreographed freak-out, and scared the bejesus out of congressional Democrats. Together, they limited the White House's options to, in effect, not having any choice at all.
There's plenty of room for criticism of the administration, but those slamming Obama for "breaking his word" on this are blaming the wrong end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
The decision to try KSM in a military tribunal is as sad as keeping Gitmo open. He has, of course, been hemmed in by an irrational, panicked Congress. Maybe a civil trial would be impossible because of the torture inflicted on KSM by the last administration.
Chuck Schumer, New York’s senior Democratic senator, expressed relief that the trial would not take place in his home state. He said the move to put the 9/11 plotter through a military commission at Guantanamo Bay will allow him to get the “ultimate penalty,” and he said the decision is the “final nail in the coffin” of the “wrong-headed idea” to try Mohammed in New York.
“I have always said that the perpetrators of this horrible crime should get the ultimate penalty, and I believe this proposal by the administration can make that happen,” Schumer said in a statement.
Granted, Chuck is just out there representing his State, but I'll never call him a statesman. He's pandering to the baseless fears of New Yorkers. We have prosecuted Terrorists in this country, and jailed them int his country. 9/11 is no different.
Let me say that again: 9/11 is no different.
We could handle it then, we can handle it now.
Instead of standing up to Terrorism, like we imagine we do, we've caved to it, and a lot of Senators (like Charles Schumer) have enabled that cave.
...the significance of [Libyan Foreign Minister] Kussa’s defection lies in its being a sign of the winds shifting against Qaddafi with his inner circle, which will affect the loyalty of his outer circle of tribal leaders. Many key members of the powerful Warfalla and Megarha tribes have already declared against Qaddafi, and Firjan and others are wavering. Tribes as loose systems of kinship politics, are volatile and fluid, and their allegiances can change rapidly. (Americans might remember that many members of the Dulaim tribe in Iraq fought tooth and nail against US troops in 2004-2005 but by 2006-2007 many were joining pro-American militias, the ‘Sons of Iraq.’) The tribes could turn on Qaddafi in a second, aside from his own and a few loyalists.
In announcing the end of US bombing raids in Libya, Gates “noted that the air attacks are a central feature of the overall military strategy; over time they could degrade Gadhafi’s firepower to a point that he would be unable to put down a renewed uprising by opposition forces…”
That is, Gates hopes that over time, Col. Muammar Qaddafi will simply have fewer and fewer tanks, artillery pieces, and armored vehicles. He has already lost the ability to bomb Benghazi and other cities from the air.
Gates’s premise seems to be that most Libyans don’t want to be under Qaddafi’s rule, and that the only way he subdued Zuara, Zawiya, Tajoura, Ra’s Lanuf, and other cities that had thrown him off was by main force. When his main force is subjected to sufficient attrition, his advantage will suddenly disappear and the opposition to him of the liberation movement will suddenly cascade. I don’t personally think that this cascade requires military means. It happened once largely peacefully, as in Egypt in Tunisia, and can happen again if Qaddafi’s heavy weapons can be neutralized.
People who want the attrition of Qaddafi’s forces to be visited in only a week or two are just being unrealistic. It would happen over weeks and maybe months.
In the meantime, the UN allies (NATO and the Arab League) have as their most urgent mission the protection of Benghazi from any major attack, which can be done aerially.
What bad thing would happen if NATO and the Arab League just proceed deliberately and with patience?
Impatience makes for bad policy. Those who urge Western military troops the ground are making a huge error– that development would never be acceptable to most of the Libyan people nor to the Arab League, nor to the majority on the UN Security Council.
Others of the tribe of the impatient want to put sophisticated weapons in rebel hands. Those who think the US or NATO should arm the rebels, however, are simply paving the way for a civil war and for a long-term cycle of violence. Having a rebel army conquer reluctant cities like Sirt, which still support Qaddafi in the main, is undesirable. Let pro-Qaddafi cities alone. The main task should be to protect the anti-Qaddafi populace from his attacks.
NATO agrees. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Thursday that his organization differs with those who have suggested that UNSC Resolution 1973 allows the arming of the rebels.
Like with Tunisia, Egypt and Iran (eventually), the lack of hands-on American involvement is actually a good thing. Give the Rebels a fighting chance to do it themselves. Don't arm the rebels...why? Because once you hand one of your allies a gun, that gun don't magically disappear when the mission is over. Guns don't melt into the sand by force of will. Guns, history has shown, tend to stick around. Anyone can pick up that thing, and possibly use it against you (see: Bin-Laden, Usama).
Keep Qaddafi weak. Give the Rebels their chance. Let the tribes finish him off. It won't happen overnight oh ye of convenient short-term memory loss, but it will happen.
I don't want to play like this is good news or anything, but I don't see where Jerry had much of a choice. The simple fact is that you can't bargain with someone who keeps moving the goalposts, and at some point you have to say: Then shut it down.
Now, the reason I call Jerry the anti-Scott Walker is simple. Jerry did at least try to reach out. He lists Business Leaders, Labor, Farmers, Educators, etc., as being onboard with his budget plan. He tries to spread the pain out to everybody, and is willing to let the voters decide on the tax increases.
The next time Scott Walker reaches out to anybody but the Koch Brothers will be the first.
I'm afraid you're going to have to be into Angry Birds to get all the references to this, but its still pretty funny. Even though the ending suggested by the piece is stlll TBD
I myself have yet to purchase the Mighty Eagle, but looking at this, maybe its worth the extra 99 cents.
Just two weeks ago, after he watched 54 of his own members defect from an emergency spending bill to keep the government from shutting down, House Speaker John Boehner realized he was in a fix. The numbers told an important story -- that to keep the federal lights on, Boehner would need help from Democrats just to pass legislation through the House. And that would mean cutting a deal, and enraging his conservative rank and file.
At a jobs forum in the auditorium of the Capitol Visitors Center, he softened his rhetoric and acknowledged his weakened hand.
"It's never been lost on me that because we only control the House there are a lot of other players that we need to work with in order to come to any agreement to keep the government open," Boehner said. "But I'm confident that we'll be able to find a way to cut spending -- which we believe will lead to a better environment for business to hire people in America -- and keep the government open."
Something changed between then and now. This week, Boehner and House Republicans are drawing thick lines in the sand in budget negotiations with Democrats, and the threat of a shutdown -- something Boehner has insisted he wants to avoid -- has spiked. On Tuesday, principals on both sides spoke as if a shutdown wasn't just inevitable, but imminent. Cue finger-pointing.
Does that sound familiar? Well, that's because you have seen it all before, not just a decade ago between Newt and Bubba, but on your TeeVee:
The only difference is I think Harry Reid is going to be the one to say "Shut it down" instead of the President. Not as sexy for Prime-Time TV, but direct all the same.
So much of this has played out behind closed doors that it's hard to suss out exactly who's right. But we know that Republican rhetoric has stiffened, and that, after weeks of keeping their heads down, Democrats began leaking detailed accounts of the failed negotiations early this week. Republicans dispute these accounts, and say nothing has changed -- but something clearly has. And Republicans don't have a compelling explanation for it.
But the facts are complicated and weedy. So each party's spin machines are gearing up to convince the public that the other party's at fault. Those lines of argumentation are now clear. It's unclear who'll win that spin battle -- but it's worth pointing out that the White House has been prepared for this outcome for a long time.
All I can say is, never bet against the President when he has time to prepare for something. Personally, I knew the Libyan Speech was going to come off well. Why? He had 48 hours to prepare.
That's what I thought as I watched President Obama's speech on Libya. It reminded me that about three years ago, when I read a transcript of an interview Fareed Zakaria did about foreign affairs with Barack Obama, then running for the Democratic presidential nomination. The message I took away from that exchange was that if this guy is elected, he will have little time for dictators, despots and the like.
What we saw in the NDU speech was a logical defense of what the president has ordered the military to do and an exposition of what the limits of the action will be. The cost of inaction threatened to be greater than the cost of action, but now we have done our part. Next role for the U.S. military is best supporting actor, providing electronic jammers, combat search and rescue, logistics and intelligence. That was all necessary, and pretty much as expected.
But I was most struck by the last few minutes of the speech, when Obama sought to put the Libyan intervention in the context of the regional Arab uprising. He firmly embraced the forces of change, saying that history is on their side, not on the side of the oppressors.
That, it seems to me, was the core message of the president's speech on Libya. America is simply incapable of watching a slaughter take place - anywhere in the world - and not move to do what we can to prevent it. It is against our nature to let evil triumph in such a fashion. The Libyan example was particularly vital because a rare constellation of forces came together to make turning away even harder: European and Arab support for preventing mass murder; UN permission; America's "unique" capabilities; and an imminent massacre in Benghazi.
Obama the Niebuhrian put the moral in realism. Yes, we could not do this everywhere all the time; but we could do this when we did; and that was good enough. There was some sleight of hand here. Citing the UN Resolution as an external reason for war - when the US lobbied hard for it - was a touch too neat. But essentially Obama was challenging those of us who opposed this decision to ask ourselves: well, what would you do? If the US had insisted on looking away, America would have seemed morally callous, even compared with the French. The mass graves of Benghazi would take their place alongside the horrors of Srebrenica. And the impact on Arab opinion, especially on the younger generation that is so key to the future, would be fatal to America's long term interests.
I do not know whether the last is actually the case, or whether most young Arabs are understandably focused on the regimes they labor under rather than the murderous nutter in the North African desert. But secretary of state Clinton was in the region at the time and believed otherwise. And, yes, one appreciates that doing nothing represented a choice as well as doing something. And it too would have had unknowable consequences.
Was I persuaded? Not completely. The major objection - what happens now? - was not answered affirmatively by the president. It was answered negatively: there would be no military effort at regime change, as in Iraq; NATO, not the US, would soon be leading the mission; and, er, it may last a while. It is way too soon to celebrate a new model of international cooperation; but it seems striking to me that the rationale Obama invoked was very much GHW Bush in Kuwait rather than GW Bush in Iraq. That left Saddam in power for more than a decade. And yet Obama spoke as if Qaddafi's days were obviously numbered. I sure hope they are.
For the past two years, the right has alleged that President Obama does not believe in American exceptionalism, which holds that America plays a unique role in the world, defined by National Review’s Rich Lowry and Ramesh Ponnuru as an “exemplar of freedom and a vindicator of it, through persuasion when possible and force of arms when absolutely necessary.”
After Obama’s speech last night justifying the intervention in Libya, anyone who alleges the president doesn’t believe this deserves to be laughed out of town.
Obama’s is a different version of American exceptionalism. For men like Bolton, American virtue is a given. American presidents should never apologize because America never has anything to apologize for. Our mistakes are never crimes, and if others don’t see our moral greatness that just proves their moral cynicism.
Obama, by contrast, because he can see America through post-colonial eyes, knows this is a fable. He knows that in many places on earth, America has abetted dictatorship and corruption and slaughter. In some cases he has apologized, which has led men like Bolton to claim that he sees America as no different from any other great power.
But they don’t get it. For Obama, American exceptionalism is not a fact; it is a struggle. Bolton and company like to invoke World War II and the Cold War because in those conflicts we fought the evil that lay out there. Obama, by contrast, often invokes the civil-rights movement: a struggle against the evil within. That’s what makes his Libya decision powerful. He knows that there are good reasons for Middle Easterners to fear when they see American planes overhead. And yet he is acting to show that it does not have to be that way.
The complete text of the speech can be found here:
One of the things that's been on my mind is the fact that the average American doesn't understand that much about Economics.
They think they do, but demonstrate time and time again that really don't.
How else do you get Americans actively lobbying on behalf of corporations, or telling the Government to keep their hands off Medicare, or demanding they they go after Unions on behalf of the Corporate master, or fight for Budget talks in which no talk of raising taxes is to be allowed, or demanding cuts to Social Security...right up until the point the axe is about to fall.
It's amazing to me that we live in a country where this is acceptable.
Not only is G.E. being allowed to pay $0 in Federal Income Taxes, American Voters are working very hard to make sure that politicians (in both parties mind you) are rewarded for making sure this happens. Only in America, will we reward someone for slitting our own throats. Only in America are people rewarded for destroying us.
Which brings me to Ray Buursma, writing for the Holland Sentinel. You probably haven't heard of the Holland Sentinel (I hadn't either) or of Holland, Michigan in particular, but Mr. Buursma said some things that really hit home for me. It's nothing that hasn't been said in this space (that we are to blame for our Economic woes), but it's always nice to hear someone else say it as well.
I'm never sure what to do with pieces like these. As a blogger, you look for a place to start and end to give you a taste of what the writer has intended, but sometimes when you come right down to it, there's no place to cut, and the piece has to present itself on its own terms.
Are you an American employee? If so, today’s column will likely offend you. If you’d rather not be offended, read no further. If you continue and then complain, I’m sorry, but that simply proves you’re, well, stupid. But then again, stupidity plays a large role in today’s topic.
Still reading? OK. You’ve had fair warning.
So you’re an American employee. Maybe you make car parts. Maybe you’re an engineer or designer. Maybe you’re an accountant, store clerk or tradesman. Whatever you do, you’re probably stupid or lazy. Yes, I wrote it, and I mean it. You are either stupid or lazy. Maybe both.
Now, I’m not referring to your work ethic or job performance. No, most of you are competent and devoted to your profession or vocation. I’m addressing the way you view economics and employment. I’m challenging your gumption to advocate for yourself and your fellow Americans. Here’s what I mean.
Remember the Reagan standard? Are you better off today than you were a decade ago? Two decades? Three? Unless you make more than $380,000 a year, the answer is no. In fact, your standard of living over the last quarter century has actually decreased while millionaires have added 30 percent to their net wealth. Why? Two reasons.
First, hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs went overseas while the politicians you elected did nothing to stop them. Yet you continue to elect leaders who offer nothing but tax cuts, as if that would stem the flow of disappearing jobs.
Did you demand your leaders address America’s trade imbalance or continuous outsourcing of jobs? Did you demand your leaders require foreign countries to buy a dollar’s worth of American goods for every dollar of goods they sell here?
No and no. You didn’t bother. You simply crossed your fingers and prayed, “I hope my job’s not next.” You made concessions to your employer and hoped that would stem the exodus of jobs, or at least yours. How’d that work for you?
Second, you bought into the myth that unions are the cause of America’s demise. You didn’t bother to learn America became a world power when union membership was at its peak. You didn’t bother to learn America became the envy of the world while 1 of every 3 Americans was a union member.
So, how are things going for you? How do your benefits compare to a quarter century ago? Are you paying a higher or lower percentage of your income for health insurance? Does your company offer a pension plan, or do you now fund your own 401(k)?
Maybe you’re thinking, “I’m not a union worker, so this doesn’t affect me.”
Stop being stupid. Union benefits provide a standard other companies have to match, or at least come close to. When those benefits are cut, yours are, too. Or do you think you operate in your own little employment vacuum?
To make matters worse, you’re again being played for a chump. The same puppets who did nothing while your standard of living decreased are now using the oldest gimmick in the book — jealousy — to continue their assault on American workers. Rather than protect Americans’ jobs, they deflect your attention through jealousy.
“Cut the pay of government workers,” they cry. “Increase their health premiums. Decrease their pensions. Break their unions. After all, you’ve suffered so they should suffer too.” And in your misery, you buy their argument while more jobs head oversees. Pretty stupid, eh?
If their antics weren’t so pathetic, if the consequences weren’t so dire, if they didn’t prey on your stupidity, and if you didn’t buy into their convoluted reasoning, this whole situation would be laughable. But of course it’s not.
I warned you I’d likely offend you, and I suspect I did. But once you overcome your anger, consider my analysis. Then, either wise up and do something about it, or resign yourself to a lower standard of living for the next decade.
I've made two discoveries in the last few weeks. Rick Ungar of Forbes Magazine (yeah, I know Forbes...but he's on our side) and now Mr. Burrsma. They're both pro-worker and always worth your time.
The President says that thanks to our men and women in uniform, the military mission in Libya is succeeding even as responsibility is transferred to our NATO allies and partners.
The liberation movement at the moment likely controls about half of Libya’s population, as long as Misrata and Zintan do not fall. It also likely controls about half of the petroleum facilities. If Benghazi can retake Brega and Ra’s Lanouf and Zawiya, Qaddafi soon won’t have gasoline for his tanks or money to pay his mercenaries. Pundits who want this whole thing to be over with in 7 days are being frankly silly. Those who worry about it going on forever are being unrealistic. Those who forget or cannot see the humanitarian achievements already accomplished are being willfully blind.
After surviving the horrors of Transformers 1 & 2 (on HBO only, never in the theaters), I finally have a piece of Megan Fox footage I can watch without shame.
I'm just sorry I missed it when it came out. My bad.
But think, this was out there when y'all were going to the ballot box, and the problem's not only still there, its gotten worse. Way to go people who didn't help re-elect Democrats.
Ummm, does Keith ever listen to his guests, or does he only listen to them when they're on his show? Are his guests just situationally convenient?
What am I saying? Of course, they were situationally convenient, it's Television for pity's sake.
So here's Keith, sans Network until later this Spring (Spring having started on Monday), with his first "Special Comment" post MSNBC:
Keith even pulled a Dennis Kucinich:
After that Imperial period of a few days, a President – this one included – is required to either call it off, or justify why it must continue, or maybe even follow the Constitution and get approval from Congress by explaining the threat to this country that rationalizes the continuing action. Especially when we now have American pilots bailing out over hostile territory.
Okay, Keith at least paid tangential attention to the War Powers Act of 1973.
But Keith apparently doesn't read his former Countdown guest Thomas Ricks's column, because he addressed this the day before:
Everybody's going all wobbly over Libya, except those who never liked the idea in the first place. Tom's advice: Calm down. We have done what we set out to do in Libya. We kicked the door down, and with radars and SAM sites degraded, have made it possible for lesser air forces to patrol the skies over Qaddafi.
We should now say, OK, we have created the conditions, time for you all to have the courage of your convictions. The goal now for the United States, I think, is a negative one: To not be conducting a no-fly zone over Libya 5 years or even 5 months from now. If the French and Italians want to park the good ships Charles de Gaulle and Garibaldi off the Libyan coast, good. And if the Arab states want to maintain an air cap over Benghazi, fine. Step right up, fellas.
As for the American military, let's knock off the muttering in the ranks about clear goals and exit strategies. Fellas, you need to understand this is not a football game but a soccer match. For the last 10 years, our generals have talked about the need to become adaptable, to live with ambiguity. Well, this is it. The international consensus changes every day, so our operations need to change with it. Such is the nature of war, as Clausewitz reminds us. Better Obama's cautious ambiguity than Bush's false clarity. Going into Iraq, scooping up the WMD, and getting out by September 2003 -- now that was a nice clear plan. And a dangerously foolish one, too. The clearer we are now about command and control, rules of engagement and other organizational aspects of the intervention, the harder it will be to pass if off. Better they do it in their own way than we make it so they can only do it our way.
Thomas Ricks, valuable Military expert during the Iraq War. Libya comes up, and its Thomas Ricks who?
This is of course, the beauty of the web and, specifically, the beauty of YouTube. Now, we are no longer totally depending on the Nightly News to come out and with their 20 second segment on how a Nuclear Reactor works. Now, an independent expert, who's not necessarily TV friendly (though I'd put this guy on the air) can put up his or her own video, and share his or her expertise. Best of all, that expert can take as long as they want to explain something and its available to the viewer 24 hours a day, on demand, for free (provided you have internet access).
It has been interesting, seeing the fault lines of who's for and who's against the operation in Libya. Republicans, depending on who you ask, (and what time of day it is) are either for or against it. Same with Democrats and Liberals. VoteVets doesn't seem comfortable with the operation, yet Steve Clemons and other Foreign Policy officials seem to on board with the idea and necessity, though they have their doubts about success.
I grow weary of talk of an "exit strategy." It is a canard and a false concept. Can anyone remember the last time there actually was an exit strategy going in that actually worked? Military actions aren't interstates.
What he's saying is true. Battle strategy lasts only up until the moment you make contact with the enemy. You can't dictate how that's going to go any more than how you're going to leave. Any illusions to the contrary are the products of deluded minds who've never fired a shot in battle.
Oh, and for the record, I've never fired a shot in battle either, so...
What if Qaddafi had succeeded? What if we had another Rwanda or Balkans on our hands, and we sat on our hands and did nothing?
One of the things that annoys me about all the Congressional demands in this matter, is that it's not about process, it's about C.Y.A., covering (your...or in this case their) ass. They're only questioning it now because the outcome is uncertain, but you can bet your ass that if the Libyan mission comes off successfully (definition of success, TBD), Congress-critters and Senators will be lining up to take credit.
If the President had done nothing, these same people would be lining up to demand he take action. Why did he let this happen? (Notice, there wouldn't be any discussion of Congressional process after blood had been spilled). Why did the President let all those noble Libyans die in the streets like dogs?
But in the meantime, the President was faced with a choice. I don't think he wanted to interfere, for good or for ill in Libya. Then he started getting pressure from the French (and I'm pretty sure, the Italians) both of whom do major business in Libya. And then Qaddafi started to mow down civilians, and threatened to have his own apocalypse in Benghazi.
So the President acted. American Planes and Tomahawks are doing the things that the French, Italians and maybe Qataris can't do. We're paving the way. We're taking out Qaddafi's Anti-Aircraft batteries and support systems. We're making it impossible for him to shoot back. We've stopped the slaughter in Benghazi. We're providing logistical support and I do believe that by this weekend, we'll be done. Partly because there won't be anything left to shoot at, and partly because it'll be up to the rebels at that point.
Funny, I wrote all that...then I clicked over to watch Rachel Maddow's interview with Steve Clemons (Publisher of the Washington Note), and he pretty much said the exact same thing. But credit to him and the other Foreign Policy-types on the Left. Methinks they said it better, and said it first.
Switching gears ever so slightly. Of all the people I'd thought would be against this thing, Juan Cole was at the top of my list (as an Ohio State Fan, I'll forgive his unfortunate association with thatUniversity). To be fair, he's not cheerleading this thing from the sidelines. At the same time, he seems rather clear eyed about what's been going on in Libya, and the differences between it and Iraq:
1. The action in Libya was authorized by the United Nations Security Council. That in Iraq was not. By the UN Charter, military action after 1945 should either come as self-defense or with UNSC authorization. Most countries in the world are signatories to the charter and bound by its provisions.
2. The Libyan people had risen up and thrown off the Qaddafi regime, with some 80-90 percent of the country having gone out of his hands before he started having tank commanders fire shells into peaceful crowds. It was this vast majority of the Libyan people that demanded the UN no-fly zone. In 2002-3 there was no similar popular movement against Saddam Hussein.
3. There was an ongoing massacre of civilians, and the threat of more such massacres in Benghazi, by the Qaddafi regime, which precipitated the UNSC resolution. Although the Saddam Hussein regime had massacred people in the 1980s and early 1990s, nothing was going on in 2002-2003 that would have required international intervention.
4. The Arab League urged the UNSC to take action against the Qaddafi regime, and in many ways precipitated Resolution 1973. The Arab League met in 2002 and expressed opposition to a war on Iraq. (Reports of Arab League backtracking on Sunday were incorrect, based on a remark of outgoing Secretary-General Amr Moussa that criticized the taking out of anti-aircraft batteries. The Arab League reaffirmed Sunday and Moussa agreed Monday that the No-Fly Zone is what it wants).
5. None of the United Nations allies envisages landing troops on the ground, nor does the UNSC authorize it. Iraq was invaded by land forces.
6. No false allegations were made against the Qaddafi regime, of being in league with al-Qaeda or of having a nuclear weapons program. The charge is massacre of peaceful civilian demonstrators and an actual promise to commit more such massacres.
7. The United States did not take the lead role in urging a no-fly zone, and was dragged into this action by its Arab and European allies. President Obama pledges that the US role, mainly disabling anti-aircraft batteries and bombing runways, will last “days, not months” before being turned over to other United Nations allies.
8. There is no sectarian or ethnic dimension to the Libyan conflict, whereas the US Pentagon conspired with Shiite and Kurdish parties to overthrow the Sunni-dominated Baathist regime in Iraq, setting the stage for a prolonged and bitter civil war.
9. The US has not rewarded countries such as Norway for entering the conflict as UN allies, but rather a genuine sense of outrage at the brutal crimes against humanity being committed by Qaddafi and his forces impelled the formation of this coalition. The Bush administration’s ‘coalition of the willing’ in contrast was often brought on board by what were essentially bribes.
10. Iraq in 2002-3 no longer posed a credible threat to its neighbors. A resurgent Qaddafi in Libya with petroleum billions at his disposal would likely attempt to undermine the democratic experiments in Tunisia and Egypt, blighting the lives of millions.
If Reason No. 10 is true, then I do have to ask, why isn't it the mission of the United States to take Qaddafi down, especially if it imperils the Arab 1848 we've all been watching from afar?
Courtesy of Ellen Miller at the Sunlight Foundation. Koch Brother's money...apparently, it's not just for Republicans anymore. I see some blue dots around there.
The clear legal authority for actions sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council lies within the United Nations Participation Act.
Title 22, Section 7, § 287d. Use of armed forces; limitations
The President is authorized to negotiate a special agreement or agreements with the Security Council which shall be subject to the approval of the Congress by appropriate Act or joint resolution, providing for the numbers and types of armed forces, their degree of readiness and general location, and the nature of facilities and assistance, including rights of passage, to be made available to the Security Council on its call for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security in accordance with article 43 of said Charter. The President shall not be deemed to require the authorization of the Congress to make available to the Security Council on its call in order to take action under article 42 of said Charter and pursuant to such special agreement or agreements the armed forces, facilities, or assistance provided for therein...
I had actually never heard of the United Nations Participation Act before this, but it's U.S. Code now. It's Law.
Suffice it to say that this is only a matter of the legality of the attacks on Libya, not about whether you think they're right or wrong. There's a clear argument to be made against these attacks, and its one that I'm not only willing to hear it, I may even agree with...a little.
But as far as Kucinich's statement that this is an impeachable offense, that notion seems to be complete and utter nonsense.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) says President Obama should be impeached over the Libya campaign.
A short while ago a couple of our reporters were asking questions on the history of the War Powers Act and the necessity for a declaration of war for the president to go to war.
[Josh Marshall of TPM] explained that the current constitutional rule is that a president doesn't have to do anything to send the military into battle. Except in cases where the ruling party believes an Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) sets the party up well for the next election campaign.
That last sentence was a bit of snark from Josh, but was factually correct. The President and Congress have been battling over this for decades. It focuses on the War Powers Act of 1973.
The War Powers Resolution requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action and forbids armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days, with a further 30 day withdrawal period, without an authorization of the use of military force or a declaration of war. The resolution was passed by two-thirds of Congress, overriding a presidential veto.
That paragraph came from Wikipedia. The text of the Law can be found at the above referenced link.
The War Powers Resolution has been controversial since it became law. In passing the resolution, Congress specifically cites the Necessary and Proper Clause for its authority. Under the Necessary and Proper Clause, it is specifically provided that the Congress shall have the power to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution, not only its own powers but also all other powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.
Because it limits the President's authority in the use of force without an official resolution or declaration of war by Congress, there is controversy as to whether the provisions of the resolution are consistent with the Constitution. Presidents have therefore drafted reports to Congress required of the President to state that they are "consistent with" the War Powers Resolution rather than "pursuant to" so as to take into account the Presidential position that the Resolution is unconstitutional.
Thus, the President consistentwith the War Powers Act did thistoday:
Obama has now sent a letter to leaders of Congress defining the mission, in keeping with the War Powers Resolution of 1973 requiring a report to Congress within 48 hours of commencing military action, and it contains rebuttals of both lines of criticism.
Obama is taking criticism from the right for failing to articulate “regime change” as a goal of the mission. But his letter to Congressional leaders unapologetically sticks to the narrower definition of the mission as tailored to halting violence and preventing a humanitarian disaster:
These strikes will be limited in their nature, duration, and scope. Their purpose is to support an international coalition as it takes all necessary measures to enforce the terms of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973. These limited U.S. actions will set the stage for further action by other coalition partners...
United States forces are conducting a limited and well-defined mission in support of international efforts to protect civilians and prevent a humanitarian disaster. Accordingly, U.S. forces have targeted the Qadhafi regime’s air defense systems, command and control structures, and other capabilities of Qadhafi’s armed forces used to attack civilians and civilian populated areas. We will seek a rapid, but responsible, transition of operations to coalition, regional, or international organizations that are postured to continue activities as may be necessary to realize the objectives of U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1970 and 1973.
My ultimate problem with Kucinich is that I...I...
I probably agree with Dennis Kucinich 98% of the time (the idea for a Department of Peace is just ridiculous) but it doesn't mean I like him, nor does it mean I trust him. The same goes for the others. Watching the Professional Left's behavior over the last two years has frankly been the thing that turned me into a Liberal who hates other Liberals.
I think there is a responsibility for those of us on Left to hold the President accountable, as he has asked. But there is also a responsibility for those of us on Left to deal in facts, to understand that ideology is a way of looking at the world, not a purity checklist (again, Republican behavior), to understand how, where and why a piece of legislation goes wrong, to not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and most of all, to keep working.
In short Dennis's call for the President's impeachment was a Ideological purity test, and had nothing to do with the reality of law. Like it or not, and I know a lot of Liberals don't like it, the President is...well, being consistent with the Law.
If Kucinich wants to do something about this (and I really doubt that he does, it's all about the Kleig lights for him), he can rally for Congressional Action in the 30-60 day time period.
Even as the President maintains his focus on international crises in Japan and Libya, he discusses his trip to Latin America to open up markets for US products.
Interesting. How accurate it turns out to be is another matter, it is (after all) the Economist.
SINCE our "shoe-thrower’s index" was published on February 9th, Bahrain and, most prominently, Libya, have continued to witness further unrest and demand for regime change. The index attempted to predict where trouble across the Arab world was most likely to arise by applying a subjective weighting to factors such as the length of time the leader had been in power, GDP per person and the level of democracy. We have added two further indicators that were not included in the original—the adult literacy rate and the percentage of people who are internet users—and made the whole index interactive. You can apply your own weightings to each variable to see which country may be the next to experience political upheaval. The index is presented with the weights used in the original version, but differs slightly from that version as some figures have been updated.
The President pays homage to former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, commends the great strides that have been made to create a more equal American society, and reaffirms his resolve to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act.
An explosion rocked one of Japan's nuclear power plants Saturday, causing a portion of a building to crumble, sending white smoke billowing into the air and prompting Japanese officials to warn people in the vicinity to cover their mouths and stay indoors.
In what may become the most serious nuclear power crisis since the Chernobyl disaster, the explosion followed large tremors at the Fukushima Daiichi No. 1 reactor Saturday afternoon, injuring four workers who were struggling to get the quake-stricken unit under control.
Earlier, Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency had warned that the reactor, whose cooling system had been crippled by the giant earthquake on Friday, could be nearing a meltdown and that two radioactive substances, cesium and radioactive iodine, had already been detected nearby.
Gitmo isn't open because the administration doesn't want to close it, although its efforts in this area are ripe for criticism. It's still open because Republicans in Congress successfully frightened Democrats in Congress out of giving the administration the necessary funds to close it when they had control of Congress. In the process, they've managed to obscure the original reason detainees were brought to Gitmo -- to keep them away from the scrutiny of the federal courts. Once the Supreme Court held that federal courts had jurisdiction and even habeas rights, the facility was useless for that purpose. Republicans are determined to keep it open not because we can't safely imprison terrorists in the U.S., but because they feel its ongoing presence vindicates Bush in the eyes of history.
In his first two months in office, [Governor Rick Scott] has irritated the State Senate’s powerful Budget Committee chairman by selling two state jets without legislative permission, a constitutional no-no. The governor wanted the sale done quickly (he uses his own plane), and he succeeded.
He annoyed the ambitious Senate president, as well as a host of leaders in conservative states, by trying to kill off a database to track the fraudulent distribution of addictive prescription drugs before it was up and running. He did so without consulting lawmakers, calling the monitoring system an invasion of privacy.
Most recently, Mr. Scott rejected $2.4 billion in federal stimulus money to build a high-speed rail line from Tampa to Orlando, which he saw as too big a financial drain on state taxpayers in the long term.
His refusal to take the money prompted new bouts of discord; a staunch conservative Republican from central Florida joined forces with a Democrat in filing a lawsuit last month, and 26 lawmakers signed a letter to the federal transportation secretary urging him to basically ignore the governor and send the money anyway. (The State Supreme Court ruled in Mr. Scott’s favor on Friday.)
As State Senator Arthenia L. Joyner, a lawyer and the Democrat who took Mr. Scott to court, put it at a news conference about the suit: “It’s necessary at this time, I think — because our governor’s new — to let him know this is not a monarchy. He’s not a king. This is a democracy.”
Mr. Scott’s go-it-alone style of governing was on display vividly last month when he chose to unveil his two-year budget 200 miles from Tallahassee, in the rural town of Eustis, at a rally jammed with Tea Party supporters. Mr. Scott, who wants to promote business in the state and drastically reduce the government’s reach, proposes slashing $4.1 billion in spending and cutting property and corporate income taxes.
