UK’s The Guardian is the first major newspaper out with coverage on the latest massive disclosure of information to come from whistle-blowing website Wikileaks. The first read is ominous enough, and probably quite accurate: “global diplomatic crisis”.
What is being revealed is the shady backroom deals that make up international politics and the balance of power the world over, and how the policy of nations of the world can be quite two-faced, when compared to public stances on the same international issues.
French paper Le Monde has justified its decision on participating in the disclosure by saying transparency and judgment are not incompatible, it does not mean to act irresponsibly, and this is what separates it from Wikileaks (and any allegations that Wikileaks itself is being the irresponsible one here).
Illinois representative, Republican, climate change denier, John Shimkus. He'd like to have a hand in our energy policy!
With the incoming class of Republicans set to begin their rule in the House of Representatives this coming January, battles for leadership of various positions and committees have already begun. Names have been put forward hoping to step into a larger, brighter spotlight – as is the norm in the world of politics. As each formally unknown (or better said, not-as-known) Congressperson steps forward, the evaluation of who they are and what they believe begins. One of the bigger standouts in this arena of committee leadership change comes from Illinois representative John Shimkus, who is aiming for the leadership of the Energy and Commerce committee.
As the title of the committee indicates, one of the realms that it has jurisdiction over is the nation’s energy policy. As an extension of that, it also has huge effects on our environmental policies, just by which policies and energy sources would be favored by it (coal vs. clean, for example). With the threat of Global Warming still incrementally playing out year by year across the world, and with so many things related to energy, consumption, and resources seemingly near dramatic tipping points, now would be the time for some decisive leadership to help ensure that America will be on the right paths to not only help itself from an energy standpoint, but also help the world in the fight against Global Warming.
Rand Paul, Republican nominee for Senate from Kentucky
You’ve got to hand it to the Tea Party people – they know how to get organized and get things done when it comes to trying to put their people in places for getting elected. It’s a smaller version of the ground game that Howard Dean had the DNC run before Obama’s ’08 election, matched with the cherry-picking-primaries-that-can-be-won talents of the people behind movements like Ron Paul for President.
With each fresh effort to push one of their ideology out into the light, in hopes of getting elected to offices, the effort is challenged by reality – the way things are and the way things need to be. Ideology that is so single minded and touts one means to one end can only fly into so many walls before it is left for dead. The fact that a campaign for someone like Ron Paul couldn’t really ever get off the ground – aside from convincing libertarians to empty their wallets for him before the real ’08 campaign began – I hoped would be the end of this new lust with libertarianism without acceptance of what it actually means. Turns out, thanks to the influence of some Tea Party enthusiasm, we’re going to have this mindset to kick around for quite a bit longer.
This all, of course, leads us to the recent primary victory by the now official Republican nominee for Senate this fall – Rand Paul, son of Ron Paul, and one of the new darlings of the Tea Party movement.
Ilario Pantano (right) after his primary night victory
While we are still months out from the midterm elections in the United States, at this early day there are some rather intriguing races setting up. Some of these races involve incumbent Senators getting upset by radical-leaning constituents showing up to a caucus and demanding someone even more conservative than who is already in place, some of these races involve closely-fought over seats from the 2008 elections, and one in particular, involves references to a man who is synonymous with Chuck Norris in the world of meme-based tough guy lore, Jack Bauer.
Jack Bauer became a household name by taking one day out of his otherwise uneventful year to save the country from imminent attacks by terrorist organizations. Instead of abiding by the laws and process in place of the day, Bauer used torture tactics to get exactly the information he needed, virtually exactly every time he needed it. This recurring and successful plot tangent wound up being used as justification (by some) for real torture in the real world, whether that be CIA renditions or episodes like Abu Ghraib.
Enter newly-official Republican nominee for Congress, Ilario Pantano. He has become a sort of darling in Conservative circles with his backstory…
In 2001, immediately following the 9/11 terror attacks, Pantano, a veteran who had previously fought in the Gulf War, left his career as a successful producer and media consultant in his native Manhattan to rejoin the Marines and was eventually deployed to Iraq.
A vet, a hero, someone who has fought for this country. This is something you would expect to come from the right, since they like to wrap the flag around their selves the tightest – when push comes to shove. There’s one other significant detail in his bio, however…
In April 2004, Pantano killed two unarmed Iraqi detainees, twice unloading his gun into their bodies and firing between 50 and 60 shots in total. Afterward, he placed a sign over the corpses featuring the Marines’ slogan “No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy” as a message to the local population.
TheDailyBeast brings us an interesting set of poll data from Harris, giving us an interesting insight into the mind of the average member of the opposition to the Obama administration. Actually it would be interesting if its implications were not downright frightening. The tale of the tape:
Number who think…
Category
all of Americans
Republicans
…Obama is a socialist
40%
67%
…Obama is a Muslim
32%
57%
…Obama is not an American
citizen
25%
45%
…Obama is “doing many of the
same things Hitler did”
The 2010 edition of the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, transpired over the weekend of February 18 – 20. Typically a gathering for conservatives to drum up some excitement for the party, this year the conference became an epicenter of gathering for the Tea Party Movement (or in its original iteration, teabaggers). The Tea Party Movement is an eclectic mixture of individuals who are against big spending by the government, but seem to believe that wasteful spending did not begin in Washington until the moment just after Barack Obama was sworn in as President. As a result, we are left with a group of people railing against the spending policies of the administration, screaming against what was fine and dandy only a couple of years before under the Bush Administration.
I suppose budget deficits of 100 to 500 billion per year are acceptable, but beyond that is when it really begins to become a problem.
CPAC, taken over by the teabagger crowd, looked to make a bold statement heading into the 2010 midterms and beyond – they, the fans of Sarah Palin and Glen Beck, looked to show the country who they are looking to propel onto the national stage, and look to as a figurehead as the political clock slowly winds toward 2012.
“My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed,” Bauer said, according to the Greenville News. “You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that. And so what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to curtail that type of behavior. They don’t know any better.”
This impressive early entry for “Worst Political Quote of 2010″ comes from South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer. The gem was uttered at a town hall meeting addressing subsidized school lunches for the children of poorer families. Mr. Bauer started out by suggesting that parents of the students who need the help should attend parent-teacher conferences, or else their children should go without food. How grade reviews equate to the permission to be able to eat food or not is another argument for another day that shouldn’t come, but after taking that walk down the intellectual plank he followed it up with a flourish, comparing government assistance programs to “feeding stray animals”, resulting in the quote that you see above.
Bauer, who is involved in a campaign for governor by the by, found himself on the defensive over the remarks.
Residents wander through one of the many destroyed streets in Port-au-Prince, Haiti (Reuters)
…American politics: they deliver.
In yesterday’s post I mentioned that noted religious man/serial nutcase, Pat Robertson, suggested that the 7.0 earthquake that destroyed Port-au-Prince, Haiti on Tuesday evening was in fact God’s revenge for Haiti doing a deal with the devil that involved Napoleon III… or something along those lines.
Today the members of the fringe’s fringe’s fringe continued to out their selves in an attempt to keep pushing that “can you really be that pre-programmed to hate?” bar to further dizzying levels when viewed from the perspective of the rest of us normal folk. The latest member to step up to the plate? Rush Limbaugh.
Save your wallets, Haiti’s lack of ability to have a government as successful as other western nations can be tied directly into the citizens of that country not deserving the generous aid of Americans.
In the face of utter devastation across Haiti following a huge earthquake, conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh took to the airwaves yesterday to blast President Obama for his response to the crisis.
The disaster enables Mr. Obama to highlight his “compassionate” and “humanitarian” credentials and to “boost his credibility with the black community,” Limbaugh said.
So, as you can see, caring for Haiti is really a ploy to solidify a base that he won the support of nearly 90% of in the 2008 election – African-Americans. Mr. Limbaugh seems to be out on his own entirely on this one as far as Republicans in Congress are concerned:
“We appreciate President Obama’s immediate response to this catastrophic tragedy, and stand ready to assist in any way,” House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said in a statement. “In this pressing time of need, I know that the good faith and generosity of our citizens will no doubt help. Our Government and the American people prepared to do all that we can provide assistance, comfort and resources to the people of Haiti and their families.”
One of the lucky to be saved
That’s a bit of low hanging fruit that you can’t afford to not take, no matter the party you are in. Well, unless you speak into a gold-plated microphone daily.
A seriously damaged national port. An already swamped airport. Hospitals in shambles. A homeless president. No fuel. A capital city without phone service or electricity.
As military and rescue teams began to stream in Thursday from the U.S. and other countries, veterans of past disasters say the grim realities of the Haiti earthquake set it apart from many other calamities, including the 2004 tsunami that devastated communities around the Indian Ocean, killing an estimated quarter million people.
“There are a lot of dimensions that make this an especially complicated situation,” said Steve Hollingworth, chief operating officer at the Atlanta-based relief group CARE.
Haiti’s almost nonexistent government and its battered infrastructure are among the top challenges that will plague relief efforts in coming days and weeks, aid veterans say. Also high on their lists: the country’s extreme poverty and history of violence.
“When a country’s capital city is decimated, you lose a lot in terms of staging and organization,” said Randy Martin, head of global emergency operations at Mercy Corps International.
That last line is the most important and most key. Though it’s not getting quite the attention that it should just yet, it is becoming very apparent that Haiti has no effective national government to speak of right now. This earthquake accomplished, in essence, a decapitation attack on the Haitian government, leaving what remains behind to fend for itself. The United Nations claims control as a part of their mission there, but their compound was also heavily damaged with over 100 of their own personal unaccounted for. The aid is beginning to get there, but there is no functioning central authority to direct it all. One will have to be established in the near term for the mission to help save as many lives as possible, and one will have to remain in place to help prevent Haiti from becoming an anarchist state along the lines of Somalia. Help is on the way, though…
At the White House, President Obama said the U.S. was mounting “one of the largest relief efforts in our recent history,” and announced $100 million in initial funds for the humanitarian mission.
Exactly the start of what is needed, as we watch the after-effects playing out of a second major city in the western hemisphere destroyed in the past five years.
This story starts and finishes easy enough, with some kid from some college asking a dumb question of the President that he should have already known the answer to. For this we reach back to a town hall discussion held by President Obama in December of 2009 in Pennsylvania, where a sophomore from Lehigh Carbon Community College asked if the President would consider legalizing prostitution, gambling, drugs, and non-violent crime in a bid to stimulate the economy.
The President’s answer was quick and to the point:
“I appreciate the boldness of your question,” Mr. Obama said during his Allentown, PA jobs town hall, “That will not be my job strategy.”
Obama would go on to sing the student’s praises for challenging conventional wisdom, which is what college kids are apparently supposed to do – and subsequently stop doing once they reach the real world.
Senator Al Franken: scourge of conservative Republicans
Senator Al Franken (D-MN).
The existence of that tagline still sends shivers down the spines of conservatives who still fume over a 302 vote loss in the 2008 election. The ranks of people wish those shivers, and that annoyance at Senator Franken range from relatively harmless radio talk show hosts (harmless since they don’t actually have votes in Congress, per se) to the somewhat more harmful – actual seated Senators in the current congress of the United States.
Still, the past is the past and it has long since been time for Mr. Franken to play the part of United States Senator. He went ahead with this by taking aim at what should be, in a normal world, be some low-hanging political fruit: rape is bad.
“Rape is bad.” is something that you think the legislature could get behind. More than that, it seems like it would be something a majority of the population could get behind – I don’t think you would even have to conduct polls on this one. Leave it to the current polarized political climate to throw such ideas straight out the window…
