More than anything else, what unifies tin-pot dictators Trump, Putin, Netanyahu, Erdoğan, and no doubt others on a smaller scale is their sheer venality.
The attempt to polish the imperialism turd reminds one of Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch. Shop owner Michael Palin tries to explain away the fact that the bird he's just sold is unquestionably dead:
"No no he's not dead, he's, he's restin'! Remarkable bird, the Norwegian Blue, idn'it, ay? Beautiful plumage!"
When Trump's Palm Beach property (I refuse to use its name) goes under water, the insurance carrier should deny the claim on the grounds that he had asked for it.
This morning a CNN commentator talked about the stresses between Trump and "traditional small-government Republicans." Total nonsense! The Republican party has been taken over not by traditional anything but by Paul Ryan's gang of radical Ayn Rand worshipers. Fifty years ago, when "traditional small-government Republicans" ran the party, these extremists would have been rejected as the crackpots that they are.
I'm sure Jeff Sessions will be all over this. He's been champing at the bit to liberalize American marijuana policy.
Sorry, I'm back now. Climate change, Jerusalem, marijuana - one wonders on how many other issues will the United States be out of step with the world before Reichspräsident Strumpf and Vice Ayatollah Pence leave office.
Can this be interpreted as MbS hedging his personal fortune (every penny of which rightfully belongs to the country's people) against the dollar? No need to choose now - Euro, Yen, Swiss Franc. Just sell it in the 'hot' currency at the appropriate time.
A decent politician? I saw no reference to Kılıçdaroğlu. These are not the kind of cases that come to trial unless there is more than enough evidence. Erdoğan is behaving like the worst of the Ottomans.
A man in such obvious, desperate need of the approval of strongmen (father figures) has no business being 'the most powerful man in the world.' On the other hand, the Savonarola-in waiting is even more terrifying. Hard to choose!
Remember Ann Richards' great convention speech when she said of George H W Bush, "Poor George! He was born with a silver foot in his mouth."
Charles appears to have the same condition. Expressing his disapproval of modern architecture in London he famously said, "You have to give this much to the Luftwaffe: when it knocked down our buildings it did not replace them with anything more offensive than rubble."
I suspect Queen Elizabeth will live forever if that's what it takes to make sure her dopey son never becomes king.
And #6: It was said of congressmen & senators in safe Southern (in those days Democratic) districts, "The only way he'll be voted out is to be caught in bed with a dead girl... or a live boy."
As to your prediction, "...values voters may not turn on the judge." So-called 'values voters' almost never turn on their own.
President Eisenhower, who continues to look better and better at 60 years' remove famously wrote: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
The same comment could easily be directed at the countless dollars, euros, pounds spent on tax avoidance.
I would be reluctant to claim religion causes violence, but it can provide a convenient justification. Having a 'higher authority' makes it easier for nihilist and sociopaths to recruit others to their cults of rage. It can be religious - and no religion is immune, just look at Myanmar; it can be pseudo-religious - think of Himmler's crazy spirituality; or it can be purely secular - 'Manifest Destiny' comes to mind.
I think attempts to greatly simplify the question will greatly invalidate potential answers.
If the object of terrorism is to create dread (terror) among the target population, I think it's fair to say the New York truck-killer was a complete failure. I for one feel far less fear of a truck and "Allahu akbar!" than a gun and "Yee-ha!"
The hopes for an independent nation of the longest-waiting national group are dashed on the rocks of Realpolitik. After getting close enough to smell the finish line, they watch the finish line being yanked away beyond their sight. Sad.
China's initiatives and Trump's grotesque missteps will marginalize the United States except in those parts of Europe who either face the Atlantic or are former Soviet satellites (and Israel of course).
Juan, please, Herr Reichspräsident Strumpf has a good narrative going; and it's not your place (or anybody else's) to insert facts into the mix.
His idée fixe fear and loathing of Muslims in the large is baffling given his willingness to do business with corrupt Muslims wherever they can assist his business aims.
This is The Art of the Deal: bully, bluster, speak loudly and carry a big stick. The big stick used to be slimeball lawyers, Roy Cohn first and foremost among them; now it's the entire US military establishment.
It's how Reichspräsident Strumpf has always operated. We (and the rest of the world) have every right to be appalled, but no right to be surprised.
Thank you, Juan. If you were to provide us a piece of Persian or Turkish art on a daily basis it would go a long way toward lowering the collective blood pressure.
Putin understood perfectly. He knew Trump would not toe a pro-Russian policy line, but he also knew that last year's election gave him an opportunity to put in the oval office what had never occupied that place before: a true incompetent.
You don't need Raymond Shaw; Chauncey Gardner will do quite well.
The supreme - and I don't use that word lightly - irony is that the official organs of the republic are becoming a monstrous, both in size and scope, revival tent meeting... under the leadership of the most ungodly-living president in the nation's history.
Something about sowing the wind.... I never thought I would live to see the coming of the whirlwind (I'm at the leading edge of the baby-boomer generation), but my mind is changing.
There is something pharaonic about Herr Reichspräsident Strump's compulsion to erase Obama's presidency from memory, as if Obama were Akhenaten. There must be more to it than the gentle ribbing the President gave him at a white house correspondents' dinner.
As he acts out his neurosis, America suffers. The best outcome will be the world taking the position that he speaks only for himself and that one of the 'adults in the room' - Kelly, Tillerson, et al - is the voice to be heeded.
"What made sense 50 years ago is insane now." I would argue that it was insane even then. Watching Ken Burns' Viet Nam War documentary; recalling The Fog of War, Nixon's 'secret plan,' the domino theory, etc. reinforces the rightness of the antiwar movement then. And the antiwar voices have been right ever since, I would say without exception.
What's the point of being an oligarch if you can't use your office to feather your nest?
What's the point of having brown skin and speaking Spanish if you can't fully appreciate how purely incidental your suffering is to said nest feathering?
"...women unsuccessfully petitioned King Abdullah...." Does that snippet not summarize the sheer absurdity of the Saudi hereditary monarchy? The very notion that in the 21st Century grown women should have to 'petition' some predecessor-annointed great father figure!
If it were not for the gigabarrels of oil and gas under their sand (which, by the way, rightfully belongs to the marginalized Shiite minority), they would be the object of ridicule similar to that directed at King Arthur by the anarcho-syndicalist peasants in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Talk about an accident waiting to happen!!! The woman behind the wheel wearing her kara çarşaf can't see nearly enough of her surroundings. After her crash will the first responders be women so that the injured driver won't have to be seen / touched by a male para-medic not of her family? Somehow, I don't think the hereditary despot in Riyadh has that figured out yet.
"...the same medium where people celebrate the exploits of their cats."
The world would probably be calmer and safer if somebody were to give Reichspräsident Strumpf a cat to keep him company. Although it might not be such a good gig for the cat.
Jim, what's the point of being an oligarch if you can't create privileges for yourself? As for the rest of us, they take very seriously the Declaration of Independence's promise of "the pursuit of happiness." And they will make damned sure "pursuit" is as close as we ever get.
'Real' rape, dress codes (all about covering breast and thigh) are all of a piece. 95 years ago a woman smoking cigarettes was 'loose.' And if she smoked in public - maybe sipped a little bootleg gin - well, what shall we think of her?!?
The oldest power grab of all - older than race, older than class - was when men seized control of women's sexuality.
"...Trump, Flynn, Kushner and Bannon. Its like when you hear animals eating garbage in your garage at night and you turn on the light and there are four fat raccoons chowing down on rotten chicken bones."
Juan, thank you for that image; I'll not soon purge it from my brain. The corruption that permeates Reichspräsident Strumpf's inner circle is a civic cancer, and the media do us a gross disservice by not digging deeper and keeping it in the headlines.
There is more than enough money being wasted on things like - [fictional] climate change, [unneeded] air and water protections, [silly] Voting Rights Act litigation, [ridiculous] legal representation for indigent defendants, and [totally malicious] persecution of those perfectly innocent folks who had direct or indirect dealings with Putin - to fund this [it really isn't a] fantasy.
"In the ads to come, maybe you’ll see a guy in a hard hat claim that corporate tax cuts will put him back to work. He’s lying."
Actually HE is telling the truth. He is an actor, a paid shill for the Koch, Mercer, Fill-in-the-Blank propaganda industry. And as long as his paymasters have lies to tell HE will have a job.
Scott and der Reichspräsident are on the same page concerning climate change, and I'm about to step out onto a logical highwire without a net.
It occurs to me that Herr Strumpf (a lovely German word - look it up) does not have to pursue pro-Russian policies for Putin's meddling in the 2016 election to be vindicated. He only has to be, as Putin must have expected, incompetent. He can wreck the United States as effectively by being a hapless boob as by being Putin's puppet. Who knows - maybe more so.
I want to see him just once forced to live by his own words. The weeping far-righter, Chris Cantwell, will be happy to share his crying towel with him.
I always felt uncomfortable in the presence of the abaya (kara çarşaf in Turkey - look it up!) because it represents not so much anything Islamic as a pre-Muslim barbarism disguising itself as instructions from the Prophet.
The hicab is much less a rejection of the world we actually live in, but I was a bit worried last summer in İstanbul by a greatly increased incidence of the hicab especially among young women compared to 10 years ago.
I hate to think that it might be the camel's nose under the tent of a general retreat into religiosity., but I fear that it is. Weak economy and poor governance can do that to a country.
Providing a setting in which the outward trappings of religion are less necessary beats an outright ban every time.
"The self-destructive elements of neo-fascism are now in place...."
There is no 'neo-fascism' as there is no 'neo-Nazism.' There are fascists and fascism, Nazis and Nazism. Please, no 'neo' to somehow sanitize them or otherwise separate them from their sources.
Fascists and Nazis in all their hateful splendour!
Wrong day of the week. When Paris was about to fall in June, 1940, tons of documents were burned by government officials - a time sarcastically referred to as "Ash Wednesday."
This is what the gun and badge do to a personality. The feeling of omnipotence is irresistible when the full power and majesty of the state is pinned to your chest and the power of life and death rides on your belt.
Did the arresting cop follow the Reichspräsident's recommendation to rough her up / not protect the nurse's head when placing her in his car?
When has the US ever cared what the IAEA had to say, unless their findings fit hand-in-glove with the official American narrative? When Mohamed el Baradei found no nuclear activity in Iraq, contrary to what Bush/Cheney were saying, he was pulled out of Iraq. Worth emphasising: He was pulled out of Iraq at Bush's insistence, not pushed out by Saddam.
Trump appears desperate to have a war all of his own. The hand-me-down conflict in Afghanistan, which has limited prospects for success, just won't do. A nuclear / missile armed North Korea is a dangerous hornets' nest to kick, so why not the traditional whipping boy, Iran?
When adults, not petulant children, occupy seats of power they DO resign when they bring shame upon their institutions. The key word is "shame."
Neither Trump nor any of the climate criminals close to him are susceptible to shame since they all appear incapable of admitting error. They will only quit when staying on puts their wealth or their freedom at risk.
The Pope claims infallibility only in matters of doctrine and morals. These truly exceptional guys believe they are inerrant in all things.
There is a special place in Hell for them. Also look into megachurch grifter Joel Osteen. He claims to be organizing a fundraiser to aid flood victims. Does anybody else think that translates to winkling out other people's money while keeping his wallet out of sight?
I will be curious, in a morbid sort of way, to watch this play out. Weimar saw severe tension between party operatives and the military - the former striving to corral all the bits of power after the 1932 election, the latter trying to hold on to its historic status. Think Trump's generals vs. his ear-whisperers.
As in 1934, the military seems to have the upper hand. But as we know because history allows us to read ahead, the much more organized and efficient SS supplanted Roehm's more chaotic bully-boys of the SA.
In the end it was the generals who had to bow down and pledge personal fealty to Hitler. If that happens here it will be a tragedy. If the generals come out on top it could be even worse. In neither case do I see democracy being the winner.
"A few Republicans have begun to publicly express their repugnance, notably Senators Lindsey Graham, Jeff Flake, and Bob Corker."
This is the cheapest coin of the political realm. Repugnance means nothing unless backed up by concrete action to impede the program. So far only McCain and Murkowski have cast a contrary vote.
Let me go off topic to point out one positive development: Oberunsinnsprecher Gorka has been relieved of duties. He is rumoured to be establishing the Sebastian Gorka Institute of Faulty Conclusions and Absurd Accents.
Part of me would love to read this book. The rest is afraid. A dear friend in Bursa, professional, university educated, a true renaissance man, doesn't read Pamuk. When I asked why, his reply was, "Too complicated."
Woman attendee queried by ABC News says, "He's right about everything. That's why I'm behind him." I wasn't able to write it down as she spoke, so a word or two may be inaccurate. But the meaning is on the dot.
If Reichspråsident Strumpf's facts-be-damned followers (±30% of voters) are that committed to him, there really is no hope for the democratic process. Führerprinzip is the new rule.
NPR reported this morning: The motorcade from hotel to convention center drove along a "secure" route. The Reichspräsident was allowed to see no evidence of opposition. Presidential safety is a good thing, but the Secret Service is now shown to be complicit in building the intellectual Potemkin village in which the boss operates.
As a multi-pathway learner, I most appreciated the 1982 movie about die weiße Rose. In '82, that time period was still a living memory in Germany. Please watch in the original German, subtitles if you need them.
As usual, the calamities will fall most severely on those people and nations with the least ability to contend with them. Whoever said, "Water is the new oil," got it absolutely right. And it appears that after years (decades?) of getting it wrong, the learning curve is still nearly horizontal.
I remember reading the following quote about the ever deeper wells that farmers in the subcontinent were forced to drill: "We are mining our grandchildren's water." Yet they continue to grow cotton - one of the world's thirstiest crops - in semiarid regions.
Climate crisis in a region defined by nuclear-tipped adversaries is not a pretty prospect.
There are murmurs among the Blue states which are mostly expressions of frustration at the cold hand grip the slaveholders of the 1780s built into the Constitution - but only murmurs. The exception is the Second Vermont Republic which I think is (pardon the stereotyping) a few Birkenstock-wearing guys who have meetings to air grievances - sort of like Festivus - and smoke a doob.
I for one would be happy to see Texas go, as long as part of the deal is that it returns to Mexico. Every founding myth is a combination of fact and self-flattery; Texas's omits the most important chapter, the filibusters and their slaves.
As to Kozmo's main argument, there are good reasons that the Constitution allows for new states' joining the Union (Art. IV) and has no provision for leaving. Much as I chafe under the injustice of the Electoral College, etc., that does not begin to justify the treason of dissolving Union.
It is well established that the First Amendment does not protect all speech. Certainly advocacy of treason falls into the unprotected category. The secessionist movement of 1861-65 was the greatest act of treason committed against the United States. I think in that context a more appropriate model than post-Bolshevik Russia is post-Nazi Germany.
Statues of secessionist heroes(?) and display of flags, regalia, etc. are to be proscribed. The states' rights argument is hollow. Neo-confederate nostalgia is about secession (treason), and the "peculiar institution" (hate speech).
Bacevich can always be counted on to provide a dose of what so frequently goes missing in American political discourse: a scalpel-like ability to cut through the many levels of distractions obscuring reality, and a healthy dose of good sense.
I strongly disagree with his fourth proposal. An annually balanced federal budget is an autopilot solution to economic problems that frequently require active management. It implies that we can have no trust in our elected representatives
As to proposal five: for every military recruit drafted to break things "over there," there is need for a hundred civilian recruits to help fix things right here.
Now back to reality. What are the chances that Bacevich's recommendations will make their way to the lips of the people whispering sweet nothings in the ear of Trump, Pence, McConnell, Pelosi...?
"The proposed Israel Anti-Boycott Act would make it a felony for Americans to support BDS, with a penalty of up to $1 million and 20 years in prison."
I believe you understate the problem. Does the proposed bill not also criminalize attempting to gain information about BDS? A Google search would be a felony.
Unless Trump is removed from office, indicted and found guilty, little will change. He continues to hold campaign rallies, deflects attention from his faults, and has his adoring crowds of true-believers grunting in unison: "Lock her up."
This is the playing out of the dilemma inherent in the Patrick Buchanan-espoused immigration / culture war policies from the Nixon era. I believe they would prefer America to be a reduced White, Christian, English-speaking enclave than a cosmopolitan superpower.
It's all of a piece. Note well the [so-called] Justice Department's reversal on affirmative action in college admissions. This stuff has been building pressure and looking for policy outlets since Trump's father denied housing to Negro (the polite word back then) tenants.
As for Stephen Miller, he is little more than a Kapo serving Bannon's agenda. SCHANDE.
I'll bet if Foreign Minister Zarif put in a call to Donald Junior and promised dirt on Hillary, they could "take a meeting [a silly New York idiom]"; and in no time they could be dancing cheek to cheek and talking about - who knows - adoptions.
"...Steve Bannon, the scary far, far right wing white nationalist"
I misread this and stumbled into a deeper truth: Steve Bannon, the scary far, far right wing white nihilist.
As to being under siege, the most dangerous besieging force is several million gun-toting Trump supporters. They are more deluded and less susceptible to reason then the North Korean regime.
In an earlier, more innocent time I held dear the Law of Return as a lifeline for the day that fascism arrives full-blown in America. That day is almost here, and the lifeline leads only to a different color of fascism.
Excellent connecting of dots. Ten years ago I suggested to a friend that Abdullah Gül would be a brake on Erdoğan's more extreme impulses. She said I was wrong and that they (AKP) were all the same thugs. She was right.
"Rolex 'Caliph'" Do you refer to that thing visible on his wrist? He bought it from some guy on Chambers Street, a guy with spray tan and a bad combover who claimed he was going to be president of the United States. Guaranteed him it was genuine. $150 - cash only.
If you're a big evangelical christian corporation trying to pass yourself off as a family business, it's OK. Thou shalt steal; thou shalt covet, and thou shalt lie. The stuff you think you can get away with - and often do - all because you're "saved"!
Perhaps emboldened by Trump, Erdoğan is opting Turkey out of the Paris Accord. One more rotten child and we can have those classic storybook kids: Smash, Rip and Ruin.
Thanks to Trump, the world now sees with perfect clarity what American 'exceptionalism' really is. Take all the rhetoric from Lincoln's "last best hope of earth" to Kennedy's & Reagan's "city on a hill" and toss it in Trotsky's dustbin of history.
Trump's America is a petulant child-empire who "runs with scissors" and does not know how to "play well with others."
And several years later, the selfsame Walesa blamed the problems in Poland's Thatcher/Reagan/Bush/Yeltsin-inspired capitalism on whom but the Jews. He had to be reminded there were none left.
As for Edelman, he was merely what every Jew-hating regime needs: a "good Jew."
Do not lose sight of this:
Trump said in Warsaw, "[T]he United States has demonstrated — not merely with its words but with its actions — that we stand firmly behind Article 5...."
The ONE time the United States has acted on NATO's mutual defense clause was after 9/11 when President Bush II (The Whelp) invoked it in order to bring other NATO countries on board.
America has NEVER used Article 5 as a basis for acting in another country's behalf.
The hardest hit Americans will place the blame everywhere except where it belongs. And the political leaders who have done nothing but deceive them will say, "This is no time for laying blame," as they, too, blame everybody but themselves.
America needs a good dose of "The fault, dear Brutus...."
I remember learning [to the effect of] a statement can be true, untrue or meaningless. This competition, anti-Trump in Tehran is a meaningless statement as would be an anti-Castro competition in Washington.
Show me the anti-Khamenei competition in Tehran and I'll be impressed. Better still the anti-Erdoğan event in İstanbul and the anti-Salman show in Riyadh.
This represents another step in Turkey's turn toward the [Mid]East and away from Europe under Erdoğan's leadership. His neo-Ottoman vision conjures the glories of Mehmet and Süleyman, but more likely will be a Neo-Hamidian return of "The Sick Man."
If these crooks were Democrats, Rudy Giuliani and a clown-car full of Fox [so-called] News commentators would be screaming for the Trump/Kushner Crime Family to be prosecuted under RICO.
It makes my skin crawl to be taking the same side as Erdoğan in this matter; but, as they say, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. As odious as he is, he can't hold a candle to the utterly corrupt despots in Riyadh.
....making Putin even more dangerous. How will the hollow giant that is Russia respond when its leaders realize their primary source of wealth is going away for good?
Interesting though experiment. Will the death of Salman [the despot] lead in fairly short order to the dissolution of the kingdom? How long will the Shiite, and oil-rich, East remain loyal should a shooting war break out against Iran?
I suspect post-Salman [the despot] Saudi Arabia may be as fragile and fractious as post-Saddam Iraq.
If the Saudis provoke a war (sorry, not polite like "military confrontation") with Iran, one wonders how long Trump will allow the US to remain on the sidelines?
I daresay Europeans' biggest problems with Sharia aren't with Sharia at all. Things like veiling and female genital mutilation were part of 'those' societies long before Islam. Jealous, paternalistic leaders fused them onto the religion more or less willy-nilly, and over the centuries, the preexisting customs became effectively canonical.
It particularly bothers me that holdovers of ancient jahiliyya are so tightly and widely embraced.
As horrid as Trump is - and he is, the possibility of gimlet-eyed Mike Pence becoming president is unthinkable. Trading a chaotic incompetent who really is without ideology for a true-believer with knowledge of how to operate the levers of power is a step in the wrong direction.
The money men who call the Republicans' tune don't care about Trump's high crimes and misdemeanors as long as no tipping of their apple cart occurs. And the voters who bought Trump's snake oil last November will see impeachment as vicious Democrats persecuting the one man who can put the Nigras, Mooslims, Welfare Queens, and Terrorist/Criminal Immigrants in their place. Ridiculous as it may seem, in their minds Trump will be a latter day Agnus Dei, martyred trying to make America great again.
Better strategy is to impede Trump and his agenda in every way possible, chip away at the Republican majorities in 2018 and put up a candidate in 2020 who can actually win. Let's hope the republic can survive the experience.
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More than anything else, what unifies tin-pot dictators Trump, Putin, Netanyahu, Erdoğan, and no doubt others on a smaller scale is their sheer venality.
Add "GOP Heroes" to the World's Shortest Lists joke.
The attempt to polish the imperialism turd reminds one of Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch. Shop owner Michael Palin tries to explain away the fact that the bird he's just sold is unquestionably dead:
"No no he's not dead, he's, he's restin'! Remarkable bird, the Norwegian Blue, idn'it, ay? Beautiful plumage!"
When Trump's Palm Beach property (I refuse to use its name) goes under water, the insurance carrier should deny the claim on the grounds that he had asked for it.
Gens una sumus!!!
This morning a CNN commentator talked about the stresses between Trump and "traditional small-government Republicans." Total nonsense! The Republican party has been taken over not by traditional anything but by Paul Ryan's gang of radical Ayn Rand worshipers. Fifty years ago, when "traditional small-government Republicans" ran the party, these extremists would have been rejected as the crackpots that they are.
"I very much doubt anyone will pay attention to Trump’s threats."
Juan, I very much hope they do - sometimes the General Assembly looks like it could use a good laugh.
I'm sure Jeff Sessions will be all over this. He's been champing at the bit to liberalize American marijuana policy.
Sorry, I'm back now. Climate change, Jerusalem, marijuana - one wonders on how many other issues will the United States be out of step with the world before Reichspräsident Strumpf and Vice Ayatollah Pence leave office.
Can this be interpreted as MbS hedging his personal fortune (every penny of which rightfully belongs to the country's people) against the dollar? No need to choose now - Euro, Yen, Swiss Franc. Just sell it in the 'hot' currency at the appropriate time.
The one characteristic that unites tin-pot tyrants like Netanyahu, Erdoğan, Trump (not Putin - he's the real thing) is venality.
In the immortal words of Deep Throat: "Follow the Money."
A decent politician? I saw no reference to Kılıçdaroğlu. These are not the kind of cases that come to trial unless there is more than enough evidence. Erdoğan is behaving like the worst of the Ottomans.
Sultan Recep Tayyip çok yaşa!
I can picture the teeming crowds at future Trump rallies and their full-throated chant: "We're Number Six!"
Does anybody remember Patrick McGoohan's 'The Prisoner'?
A man in such obvious, desperate need of the approval of strongmen (father figures) has no business being 'the most powerful man in the world.' On the other hand, the Savonarola-in waiting is even more terrifying. Hard to choose!
Remember Ann Richards' great convention speech when she said of George H W Bush, "Poor George! He was born with a silver foot in his mouth."
Charles appears to have the same condition. Expressing his disapproval of modern architecture in London he famously said, "You have to give this much to the Luftwaffe: when it knocked down our buildings it did not replace them with anything more offensive than rubble."
I suspect Queen Elizabeth will live forever if that's what it takes to make sure her dopey son never becomes king.
And #6: It was said of congressmen & senators in safe Southern (in those days Democratic) districts, "The only way he'll be voted out is to be caught in bed with a dead girl... or a live boy."
As to your prediction, "...values voters may not turn on the judge." So-called 'values voters' almost never turn on their own.
Excellent comments, Juan, thank you.
President Eisenhower, who continues to look better and better at 60 years' remove famously wrote: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
The same comment could easily be directed at the countless dollars, euros, pounds spent on tax avoidance.
I would be reluctant to claim religion causes violence, but it can provide a convenient justification. Having a 'higher authority' makes it easier for nihilist and sociopaths to recruit others to their cults of rage. It can be religious - and no religion is immune, just look at Myanmar; it can be pseudo-religious - think of Himmler's crazy spirituality; or it can be purely secular - 'Manifest Destiny' comes to mind.
I think attempts to greatly simplify the question will greatly invalidate potential answers.
If the object of terrorism is to create dread (terror) among the target population, I think it's fair to say the New York truck-killer was a complete failure. I for one feel far less fear of a truck and "Allahu akbar!" than a gun and "Yee-ha!"
The hopes for an independent nation of the longest-waiting national group are dashed on the rocks of Realpolitik. After getting close enough to smell the finish line, they watch the finish line being yanked away beyond their sight. Sad.
China's initiatives and Trump's grotesque missteps will marginalize the United States except in those parts of Europe who either face the Atlantic or are former Soviet satellites (and Israel of course).
Juan, please, Herr Reichspräsident Strumpf has a good narrative going; and it's not your place (or anybody else's) to insert facts into the mix.
His idée fixe fear and loathing of Muslims in the large is baffling given his willingness to do business with corrupt Muslims wherever they can assist his business aims.
The deniers will make every excuse from "Normal cyclical event," to "G-d's plan." And they are running critical bureaucracies in the US.
Which will destroy us first - planet earth or our nuclear Frankenstein monster?
This is The Art of the Deal: bully, bluster, speak loudly and carry a big stick. The big stick used to be slimeball lawyers, Roy Cohn first and foremost among them; now it's the entire US military establishment.
It's how Reichspräsident Strumpf has always operated. We (and the rest of the world) have every right to be appalled, but no right to be surprised.
Thank you, Juan. If you were to provide us a piece of Persian or Turkish art on a daily basis it would go a long way toward lowering the collective blood pressure.
Putin understood perfectly. He knew Trump would not toe a pro-Russian policy line, but he also knew that last year's election gave him an opportunity to put in the oval office what had never occupied that place before: a true incompetent.
You don't need Raymond Shaw; Chauncey Gardner will do quite well.
The supreme - and I don't use that word lightly - irony is that the official organs of the republic are becoming a monstrous, both in size and scope, revival tent meeting... under the leadership of the most ungodly-living president in the nation's history.
I can't disagree.
The Marlowe reference got the remains of my gears spinning, and I was reminded of my favorite German Expressionist film: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
Something about sowing the wind.... I never thought I would live to see the coming of the whirlwind (I'm at the leading edge of the baby-boomer generation), but my mind is changing.
There is something pharaonic about Herr Reichspräsident Strump's compulsion to erase Obama's presidency from memory, as if Obama were Akhenaten. There must be more to it than the gentle ribbing the President gave him at a white house correspondents' dinner.
As he acts out his neurosis, America suffers. The best outcome will be the world taking the position that he speaks only for himself and that one of the 'adults in the room' - Kelly, Tillerson, et al - is the voice to be heeded.
"What made sense 50 years ago is insane now." I would argue that it was insane even then. Watching Ken Burns' Viet Nam War documentary; recalling The Fog of War, Nixon's 'secret plan,' the domino theory, etc. reinforces the rightness of the antiwar movement then. And the antiwar voices have been right ever since, I would say without exception.
There are so many more. How in the world did you choose?
What's the point of being an oligarch if you can't use your office to feather your nest?
What's the point of having brown skin and speaking Spanish if you can't fully appreciate how purely incidental your suffering is to said nest feathering?
"...women unsuccessfully petitioned King Abdullah...." Does that snippet not summarize the sheer absurdity of the Saudi hereditary monarchy? The very notion that in the 21st Century grown women should have to 'petition' some predecessor-annointed great father figure!
If it were not for the gigabarrels of oil and gas under their sand (which, by the way, rightfully belongs to the marginalized Shiite minority), they would be the object of ridicule similar to that directed at King Arthur by the anarcho-syndicalist peasants in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Talk about an accident waiting to happen!!! The woman behind the wheel wearing her kara çarşaf can't see nearly enough of her surroundings. After her crash will the first responders be women so that the injured driver won't have to be seen / touched by a male para-medic not of her family? Somehow, I don't think the hereditary despot in Riyadh has that figured out yet.
"...the same medium where people celebrate the exploits of their cats."
The world would probably be calmer and safer if somebody were to give Reichspräsident Strumpf a cat to keep him company. Although it might not be such a good gig for the cat.
Jim, what's the point of being an oligarch if you can't create privileges for yourself? As for the rest of us, they take very seriously the Declaration of Independence's promise of "the pursuit of happiness." And they will make damned sure "pursuit" is as close as we ever get.
'Real' rape, dress codes (all about covering breast and thigh) are all of a piece. 95 years ago a woman smoking cigarettes was 'loose.' And if she smoked in public - maybe sipped a little bootleg gin - well, what shall we think of her?!?
The oldest power grab of all - older than race, older than class - was when men seized control of women's sexuality.
Reichspräsident Strumpf is the amoral, insecure little boy created by his affection-depriving father and his early protector, Roy Cohn.
"...[H]e’ll end up on a desert island with Netanyahu as Man Friday." Methinks you may have the roles reversed.
"...Trump, Flynn, Kushner and Bannon. Its like when you hear animals eating garbage in your garage at night and you turn on the light and there are four fat raccoons chowing down on rotten chicken bones."
Juan, thank you for that image; I'll not soon purge it from my brain. The corruption that permeates Reichspräsident Strumpf's inner circle is a civic cancer, and the media do us a gross disservice by not digging deeper and keeping it in the headlines.
One wonders: Will the Likud-enablers in Reichspräsident Strumpf's White House push for the US to withhold funding to the UN?
Thank you, Juan, much to think about. I doubt you will be top of the bestseller list in Riyadh.
There is more than enough money being wasted on things like - [fictional] climate change, [unneeded] air and water protections, [silly] Voting Rights Act litigation, [ridiculous] legal representation for indigent defendants, and [totally malicious] persecution of those perfectly innocent folks who had direct or indirect dealings with Putin - to fund this [it really isn't a] fantasy.
Sikh, Muslim. Shari'a, Halakha. What's the difference? If hate is in you, it has to get out.
"In the ads to come, maybe you’ll see a guy in a hard hat claim that corporate tax cuts will put him back to work. He’s lying."
Actually HE is telling the truth. He is an actor, a paid shill for the Koch, Mercer, Fill-in-the-Blank propaganda industry. And as long as his paymasters have lies to tell HE will have a job.
Scott and der Reichspräsident are on the same page concerning climate change, and I'm about to step out onto a logical highwire without a net.
It occurs to me that Herr Strumpf (a lovely German word - look it up) does not have to pursue pro-Russian policies for Putin's meddling in the 2016 election to be vindicated. He only has to be, as Putin must have expected, incompetent. He can wreck the United States as effectively by being a hapless boob as by being Putin's puppet. Who knows - maybe more so.
I want to see him just once forced to live by his own words. The weeping far-righter, Chris Cantwell, will be happy to share his crying towel with him.
I always felt uncomfortable in the presence of the abaya (kara çarşaf in Turkey - look it up!) because it represents not so much anything Islamic as a pre-Muslim barbarism disguising itself as instructions from the Prophet.
The hicab is much less a rejection of the world we actually live in, but I was a bit worried last summer in İstanbul by a greatly increased incidence of the hicab especially among young women compared to 10 years ago.
I hate to think that it might be the camel's nose under the tent of a general retreat into religiosity., but I fear that it is. Weak economy and poor governance can do that to a country.
Providing a setting in which the outward trappings of religion are less necessary beats an outright ban every time.
This is how a businessman with numerous failures and six rescues thanks to bankruptcy court runs the government like a business.
"The self-destructive elements of neo-fascism are now in place...."
There is no 'neo-fascism' as there is no 'neo-Nazism.' There are fascists and fascism, Nazis and Nazism. Please, no 'neo' to somehow sanitize them or otherwise separate them from their sources.
Fascists and Nazis in all their hateful splendour!
Wrong day of the week. When Paris was about to fall in June, 1940, tons of documents were burned by government officials - a time sarcastically referred to as "Ash Wednesday."
This is what the gun and badge do to a personality. The feeling of omnipotence is irresistible when the full power and majesty of the state is pinned to your chest and the power of life and death rides on your belt.
Did the arresting cop follow the Reichspräsident's recommendation to rough her up / not protect the nurse's head when placing her in his car?
When has the US ever cared what the IAEA had to say, unless their findings fit hand-in-glove with the official American narrative? When Mohamed el Baradei found no nuclear activity in Iraq, contrary to what Bush/Cheney were saying, he was pulled out of Iraq. Worth emphasising: He was pulled out of Iraq at Bush's insistence, not pushed out by Saddam.
Trump appears desperate to have a war all of his own. The hand-me-down conflict in Afghanistan, which has limited prospects for success, just won't do. A nuclear / missile armed North Korea is a dangerous hornets' nest to kick, so why not the traditional whipping boy, Iran?
You just watch! This is the first step toward imposing shari'a law in Texas.
Seriously, compare that punk con-man Osteen.
Does that include shipping & handling?
"Order now and receive a second hat absolutely free; just pay a separate fee." Does the hustle ever stop with the grifter-in-chief?
When adults, not petulant children, occupy seats of power they DO resign when they bring shame upon their institutions. The key word is "shame."
Neither Trump nor any of the climate criminals close to him are susceptible to shame since they all appear incapable of admitting error. They will only quit when staying on puts their wealth or their freedom at risk.
The Pope claims infallibility only in matters of doctrine and morals. These truly exceptional guys believe they are inerrant in all things.
There is a special place in Hell for them. Also look into megachurch grifter Joel Osteen. He claims to be organizing a fundraiser to aid flood victims. Does anybody else think that translates to winkling out other people's money while keeping his wallet out of sight?
I will be curious, in a morbid sort of way, to watch this play out. Weimar saw severe tension between party operatives and the military - the former striving to corral all the bits of power after the 1932 election, the latter trying to hold on to its historic status. Think Trump's generals vs. his ear-whisperers.
As in 1934, the military seems to have the upper hand. But as we know because history allows us to read ahead, the much more organized and efficient SS supplanted Roehm's more chaotic bully-boys of the SA.
In the end it was the generals who had to bow down and pledge personal fealty to Hitler. If that happens here it will be a tragedy. If the generals come out on top it could be even worse. In neither case do I see democracy being the winner.
Congratulations! Iraq is in hot pursuit of, and catching up to, the intentional ignorance level of... Texas.
"A few Republicans have begun to publicly express their repugnance, notably Senators Lindsey Graham, Jeff Flake, and Bob Corker."
This is the cheapest coin of the political realm. Repugnance means nothing unless backed up by concrete action to impede the program. So far only McCain and Murkowski have cast a contrary vote.
Let me go off topic to point out one positive development: Oberunsinnsprecher Gorka has been relieved of duties. He is rumoured to be establishing the Sebastian Gorka Institute of Faulty Conclusions and Absurd Accents.
She is a STATESMAN! The world need more of them and fewer self-seeking tin-pot tyrants like Putin, Trump, Orbán, Netanyahu, Erdoğan, Duterte, ....
After the pardon, expect Arpaio to get a brand new black tunic, armband, and title, Reichsführer der Grenzpolizei.
I'm sure he'll come to like being called "GrePo Joe."
Part of me would love to read this book. The rest is afraid. A dear friend in Bursa, professional, university educated, a true renaissance man, doesn't read Pamuk. When I asked why, his reply was, "Too complicated."
Woman attendee queried by ABC News says, "He's right about everything. That's why I'm behind him." I wasn't able to write it down as she spoke, so a word or two may be inaccurate. But the meaning is on the dot.
If Reichspråsident Strumpf's facts-be-damned followers (±30% of voters) are that committed to him, there really is no hope for the democratic process. Führerprinzip is the new rule.
NPR reported this morning: The motorcade from hotel to convention center drove along a "secure" route. The Reichspräsident was allowed to see no evidence of opposition. Presidential safety is a good thing, but the Secret Service is now shown to be complicit in building the intellectual Potemkin village in which the boss operates.
Oh, poor Orange Donnie!
So misunderstood, he's just channeling Cole Porter:
Birds do it.
Bees do it.
Even white skinhead Nat-sees do it.
As a multi-pathway learner, I most appreciated the 1982 movie about die weiße Rose. In '82, that time period was still a living memory in Germany. Please watch in the original German, subtitles if you need them.
link to imdb.com
As usual, the calamities will fall most severely on those people and nations with the least ability to contend with them. Whoever said, "Water is the new oil," got it absolutely right. And it appears that after years (decades?) of getting it wrong, the learning curve is still nearly horizontal.
I remember reading the following quote about the ever deeper wells that farmers in the subcontinent were forced to drill: "We are mining our grandchildren's water." Yet they continue to grow cotton - one of the world's thirstiest crops - in semiarid regions.
Climate crisis in a region defined by nuclear-tipped adversaries is not a pretty prospect.
There are murmurs among the Blue states which are mostly expressions of frustration at the cold hand grip the slaveholders of the 1780s built into the Constitution - but only murmurs. The exception is the Second Vermont Republic which I think is (pardon the stereotyping) a few Birkenstock-wearing guys who have meetings to air grievances - sort of like Festivus - and smoke a doob.
On the other hand, there's Texas.
link to washingtonpost.com
I for one would be happy to see Texas go, as long as part of the deal is that it returns to Mexico. Every founding myth is a combination of fact and self-flattery; Texas's omits the most important chapter, the filibusters and their slaves.
As to Kozmo's main argument, there are good reasons that the Constitution allows for new states' joining the Union (Art. IV) and has no provision for leaving. Much as I chafe under the injustice of the Electoral College, etc., that does not begin to justify the treason of dissolving Union.
It is well established that the First Amendment does not protect all speech. Certainly advocacy of treason falls into the unprotected category. The secessionist movement of 1861-65 was the greatest act of treason committed against the United States. I think in that context a more appropriate model than post-Bolshevik Russia is post-Nazi Germany.
Statues of secessionist heroes(?) and display of flags, regalia, etc. are to be proscribed. The states' rights argument is hollow. Neo-confederate nostalgia is about secession (treason), and the "peculiar institution" (hate speech).
Bacevich can always be counted on to provide a dose of what so frequently goes missing in American political discourse: a scalpel-like ability to cut through the many levels of distractions obscuring reality, and a healthy dose of good sense.
I strongly disagree with his fourth proposal. An annually balanced federal budget is an autopilot solution to economic problems that frequently require active management. It implies that we can have no trust in our elected representatives
As to proposal five: for every military recruit drafted to break things "over there," there is need for a hundred civilian recruits to help fix things right here.
Now back to reality. What are the chances that Bacevich's recommendations will make their way to the lips of the people whispering sweet nothings in the ear of Trump, Pence, McConnell, Pelosi...?
This government (more precisely, the Trump crime family) will do nothing until his flagship Palm Beach property is submerged.
"The proposed Israel Anti-Boycott Act would make it a felony for Americans to support BDS, with a penalty of up to $1 million and 20 years in prison."
I believe you understate the problem. Does the proposed bill not also criminalize attempting to gain information about BDS? A Google search would be a felony.
Unless Trump is removed from office, indicted and found guilty, little will change. He continues to hold campaign rallies, deflects attention from his faults, and has his adoring crowds of true-believers grunting in unison: "Lock her up."
This is the playing out of the dilemma inherent in the Patrick Buchanan-espoused immigration / culture war policies from the Nixon era. I believe they would prefer America to be a reduced White, Christian, English-speaking enclave than a cosmopolitan superpower.
It's all of a piece. Note well the [so-called] Justice Department's reversal on affirmative action in college admissions. This stuff has been building pressure and looking for policy outlets since Trump's father denied housing to Negro (the polite word back then) tenants.
As for Stephen Miller, he is little more than a Kapo serving Bannon's agenda. SCHANDE.
I'll bet if Foreign Minister Zarif put in a call to Donald Junior and promised dirt on Hillary, they could "take a meeting [a silly New York idiom]"; and in no time they could be dancing cheek to cheek and talking about - who knows - adoptions.
"...Steve Bannon, the scary far, far right wing white nationalist"
I misread this and stumbled into a deeper truth: Steve Bannon, the scary far, far right wing white nihilist.
As to being under siege, the most dangerous besieging force is several million gun-toting Trump supporters. They are more deluded and less susceptible to reason then the North Korean regime.
In an earlier, more innocent time I held dear the Law of Return as a lifeline for the day that fascism arrives full-blown in America. That day is almost here, and the lifeline leads only to a different color of fascism.
Excellent connecting of dots. Ten years ago I suggested to a friend that Abdullah Gül would be a brake on Erdoğan's more extreme impulses. She said I was wrong and that they (AKP) were all the same thugs. She was right.
Sultan Recep Tayyip Çok Yaşa!
I read this after my earlier post:
link to hurriyetdailynews.com
What would Orwell think?
Human rights in Turkey are like villages in Viet Nam during America's criminal war there (think My Lai). In order to save them we must destroy them.
Sultan Recep Tayyip Çok Yaşa!
"Rolex 'Caliph'" Do you refer to that thing visible on his wrist? He bought it from some guy on Chambers Street, a guy with spray tan and a bad combover who claimed he was going to be president of the United States. Guaranteed him it was genuine. $150 - cash only.
If you're a big evangelical christian corporation trying to pass yourself off as a family business, it's OK. Thou shalt steal; thou shalt covet, and thou shalt lie. The stuff you think you can get away with - and often do - all because you're "saved"!
"...a billionaire president, literally a casino capitalist...."
The irony: a casino capitalist who busted out 6 times trying to actually run casinos while everybody else in that business was raking in the bucks!
Perhaps emboldened by Trump, Erdoğan is opting Turkey out of the Paris Accord. One more rotten child and we can have those classic storybook kids: Smash, Rip and Ruin.
link to hurriyetdailynews.com
Sultan Recep Tayyip Çok Yaşa!
Thanks to Trump, the world now sees with perfect clarity what American 'exceptionalism' really is. Take all the rhetoric from Lincoln's "last best hope of earth" to Kennedy's & Reagan's "city on a hill" and toss it in Trotsky's dustbin of history.
Trump's America is a petulant child-empire who "runs with scissors" and does not know how to "play well with others."
And several years later, the selfsame Walesa blamed the problems in Poland's Thatcher/Reagan/Bush/Yeltsin-inspired capitalism on whom but the Jews. He had to be reminded there were none left.
As for Edelman, he was merely what every Jew-hating regime needs: a "good Jew."
Do not lose sight of this:
Trump said in Warsaw, "[T]he United States has demonstrated — not merely with its words but with its actions — that we stand firmly behind Article 5...."
The ONE time the United States has acted on NATO's mutual defense clause was after 9/11 when President Bush II (The Whelp) invoked it in order to bring other NATO countries on board.
America has NEVER used Article 5 as a basis for acting in another country's behalf.
The hardest hit Americans will place the blame everywhere except where it belongs. And the political leaders who have done nothing but deceive them will say, "This is no time for laying blame," as they, too, blame everybody but themselves.
America needs a good dose of "The fault, dear Brutus...."
Much more meaningful if it were somewhere that has good relations with the US. Context matters as much as content.
I remember learning [to the effect of] a statement can be true, untrue or meaningless. This competition, anti-Trump in Tehran is a meaningless statement as would be an anti-Castro competition in Washington.
Show me the anti-Khamenei competition in Tehran and I'll be impressed. Better still the anti-Erdoğan event in İstanbul and the anti-Salman show in Riyadh.
This represents another step in Turkey's turn toward the [Mid]East and away from Europe under Erdoğan's leadership. His neo-Ottoman vision conjures the glories of Mehmet and Süleyman, but more likely will be a Neo-Hamidian return of "The Sick Man."
Sultan Recep Tayyip Çok Yaşa!
If these crooks were Democrats, Rudy Giuliani and a clown-car full of Fox [so-called] News commentators would be screaming for the Trump/Kushner Crime Family to be prosecuted under RICO.
It makes my skin crawl to be taking the same side as Erdoğan in this matter; but, as they say, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. As odious as he is, he can't hold a candle to the utterly corrupt despots in Riyadh.
....making Putin even more dangerous. How will the hollow giant that is Russia respond when its leaders realize their primary source of wealth is going away for good?
May you live in interesting times, eh.
They paved Paradise, put up a parking lot....
Interesting though experiment. Will the death of Salman [the despot] lead in fairly short order to the dissolution of the kingdom? How long will the Shiite, and oil-rich, East remain loyal should a shooting war break out against Iran?
I suspect post-Salman [the despot] Saudi Arabia may be as fragile and fractious as post-Saddam Iraq.
And Ditto to Spyguy's observations on hubris!
If the Saudis provoke a war (sorry, not polite like "military confrontation") with Iran, one wonders how long Trump will allow the US to remain on the sidelines?
Friends of Zion, indeed! Their only use for Jews is for us to "return" to Eretz Yisrael in order to fulfill their apocalyptic fantasies.
With friends like this, who need enemies?
I daresay Europeans' biggest problems with Sharia aren't with Sharia at all. Things like veiling and female genital mutilation were part of 'those' societies long before Islam. Jealous, paternalistic leaders fused them onto the religion more or less willy-nilly, and over the centuries, the preexisting customs became effectively canonical.
It particularly bothers me that holdovers of ancient jahiliyya are so tightly and widely embraced.
As horrid as Trump is - and he is, the possibility of gimlet-eyed Mike Pence becoming president is unthinkable. Trading a chaotic incompetent who really is without ideology for a true-believer with knowledge of how to operate the levers of power is a step in the wrong direction.
The money men who call the Republicans' tune don't care about Trump's high crimes and misdemeanors as long as no tipping of their apple cart occurs. And the voters who bought Trump's snake oil last November will see impeachment as vicious Democrats persecuting the one man who can put the Nigras, Mooslims, Welfare Queens, and Terrorist/Criminal Immigrants in their place. Ridiculous as it may seem, in their minds Trump will be a latter day Agnus Dei, martyred trying to make America great again.
Better strategy is to impede Trump and his agenda in every way possible, chip away at the Republican majorities in 2018 and put up a candidate in 2020 who can actually win. Let's hope the republic can survive the experience.