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FOCUS | The GOP's Ball of Cheerful Hate |
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Saturday, 03 August 2013 11:50 |
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Davidson writes: "Congress has closed for a five-week vacation, leaving the rest of us to figure out what happened in the several days of yelling about bills that no one was willing to pass, and to ask whether there is anything left of the Republican Party."
Rand Paul has opened deep divisions in the GOP. (photo: Getty Images)
The GOP's Ball of Cheerful Hate
By Amy Davidson, The New Yorker
03 August 13
 ongress has closed for a five-week vacation, leaving the rest of us to figure out what happened in the several days of yelling about bills that no one was willing to pass, and to ask whether there is anything left of the Republican Party. The best approach might be to put together a diagram of who hates whom in the G.O.P., except that the drawing would get too messy; you'd need an Etch A Sketch and, like Mitt Romney, after a while you'd just want to shake it.
To start simply: John McCain hates Rand Paul, so much that he suggested, to The New Republic's Isaac Chotiner, that he might prefer Hillary Clinton for President. Chris Christie hates Rand Paul, so much so that he said he was not interested in having a beer with him. Rand Paul seems to hate Chris Christie, since he called him the King of Bacon and mocked him to an audience in Tennessee by saying, "Gimme, gimme, gimme-give me all my Sandy money now." But then Christie had compared Paul to Charles Lindbergh-for his isolationism, not the aviation. What was strange about the Paul-Christie spat was that Charles Krauthammer and other observers spoke of it solemnly, as though it was the intellectual engagement on the future of foreign policy that the G.O.P. had been longing for. Really what we were talking about was Christie saying that libertarians like Paul ought to come to Jersey and sit across from a 9/11 widow before saying that the N.S.A. shouldn't collect all the information it wants to.
The other event of the week that was spoken of in similar terms was the Senate's collective primal scream at Rand Paul when he introduced a bill to take away Egypt's foreign aid and to use the money on infrastructure at home. He lost, by a count of eighty-six to thirteen, after the debate was extended so that everyone had a chance to tell him that he was awful and would destroy America's power. The tally would have been more "lopsided," Dana Milbank wrote, except that "in the final seconds of the roll call and after the outcome was obvious, a bloc of six GOP lawmakers led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) quietly cast their votes with Paul-not in agreement with him but in fear of the tea party voters who adore him." So there are also the people who hate Paul because they have to pretend to like him.
Republicans don't just hate Rand Paul for being something of a libertarian. There are also those who would object to how Paul would use that foreign-aid money-for building bridges. The Tea Party has become a confused (and less and less useful) shorthand both for libertarians of the Justin Amash, anti-domestic-spying variety, and for those who just want to wildly cut taxes. On Thursday, the Senate and House gave up trying to pass a transportation bill. Instead, the Minority Whip, Eric Cantor, spent the day getting a bill through the House that would have prevented the I.R.S. from dealing with any part of Obamacare, including provisions that involve tax credits, because he and his colleagues hate the I.R.S., taxes, and government agencies doing their jobs. They do, however, love legislative action that gets them closer to their apparent goal of arranging a vote to repeal Obamacare for every member of the Republican caucus. (They are at forty.)
The I.R.S. bill will fail in the Senate, where Ted Cruz is busy adding on to the list of reasons that other Republicans hate him by zipping around saying that they are cowards if they don't join him in threatening to stage a debt-ceiling-shutdown crisis unless Obamacare is defunded. "Let me be clear: I don't trust the Republicans," Cruz said. Democrats were at least candid about being "dangerous," while too many members of the G.O.P. were joining a "surrender caucus." He often smiles when he says things like that, so it's hard to tell whom exactly he hates-maybe everybody. McCain hates it when anyone says that he's too scared to vote for things that will cause the world economy to implode-"It's been a long time since I've been scared," he told ABC.
Other members of the Party might mind that Cruz forgot the part about pretending that the shutdowns were about unsustainable spending rather than weapons of fiscal terrorism, or about the Senate supposedly being less crazy and reckless than the House. But Cruz might be lost in a wave of general ineffectiveness: so many spending bills haven't passed that the government might shut down on October 1st without anyone really being clear about why.
In fairness, it seems that a good number of Republicans don't actually hate Senator Marco Rubio; they are just getting really annoyed at him, maybe for overthinking how to position himself on an immigration bill on which they would rather take no position at all. That is another set of divides: Republicans who hate immigration, those who hate that the Party is ending up in a place where it will lose the Hispanic vote, and those who hate that they have to think about this at all.
McCain told Chotiner that he wouldn't put Rubio in the same category as Paul, Cruz, or Mike Lee, the Utah senator who this week told Rush Limbaugh that Republicans needed to cut off all funds associated with "this wasteland that is the world of Obamacare" before "it starts, you know, buying some loyalty" by benefiting people.
John Boehner, the Speaker of the House, hates that it has become obvious that members of his caucus don't listen to him: some of them hate spending so much that they won't vote for any bill with a dollar figure above sequestration levels, or below it either. There are some who hate doing nothing, and others who are trying to chase away primary opponents, and maybe work out some of the stress, by pushing a bill limiting abortion rights-one that whatever semi-moderates are left in Congress will hate voting for or against.
Gail Collins, in the Times, imposed some intellectual order on all this by pointing out that the key line is between the Senators who want to run for President in 2016-Paul, Rubio, Cruz-and everyone else. That makes a little more sense than pretending that the G.O.P. is having a serious internal debate about foreign policy or the budget, let alone about a vision of government or citizenship. It just doesn't fully encompass the chaos. The Republican Party has not embarked on a grand civil war, with battle lines drawn and generals appointed. It's more like one of those fights in a cartoon, with characters jumping into a swirl of limbs and dust and cowboy hats. It is a rolling ball of cheerful hate, careening downhill, uprooting trees and legislative priorities, heedless of where it, or the country, is going.
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The Death of Truth |
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Friday, 02 August 2013 14:07 |
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Hedges: "The dragnet has swept up any person or organization that fits the profile of those with the technical skills and inclination to burrow into the archives of power and disseminate it to the public."
Chris Hedges. (photo: Truthdig)
The Death of Truth
By Chris Hedges, Truthdig
02 August 13
 tiny tip of the vast subterranean network of governmental and intelligence agencies from around the world dedicated to destroying WikiLeaks and arresting its founder, Julian Assange, appears outside the red-brick building on Hans Crescent Street that houses the Ecuadorean Embassy. Assange, the world's best-known political refugee, has been in the embassy since he was offered sanctuary there last June. British police in black Kevlar vests are perched night and day on the steps leading up to the building, and others wait in the lobby directly in front of the embassy door. An officer stands on the corner of a side street facing the iconic department store Harrods, half a block away on Brompton Road. Another officer peers out the window of a neighboring building a few feet from Assange's bedroom at the back of the embassy. Police sit round-the-clock in a communications van topped with an array of antennas that presumably captures all electronic forms of communication from Assange's ground-floor suite.
The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), or Scotland Yard, said the estimated cost of surrounding the Ecuadorean Embassy from June 19, 2012, when Assange entered the building, until Jan. 31, 2013, is the equivalent of $4.5 million.
Britain has rejected an Ecuadorean request that Assange be granted safe passage to an airport. He is in limbo. It is, he said, like living in a "space station."
Continue Reading: The Death of Truth
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FOCUS | Top 10 Ways Bradley Manning Changed the World |
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Friday, 02 August 2013 13:00 |
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Cole writes: "Whatever one thinks of Manning's actions, that we deserved to know some of what he revealed and that his revelations changed the world are undeniable."
Juan Cole. (photo: file)
Top 10 Ways Bradley Manning Changed the World
By Juan Cole, Informed Comment
02 August 13
 radley Manning will be sentenced today, having been found guilty of 20 counts on Tuesday, including espionage (despite the lack of evidence for intent to spy and the lack of evidence that his leaking ever did any real harm). Whatever one thinks of Manning's actions, that we deserved to know some of what he revealed and that his revelations changed the world are undeniable.
- Manning revealed the Collateral Murder video of a helicopter attack in Iraq on mostly unarmed non-combatants (though some of those struck may have been armed), including two Reuters journalists, whose cameras were taken for weapons, and children. The army maintains that the video does not show wrongdoing, but the killing of unarmed journalists is a war crime, and the callousness of video gives an idea of what was going on in Iraq during the years of the US occupation. When the Bush administration asked the Iraqi parliament for permission to keep a base in the country, the parliamentarians said, absolutely not. The US military was forced to withdraw from Iraq by Dec. 31, 2011.
- Manning revealed the full extent of the corruption of Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidin Ben Ali, adding fuel to the youth protest movement of late 2010, which translated the relevant US cables into Arabic. Manning contributed to the outbreak of powerful youth movements demanding more democratic governance in the Arab world.
- Manning revealed to the US and Yemeni publics the secret drone war that Washington was waging in that country. That the cables show then dictator Ali Abdallah Saleh acquiescing in the US strikes on his country probably played into the movement to remove him as president, which succeeded in early 2012.
- He revealed that then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered US diplomats to spy on their United Nations counterparts. The UN spy requests included cables that "demanded detailed intelligence on the UN leadership including forensic detail about their communications systems, including passwords and personal encryption keys," foreshadowing later revelations of extensive US spying on even allies like Germany via the NSA.
- His leaks show that then Senator John Kerry pressed Israel to be open to returning the Golan Heights to Syria as part of a peace negotiation. This item suggests that Kerry might be more of an honest broker in the current negotiations than some observers give him credit for.
- Revealed that Afghanistan government corruption is "overwhelming". This degree of corruption, which has shaken the whole banking system and caused US funds to be massively misused, is still a factor in our decision of whether to stay in Afghanistan in some capacity after December 2014. The US public is in a better position to judge the issue with these documents available.
- Manning revealed the degree of authoritarianism and corruption of the Egyptian government of Hosni Mubarak, which was subsequently swept away.
- Manning revealed that hard-nosed realist, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, was against striking Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities because it would only slow their program down slightly, but would inevitably cause Iranians to be angry and mobilized in the aftermath.
- Manning revealed that the Israeli authorities had a secret plan to keep the Palestinian population of Gaza on the brink of food insecurity and poor health, in among the creepiest military operations in history: "Israeli officials have confirmed to Embassy officials on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy functioning at the lowest level possible consistent with avoiding a humanitarian crisis."
- Manning's act of courage encouraged hackers to leak the emails of Bashar al-Assad and his wife, showing their jewelry buys in Europe and gilded style of life while al-Assad's artillery was pounding Homs and other cities with no regard for the lives of noncombatants. In fact, Manning inspired numerous leakers, including some who blew the whistle on PLO corruption and willingness to give away most of Jerusalem to Israel, and, likely, Edward Snowden, who revealed to us that our government has us all under surveillance.
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The Chilling Manning Trial |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=6853"><span class="small">Frank Rich, New York Magazine</span></a>
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Thursday, 01 August 2013 13:09 |
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Rich writes: "That 'not guilty' is a good thing, but it doesn't mitigate the reality that 'aiding the enemy' was a bogus and dangerous charge in the first place. The fact that the government would even pursue it is chilling to a free press."
Bradley Manning at Fort Meade. (photo: file)
The Chilling Manning Trial
By Frank Rich, New York Magazine
01 August 13
Every week, New York Magazine writer-at-large Frank Rich talks with contributor Eric Benson about the biggest stories in politics and culture. This week: Bradley Manning gets convicted, Obama offers a "grand bargain," and Chris Christie and Rand Paul exchange blows.
 esterday, Private Bradley Manning was convicted on multiple counts of violating the Espionage Act (which could result in 136 years of prison) but was found not guilty of the most serious charge against him, "aiding the enemy." What do you make of the verdict?
What matters here is not that Manning was found guilty of leaking - which he admitted to and will not get anything like 136 years for - but that he was found not guilty of "aiding the enemy." That "not guilty" is a good thing, but it doesn't mitigate the reality that "aiding the enemy" was a bogus and dangerous charge in the first place. The fact that the government would even pursue it is chilling to a free press. Under the prosecution's Orwellian logic, essentially any classified information given by a whistle-blower to a journalistic outlet (whether WikiLeaks or the Times, which published Manning-WikiLeaks revelations) amounts to treason if "the enemy" can read it. Well, the enemy, whomever it may be at any given moment, can read anything it wants on the Internet, the government can (and does) stamp its every embarrassing action "classified," and so almost any revelatory investigative reporting on national security (the Pentagon Papers, the Abu Ghraib revelations, you name it) could in principle lead to the death penalty (even if that punishment wasn't sought in the Manning case). That's a powerful deterrent, clearly designed to stop whistle-blowers, reporters, and news organizations from taking the risk of uncovering government misbehavior. It's a particularly devastating blow at a time when investigative journalism is shrinking anyway because of the financial woes of the news business. The Obama administration's increasingly virulent efforts to shut down hard-hitting journalism - exemplified as well, recently, by the attempt to force Times reporter James Risen to testify in another leak case - is not just outrageous on First Amendment grounds but also makes you wonder what else the White House is hiding. Let's not forget that high among Manning's revelations were the cockpits videos chronicling the killing of civilians in an American air strike. What else is there that the Obama administration is so desperate to keep quiet that it will take on leakers with a virulence unmatched by any modern White House?
Another summer, another looming battle over the federal budget, with rank-and-file Republicans threatening to shut down the government rather than fund Obamacare and the President offering the GOP a "grand bargain"-style deal. We've seen this movie before. Is there any reason to think it could end better for Obama this time?
The Obama offer - to cut some corporate taxes in exchange for some job-creating spending - was not an alluring bargain anyway for either his party or the Republicans, and was surely dead on arrival. After all these years battling the Party of No, the president must know that and no doubt expected his proposal to be rejected immediately (as it was, not just by the tea-party right but by Establishmentarians like Mitch McConnell and the Wall Street Journal editorial page). So, what was the point of this week's Kabuki theater? Mainly to keep establishing battle lines for the looming confrontation over a potential government shutdown. Offering a "grand bargain," even if less than grand, sets Obama in sharp relief to those Republicans on Capitol Hill who are threatening to hold the budget (and the economy) hostage until by some miracle Obamacare is repealed. Obama's poll numbers may be mediocre these days, but even without a shutdown, Congress hit its lowest approval rating in history last week in the WSJ-NBC News poll. And so the president has everything to gain by positioning himself as the constructive alternative to the right's bomb throwers come fall.
Rand Paul is the most interesting Republican politician out there today, mainly because he clearly doesn't give a damn about offending anyone in his party's leadership as he rapidly makes himself into the No. 1 tribune of the GOP base. When he ran for senator of KenChris Christie and Rand Paul have been publicly sparring for the last week over national security and federal spending. Is this just two big egos sticking out their chests at each other, or are we witnessing the beginning of the next phase in the much-discussed GOP civil war?tucky, he took on (and clobbered) the hand-picked candidate of Mitch McConnell. He (like two other 2016 prospects in the Senate, Mario Rubio and Ted Cruz) has thrown his support to those threatening the government shutdown. And most intriguingly, like his father before him, he is mounting a major challenge to the neocon foreign-affairs dictum of the Bush years - starting with his name-making filibuster against the Obama drone regimen. From a political point of view, I think Christie's attack on Paul on foreign policy - delivered at the Aspen Institute, no less (was the Council on Foreign Relations unavailable?) - was a political mistake if his goal is to get the GOP nomination for president. By invoking 9/11 as a stick to beat Paul with, it was clear that the New Jersey governor has spent a lot of time listening to Rudy Giuliani, Henry Kissinger, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Dick Cheney, and John Bolton - but the Republican base is as sick of this crowd (and of America's wars) as the Democrats are. And the response to Paul in his own party has been proving that. The Christie-versus-Paul battle for the soul of the GOP is beginning to look like the contest between Mitt Romney and all-the-others (including Ron Paul) in 2012. I think Christie may well find himself on the wrong side of his party's internal politics and history.
Earlier this week, Pope Francis gave a surprising press conference in which he said that he would not marginalize gay priests for their sexual orientation, while stopping well short of altering Church doctrine. Is this an important step? Or is it too little, too late from a religious body that is increasingly out of step with society?
It's hard to imagine that anything Pope Francis would say in a press conference, even one as charming as this, would have any big effect on anything. That he expressed tolerance for gay people doesn't have any effect on punitive church doctrine in any case, and let's not forget that in the same press conference he also dismissed the idea of women priests. That said, the American reaction to Francis's remarks was another indicator that to be gay-friendly, even somewhat nominally, is only a plus in terms of public relations now for prominent figures in all walks of life. I'd also add that I never thought I'd see the day when a pope would be more generous to gay people than some powerful figures in American government, including the forever gay-baiting Justice Scalia.
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ussia's decision on Thursday to grant NSA leaker Edward Snowden asylum for one year and allow him freely to live and work in the Russian Federation hit Washington like a hydrogen bomb. Angry politicians called on President Obama to cancel talks in Moscow with Putin scheduled in September.
