Bolton: Most Anti-Israeli Speech By Any US President Ever.

When Jon Bolton and Glenn Beck get together you know that lunacy lies ahead, as each seems to outdo the other in terms of the madness they exhibit.

Beck begins by pretending to throw a frog into boiling water. I presume he thinks he's making some cryptic point, but in the end, like much of what Beck does, one is struck simply by the oddness of it all.

I would honestly have thought that things couldn't get any odder from that point onwards, but they both managed to easily outdo the frog business by showing their utter lack of understanding of international law.

Beck, for instance, objected to Obama referring to Israel's occupation of the Palestinians as an "occupation".

Beck: "Occupation that began in 1967." That's weird. There was a war. They won.

Beck is either the dumbest ass ever to address this issue or he's simply being disingenuous. I suspect the former.

The fact that one can't keep land acquired by war is clearly stated in UN Resolution 242 (PDF):

"Emphasising the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war."

But Bolton's astonishment at what Obama has just said, in what he describes as "the most radical, anti-Israeli speech I can recall any president making", comes down to this:

Bolton: Two phrases in what you just heard. The president says America does not accept - and I am quoting now - "the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements". Not new Israeli settlements, continued Israeli settlements. Which... this is Mr Wordsmith here... that calls into question, in my mind, all Israeli settlements.

The very fact that they are both sitting there pretending that all Israeli settlements are not illegal means that they haven't the faintest clue as to what international law says in this regard.

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention:

The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.

Although, I suspect Bolton knows fine well what international law says, he simply doesn't feel that international law should apply to Israel. Beck is simply a moron on this subject, as he is on so many others.

Bolton: Then he says, that we want "a Palestinian state that is contiguous". By the way, Gaza and the West Bank were never contiguous Palestinian areas before. And "that ends the occupation that began in 1967." That means, I think, a return to the 1967 borders.

Again, a return to the 1967 borders is only controversial if one thinks that international law should not apply to Israel, as that is the entire point of UN Resolution 242: That Israel "withdraws from territories occupied in the recent conflict".

They then pretend that a "contiguous" Palestinian state would mean that there couldn't be a contiguous state of Israel.

All that is needed to make the West Bank and Gaza "contiguous" is a road or a railway link between the two. That road or railway could be elevated so that both Israel and Palestine have contiguous states, but this concept is obviously too complex for these two bozos to comprehend.

But Beck's ignorance is especially a thing to behold. He actually asks Bolton where the 1967 border would be, proving that he knows almost nothing about this issue.

Bolton insists that this is the most anti-Israeli speech ever. But, in reality, what got Obama these rounds of applause at the United Nations was the fact that he made it clear that he was going to make sure that international law was applied in this dispute. Bolton thinks that this amounts to Obama being a lawyer for the Palestinians, and he actually laments that this should be happening when the Palestinians find themselves in such a weak position. I suppose Bolton feels that, at such a time, the Israelis should be allowed to press home their advantage.

Of course, what Bolton misses is that allowing Israel to do this would not result in peace, even if it resulted in a victory of sorts for the Likud movement, and lasting peace is what we are supposed to be seeking here. But Bolton has been fighting for Israel's corner for so long that this concept is literally lost on him.

Bolton notes the warm reception which Obama received at the UN, the place that Bolton has famously said that he does not believe in, and one can't help thinking that the warm applause Obama received merely emphasises just how out of touch with world opinion Bolton and Beck actually are; and just how in touch with it President Obama has shown himself to be.

Both Beck and Bolton come across as dinosaurs, yearning for the day when the US told the world that they could all bugger off; and that Israel, backed by the US, would do whatever it bloody wanted when it came to it's dispute with Palestine. They fail to comprehend that the attitude which they yearn for was the very thing which made the US hated around the globe and that it is Obama's specific rebuttal of their core beliefs which have earned him the world's respect.

To counter the fact that they are both so out of touch with the world's view on this matter Beck comes up with the oh-so-expected false charge of anti-Semitism:

Beck: Do you think it's possible to sit in a church with somebody who is as anti-Semitic as Jeremiah Wright is and not come away with an anti-Semitic view?

We could have seen that coming a mile off. They simply find it impossible to believe that anyone could be asking that international law be obeyed. Indeed, Bolton has spent most of his adult life arguing against the very concept of international law which Obama has stood up for.

As I say, Bolton and Beck come across as dinosaurs. Perhaps their world view should have gone into the boiling water instead of the frog.

They display the mindset of the Bush years and they can't understand why no-one else misses it in the way they do.

Tags: Beck, Bolton, Israel, Palestine, Obama

Mr Obama Goes to The UN.

After the years of George W Bush, where the UN were told that their duty was to give him what he wanted or prove their own irrelevance, Obama's appearance produced more rounds of applause than I think I have ever heard any leader earn before.

But this wasn't simply Obama-mania, the guy actually turned up and spoke the language of international co-operation, even going as far as to make clear that he understood that the NNPT demanded that nations with nuclear weapons disarmed, not simply that non-nuclear nations gave up their pursuit of them.

America intends to keep our end of the bargain. We will pursue a new agreement with Russia to substantially reduce our strategic warheads and launchers. We will move forward with ratification of the Test Ban Treaty, and work with others to bring the treaty into force so that nuclear testing is permanently prohibited. We will complete a Nuclear Posture Review that opens the door to deeper cuts and reduces the role of nuclear weapons. And we will call upon countries to begin negotiations in January on a treaty to end the production of fissile material for weapons.

[...]

Those nations that refuse to live up to their obligations must face consequences. Let me be clear, this is not about singling out individual nations — it is about standing up for the rights of all nations that do live up to their responsibilities. Because a world in which IAEA inspections are avoided and the United Nation's demands are ignored will leave all people less safe, and all nations less secure.

In their actions to date, the governments of North Korea and Iran threaten to take us down this dangerous slope. We respect their rights as members of the community of nations. I've said before and I will repeat, I am committed to diplomacy that opens a path to greater prosperity and more secure peace for both nations if they live up to their obligations.

But if the governments of Iran and North Korea choose to ignore international standards; if they put the pursuit of nuclear weapons ahead of regional stability and the security and opportunity of their own people; if they are oblivious to the dangers of escalating nuclear arms races in both East Asia and the Middle East — then they must be held accountable. The world must stand together to demonstrate that international law is not an empty promise, and that treaties will be enforced. We must insist that the future does not belong to fear.

So, he made it very clear that the US would pursue a way to reduce it's own nuclear arsenal, whilst asking nations such as Iran and North Korea to forego a nuclear weapon, but not the right to nuclear energy. He couldn't have put it better. He was absolutely on the money.

But he began by making, I thought, an even better point. He reminded the world that one couldn't have it both ways.

But make no mistake: This cannot solely be America's endeavor. Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world's problems alone. We have sought — in word and deed — a new era of engagement with the world. And now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges.

Having argued for years against American unilateralism, Obama's offer demands that the rest of the world rise to the challenge he is giving them, that the rest of the world puts it's money where it's mouth is.

Again, he's being utterly fair and he's calling out those who think knocking the US is some cheap game which lets them off the hook from their own responsibilities. Obama is saying, "I hear you. I'm listening. What do you want to do about this?"

The choice is ours. We can be remembered as a generation that chose to drag the arguments of the 20th century into the 21st; that put off hard choices, refused to look ahead, failed to keep pace because we defined ourselves by what we were against instead of what we were for. Or we can be a generation that chooses to see the shoreline beyond the rough waters ahead; that comes together to serve the common interests of human beings, and finally gives meaning to the promise embedded in the name given to this institution: the United Nations.

That is the future America wants — a future of peace and prosperity that we can only reach if we recognize that all nations have rights, but all nations have responsibilities as well. That is the bargain that makes this work. That must be the guiding principle of international cooperation.

He told them that he had ordered an end to torture. He promised an end to the Iraq war. He promised to end the war in Sudan. And then he turned to the Israel/Palestine dispute; the dispute where the UN and the US have most often been at loggerheads.

I will also continue to seek a just and lasting peace between Israel, Palestine, and the Arab world. We will continue to work on that issue. Yesterday, I had a constructive meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas. We have made some progress. Palestinians have strengthened their efforts on security. Israelis have facilitated greater freedom of movement for the Palestinians. As a result of these efforts on both sides, the economy in the West Bank has begun to grow. But more progress is needed. We continue to call on Palestinians to end incitement against Israel, and we continue to emphasize that America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.

The time has come — the time has come to re-launch negotiations without preconditions that address the permanent status issues: security for Israelis and Palestinians, borders, refugees, and Jerusalem. And the goal is clear: Two states living side by side in peace and security — a Jewish state of Israel, with true security for all Israelis; and a viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967, and realizes the potential of the Palestinian people.

After the Bush years, what he was saying rung around the hall like music to their ears. And, once again, he received rounds of applause that are so rare in such a setting. And I am sure that Mr Netanyahu will have noticed that one of Obama's loudest rounds of applause was given when he stated that he did not accept the legitimacy of Israel's settlements.

Here, Obama was taking his argument to the world chamber, and it was abundantly clear that a majority of nations favour Obama's stance as opposed to that of Netanyahu.

Hell, he even got the United Nations to applaud when he attacked them for their past stances:

To break the old patterns, to break the cycle of insecurity and despair, all of us must say publicly what we would acknowledge in private. The United States does Israel no favors when we fail to couple an unwavering commitment to its security with an insistence that Israel respect the legitimate claims and rights of the Palestinians.

(Applause)

And — and nations within this body do the Palestinians no favors when they choose vitriolic attacks against Israel over constructive willingness to recognize Israel's legitimacy and its right to exist in peace and security.

(Applause. This surprised and pleased me, for they were actually clapping as he chastised them.)

Then he turned to climate change.

And those wealthy nations that did so much damage to the environment in the 20th century must accept our obligation to lead. But responsibility does not end there. While we must acknowledge the need for differentiated responses, any effort to curb carbon emissions must include the fast-growing carbon emitters who can do more to reduce their air pollution without inhibiting growth. And any effort that fails to help the poorest nations both adapt to the problems that climate change have already wrought and help them travel a path of clean development simply will not work.

It is fair to say that he could not have made it any clearer that the Bush years are over. But, rather than allowing the world simply to celebrate that, Obama is throwing down a gauntlet. He is asking the rest of the world to step up to the plate. He agrees that the US should not be demanding that the rest of the world follow it's dictate, so he is asking the rest of the world to show some initiative. He has, in effect, taken away all of their excuses.

Obama has shown that he is committed to the Charter of the United Nations.

We have reached a pivotal moment. The United States stands ready to begin a new chapter of international cooperation — one that recognizes the rights and responsibilities of all nations. And so, with confidence in our cause, and with a commitment to our values, we call on all nations to join us in building the future that our people so richly deserve.

Now it's up to others to step up to the plate.

As far as I am concerned he couldn't have said it better than he did.

Click title for transcript.

Tags: Obama, United Nations

Joe Scarborough agrees: Glenn Beck is bad news for the conservative movement.

It's not only people like myself who think Glenn Beck is going way too far. Now conservative pundits are lining up to say that Beck is playing with fire; and even Joe Scarborough is calling for Republican leaders, especially ones with future presidential ambitions, to call Beck out for his blatant race baiting.

Scarborough: But when you preach this kind of hatred, and say that an African American president hates all white people -- stay with me -- hates all white people, you are playing with fire. And bad things can happen. And if they do happen, not only is Glenn Beck responsible, but conservatives who don't -- call -- him -- out -- are responsible.

This follows hot on the heels of similar comments from Peter Wehner:

But the role Glenn Beck is playing is harmful in its totality. My hunch is that he is a comet blazing across the media sky right now—and will soon flame out. Whether he does or not, he isn’t the face or disposition that should represent modern-day conservatism.

The truth is that Beck is a buffoon. Even attempting to follow his logic during those rambling and often utterly disconnected diatribes is simply painful. He pretends that he is simply asking questions because this allows him to make wild accusations without actually owning these accusations.

Until now, Beck has always claimed [during interviews with O'Reilly] that "the left" are trying to silence him. The implication is that what he is saying is of such import that it threatens us. The truth is much starker. Glenn, because he is a buffoon, has started race baiting and playing with subjects which he is simply too stupid to understand. The racist accusations which he is so casually throwing around are dangerously inflammable in a country with America's racial past.

It's so seldom that one can ever offer admiration towards Joe Scarborough, but I can easily do so here.

Scarborough is joining the few people on the right who can clearly see what Beck is doing and are brave enough to stand up and demand that the rest of the Republican movement condemn it.

Beck is not a clown and what he is doing is not funny. It's really, really, f#cking dangerous.

Good on Scarborough for calling him on it.

UPDATE:



Cenk has a good take on this. He thinks that Beck is simply a crowd pleaser who will say whatever the people in front of him want to hear. I must admit that I can't follow Beck's logic a lot of the time. And when he talks of Socialism and Fascism, as if the two ideologies are interchangeable, then I honestly doubt that he really knows what he is talking about.

Hat tip to Crooks and Liars.

Tags: Glenn Beck, Joe Scarborough, racism

Source: Obama strongly expressed his impatience to Netanyahu and Abbas.

Netanyahu's intransigence appears to be getting on Obama's nerves.

The meeting at the UN on the subject of Israel and Palestine restarting peace talks produced the nearest thing we have so far seen to anger from the new US president. If I am overstating things by calling it anger then we would have to settle for extreme impatience.

Obama is certainly letting it be known that he is displeased by the lack of progress so far achieved.

U.S. President Barack Obama told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas Tuesday that he was dissatisfied with their recent foot-dragging on getting Israeli-Palestinian talks restarted.

A senior U.S. administration source Tuesday told Haaretz that "during the tripartite meeting Obama strongly expressed his impatience."

The source said the meeting was "businesslike" but not cordial.

Netanyahu has made it clear over the past couple of months that he is simply not interested in playing Obama's game. He won't stop his illegal settlement building and he certainly has no interest in discussing East Jerusalem as a future Palestinian capital city. In other words, Netanyahu has no interest in obeying international law, which he does not recognise when it comes to the subject of Israel and the illegal settlements.

Obama laid out his impatience for all to see.

"Simply put, it is past time to talk about starting negotiations," Obama said. "It is time to move forward... Permanent status negotiations must begin and begin soon."

But the truth is that George Mitchell, the man who famously got the IRA to put down their guns, has had almost no success in moving the intransigent Netanyahu an inch forward towards peace.

Obama has stated that, "all sides must move forward with a sense of urgency", but it can't have escaped his attention that the Israelis aren't moving forward at all. There's not only no sense of urgency, there's not even a hint that they have any interest in this process taking place at all.

I've said for years that I don't buy the Israeli line that they are anxious for peace but simply can't find a "partner for peace". You can't steal someone else's land whilst saying that you are anxious for peace. Those are utterly contradictory positions. Stealing someone else's land is an act of aggression. Indeed, imposing a brutal military occupation on another people's land is an act of aggression.

So Netanyahu is only being more brutally honest about the Israeli position than most other Israeli leaders, and he is only doing so because Obama is refusing to give him the cover which most US presidents give to Israeli actions which threaten peace.

The difference this time is that Obama is deadly serious about wanting an agreement between both sides; which he has, rightly, argued is in America's interests.

To that end, Obama appears to have abandoned his demand that Israel stop settlement building before peace talks can begin and he is now pushing for talks without that precondition having been met. He will also press Abbas to give up that particular Palestinian demand.

[Round One to Netanyahu.]

I don't think Netanyahu is in any doubt about how serious Obama is, I simply think he is equally serious about not giving Obama what he wants.

So, I was pleased to see Obama displaying the diplomatic equivalent of a hissing fit, it's long overdue that he made his displeasure at Israeli intransigence known. For too long US leaders have pretended that Israel's interests and those of the US are interchangeable, and they have twisted to adjust US policy to whatever the Israelis were prepared to give them. Obama is showing that he is prepared to allow the cracks on the surface to become visible to all. I have no idea whether that will have an effect on Israeli public opinion, but if Israel falls out with the United States, surely most Israelis would recognise this as a very bad development?

However, I fear Obama is going to have to be much, much tougher if he is ever to have any hope of moving Netanyahu towards a peace deal which Netanyahu not only doesn't want, but which goes against his every belief.

Sure, Obama can take settlement building off the table and talks can begin. But, the Israelis will talk, and they will keep building. Indeed, they will talk and talk and talk until they have covered every inch of Judea and Samaria (as they refer to the West Bank) with their illegal settlements.

They are determined to establish what Obama's idiotic predecessor referred to as "facts on the ground".

Sooner, rather than later, Obama is going to have to let the Israelis know that there is a terrible price for their continued intransigence. US aid to Israel could be suspended and the US could remove the guaranteed veto which it accords Israel at the UN.

Obama has to let the Israelis know that he is willing to go all the way to get what he wants. These are tough cookies. They are not going to simply roll over and play dead. Obama is going to have to get covered in mud if he is ever going to get the peace deal which he wants. For the Israelis have been playing this diplomatic game for decades.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Obama, Netanyahu, Abbas, Israel, Palestine, United Nations

Beck: I "Hated" Bush for the Bailouts!

Glenn Beck claims he has the archives to prove how much he hated President Bush at the time of the bailouts. It's curious that Beck doesn't feel the need to show us any of these archives to back up his point. He goes on to say this:

He [Obama] will say that Bush started us down the path toward socialism, and he’d be right by that. Bush started the crazy spending. He would be right again. Bush started the bailouts. Yes, he did — hated him for it.

That's not how most people remember Beck behaving at the time. Indeed, his own archives show that he was falling over backwards to explain why the bailout needed to be done.

Last week, our financial system was -- October 1929, it was a heartbeat away from experiencing its own 9/11. But there were no cameras there. There were no live television feeds, no horrifying pictures or stunned news anchors to make it all seem real for us. To most of us, it`s like it never even happened.

But Beck assured people that something terrible had, indeed, happened. He then spelt out the consequences according to Paulson if the US did nothing.

OK. Dennis, you wrote just an absolutely fantastic article on this. Let me -- let me go back to the actual Wednesday night. When he was looking at the money markets, when he saw that no one was willing to lend any business any kind of money in America, he knew at that point, Paulson did, we`ve got to do something. We have to meet with the president, and we have to bail all these -- have a massive just change in strategy.

One of his people said, "What happens if they don`t do this?"

And he responded with something that should shake Americans to their core. He said, "If they don`t do this, then heaven help us all," right?

Beck then reminded the viewer that Paulson wasn't the only person making these Armageddon like claims:

OK. Dennis, the -- there was a report that came out that said Bernanke, who is always very -- these Fed guys are always very measured in what they said. He said -- he met with members of Congress. He said, you`re going to have massive failures within days. Large brand-name companies could go under in the next few days.

Christopher Dodd said it was as sobering a meeting as any of us have ever attended in our careers here. People who saw these congressmen leaving the meeting said they were shocked by the pictures of Armageddon that came from Bernanke.

[..]

Bernanke would never speak in Armageddon-type terms if it really wasn`t.

So, having prepared his viewer for supporting the bailout, by telling us that Bernanke and Paulson were always very "measured" and wouldn't talk of Armageddon unless that was, indeed, what was upon us; he finally said the words:

To put it in another way, we are in the middle of an all-out financial emergency, and emergencies have a way of really testing people. In normal times, under normal circumstances, if you tune in to me, you know me as somebody who would tell the federal government exactly where to take their bailout plan and shove it right up their you know what.

But these are anything but normal times. I thought about it an awful lot this weekend, and while it takes everything in me to say this, I think the bailout is the right thing do.

And not only was it the right thing to do, but Beck insisted it wasn't big enough to sort the problem:

The "REAL STORY" is the $700 billion that you`re hearing about now is not only, I believe, necessary, it is also not nearly enough, and all of the weasels in Washington know it.

I happen to think Beck was right when he stated that the bailout was the right thing to do. Because, it was either do that or watch financial Armageddon.

But, Beck is simply flat out lying when he states that, at the time, he "hated" Bush for doing it. He didn't. He said, "while it takes everything in me to say this, I think the bailout is the right thing do."

That's wasn't hating Bush, that was agreeing with him.

Hat tip to Think Progress.

Tags: Glenn Beck, Bush, Obama, bailouts

Horowitz Should Try Stand Up. He's Very Funny.

David Horowitz and David Frum are debating whether Glenn Beck is a help or a hindrance to the conservative movement. Frum thinks he is a hindrance and Horowitz believes him to be performing a great service.

In order to defend Beck's behaviour, Horowitz really has to stretch reality quite a bit, but this sentence gives you some idea of the lengths to which he is prepared to go. Of the left, he says this:

If they were able to demonize George Bush as a liar, a murderer, an idiot, and a religious nut they can do that to anyone.

Rarely have I ever read a sentence where I had to step away from the computer because I was laughing so hard. I mean, what planet is that man on?

Imagine anyone saying anything that unfair about George Bush? That he lied? That people died because of his lies? That he was a religious nutcase? That he wasn't very bright? I mean, where do these liberals get these awful notions from?

Tags: David Frum, David Horowitz, Glenn Beck, George W Bush

Greg Williams a double amputee tased by the Merced PD

I found this genuinely upsetting. How can the police get away with behaving in this way?

Tags: Police brutality, taser

George Will: What we’re hearing is the liberals’ McCarthyism, which is, when in doubt, blame people for racism.

George Wills continues to argue that Liberals are indulging in "McCarthyism" when they imagine that they can see racism being directed towards Obama:

STEPHANOPOULOS: And, George, as we -- as we get to this, let me show two magazine covers from this week. First, Time magazine, Glenn Beck, mad man, and the angry style of American politics. And then in the New York magazine coming out tomorrow, there’s the tattooed face of Barack Obama , big headline, “Hate.”

We -- we heard President Obama say he thinks that a lot of anti- government feeling, the idea that the government can’t do anything right, is behind all this. What’s your theory?

WILL: The president’s right about that. What we’re hearing is the liberals’ McCarthyism, which is, when in doubt, blame people for racism. Litigators have an old argument: When the law’s on your side, argue the law. When the facts are on your side, argue the facts. When neither’s on your side, pound the table. This amounts to pounding the table.

I have yet to see evidence, is there -- does evidence even intrude in this conversation? Is there any evidence that these people are racists? I think not.

He needs evidence? Happy to supply it.

Limbaugh wants to bring back segregation on the buses:

LIMBAUGH: I think the guy’s wrong. I think not only it was racism, it was justifiable racism. I mean, that’s the lesson we’re being taught here today. Kid shouldn’t have been on the bus anyway. We need segregated buses — it was invading space and stuff. This is Obama’s America.

Limbaugh also thinks that "Obama's America" is run to favour the black population:

"In Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, 'Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on," Limbaugh said.

Mark Williams went as far as to call Obama "an Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug and a racist in chief". When questioned on this:

GERGEN: You think he's a racist in chief? Racist in chief? Is that what you called him? That's unbelievable. It's unbelievable....

WILLIAMS: Until he embraces the whole country -- what else can I conclude?

Again, note the theme, this president favours one section of the country more than the rest. And, of course, Glenn Beck famously took this further:

The group was discussing the recent Gates controversy, and Beck exclaimed that Obama has "over and over again" exposed himself as "a guy who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture. I don't know what it is..."

When Fox's Brian Kilmeadeon pointed out that many people in Obama's administration are white, so "you can't say he doesn't like white people," Beck pressed on. "I'm not saying he doesn't like white people, I'm saying he has a problem," Beck said. "This guy is, I believe, a racist."

The theme of Obama as something "other" was highlighted throughout the McCain campaign. It was the reason why Palin kept referring to "real Americans". There was this continued inference that Obama, somehow, wasn't a "real American". And, this has since been taken to insane extremes by the birthers, who now insist that Obama was born in Kenya.

But, since his election, many right wing commentators have started making out that Obama is actually a racist who only looks after one section of the country.

So, for Will's to make out that President Carter is suddenly engaging in McCarthyism for detecting racism in some of the animosity shown towards Obama, ignores the fact that some on the right have been talking about NOTHING BUT race for months on end.

This subject didn't come racing to the fore because Carter mentioned it. Limbaugh, Beck and others have been talking about it for an awful long time, and they have - bizarrely - been accusing the black president of the very crime which Carter detects in them.

Carter is right. His mistake was to allow this subject to appear to be about Joe Wilson. No-one can authoritatively tell what motivated Wilson to shout out the way he did, but there are far more blatant examples of racism all over the place than Wilson shouting, "You lie!"

I'm simply astonished that George Wills hasn't come across any of them. Indeed, I'm baffled that he didn't notice - during the very panel on which he expressed his suspicions of Liberal McCarthyism - Peggy Noonan referring to Obama as "boorish".

It's much more subtle, I'll grant you, than the kind of comments uttered by Limbaugh, Beck and Williams; but let's remember what boorish actually means:

boor definition boor (bo̵or)

noun

1. Archaic a peasant or farm worker

2. a rude, awkward, or ill-mannered person

She's calling him "uppity". A peasant. She's saying that he's ill-mannered and doesn't know his place.

But if Wills can't pick up on the blatant racism being indulged in by Beck, Limbaugh, Williams and others, I am not remotely surprised that Noonan's much more subtle form of put down went way over his head.

Here, Chris Mathews did well to link Carter's comments to Beck and Limbaugh as opposed to Wilson.



Astonishingly, even David Brooks - whilst trying to deny that racism was involved in all of this - kept giving admissions of it's existence.

David Brooks: What Rush and Glenn Beck are doing is race-baiting. 100 percent. That's race-baiting.

And then he spelled out the problem for the Republican party.

The one danger -- the main danger of all this, the Glenn and the Rush and all that -- they're not going to take over the country. But they are taking over the Republican Party.

And so if the Republican Party is sane, they will say no to these people. But every single elected leader in the Republican Party is afraid to take on Rush and Glenn Beck.

So, whilst insisting that race has no part in all of this, Brooks admits that Rush and Beck are "race baiting" and that they are taking over the Republican party because the leadership is too afraid to take them on.

Tell me again how detecting race in all of this amounts to McCarthyism? Even David Brooks can't properly deny it's existence.

Hat tip to Crooks and Liars.

Tags: George Wills, Peggy Noonan, Limbaugh, Beck, racist, racism

Chris Wallace still whining about Obama snubbing Fox, yet calls White House "thinned skinned".

I find it hysterical that Fox News can be so one sided and then express astonishment that Obama is not rushing to give credence their Pravda-like propaganda machine.

The White House could not have made their contempt for this "news" organisation more clear:

We figured Fox would rather show "So You Think You Can Dance" rather than broadcast an honest discussion about health insurance reform. Fox is an ideological outlet where the president has been interviewed before and will likely be interviewed again, not that the whining particularly strengthens the case for participation any time soon.

The Obama administration are calling them what they are: an ideological outlet. They are still allowing Beck on air, without even asking him to withdraw his outrageous claim that the president is "a racist". And now they are bemoaning the fact that he refuses to accord them the status of a proper news organisation? Please.....

You can't pump out outrageous propaganda 7 days a week and then suddenly demand that everyone treats you as if you are not the broadcasting wing of the Republican party.

There was a reason why Dick Cheney preferred Fox. Indeed, it was practically the only network he would ever agree to be interviewed by. This was because when Cheney was on Fox he was guaranteed to be asked only softball questions.

When it comes to Cheney, one of the most incompetent vice-presidents in the country's history, with a record of two grotesquely botched wars, war crimes and a crippling debt, Chris Wallace sounds like a teenage girl interviewing the Jonas Brothers.

Having enjoyed such exclusive access to a Republican Vice President, it seems churlish for Fox to now complain that other networks are enjoying an access to Obama which they are not.

Tags: Obama, Fox News, Chris Wallace, propaganda

Tea Party Organizer Is Epitome Of Privilege.

Bill Moyers takes a look at the tea baggers protests. And he pays special attention to Dick Armey of FreedomWorks, the man who once said that, "Politics is 97% fiction and 3% imagination."

Armey is fighting to keep his own government health plan, a plan which taxpayers subsidise by as much as 75%, whilst encouraging tea baggers to fight against that very thing.

"Dick Armey is the epitome of those people with power and privilege who are insured against the vicissitudes of life and want no government assistance for any suffering except their own," Moyers says.

The tea baggers are an easily led bunch of people if they can't see through such wanton hypocrisy. But, as Dick would say, "politics is 97% fiction". As is Dick's opposition to government run health plans. He's really against other people having the same protections as he enjoys.

Tags: Bill Moyers, Dick Armey, universal healthcare, tea baggers

Barack Obama ready to slash US nuclear arsenal.

When he mentioned abolishing nuclear weapons during his campaign, I thought he was perhaps engaging in hyperbolic rhetoric; that he was simply feeding red meat to liberals and that, once he attained office, he would instantly revert to the arguments used by all previous presidents regarding why we need to keep our nuclear arsenal.

But that's not the way it's panning out.

Barack Obama has demanded the Pentagon conduct a radical review of US nuclear weapons doctrine to prepare the way for deep cuts in the country's arsenal, the Guardian can reveal.

Obama has rejected the Pentagon's first draft of the "nuclear posture review" as being too timid, and has called for a range of more far-reaching options consistent with his goal of eventually abolishing nuclear weapons altogether, according to European officials.

If Obama goes ahead with this he will be the first president in my lifetime to embrace the concept behind the NNPT, which calls for all nuclear nations to take steps to disarm.

The problem with George Bush asking Iran to desist from building a nuclear weapon was that Bush was also talking about building a new range of "bunker busting" nuclear weapons, which was in direct contravention of the NNPT.

It will be much harder for country's like North Korea and Iran to justify continuing any perceived path down the nuclear route if the rest of the world is heading in the opposite direction.

In an article for the Guardian today, the foreign secretary, David Miliband, argues that failure to win a consensus would be disastrous. "This is one of the most critical issues we face," the foreign secretary writes. "Get it right, and we will increase global security, pave the way for a world without nuclear weapons, and improve access to affordable, safe and dependable energy – vital to tackle climate change. Get it wrong, and we face the spread of nuclear weapons and the chilling prospect of nuclear material falling into the hands of terrorists."

According to a final draft of the resolution due to be passed on Thursday, however, the UN security council will not wholeheartedly embrace the US and Britain's call for eventual abolition of nuclear weapons. Largely on French insistence, the council will endorse the vaguer aim of seeking "to create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons".

So, already, we have country's like France showing cold feet about aiming for a world without nuclear weapons. They would rather create "the conditions" for a nuclear free world, rather than actually go ahead and do it.

But the initial signs from Russia are good.

Russia has approximately 2,780 deployed strategic warheads, compared with around 2,100 in the US. The abandonment of the US missile defence already appears to have spurred arms control talks currently underway between Washington and Moscow: the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, said today that chances were "quite high" that a deal to reduce arsenals to 1,500 warheads each would be signed by the end of the year.

I happen to think that this is quite a modest aim, but it's certainly a step in the right direction. And it's certainly a sign that the nuclear powers are serious about fulfilling their role in the NNPT.

The Obama strategy is to create disarmament momentum in the run-up to the non-proliferation treaty review conference next May, in the hope that states without nuclear weapons will not side with Iran, as they did at the last review in 2005, but endorse stronger legal barriers to nuclear proliferation, and forego nuclear weapons programmes themselves.

Until now, the NNPT has been used as a way of banning other country's from joining the nuclear club; the members who possess nuclear weapons have certainly shown no inclination to ever give them up, despite the fact that our doing so was supposedly central to our convincing other nations that they should not pursue such weaponry. Unsurprisingly, the rest of the world has began to lose faith in our reading of this treaty. And who can blame them?

Obama is attempting to breath new life into a treaty which Bush and the neo-Cons treated with contempt.

I wish him well. Up until now it has been impossible for us to hold the moral high ground, insisting others stick to a treaty which we ourselves have been breaking.

Obama is seeking to change that. That can only be a good thing.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Obama, Russia, United States, NNPT

Pat Buchanan on O'Reilly supporting Obama's health plans.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

It's not often that I agree with Pat Buchanan but I think what he says here is correct. The reason the Republicans fear what Obama is proposing is because they know where it will lead, and I think it will eventually lead to a universal health system not unlike those of western Europe; where some choose to stay in private health systems, but the majority go for the system which is run by the government because it is far, far, cheaper than the private alternative.

Of course, Buchanan thinks that would be a disaster. He still doesn't get the fact that there should be no place for profit in healthcare, and that those making that profit bring nothing of any value to the equation.

Tags: Pat Buchanan, Bill O'Reilly, universal healthcare, Obama

Limbaugh says we need to return to ‘segregated buses.’

Is there anything that Rush Limbaugh can say that the Republicans will not defend? I ask this because he has now made a statement so bizarre that, were it to be made by any other person in American life, they would have been taken off of the air almost instantly.

Limbaugh is now calling for a return to segregation on the United States school buses:

Last week, a video of a school bus beating showing two African American children assaulting a white student began circulating the internet. Despite claims by authorities that the attack was not necessarily racially motivated, hate radio host Rush Limbaugh jumped on the story and claimed that in “Obama’s America the white kids now get beat up.” Yesterday, Limbaugh proposed a solution to this problem — a return to segregated busing:

LIMBAUGH: I think the guy’s wrong. I think not only it was racism, it was justifiable racism. I mean, that’s the lesson we’re being taught here today. Kid shouldn’t have been on the bus anyway. We need segregated buses — it was invading space and stuff. This is Obama’s America.

Seriously, is there nothing this guy can say that will be outrageous enough for even the Republicans to admit that he has gone too far? And how can people argue that "race has nothing to do with this" when Limbaugh is arguing that, in "Obama's America" it is necessary to reintroduce segregated buses?

Tags: Limbaugh, Obama, Racism, segregation

O'Reilly: "The Conservative Media Is Winning... They're Damaging The President Of The United States".

O'Reilly points out that the right wing are now going to try to damage Obama due to his associations with Acorn. O'Reilly wonders how the Democrats can fight back as this Republican tactic is "damaging the President of the United States of America".

I think the way to challenge this nonsense is to point out that Acorn work to help the poor, and to ask what the Republicans have against the poor being helped.

Fox are employing shameful McCarthy-like tactics here against an organisation which helps the poor and, therefore, in their minds, is beyond the pale. And their plan, as O'Reilly makes clear here, is the usual one. Tarnish Acorn and then try to play a game of guilt by association on Obama and any member of his team who have any connection with Acorn. It's disgusting.

Even if it can be proven that some Acorn members behaved improperly, it is simply ludicrous to use this as way of arguing that the entire organisation is rotten from top to bottom. And that really is what these insane right wingers are trying to do.

There are many members of the Republican party who have been caught in sexual peccadilloes and acts of corruption over the years, it does not follow that the behaviour of the few reflects on the morals of the entire party. If that's true of the Republican party, why is it any different when it comes to Acorn?

Tags: Media, Media Matters, Barack Obama, Van Jones, ACORN, Bill O'Reilly, Fox, Fox News, Alan Colmes, Monica Crowley

Dylan Ratigan Cuts Loose on Brad Blakeman Over the GOP's Role as the Party of NO on Health Care Reform

I'm not too familiar with Dylan Ratigan, but he does a very good job here of cutting through Brad Blakeman's bullshit.

Blakeman argues that old canard that the United States is "a centre right country" and claims that there is nothing the Republicans can do until they are returned to power.

Ratigan can't listen to this bullshit anymore:

Blakeman: Well Dylan as we approach and get closer to the election, you’re going to hear more nuts and bolts of what the Republicans stand for and what they will do. (crosstalk)

Ratigan: Why are you going to wait until the election? Because is that the only thing Republicans care about, getting elected because they could care less about actually creating efficient health care systems, solving too big to fail, dealing with energy… why do we have to wait until an election to hear what these people think Brad?

Blakeman: Because we’re not in power. (crosstalk)

Ratigan: We’re paying taxes. Why do we have to wait until an election?

Blakeman: Because we’re not in power. We can come up with the best solutions and the Democrats would throw us to the side. They have not included…

Ratigan: Oh, nonsense. (crosstalk) Either step up and deal with the problems as a party or get out of the building.

Blakeman: We don’t have the votes!

Ratigan: I don’t care about the votes. This is a debate about ideas. Believe me if you are capable of (crosstalk) ideas, I guarantee you there are Democrats and Republicans who are persuadable to rational thought if you actually care about America and you actually want to solve (crosstalk)… you don’t care about America unless you care to be constructive to the conversation and if all you care for is personal destruction and personal assignation, whether it’s fear from the right or guilt from the left you are all eating this country from the gut, and it’s got to come to a conclusion….

The party of NO are claiming that everyone needs to wait until the next election but... wait a minute... the president has only been in office eight months... are they seriously saying that there's nothing can be done until the next bloody election?

The Democrats won the last election, therefore, their job is simply to stall them until 2012? It's a ridiculous stance, but that actually is the stance the party of NO are currently taking.

Ratigan is right to point out that this is a debate about ideas, the main problem is that the Republicans don't have any. I'm being cruel, they do have an idea: cut taxes. But, as Bush's recent report card showed, that idea doesn't do what they've always claimed it would do.

Maybe they'll lean back on their second great idea: invade Iran.

The Republicans really are ideologically bankrupt at this moment in time.

Hat tip to Crooks and Liars.

Tags: Dylan Ratigan, Brad Blakeman, Republicans, Democrats, universal healthcare

Insurers Executives Have Not Heard Of Medical Bankruptcy!

Unbelievable. The executives of the Medical Insurance company's claim that they have never heard about the amount of people who file for bankruptcy because they are unable to pay their medical bills in the United States.

I loved this comment on YouTube:

I used to believe that 'Evil' was only an abstract concept, and couldn't fully explain certain human actions.

But these people are a bunch of god-damn supervillains.

If I've heard about it in London, how is it remotely possible that the people whose actions bring this about are so in the dark?

Tags: Universal Healthcare

Juan Williams: Why don't you go after Blackwater? Why don't you go after the defense industry that rips off our country?

I've largely avoided writing about this because the American right wing's obsession with Acorn simply makes me want to hit my head off the desk.

Acorn's remit is well known:

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is a community-based organization in the United States that advocates for low- and moderate-income families by working on neighborhood safety, voter registration, health care, affordable housing, and other social issues.

Looking out for poor people is such an admirable thing for any organisation to do that I find the antics of Beck, Malkin and Fox News simply reprehensible on this subject; and, I feel, that this - more than anything else - exposes their phony claims to be concerned for "ordinary Americans" as the bullshit that it is.

The head of Acorn describes the McCarthy like atmosphere which these windbags are creating:

BERTHA LEWIS: Well, first of all, we are suffering from a modern-day type of McCarthyism. You know, have you now or have you ever been associated with ACORN? This has been repeated in the right-wing Republican echo chamber, that somehow or another we are to be discredited.

They speak of Acorn as if it the most corrupt organisation which ever operated, when their real anger at Acorn is due to the fact that it encourages the black community to vote and that the black community tend to vote Democrat. That is the real beef these haters have with Acorn, but they will never be honest enough to tell us that.

Here, Juan Williams of all bloody people, pulls Hannity up for the fact that he concentrates on Acorn rather than more substantial abuses:

WILLIAMS: Now, I will say this, Sean. Exactly how serious do you think this is? Because the way you play it..... you would think that this is the basis of all corruption, going to take apart our great country. And you know what? This is miniscule. And most of what ACORN does is help poor people.

[...]

But I will say something to you. You're a big guy. How come you're not going after people who take billions of dollars? Why don't you go after Blackwater? Why don't you go after the defense industry that rips off our country? You know, these are people...

HANNITY: The industry that keeps us safe.

Note, that Hannity immediately sells the line that Blackwater keeps the nation safe.

But Williams is making a very valid point. If these right wingers were really concerned about corruption, there are far more deserving targets than the ones they choose to obsess with.

They obsess with Acorn because it helps the poor, which they instantly regard as a Democratic agenda and one which should be instantly condemned.

Hat tip to Crooks and Liars.

Tags: Acorn, Blackwater, Halliburton, Hannity, Williams

For asking why your insurance rates increase, you can be arrested.

Unbelievable:

Joe Szakos leads the Virginia Organizing Project, an almost fifteen year-old community organization that Health Care for America Now works with in Virginia to organize for health care reform. Szakos's organization employs dozens of people, and they get their health care through Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

This year, Szakos was informed that Anthem was going to increase the premiums on Virginia Organizing Project's health plan by 14.1%. Around the same time, the Virginia Organizing Project received an email from Anthem:

We strongly support reform that builds a strong, sustainable private-sector health care system - and strongly oppose creating a government-run health plan. We are urging our elected officials in Washington to take bipartisan action that will accomplish that. We are educating policymakers in Washington and working with our trade associations to encourage Congress to build on the current system and not disrupt the quality, affordable coverage on which our members depend....

As our elected officials debate health care, they need to hear directly from you.

Szakos immediately had some questions for Anthem. Chief among them, why is Anthem using its resources to lobby against health care reform with a public health insurance option while at the same time increasing rates by 14.1%?

Szakos, along with three other Virginia Organizing Project board members, went down to Anthem's offices in Richmond, VA to ask. He left in handcuffs.

Szakos, a customer, couldn't get an answer from Anthem. There was no justification for raising rates on one hand, and spending money lobbying against health care reform on the other. And instead of trying to offer Szakos an explanation, they had him arrested.

As Szakos said in the video, this is about greed and force. There is no good explanation for these rate increases, and there is no justification for Anthem to spend money it collects in premiums from customers suffering under its "health care" plans on lobbying against reform that would help these very same people. The only thing motivating Anthem - and all insurance companies - is greed. And they get and keep their money by force.

Szakos raises a very good point. Why is this company raising premiums at the very same time that it is lobbying against reform? Why should it's customers pay for their lobbying against universal healthcare?

For asking this question he is hauled off in handcuffs.

Hat tip to Crooks and Liars.

Tags: universal healthcare

Trafigura offers £1,000 each to toxic dumping victims.

Trafigura, an oil trading company, has offered each of the 30,000 claimants against it a mere £1,000 in compensation for the dumping of toxic waste around Abidjan which caused thousands of residents to flock to hospitals.This would cost the company about £30 million in total, which is about 10% of the company's annual profits.

That might sound reasonable, unless you had read the story of just what Trafigura are accused of doing and what effect this event had on the lives of people on the Ivory Coast.

At the heart of the dumping incident, which at times seemed to owe more to the novels of John Grisham than 21st-century commerce, lies an oil deal spanning three continents.

Internal Trafigura emails, obtained by Greenpeace, show that Trafigura struck a series of bargains on the international markets in 2005 and early 2006 to buy cheap and dirty petroleum, called coker gasoline, which the company believed could then be cleaned up at profit of £4m per cargo.

Rather than send the oil to a refinery, Trafigura used the Probo Koala, a Panamanian tanker chartered by the company since 2004, as a floating processing plant while it was anchored off Gibraltar. Using an ad hoc process of adding caustic soda and a catalyst to the coker gasoline, the oil was "cleaned" to produce a sellable fuel and a toxic sludge which sank to the bottom of the ship's tanks.

The precise composition of the waste is strongly disputed, with Trafigura vigorously denying it contained high concentrations of hydrogen sulphide, a potentially lethal poisonous gas. The presence of mercaptan, a sulphurous chemical that is widely recognised as the most foul-smelling substance known to man, was confirmed. Problems began for Trafigura when it needed to dispose of the slurry.

They first attempted to offload this slurry in Amsterdam, by telling the authorities there that it was "watery cleaning liquids". After examining it, the Amsterdam authorities told them that rather than charge the usual £17 per cubic metre to dispose of waste, they would be required to pay £800 per cubic metre. This gives you some idea of the toxicity of the waste we are talking about here.

Trafigura declined to pay the Amsterdam authorities (the bill would have been some £500,000) and set sail for the Ivory Coast.

Once there they entered into a deal with Compagnie Tommy, despite the fact that Compagnie Tommy had told them that it intended to dispose of the sludge at Akouedo, a vast open-air waste site where hundreds of Ivorians earn a living by picking over the rubbish.

The UN have accused Trafigura of not checking whether or not this company had the capability of properly dealing with such waste.

The first the four million inhabitants of Abidjan knew of their role in Trafigura's project was after darkness on 19 August 2006. A fleet of 12 trucks hired by a local waste contractor, Compagnie Tommy, which had only received its operating licence weeks earlier, offloaded the sulphurous sludge from the cargo vessel and deposited the waste at 18 locations around the sprawling, over-crowded city.

Hospital records showed that within hours thousands of patients were treated for complaints including nausea, breathlessness, headaches, skin reactions and a range of ear, nose, throat and pulmonary problems.

A United Nations report yesterday found that "there seems to be strong prima facie evidence that the reported deaths and adverse health consequences are related to the dumping".

The stories of individual misery which this dumping led to are horrendous:

The smell in Abidjan began late at night on 19 August 2006. By morning, what had at first seemed an unpleasant odour became a stench which would leave thousands of some of the world's poorest people in a state of sickness and angry disbelief.

Guy Olou, a science teacher, said: "It smelt like spoilt eggs and also rubber burning. It sticks in your nose; it was unbearable. I started to cough and after that my nose started to bleed. For three-and-a-half to four months, I was sick. I had to go to hospital. It was terrible, very terrible."

For some, the exposure to the fumes, which contained a sulphur-based compound called mecaptan, the foulest-smelling substance known to man, was linked to horrific outcomes. "There were women who miscarried, and that was very painful," Esaie Modto, the head of a local village said. "But still, the worst was that three people, two adults and a girl died. That was very hard."

In all, 15 deaths have been blamed on the dumped waste, a suggestion backed by several reports, including a document produced yesterday by the United Nations' special rapporteur on human rights.

The proposed settlement is less than the £100 million Trafigura paid the country's government for the clean up of this waste and to give some paltry compensation to the families of those who died.

That previous payment, which the company made without any admission of liability, led to the release of the company president, Claude Dauphin, from an Ivorian jail and the scrapping of criminal prosecutions there.

So, having heard the story, you will understand why I find the offer of £30 million to be derisory. Especially, as this payment will make all prosecutions go away without Trafigura even admitting that it has ever done anything wrong.

Marvin Outtarra, described as the president of the Union of Victims of Toxic Waste, told Reuters: "This compensation to be shared equally among all the victims doesn't work for me. Trafigura has given no compensation to the families of the deceased and the amount of compensation of 750,000 CFA francs does not vary based on the severity of the injuries." London-based Trafigura declared profits of $440m (£270m) last year on turnover of more than $70bn. Its traders are reported to receive annual bonuses of up to $1m.

The offer is an insult. I really hope the victims tell them to shove it. Trafigura internal emails referred to this waste as "shit". Well, that's also a good description of their latest offer.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Trafigura, Ivory Coast, dumping

Tea Party Protesters Protest that the Public Metro Service is Not Up to Scratch.

The tea baggers are like the gift that keeps on giving. Every time you think they can't show themselves up as dumber than they have so far, they confound your expectations and go one better.

They met in Washington to protest about the government interfering with their healthcare, because as we all know the public option is never the best option and it's not one that independent minded souls like the tea baggers would ever choose. It's like that Medicare which they love so much that they are demanding that the government keeps their hands off it. Oh, they're a bright bunch, this lot.

However, whilst in Washington, they did have another complaint on the day: They thought the public transport system let them down. I'm not making that up.

They actually complained that the public option in transport was not up to scratch.

A spokesman for Brady says that “there weren’t enough cars and there weren’t enough trains.”

Brady tweeted as much from the Saturday march. “METRO did not prepare for Tea Party March! People couldn’t get on, missed start of march. I will demand answers from Metro,” he wrote on Twitter.

I would have thought that these opponents of all things public would have avoided a public run system like the plague and opted to travel there by private transport?

Brady says in his letter to Metro that overcrowding forced an 80-year-old woman and elderly veterans in wheelchairs to pay for cabs.

So, finally, they found the private option and now they are complaining? They are demanding that they should have had better access to a better run public option.

When I thought they travelled all the way to Washington to argue that they don't believe in the public option.

And surely Rep. Kevin Brady is the very last person on Earth who should be complaining about the poor service on the D.C. Metro.

But earlier this year, Brady voted against the stimulus package. It provided millions upon millions of dollars for all manner of improvements to … the D.C. Metro.

So, he is complaining about poor service on public transport, when he is in a city to protest against public services being supplied by the government, and yet he was one of the people who voted against a stimulus to improve the public transport system?

As I say... the gift that keeps on giving.

As the picture shows, they can carry signs saying "Your health, your problem", but they are the first to complain when they have to wait too long for a train. Unbelievable.

Click title for full article.

Tags: tea baggers, DC Metro, Republicans, stupid