Politics of Fear – Page 31 – The Wrongologist

29% of Americans Support a Military Coup

A law professor at West Point was forced to resign after it emerged that he had authored a number of controversial articles. In one, he suggested that the US military may have a duty to seize control of the federal government if the federal government acted against the interest of the country.

Link that thought to a YouGov poll taken this month that found that 29% of US citizens would support a military coup d’état. Moreover, a plurality of Republicans, (43%) would support a coup by the military. They were the only group with a plurality in favor in the poll:

They polled 1,000 people on September 2nd & 3rd. The poll has a margin of error of ±4%. Another theme of the poll was that Americans think the military want what’s best for the country, followed by police officers:

The other categories, which included Congress, local politicians, and civil servants, went in the other direction. The vast majority of those polled thought that local and DC politicians were self-serving.

In other words, most Americans have a lot of confidence in the police and the army, the armed enforcers of government’s rules, but very little confidence in the politicians and bureaucrats who actually write and enact them. This is a rather dangerous disconnect when you think about it. A fascinating poll question was: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

5. Should active duty members of the US military always follow orders from their civilian superiors, even if they feel that those orders are unconstitutional?
Should . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18%
Should not . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49%
Not sure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33%

The answer shows that many Americans think:

1. The military are all Constitutional scholars, and

2. Americans want soldiers to think for themselves, even though the civilian superior who matters is the Commander-In-Chief, or Mr. President to the rest of us.

All of this, despite the fact that the US military has long embraced the idea of civilian control of national affairs, and apart from certain rare moments, the American officer corps has faithfully followed the orders of their civilian superiors.

The weakening of support for many of our institutions is clear: Every year Gallup asks Americans about their confidence with 15 major segments of American society. The police and the military routinely top the list with overwhelming support, while no other government institution inspires confidence among the majority of voters. That includes the presidency, the Supreme Court, public schools, the justice system, and Congress. Also near the bottom, are the media, big business, and banks.

Essentially, the YouGov poll shows that most Americans have completely lost faith in the system, and the powers that run it. The only people they still trust are cops and soldiers. And a society that trusts its armed enforcers more than everyone else is a society that could be ripe for a coup. In today’s age of blanket surveillance, the military coup option may be especially appealing to quite a few US citizens who are afraid to risk their own lives opposing their government. It is a version of “let you and him fight”.

Those military officers who would make good political leaders are smart and too principled to launch a coup against the civilian government. We would likely see mass resignations of the officer corps before any attempted coup. So, a few questions:

• Why conduct this poll now?
• Who commissioned the poll, and why?

It’s clear that people are seriously disgusted with the political class. The first reasonably persuasive demagogue who comes along may give America’s political class exactly what it deserves.

Sadly, the rest of we Americans deserve better.

9-11-2001

It is now 14 years since this happened:

South Tower falls: 9:59am September 11, 2001

And 14 years on, what have we learned? In Islam, there is an idea that you should deal with your local problems first, and not worry about the far enemy. But, bin Laden believed that in his world, you could not do that. Revolution at home was almost impossible because of the far enemy, the US. As long as the US was the superpower, Islamic revolutionary success would be limited because the US could cripple your economy via sanctions, and it had the military might to attack you with overwhelming force.

Bin Laden’s argument was that the US had to be defeated, at least as regards its ability to project power in the ME. He thought that the evils being done by local regimes (such as Iraq’s Hussein, or Egypt’s Mubarak) could not be ended by simply fighting the local regime, but that the far regime that was their protector, must also be defeated.

Whatever you think of bin Laden, his most powerful point to those in the ME was that the US was responsible both for the suffering the US caused directly through sanctions, and the suffering caused indirectly, by keeping Middle Eastern dictators in power.

To that, bin Laden added a decisive idea: Attack the US.

Fourteen years later, we remain in a quagmire. Thanks a heap, Osama bin Laden. With a small number of supporters, less than $500,000, and 19 suicidal hijackers, most of them Saudis, you pulled off your geopolitical magic trick. On this 14th anniversary, Tom Englehardt asks a few questions:

• Fourteen years later, don’t you find it improbable that the US military has been unable to extricate itself from Iraq and Afghanistan, its two major wars of this century?
• Fourteen years later, don’t you find it improbable that Washington’s post-9/11 policies in the Middle East helped lead to the establishment of the Islamic State’s “Caliphate” in parts of Iraq and Syria and to a movement of almost unparalleled extremism that has successfully “franchised” itself out from Libya to Nigeria to Afghanistan?
• If, on September 12, 2001, you had predicted such a possibility, who wouldn’t have thought you mad?

This brings us to the 2016 presidential election. Sarah Palin on CNN last Sunday, said she’d “rather have a tough president than one who can win at trivial pursuit.” As Ed Kilgore wrote:

By saying that she prefers a “tough” president like Donald Trump, Palin is endorsing his bullying Alpha-male routine against all those emasculated men who know stuff.

So, more of the same from the GOP.

To be fair, “knowing stuff” is a necessary, but insufficient criterion. Obviously, Trump doesn’t seem to have the “necessary” part down just yet. Republicans try to convince us that the challenges we face in the world are simple, and we must be realists, and aggressively go after what we want. It all comes down to “good vs evil.” For Reagan, it was the “evil empire” of the Soviet Union. And for George W. Bush, it was the “axis of evil” made up of Iran, Iraq and North Korea.

Sadly, we live in an extremely complex world, and ignorance of its complexity is dangerous. Remember in 2006, there were reports that George W. Bush was unaware of the difference between Shia and Sunni as late as two months before the Iraq invasion. Combine that with Cheney’s Exceptionalist ideology, (which remained on display this week), and we all paid a huge price for that ignorance.

The reality is that if tough talk is divorced from knowledge, you do dumb things…like start dumb wars that diminish our standing in the world – and that cost us terribly in lives and money.

The GOP considers diplomacy, compromise, or nonviolent remedies to be weak and ineffective. It never occurs to them that knowledge, perspective and persistence are also forms of strength.

We should be very clear that the presidency is no place for bullies. And rather than signifying weakness, traits like compassion, thoughtfulness and collaboration are exactly the kind of thing we need in our leader.

We need to re-learn how to exist in in an ambiguous world without shutting down, or being ineffectual. Lately when things get tough, we strut, shorten our attention spans, prefer form over substance and pray to god that it all works out…we have all become George W. Bush!

Let’s remember the 9/11 heroes and victims.

But let’s stop listening to those who pander to our fears.

Thursday Cartoon Blogging?

We will not have Sunday Cartoon Blogging this week, as Ms. Oh So Right and the Wrongologist will be in Vermont at a wedding. However, some are too good to pass up. There will be a 9/11 column on Friday. On to cartoons!

Kim Davis is out of jail. She remains on the case, however:

“I want you to go down to Morehead Kentucky, and instruct Kim Davis to stop putting words in my mouth”

Last week saw the incredible shrinking NFL Commissioner Goodell:

The surprising track races continue:

With Hillary looking weaker, Dems consider a relief pitcher:

The Iran deal now has a bullet-proof minority in the Senate. Time to get frisky:

At the time, Wrongo thought that awarding Mr. Obama the Nobel Peace Prize was a mistake. It was also a mistake for Mr. Obama to accept it. We will see if the Iran deal holds, and if it promotes peace in the Middle East.

Why Trump and Cruz hang out together:

And the GOP explains their Wall strategy:

Anger is an Energy

We are witnessing the convergence of several trends, which may take politics as we know it and turn it on its head. First, a political trend in which both angry Republicans and angry Democrats now believe that there is zero chance that the government will do anything to improve their lives.

Second, the American Exceptionalism movement is morphing into something that says we must win, and win now. Never mind trying to figure out exactly what “winning” means. We’ve now spawned two generations of Trump wanna-be’s who have no time for losing. They must win, win, win, and they will say or do whatever it takes to win.

Third, people have sorted themselves into groups that are impervious to fact. Presenting people with the best available information doesn’t change many minds. Like a psychic immune response, they reject ideas that they consider harmful. Regardless of whether the subject is climate, vaccines or politics, they prefer and are much more susceptible to, appeals to emotion.

So we live in a time of angry rage. We can’t change most of what we see, but we sure can be pissed about it. The angry voter has been blamed for the insurgent candidacies of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, and the possible emergence of a third-party presidential run in 2016.

In the midst of this shit storm, political scientists Alan Abramowitz and Steven Webster of Emory University last week posted an intriguing analysis at Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball Blog on the role of anger in the 2012 presidential election. They conclude that voters are indeed angry. But their anger is directed mainly at the opposing party, and this anger is increasingly correlated with ideology. In other words, the most liberal and most conservative voters are also the most likely to be angry. Looking forward to 2016, they conclude: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

The most important influence on the 2016 presidential election as well as the House and Senate elections will be the division of the American electorate into two warring partisan camps. In the seven decades since the end of World War II, Democrats and Republicans have never been as divided as they are today.

Earlier this year, Abramowitz and Webster released a paper cataloging the sharp increase in party-line voting in recent decades. Once upon a time, it was not uncommon for Republicans to vote Democratic and vice versa. In 2012, the authors tell us, the US saw:

The highest levels of party loyalty and straight-ticket voting since the American National Election Studies first began measuring party identification in 1952.

What’s the reason for the polarization? Abramowitz and Webster call it “negative partisanship”, the tendency of voters to think of their ballots not as a way to help their party but as a way to hurt the opposition. In other words, it’s not that our side is so great; it’s that the other side is so awful.

How do we know the other side is awful?’

Abramowitz and Webster say that a crucial element in negative partisanship is the assignment of negative characteristics to the other party. From 1972 to 2012, the proportion of voters who believed there are significant differences between the parties rose from 55% percent to well over 80%. We can argue over why, but, as the authors point out, these changes in perception are rational, since the parties themselves have become more ideologically rigid.

A thought experiment: Is there a party where the voter who is for abortion rights, but against same-sex marriage is comfortable? How about the voter who supports the Affordable Care Act, but is a skeptic on climate change? And if you don’t believe such complex voters exist, you are part of the evidence for the authors’ thesis about party rigidity.

All of us have met political partisans who believe that those on the other side are irredeemably stupid or evil. Yet we know that view of superiority is ultimately enforceable only at the point of a gun — just the opposite of what we expect of our democracy.

So, is anger good for our democracy? In a world of twitter and other social media, there are just way more outlets for anonymous anger. And that anger reproduces itself with every re-tweet.

And if there’s one thing anger loves, its attention.

Maybe we can learn something from what Johnny Rotten said in his book, “Anger is an Energy”, (which is a line from his song “Rise”): (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

When I was writing the Public Image Ltd song ‘Rise’, I didn’t quite realize the emotional impact that it would have on me, or anyone who’s ever heard it since. ‘Anger is an energy’ was an open statement, saying, ‘Don’t view anger negatively, don’t deny it – use it to be creative...’

Anger doesn’t necessarily equate directly to violence. Violence very rarely resolves anything. In South Africa, they eventually found a relatively peaceful way out. Using that supposedly negative energy called anger, it can take just one positive move to change things for the better.

Maybe, a third party presidential run in 2016?

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – August 30, 2015

That light from the city on the hill isn’t a beacon. It’s the flash of gun fire.

The snuff video of two TV journalists this week got everyone talking about gun ownership and gun control for the umpteenth time. Phys.org pointed out that despite the fact the US ranks in the middle among other industrialized countries in virtually every form of crime, and only has 5% of the world’s population, we have had 31% of the mass shootings since 1966.

By cutting off federal funding for research and stymieing data collection and sharing, the NRA has tried to do to the study of gun violence what climate deniers have done to the science of global warming. Mother Jones had a chart for you to consider:

Gun ownership is a part of our culture. We could have a conversation about why Americans need so many guns, but the current level of gun ownership is not going away. And there is a large disconnect between the current gun control proposals and the facts in the Virginia case. The TV killer wouldn’t have failed any test, either now in place, or contemplated under the new proposals.

A simple solution to the problem of gun deaths would be to require gun owners to have liability insurance for any gun that they buy. Mr. Market (beloved by the right) would then come up with solutions to keep that liability insurance costs low enough that people could own their guns, but fewer third-party deaths and injuries would occur, and there would be compensation for victims. You could still carry guns, but you would have to be able to produce proof of insurance. Like driving a car.

On to cartoons. The gun culture has a new Caliph:

New media and old media loved talking about the killings, live on your TV:

Hillary’s week didn’t improve, so she got help:

I’m you from 2015, Hillary. I’ve come back to help you set up your e-mail.

Biden called in a few favors:

Trump’s week was fine. Republicans? Not so much:

China’s stock market fell:

Did the AP Promote an Untruth About Iran?

Last Wednesday, PBS NewsHour reported about the Iran nuclear deal, and how it stood with Congress: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

JUDY WOODRUFF: The Associated Press reports today that under an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran will be allowed to use its own inspectors to investigate one location it has been accused of using to develop nuclear arms. This comes about halfway through the 60-day period that Congress has to scrutinize the Iran nuclear deal with the U.S. and five other countries…

Sadly, it turned out that this allegation in the AP story was untrue. George Jahn wrote the story, in which he cites a “draft” of an agreement between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Iran on inspection of Iran’s Parchin site, rumored to be the location of their nuclear weapons program. Further complicating matters, Jahn’s story went through several edits soon after its release.

Fortunately, a report by Max Fisher at Vox walks you through the evolution of Jahn’s story. Fisher relies heavily on Jeffrey Lewis at Arms Control Wonk, who was quick to note the level of duplicity coming from Jahn:

The oldest Washington game is being played in Vienna…And that is leaking what appears to be a prejudicial and one-sided account of a confidential document to a friendly reporter, and using that to advance a particular policy agenda.

What Fisher missed, though, is that George Jahn is the poster child for the type of behavior that Lewis describes. Emptywheel reports that Jahn has been playing precisely this game at AP for years, mostly surrounding Iran and its nuclear program.

In reading about how events evolved after Jahn put up his first version of the story, it pays to look at these events in the light of the usual tennis match of lopsided accusations and the propaganda that develops around it. Iran deal opponents jumped on the story so quickly that it seemed that they had a heads-up regarding when it would go live. Republicans in Congress were able to get their comments on the “secret side deal benefiting Iran” into some of the early revisions of Jahn’s article.

And that may have been the precise reason that Jahn was given the copy of the draft agreement, because his viewpoint was seen as the last, best chance to disrupt the deal in Congress.

One more point needs noting in this context. Deal opponents, as mentioned above, were quick to spin the agreement between the IAEA and Iran as being kept secret because it is such a sweet deal for Iran. That paints the picture that the IAEA is on Iran’s side.

As Vox notes, confidentiality in agreements of this type are the norm.

Juan Cole reports on an email from Gary Sick, an expert on Iran and security, who pointed out that the Accord actually provides for the inspectors of the IAEA always to be present at such inspections. The reason for the presence of Iranian experts is that there is a long history of outside nuclear inspectors being sent in by the Great Powers for espionage. As an example, the 1990s UN inspections of Iraq were infiltrated by US intelligence. So, the Iranian inspectors are there to keep an eye on the UN inspectors, not to cover up Iranian activities (to which the IAEA will have full access).

AP ultimately removed most of its allegations from the story.

Once again this is proof that there is absolutely no downside for a “journalist” to report negative news about Iran (or in the case of the PBS News hour, quickly pass it along). In fact, there is a strong possibility that a serial fabricator like George Jahn will be able to continue to have his work published, even after being proven inaccurate more than once.

One of the problems citizens face in evaluating complex geopolitical issues is that they are often unexplainable in sound bites. This is true for global warming, or for lung cancer from cigarette smoking. It is also true for the Iran deal, which leaves us too easily confused by parties with an agenda. And although many of our journalists are admirable, some people advertised as journalists just aren’t very good – there are always a few Judith Millers (who sold us the Iraq War) with an agenda.

From the reporting leading up to the Iraq War, reporting on Israel in Gaza and now Iran, the US media has a lot to answer for. This was not just careless reporting, since the AP deliberately left out contradictory language from the document they quoted. We need to demand more accurate and unbiased reporting.

This was far from a proud moment for journalism.

The War Party Rides Again

Peter Bienart in the Atlantic:

As George W. Bush’s administration drew to an end, the brand of ambitious, expensive, Manichean, militaristic foreign policy commonly dubbed “neoconservative” seemed on the verge of collapse.

Yet, according to recent polls, GOP voters again see national security as more important than either cultural issues, or the economy. More than 75% of Republicans want American ground troops to fight ISIS in Iraq, and a plurality says that stopping Iran’s nuclear program requires an immediate military strike.

So it is no surprise that GOP presidential candidates have pledged a return of US combat troops in large numbers to the Middle East. Bill Barrow of the AP took a look at the specifics of plans by some of them:

Sen. Lindsay Graham, (R-SC) on “Face the Nation”:

I don’t see anybody on our side coming up with a robust plan that truly would destroy” the Islamic State militants

Graham has called for 20,000 American troops divided between Iraq and Syria. “You can’t do this through the air.”

Donald Trump said he would commit ground troops last Sunday on “Meet the Press”. Trump said that in order to cripple ISIS, he would “take away their wealth” by reclaiming oil fields the group has commandeered. When host Chuck Todd told him that would take ground troops, Trump replied, “That’s OK.”

Ohio Gov. John Kasich blasted ISIS on CNN’s “State of the Union“: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

All the religions of the world ought to stand up [and] say, ‘You blow up innocent men, women and children and you think you’re going to paradise? There’s something wrong with you. You’re nuts.’

Regarding ground troops, Kasich said he would deploy American forces only as part of an international coalition, saying: “I don’t want to go alone.”

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin wouldn’t rule out US boots on the ground in Syria.

Jeb Bush said that ISIS is spreading like a pandemic and that the US may need to send more ground troops into Iraq to defeat it. Jeb maintains that defeating ISIS in Syria will require the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad. Jeb says the way to remove al-Assad was to organize the “moderate” forces and have US troops on the ground in Syria:

Back them up as one force…And we should back that force up all the way through, not just in taking the fight to the enemy, but in helping them to form a stable, moderate government…It’s a tough, complicated diplomatic and military proposition, even more so than the current situation in Iraq. But it can be done.

His ignorance is startling. Something like 90% of rebel territory in Syria is held by the Support Front (Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda affiliate), ISIS, and a few smaller groups associated with the Army of Conquest or the Army of Islam. The Army of Conquest recognizes al-Qaeda as part of itself.

That is, there are almost no moderates for Jeb to back in the overthrow of al-Assad. So what he is actually proposing is to turn Damascus over to al-Qaeda. He blames Obama’s reduction of US troops in Iraq for the rise of Islamic State militants. He perpetuates the myth that the surge worked in Iraq.

The problem with the GOP position on more ground troops is that the US had at some points, 160,000 US troops in Iraq, and they could not stop the civil war of 2006, nor could they defeat AQ. So why would 10,000 each for Iraq and Syria be able to pull this off?

Many people have run for President promising peace. This may be the first time that multiple candidates of one party has people running for President, promising war in a time of peace.

Can anybody really take this seriously? In 2003, a Republican president took a backwards, repressive but generally stable country, and turned it into a murderous chaotic nightmare of epic proportions.

And now, the GOP thinks they can take a country which is already a murderous chaotic nightmare, and magically resolve the situation into a peaceful, prosperous United States in Iraq and the Levant? By deploying more boots on the ground?

And the unstated theme of the GOP proposals to send US ground forces back is: Once our guys are there, local populations will shift their support to us, because we’re the good guys.

We tried this. It failed.

See you on Sunday.

The Political Stylings of Donald Trump

We see a torrent of Trumpism, and viewed from the sidelines, it is a presidential candidacy based on emotion, while shockingly lacking in policy. It is difficult to see him succeeding, unless Republicans believe that being a vain, obnoxious and unapologetic old uncle is all that it takes to run the world’s largest superpower.

If that’s what they think, they have found their man.

The Donald has co-opted Tea Party rage. But, there’s nothing to grab onto, except the rage itself. He and his supporters hate immigrants. They hate Mr. Obama’s withdrawal from our blundering wars in the ME. They hate the vastly expanded access to healthcare coverage, and apparently, they hate being rescued from a Republican Depression. They do love them some American Exceptionalism, though.

As Bloomberg’s Melinda Henneberger comments about a recent Trump rally in New Hampshire:

Very little of what the conservatives in the hall were going wild over could be characterized as conservative, and most of it wasn’t political at all.

What Trump wants us to believe is; “I’ve got this.” His strategy is to have us believe he is a strongman brimming with rage. His “tell it like it is” approach has a true populist appeal, but his slogan “Make America Great Again” is as vague as it can be. Here are a few NH quotes: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

We will make great trade deals.

We will have Social Security without cuts.

We will come up with health care plans that will be phenomenal, phenomenal, [and] that will be less expensive.

Describing a future-perfect conversation between President Trump and the Ford Motor Co. officials, he’ll change their minds about building cars in Mexico. He says:

This is too easy, too easy! This is a couple of phone calls.

Some Trump supporters will vote for him, some will not, but all like his honesty, his lack of PC, his ability to run without outside money, his success, his independence from America’s political elite.

Krugman says the conservative explanation of the GOP’s onset of Trumpism is that their base voters are victims of celebrity. What they really want is a true conservative, but they’re being hoodwinked by someone who is entertaining on TV.

Krugman thinks the liberal version is that Trump is appealing to resentment that ultimately rests on economic failure: working-class whites have been left behind by growing income inequality, while they mistakenly blame immigrants taking their jobs. But he thinks Trump’s supporters look a lot more like the Tea Party, who are:

For the most part not working-class…They’re relatively affluent, and not especially lacking in college degrees.

Republicans seem to be in a mood to require heavy doses of impatience, resentment and outrage from any successful 2016 presidential candidate. Trump realized that sooner than his competitors, and neatly fills the bill. He is disorienting the Establishment Right. His supporters don’t give his political platform much thought, which works, since thoughtlessness is at the base of most of Trump’s policy cure-alls. He is cleaving the Republican Party into one camp that gawks helplessly at its past and a new camp that is inserting a shiv in the Establishment Right’s tired old body.

For progressives, what’s not to love? Trump said on Meet The Press: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

And if I’m president, we’re going to have a great country…And then we will really have [it] better than Reagan, better than anybody. We will make America great again. That’s what it’s all about.

Ok, Chuck Todd, you can’t ask: “How?”

Trump is the expression of today’s conservatism: loud, abrasive, and vacuous. Forget data, forget policy. Why search for evidence when you can rely on belief and tradition?

There are two options: Republicans either oust Trump and his Trumpeteers, perhaps forcing them to form a third party. Or, Republicans can accept that Trump is in their mainstream, and run a populist platform, laced with doses of anger and vague policies. If he is the Republican nominee for President, Republicans will then witness the Trumpocalypse, and be picking up the pieces for years.

Those are the choices. Either way, contemporary conservatism will be in ruins.

What’s not to love?

Iran: WMD 2.0?

The Republicans job of whipping up support to override an Obama veto of the bill to kill the Iran deal got tougher since Kerry just secured limited support for the deal from the Gulf States. The NYT reports that Khalid al-Attiyah, the foreign minister of Qatar, who hosted the meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council, said:

This was the best option among other options…We are confident that what they undertook makes this region safer and more stable.

With that, most Democrats who are on the fence will likely be convinced to support the deal.

Republicans should be convinced as well, but most won’t be. However, one Republican, Pat Buchanan, thinks they are wrong:

It appears that Hill Republicans will be near unanimous in voting a resolution of rejection of the Iran nuclear deal. They will then vote to override President Obama’s veto of their resolution…

Buchanan goes on to say that, if Republicans override the veto, the US will vote in the UN Security Council to lift sanctions, along with the UK, France, Germany, Russia and China, and:

A…vote to kill the Iran deal would thus leave the US isolated, its government humiliated, unable to comply with the pledges its own secretary of state negotiated. Would Americans cheer the GOP for leaving the United States with egg all over its face?

And if Congress refuses to honor the agreement, but Iran complies with all its terms, who among our friends and allies would stand with an obdurate America then? Israel would applaud, the Saudis perhaps, but who else?

Now, it seems that applause will not include the Gulf States. Here’s Buchanan’s money quote:

And how is Israel, with hundreds of atom bombs, mortally imperiled by a deal that leaves Iran with not a single ounce of bomb-grade uranium?

Word. Another Republican, David Stockman, (former OMB Director for Reagan) had this to say about the deal and its Republican support: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

Indeed, it was the same crowd of Cheney, Wolfowitz, Bolton, Feith et.al. [who]…falsified the WMD claims against Saddam Hussein, [and] have been beating the war drums so loudly about the alleged Iranian nuclear weapons program.

Stockman concludes: (emphasis by Stockman)

So it needs to be shouted from the rafters at the outset that all the arm-waving and screeching against this deal by the GOP war-mongers and the Israeli lobby is grounded in a Big Lie. The whole Iran-is-after-the-bomb narrative is just WMD 2.0.

Finally, some clear thinking by a few Republicans on Iran.

The Iraq War was one of the most important and damaging episodes in the history of US foreign policy. And everyone remembers that the war was based on a lie, and that the lie was brought to you by Republicans.

Can Republicans explain why their demand for total capitulation by Iran is so well-suited to creating a winning position for the West? How can these Republicans pretend that nothing has happened over the last 15 years that throws their neo-con, chicken-hawk worldview into question?

It’s fair to ask Republicans who championed the Iraq War to explain the differences between the Iraq WMD debacle and the current situation in Iran. If they are compelled to debate why we should bomb or invade, and how that outcome would be any better than it was in Iraq, the debate over the Iran nuclear deal might turn out not to be much of a debate at all.

Sadly, most Republicans are not thinking clearly regarding Israel vs. Iran. In April, the Wrongologist reported on a Bloomberg poll showing that Republicans think that “patriotism” doesn’t mean they must support America’s interests first when it comes to Israel. From Bloomberg:

Republicans by a ratio of more than 2-to-1 say the US should support Israel even when its stance diverges with American interests…Democrats, by roughly the same ratio, say the opposite is true and that the US must pursue its own interests over Israel’s.

American Republicans said that Israel comes first by a 67/30 margin.

Learn from that, and don’t vote for ANY candidate who says that Israel’s needs come first in the debate about the Iran deal.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – August 2, 2015

Why is it that Republicans don’t seem to pay a price for bad behavior? Like shutting down the government in 2013 didn’t have a repercussion in the 2014 election, which brought the GOP the Senate to go with their control of the House of Representatives. Now, the Republican candidates are trying to outdo each other in provocative opinions. So, the presidential candidates’ debate on Fox this week is shaping up to be a reality TV hostage show:

Nice little political party you have here…it would be a shame if something happened to it.

Huckabee tries out for 2nd banana:

But it got worse, after Huckabee indicated Thursday that if elected, he wouldn’t rule out employing federal troops to stop abortions from taking place in the US. Even though the Supreme Court has ruled against bans on abortion, Huckabee said past presidents have defied Supreme Court rulings. So, according to Huck, not only do fetuses have more rights than women, but fetuses have more rights than children.

Why, in this man’s religion, does the fetus have rights that no one else gets?

What it takes this year to be one of the final pols in the debate: