Author: Matthew G. Saroff

Finally, Someone Says IT to a Neocon

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Thats Gonna Leave a Mark

Katrina Vanden, editor-in-chief of The Nation finally calls out the Neocons as cowards when she tells Bill Kristol join the Iraqi army:

“For example, the president should go to Congress if he’s going to take military action in Iraq,” she explained. “There’s no military solution to Iraq, and I have to say, sitting next to Bill Kristol, man — I mean, the architects of catastrophe that have cost this country trillions of dollars, thousands of lives — there should be accountability.”

 “If there are no regrets for the failed assumptions that have grievously wounded this nation — I don’t know what happened to our politics and media accountability, but we need it, Bill,” she continued. “Because this country should not go back to war. We don’t need armchair warriors, and if you feel so strongly, you should, with all due respect, enlist in the Iraqi Army.”

(emphasis mine)

This needs to be said, repeatedly.

The Neocons have spent decades accusing anyone who does not support their stupid military adventures of cowardice.

Calling out them as armchair warriors who send other people’s children to die is an essential part of our public discourse.

It’s Bank Failure Friday!!!! (One Week and One Day Late)

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And here they are, ordered, and numbered for the year so far.

  1. Valley Bank, Moline, IL  <== Occurred on June 20
  2. Valley Bank, Fort Lauderdale, FL <== Occurred on June 20
  3. The Freedom State Bank , Freedom, OK

Yeah, I forgot to check last week.

Full FDIC list

The stuff does seem to happen in fits and starts.

So, here is the graph pr0n with last few years numbers for comparison (FDIC only):

I Think that Obama Just Called al-Maliki’s Bluff

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Kerry just announced that there will be no airstrikes without a national unity government in Iraq:

US Secretary of State John Kerry has ruled out airstrikes against the rapidly advancing Islamist State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) unless Baghdad forms a more inclusive government, upping the political pressure on Nouri al-Maliki to work with the Sunnis and Kurds, or step aside as prime minister.

“It would be a complete and total act of irresponsibility for the president to just order a few strikes,” Kerry told CBS News on Tuesday. “But there’s no government, there’s no backup, there’s no military – there’s nothing there that provides the capacity for success.”

“The president reserves the right to use force as he does anywhere in the world, if it is necessary,” Kerry said. “But he wants to do so … with knowledge that there’s a government in place that can actually follow through and guarantee that what the United States is working toward can actually be achieved.”

But Prime Minister al-Maliki, a Shiite, rejected calls on Wednesday for a national unity government with Sunnis and Kurds, saying such a step would amount to a coup. Maliki’s State of Law alliance won the most seats in parliamentary elections last April, but fell short of the majority needed to form a government without help from rival parties.

I’m not sure if this is good news, or bad news.

It’s clear that Nouri al-Maliki is the source of most of the problems in Iraq, but our meddling in Iraqi affairs implies that we are getting back in.

It looks like when Obama is desperately trying to get back into the war that he called “stupid” in 2003.

Who says that Irony is dead?

Why You Should Not Give Money to the Red Cross

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Even if you ignore their blood products profiteering which killed a significant portion of the Hemophiliacs in the United States under Liddy Dole, you have their routine and brazen profiteering in the event of major disasters:

Just how badly does the American Red Cross want to keep secret how it raised and spent over $300 million after Hurricane Sandy?

The charity has hired a fancy law firm to fight a public request we filed with New York state, arguing that information about its Sandy activities is a “trade secret.”

The Red Cross’ “trade secret” argument has persuaded the state to redact some material, though it’s not clear yet how much since the documents haven’t yet been released.

As we’ve reported, the Red Cross releases few details about how it spends money after big disasters. That makes it difficult to figure out whether donor dollars are well spent.

The Red Cross did give some information about Sandy spending to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who had been investigating the charity. But the Red Cross declined our request to disclose the details.

So we filed a public records request for the information the Red Cross provided to the attorney general’s office.

 That’s where the law firm Gibson Dunn comes in.

 An attorney from the firm’s New York office appealed to the attorney general to block disclosure of some of the Sandy information, citing the state Freedom of Information Law’s Trade Secret Exemption.

 The documents include “internal and proprietary methodology and procedures for fundraising, confidential information about its internal operations, and confidential financial information,” wrote Gabrielle Levin of Gibson Dunn in a letter to the attorney general’s office.

If those details were disclosed, “the American Red Cross would suffer competitive harm because its competitors would be able to mimic the American Red Cross’s business model for an increased competitive advantage,” Levin wrote.

(emphasis mine)

Trade Secret Exemption?  Proprietary Methodology?  Competitive Harm?  Business model?  Competitive Advantage?

Seriously?

You are asking us to give you money on the vague promise that you won’t blow it all on salaries and severance packages for senior executives (and, you know, give thousands of Hemophiliacs AIDS ……… Oops, too late on that one).

The American Red Cross, and the Susan G. Komen foundations are not charities should be our first choices for donations.

I Disagree With the Rude One

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In response to the Supreme Court decision giving free reign for antiabortion protesters to intimidate doctors, nurses, and patients, the Rude Pundit suggests that we engage in aggressive in your face threatening protests outside the churches that winds up the anti-abortion terrorists:

Look at that church. Isn’t it a pretty little church? It’s St. Mary’s Church in Grafton, Massachusetts. It’s freakin’ idyllic, no? It’s also deeply invested in anti-abortion actions. The congregation participated in 40 Days for Life, an action during Lent that 17,000 churches around the world took part in, with another 40 Days planned for September 24 to November 2.

The St. Mary’s churchgoers headed over to Worcester to protest at a Planned Parenthood and to “sidewalk counsel” women there. “[I]s it worth it to stand out in the wind and rain and cold to pray in front of Planned Parenthood?” the church’s website asks. And, for them, it was. They convinced one woman to not get an abortion. You can see the baby. It’s like a taste of something that will keep them addicted to protesting. A crack baby, if you will. No doubt the church will be supporting the baby and the mother until the baby is an adult. No doubt.

Come September, and maybe even before, the parishioners will be harassing every woman who goes to the Planned Parenthood, even those just going for pap smears and help getting pregnant. And they will no doubt be joined by the anti-abortion radicals, the fetus picture carriers, the screamers, the hysterics who shame women.

“Is it really necessary to be out on the sidewalk instead of praying at home?” St. Mary’s wants to know. Look up at that picture again. What do you see in front of St. Mary’s? That’s a nice, wide, very public sidewalk. The parking lot is across the street, so most of the people attending church services on, say, a nice summer Sunday will have to walk that sidewalk, a sidewalk just like the one outside Planned Parenthood in Worcester. A sidewalk like the one that Eleanor McCullen “gently” counsels women from outside a Planned Parenthood in Boston.

 ………

 So let’s get out there, every goddamn Sunday, and head to the churches that send their lunatic Jesus-fellaters out to try to shut down Planned Parenthoods, and stand on their sidewalks, just like the one up there outside St. Mary’s in Grafton, and let’s make churchgoing a living f%$#in’ hell for ’em. Let’s bodily block the access to the walkways that lead to the church. Let’s bring signs that have pictures of women who were killed by illegal abortions. Let’s go up to them and try to convince them to convert or go atheist, following them until we are on church property and have to stop. Let’s block the street by walking back and forth in the crosswalk. Let’s force the churchgoers to need escorts to even get inside.

 Shit, let’s plaster the telephone poles with photos of the priests and church leaders, their addresses, their phone numbers. Let’s tell them as they pass, “We know where you live.” Let’s film everyone going into the church and post those on a website. Hey, it’s a public f%$#in’ sidewalk, man. Let’s scream at them about how they’re terrible people, how they support raping children, how they have given money to help silence victims. Can’t you hear their silent screams? Can’t you? F%$#, yeah.

 Going to church is a choice, no? Let’s make sure they regret that f%$#in’ choice, however legal it may be for them to make it. Then let’s see how quickly they’re begging for buffer zones.

(%$# mine)

First, and most important, is that this behavior is wrong.

Second, the methods that the Rude Pundit is suggesting require that its target already have a credible fear that they will be the target of violent terrorism.  The folks outside the Church will not be slashing tires, setting fire to the church, or shooting priests,* so any such demonstration will be almost completely without impact.

I would suggest, however, that people of good conscience refuse do make other common causes with people who go to places like St. Mary’s Church in Grafton, because consorting with terrorists, even at a soup kitchen, is still consorting with terrorists.

*Though some former alter boys might be considering this for a completely different reason.

Gaaaahhhh!!!!!

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My daughter’s phone has stopped working.

The display and touch screen are dead, but the rest of the phone, an LG Mach LS 860, still works.

I’ve been trying to figure out a way to get the already MyPhoneExplorer synching software to run with no access to the screen.

Why do I do this sh%$?

Insurance Companies Go Postal on Advair, Sales Collapse

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It appears that pharmacy managers have decided that spending 5x as much as a French patient does is stupid:

Hallelujah. I never thought I’d see the day that I’d praise an insurance company. But the proverbial Atlas just shrugged.
Insurance company pharmacy benefit managers, who have apparently had it with drug companies charging American consumers ridiculously high, and ever-increasing, prices for prescription drugs, are starting to say “enough.”

 At the top of the list is my asthma drug, Advair.

 Some big insurance company pharmacy benefits managers are simply no longer permitting their plans to cover Advair. Or at best, they’ve relegated Advair to the lower “third tier,” which means the patient has to pay so much of the price that they simply won’t buy the drug at all.
As a result, Advair sales plummeted 30% this year in the US.

(emphasis mine)

It’s a battle between two groups of parasites, and I hope that there is a way for both of them to ose.

Come to think of it, there is, it’s called Single Payer, bitches.

Another Right Wing Hypocrite

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Robert Heinlein, whose life was defined by his US Navy pension, 2/3 of active duty pay, when he was medically retired for TB.

He was in the Navy because his family was politically connected, and got him into the US Naval Academy at Annapolis:

  1. So: Robert Heinlein, that great hero of libertarian culture, was the complete creation of the invisible welfare state.
  2. The invisible welfare state is like white privilege: its whole power comes from the fact it is not talked about. Not seen as welfare.
  3. To understand the American right, we have to understand the process of forgetting that allowed Heinlein to suppress memory of pension.

(Read the rest)

This is Ayn Rand, who had lung cancer from her smoking, going on Medicare all over again.

Libertarians are wrong, and they are hypocrites.

One cannot prove this, but it ‘is’ in the same sense that Mount Everest ‘is’, or that Alma Cogan ‘isn’t’.*

*From The Album of the Soundtrack of the Trailer of the Film of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Bummer of a Birthmark, Chris

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It looks like Jabba the Governor has yet another bridge scandal:

Investigations into the Christie administration and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have zeroed in on possible securities law violations stemming from a $1.8 billion road repair agreement in 2011, according to people briefed on the matter.

 While the inquiries were prompted by the apparently politically motivated lane closings at the George Washington Bridge last year, these investigations center on another crossing: the Pulaski Skyway, the crumbling elevated roadway connecting Newark and Jersey City. They are being conducted by the Manhattan district attorney and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

 The inquiries into securities law violations focus on a period of 2010 and 2011 when Gov. Chris Christie’s administration pressed the Port Authority to pay for extensive repairs to the Skyway and related road projects, diverting money that was to be used on a new Hudson River rail tunnel that Mr. Christie canceled in October 2010.

 Again and again, Port Authority lawyers warned against the move: The Pulaski Skyway, they noted, is owned and operated by the state, putting it outside the agency’s purview, according to dozens of memos and emails reviewed by investigators and obtained by The New York Times.

 ………

 In bond documents describing the Skyway reconstruction and other repairs, the Port Authority has called the projects “Lincoln Tunnel Access Infrastructure Improvements.”

 The accuracy of this characterization is now a major focus of the investigations, according to several people briefed on the matter. Under a New York State law known as the Martin Act, prosecutors can bring felony charges for intentionally deceiving bond holders, without having to prove any intent to defraud or even establish that any fraud occurred.

 Two veteran prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney’s office public corruption unit are working with two S.E.C. lawyers who are experts in such bond issues, one person briefed on the matter said, and another noted that while the agencies were each conducting separate parallel inquiries, they were working together.

 In addition to criminal charges under the Martin Act, the investigations could result in civil action under the Martin Act or by the S.E.C., under federal securities laws.

Someone has lost a lot of weight for nothing, because he will never be the Presidential nominee.

If You were Wrong About Iraq, You are a Wanker, and You Will Always be a Wanker

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Case in point Peter Beinart, who was a full throated supporter of the Iraq war.

He has since admitted that he wrong, but he just cannot stop wanking about Iraq in ways so egregious that it has Digby apologizing:

Oh good lord. When I look like a fool, I really look like a fool. Just the other day I wrote a nice piece about Peter Beinert being someone worth listening to on Iraq because unlike others, he had repented for being wrong and learned some valuable lessons.

Uhm, I spoke too soon:

Yes, the Iraq War was a disaster of historic proportions. Yes, seeing its architects return to prime time to smugly slam President Obama while taking no responsibility for their own, far greater, failures is infuriating.

But sooner or later, honest liberals will have to admit that Obama’s Iraq policy has been a disaster. Since the president took office, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has grown ever more tyrannical and ever more sectarian, driving his country’s Sunnis toward revolt. Since Obama took office, Iraq watchers—including those within his own administration—have warned that unless the United States pushed hard for inclusive government, the country would slide back into civil war. Yet the White House has been so eager to put Iraq in America’s rearview mirror that, publicly at least, it has given Maliki an almost-free pass. Until now, when it may be too late.


Read on to find out how the Obama administration was supposed to perform magic tricks on the head of a pin to prevent this from happening. They didn’t “push hard” against the government to allow troops to stay beyond the Bush administration’s residual forces agreement expiration. He quotes his fellow memebers of the wrong about everything caucus Kenneth “Gathering Storm” Pollack saying that the administration “sent the wrong message” saying “the United States under the new Obama administration was no longer going to enforce the rules of the democratic road…. [This] undermined the reform of Iraqi politics and resurrected the specter of the failed state and the civil war.”

Jeebus.

If every pundit who supported the Iraq debacle were made to do something useful for a living, maybe washing dishes of changing bed pans in nursing homes, the world would be a much better place.

I So Want to See this Covered on the Daily Show

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While posing for a photograph, an American student fell off a statue of a Giant Vagina and had to be rescued by firemen:

………

On Friday afternoon, a young American in Tübingen had to be rescued by 22 firefighters after getting trapped inside a giant sculpture of a vagina. The Chacán-Pi (Making Love) artwork by the Peruvian artist Fernando de la Jara has been outside Tübingen University’s institute for microbiology and virology since 2001 and had previously mainly attracted juvenile sniggers rather than adventurous explorers.

According to De la Jara, the 32-ton sculpture made out of red Veronese marble is meant to signify “the gateway to the world”.

Police confirmed that the firefighters turned midwives delivered the student “by hand and without the application of tools”.

The mayor of Tübingen told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper that he struggled to imagine how the accident could have happened, “even when considering the most extreme adolescent fantasies. To reward such a masterly achievement with the use of 22 firefighters almost pains my soul.”

I want this to get the Daily Show treatment.

I am not sure what is weirder, the Germans having a giant vagina sculpture, or someone getting stuck in it.

Help me Jon Stewart, you’re my only hope.

Megyn Kelly, Seriously!?!?!?!? Megyn Kelly!?!?!?!?

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The Fox News blond has called out both Dick Cheney and John Bolton for being insanely wrong on Iraq.

So, Megyn Kelly gets that they are miserable failures, and that they have nothing to add to any discussion on Iraq, but, for some reason, the folks who book the more mainstream Sunday shows, don’t understand this.

I think that part of the reason for this is that she does not personally have skin in the Iraq game.

When the rest of the media was actively cheer-leading the upcoming war, Kelly was still working as a lawyer, so her critique requires neither self-examination nor an admission of wrongdoing.

Anwar al-Awlaki Assassination Memo Released in Redacted Form

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The legal justification basically comes down to the fact that the incredibly broad 911 Authorization of Use of Military Force (AUMF) would justify lethal force.

This appears to me to be good law, but remain dubious of the facts.

Basically, and this is on a quick reading of a heavily redacted memo full of legalese, there is no mention of the actual activities that al-Awalki engaged in that had him declared a combatant, just a justification for lethal actions against American citizens who have assumed a combat role against the United States.

So, we still don’t know what he did to be declared a combatant. It could be that he was involved in major military decisions, functioning as a military officer in al-Qaida, but I’ve never seen any sort of release, either officially or through leaks, claiming this.

What we do some of what he was doing.

He produced and distributed sermons supporting Jihad, and we know that he provided religious advice to people in AQAP, including the Underoos bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

If these are the facts that led the US government, and I am inclined to believe that this is the totality of the actual facts against him.  (See my no leaks comment above)

If this is the case, then the US state security apparatus specifically targeted Anwar al-Awlaki on the basis of activities which are purely clerical in nature.

This begs the obvious question, “When do we start droning the leaders of Operation Rescue?”

After all, if pastoral support of terrorism rates assassination, the ongoing terrorism against abortion providers should be at the top of the list.

Memo, such as it is, after the break.

LambBaaacon, It’s Amazing

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As I mentioned earlier, I competed at the Trial by Fire cooking competition.

The cooking went well, but the time limits, juxtaposed with some chronic lateness issues, did me in on the competition part.

There was also a separate competition specific to bacon, called the Bacon Challenge.

I stumbled upon a kosher lamb bacon, Lambbaaacon, which is pretty remarkable.

It is very much an an artisinal bacon, which means that it has some layers of flavor that one would not expect from stuff from the store.

Also note, no nitrites, and thus no carcinogenic nitrosamines, but it also means that it does not have the characteristic reddish hue of normal bacon.

It is an amazing piece of work, because the Silberberg brothers have absolutely nailed the mouth feel of bacon, and added to the normal flavor (strong hints of lamb, of apple, and their amazing spice cure).

In any case, I decided to go with a somewhat older, and more Irish version of New England Boiled dinner, bacon and cabbage.  (pictured)

It came out very nicely, and gave a marvelous flavor to the cabbage (and potatoes, and carrots, and rutabegas, and onions).

Win.

Recipe (and funny cartoon) after the break


Ingredients:

  • 2-3 lbs of lamb bacon (Baaacon)
  • 2 medium heads of cabbage, cut into eights.
  • 2 rutabagas, peeled and cut in eights.
  • 8 carrots peeled and cut to 1″ lengths.
  • 15 small red potatoes
  • 2 medium onions, cut in quarters.
  • 2 tbsp pickling spice
  • 2 Bay leaves
  • 1 tbsp peppercorns
  • 2 tbsp minced garlic

Place the meat in a large pot along with enough hot water to cover it by at least 1″, and add spices.

Bring to a boil, then simmer bacon until fork tender , then remove from pot, and wrap in aluminum foil, and place on pot to keep warm.

Remove floating bits of spice if so desired.

Add carrot and rutabaga and simmer for 20 minutes, then add cabbage, onions, and potatoes for an additional 15-20 minutes, until the potatoes are fork tender.

Remove vegetables with a slatted spoon, and place on a platter, and with the bacon.

Jeebus. He’s Bush with a F%$#ing Tan

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First, it is announced that will be sending military advisers to Iraq. It’s supposed to be limited, but that will last until someone gets killed there, and then the military and Republican pressure for escalation, and we are back in a war:

President Obama said Thursday that he would deploy up to 300 military advisers to Iraq to help its struggling security forces fend off a wave of Sunni militants who have overrun large parts of the country, edging the United States back into a conflict that Mr. Obama once thought he had left behind.

 Warning that the militants pose a threat not just to Iraq but also to the United States, Mr. Obama said he was prepared to take “targeted and precise military action,” a campaign of airstrikes that a senior administration official said could be extended into neighboring Syria.

 Mr. Obama’s calibrated military moves — coupled with his pointed warning to Iraq’s Shiite prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, to quell his country’s sectarian fires, and his announcement that Secretary of State John Kerry would embark on a diplomatic campaign — opened a risky new chapter in the president’s reluctant engagement with Iraq.

Advisers and airstrikes ……… Jeebus.

Escalate much?

BTW, while we are at it, it should be noted that the Obama administration is pressuring Maliki to step down as PM, which is probably a good thing, but one of the front runners to succeed him is ……… Wait for it ……… Wait for it ……… Wait for it ……… Ahmed f%$#ing Chalabi:

Iraqi officials said Thursday that political leaders had started intensive jockeying to replace Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and create a government that would span the country’s deepening sectarian and ethnic divisions, spurred by what they called encouraging meetings with American officials signaling support for a leadership change.

President Obama implicitly added his voice on Thursday to the call for change, saying any Iraqi leader must be a unifier. He declined to endorse Mr. Maliki.

The jockeying began as a series of meetings with American officials were held here in which, according to at least two participants, they saw the first indications that the Americans would like to see a replacement for Mr. Maliki, whose marginalization of non-Shiites since United States forces left Iraq in 2011 has made him a polarizing figure.

At least three people, who like Mr. Maliki are all members of the Shiite majority, have emerged as possible candidates to take over as prime minister, with more potential nominees in the wings as parties negotiate alliances from the recent elections. Any prospective successor must convince Iraq’s Sunni Muslims and its ethnic Kurds that he can hold Iraq together, as well as vanquish a Sunni-led insurgency that has escalated into a crisis threatening to partition the country.

………

It is far from clear, however, whether any of the suggested successors could gather enough votes. The names floated so far — Adel Abdul Mahdi, Ahmed Chalabi and Bayan Jaber — are from the Shiite blocs, which have the largest share of the total seats in the Parliament.

 Mr. Mahdi came within a vote of winning the prime minister’s job in 2006 and previously served as one of Iraq’s vice presidents. He is viewed as a moderate who has long worked well with the Kurds.

 Mr. Chalabi is a complex figure who has alternately charmed and infuriated the Americans but has ties both to them and to Iran. His biggest liability could be his uncompromising support for the systematic purge of many Sunnis from government jobs after the American-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein and his Baath Party a decade ago. Mr. Chalabi now says he supports terminating the basis for that purge, the so-called de-Baathification law.

(emphasis mine)

Seriously, Ahmed Chalabi?

We lost Iraq and Afghanistan well before the current actions by ISIS, it’s time to stop throwing good money after bad. 

And we can’t help here, because our state security apparatus has been too busy surveilling our selfies on Facebook to accurately pick targets in Iraq:

Army general Martin Dempsey, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, told a Senate panel on Wednesday that “until we can clarify this intelligence picture” the US would have difficulty knowing who it would be attacking from the air, indicating military as well as political reluctance to any return to the skies above Iraq.

Your tax dollars at work.