dagblog - Comments for " Neocons Have Trump on His Knees"

Good comment IMO. Yeah, Kagan

A Guy Called LULU — Sat, 15 Apr 2017 16:39:03 +0000

In reply to Kagan always gets a tilt in

Good comment IMO. Yeah, Kagan gets a tilt in his kilt and his posse goose-stepping with him get a bouncy joyful strut in their glide when the bombs start falling. We have discussed the neocons before with, as I recall, an emphasis before the election, on whether or not Hillary is one [I think probably not per se] and whether her administration would be neocon in nature and action. [I believe it would have been] Hillary is mostly out of the picture right now, far more so than even Sanders, and so almost irrelevant, but the neocons are alive and well and getting “better” all the time.

Consortiumnews has another column I recommend, “Neocons Point Housebroken Trump at Iran”, by Johnathan Marshall.

Within it is a link to a Washington Post column, key to what Marshall says, and by using it the firewall normally in place at WP is bypassed and the entire piece is available.

Weekly Standard editor William Kristol tweeted, “Punishing Assad for use of chemical weapons is good. Regime change in Iran is the prize.”

With Saddam dead and Syria’s Assad stripped of much of his power, Iran is now at the center of neocon crosshairs. Kristol linked his recent tweet to a Washington Post column by two stalwart advocates of ousting the mullahs in Tehran: Reuel Gerecht and Ray Takeyh.

Titled “How Trump Can Help Cripple the Iranian Regime,” their article called for putting the nuclear arms deal with Iran at risk in order to “stoke the volcano under Tehran and to challenge the regime.” The centerpiece of their bizarre argument was that the Iranian people would gratefully welcome the United States imposing “crippling sanctions” to destroy their economy in the name of “human rights.”

Yeah, Kristol expects the Iranian people to throw flowers at our feet [like the Iraqis before] or, if he actually isn’t that hideously stupid and is just putting out propagandistic BS, he hopes that we are so stupid that we passively go along if and when his maniacally murderous ideas are implemented once again.

Another rather long article from Lobelog from one year ago and worth a read is here.

Kagan always gets a tilt in

moat — Sat, 15 Apr 2017 14:06:41 +0000

In reply to Neocons Have Trump on His Knees

Kagan always gets a tilt in his kilt when missiles fly toward an established regime. Since the Iraq/Afghanistan invasions, there have only been the non-stop battles against non-state actors unfolding in the context of proxy wars being fought by all the states involved. This is boring for lovers of the Great Game who want to see their pieces moving across the board while knocking other pieces off of it. But the clarity of purpose Kagan craves can only be found by addressing the proxy wars directly as a matter of foreign policy. Having a powerful military involvement without such a policy leads to the situation where the U.S. becomes yet another proxy for other powers. The Kagan principle of the U.S. as the "good" empire never addresses this problem. It presumes that methodology can replace the need for strategy.

Here is a musical explanation:

The bimbo is much more

rmrd0000 — Sat, 15 Apr 2017 04:18:22 +0000

In reply to Just to be clear I wasn't

The bimbo is much more dangerous than someone manipulated by a foreign power. Stupid means that he remains in office. Manipulation makes impeachment possible.

Just to be clear I wasn't

artappraiser — Sat, 15 Apr 2017 03:48:24 +0000

In reply to You have a more optimistic

Just to be clear I wasn't sayin' we can all breathe a sigh of relief. He is still looking more unintelligent every day and still a narcissist lacking a desire to learn much at all. It's more like this: I am thinking we have more of a male version of a stereotypical dumb blond bimbo as president, and less of a wild man manipulated by evil forces.

I especially like your point about the military often being eager to please a president, trying to discern what he/she might want. I think that's a very good way of describing our military, what makes it kind of different than some others.

Thanks NCD. I only wish the

HSG — Fri, 14 Apr 2017 23:49:56 +0000

In reply to Very good. Stephen Moore is

Thanks NCD. I only wish the Post editor hadn't changed my spelling of "laffable" to the inarguably correct, but far less parallel to Laffer, "laughable".

Very good. Stephen Moore is

NCD — Fri, 14 Apr 2017 22:44:40 +0000

In reply to Tea Party right-wing nuts won

Very good. Stephen Moore is an example of the total bullshit that the Heritage Foundation and our right wing plutocrats ideology sits upon.

Diane Rehm used to have him on constantly to blather about anything not restricted to his ludicrous economics blather. I have made it a crusade to expose the following about his ridiculous publishing career, geared as usual to making money off the Fox news hate Radio liberal hating nitwits of the GOP base.

I always look people up on Amazon as to books they have written to discover if they are real professionals or right wing pandering grifters, these are books by Stephen Moore, see Wikipedia:

Crash Landing: How Bush, Bernanke, Pelosi and Obama Have Wrecked the U. S. Economy (And How To Salvage America's Future)(Audio CD)(Blackstone Audio, 2014) ISBN 1482923874

Bullish On Bush: How George Bush's Ownership Society Will Make America Stronger (Madison Books, 2004) ISBN 1-56833-261-0

The End of Prosperity with Arthur B. Laffer and Peter Tanous (Threshold Editions, 2008) ISBN 1-4165-9238-5

Note how in 2004 Moore was Bullish on Bush, How George Bush's Ownership Society will make America Stronger, and in 2014 - Crash Landing, How Bush Bernanke, Pelosi and Obama Wrecked the US Economy...(which was published only as an audio book as the economy was improving so well he must have pulled it)

He went from being 110% for Bush and his policies, to throwing Bush under the bus with Pelosi and Obama. He is a total bullshitter and fraud, his theories adjust to the needs of right wing politics.

Every time the NYT has anything by him or mentioning his latest cockamamie baloney I put a comment in on his unprincipled unhinged publishing history.

You have a more optimistic

ocean-kat — Fri, 14 Apr 2017 22:10:18 +0000

In reply to P,S, These are the things on

You have a more optimistic take than I. Here's an article by Josh that dovetails nicely with what I posted. (more evidence that reporters from major news sites look to dagblog for their ideas )

While this strike appears to be reasonable and it seems as though he took advice from McMaster or Mattis who gets good press as being moderate, sane, and knowledgeable it's too early for me to see it as a trend going forward. Like the old adage the military is a hammer and every problem looks like a nail to them. Beyond their basic predilection to strike they will mold themselves toward the presidents desires. Trump has said clearly throughout his life that when challenged he wants to hit back ten times as hard. The pentagon will attempt to give sense and reason to his most insane impulses but will likely do little to change his basic impulses.

Where is the countervailing force to the military? The state department has been sidelined, numerous high ranking experts have left and not been replaced. He's not getting nuanced sophisticated information about other nations from a diplomatic perspective. He doesn't want it, most likely because it's too complex for him to understand.

While we can possibly take some comfort that he's getting sane advice and perhaps some pushback from McMaster and others on the military end of foreign policy there seems to be almost no one on the domestic side that can give him good advice. Pruitt at the EPA is a climate denier that wants to decimate the EPA in most every way. He's not just a climate change denier he wants to roll back protections on pollutants across the board. Honestly, I think he would be happiest if he could use his perch as head of the EPA to eliminate the whole department. DeVos is a firm believer in the charter school movement despite the evidence that they rarely produce better education outcomes and more often produce worse. She not only supports charter schools but she hard core against oversight and regulation of those schools. One of her primary goals as a christian is to push for more public funding for religious charter schools.

Even if he listened to some one sane today there's no telling if he'll listen to the sane one tomorrow. Because I don't think he's capable of distinguishing the sane ones from the insane ones. I don't think he's using cynically using conspiracy theories as a tactic to further his agenda. Many people actually believe that nonsense and Trump is one of them. I don't think he can tell the difference between a story in the NYT, fox news, or Inforwars. We'll see what happens, but I'm not as confident as you seem to be that a measured response with this missile strike signifies anything about Trumps behavior going forward.

Tea Party right-wing nuts won

HSG — Fri, 14 Apr 2017 20:31:11 +0000

In reply to Have you ever produced an op

Tea Party right-wing nuts won by attacking everybody they deemed impure including Republicans like H.W. and Jeb Bush, Eric Cantor, and John Boehner.

Here's a letter I wrote published in the Washington Post that targets only conservatives:

Heritage Foundation economist Stephen Moore’s claim that there’s a “vital link between low taxes and jobs” is, dare I say, laughable. When the stock market crashed in 1929, triggering the Great Depression, the top marginal tax rate at 24 percent was the lowest it had been since 1916. Although unemployment remained very high throughout the next decade, the percentage of unemployed Americans peaked at more than 20 percent just before Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office and boosted the top tax rate to 63 percent. It was bumped up to 79 percent in 1936, but unemployment continued to drop steadily.

The 1950s are rightly remembered as a time of broad-based prosperity with good middle-class jobs available for most. The top marginal tax rate during that decade never dropped below 91 percent. More recently, presidents George H.W. Bush, Clinton and Obama saw employment surge in the wake of income tax hikes on the rich.

In contrast, the “Great Recession” of 2008 occurred after President George W. Bush had cut top tax rates twice and when taxes on dividends and capital gains were the lowest since the Great Depression.

Despite conservative claims to the contrary, it simply isn’t true that soaking the rich leaves us all wet.

Hal Ginsberg, Kensington

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/discussing-the-laffer-curve-at-4...

Have you ever produced an op

NCD — Fri, 14 Apr 2017 18:41:10 +0000

In reply to I've been criticized for not

Have you ever produced an op-ed or blog which was solely focused on and critical of Republicans? I don't recall any.

Republicans and their well paid mouthpieces on corporate TV never waver from attacking us lefties and Democrats, and you know what? It works.

Driftglass yesterday:

While America's most fatuous pundits continue to wring their hands and worry about Democrats offending America's inbred nitwits, bigots and Fox News rage-a-holics by blaming them for, y'know, electing President Stupid...

...Conservatives continue their successful, 30-year strategy of never, ever missing an opportunity to heap blame on the Left for every fucking thing that has ever gone wrong since the Battle of Thermopylae.

And what has this strategy of using every camera, microphone and printed word at their command -- from the pulpit to the publishing house to coast-t-coast Hate Radio -- to relentlessly lie, obstruct and demonize the Left while mainstreaming overt racism, crackpot conspiracies and pandering to the worst inbred nitwits, bigots and Fox News rage-a-holics in America gotten them?

The House of Representatives.

The Senate.

The White House.

The Supreme Court.

32 state legislatures and 33 governors.

Some detailed review of the

PeraclesPlease — Fri, 14 Apr 2017 18:25:00 +0000

In reply to 'New Revelations Belie Trump

Some detailed review of the earlier Seymour Hersch assertions (2013 gas attack) that mention Theodore Postol as well.