Category: Stupid

Whiny Loser of the Day

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Mary Landrieu, of course.

I understand that she is upset that she is about to be turfed out of office.

It’s a reasonable feeling.

But if the DSCC were to steal the British Crown Jewels, and pawn them for money to help her campaign, she would still lose, and even if she were to win, the Republicans would still have control of the Senate.

Even so, they let you have your stupid vote on the Keystone bitumen pipeline, so you could kiss oil company ass one last time.

Get over yourself, and start lining up that cushy K Street lobbying job.

The DSCC has done way more for you than you deserve.

F%$# Uber, Part Infinity

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We now have a report of a person who had a job interview with Uber, and was granted the ability to view the complete travel history of any Uber Customer:

………

Now add that all this location data was not held by a battle-hardened company with tons of lawyers and security experts, such as Google. Instead, this data was held by a start-up that was growing with viral exuberance – and with so few privacy protections that it created a “God View” to display the movements of riders in real-time and at least once projected such information on a screen for entertainment at a company party.

And let’s not forget that individual employees could access historical data on the movements of particular people without their permission, as an Uber executive in New York City reportedly did when he pulled the travel records of a Buzzfeed reporter who was working on a story about the company.

………

Then there are the personal travels of government officials and their families. A person who had a job interview in Uber’s Washington office in 2013 said he got the kind of access enjoyed by actual employees for an entire day, even for several hours after the job interview ended. He happily crawled through the database looking up the records of people he knew – including a family member of a prominent politician – before the seemingly magical power disappeared.

“What an Uber employee would have is everything, complete,” said this person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from the company.

I can see how the employee would fear retribution.

The CEO is an Ayn Rand loving sociopath, and he, almost any employee at the central office, or an enterprising hacker, can pull up your travel history.

How do you know that some tabloid reporter doesn’t have an Uber employee on their payroll?

Bush With Tan ……… Again

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Yes, it turns out that our exit from Afghanistan won’t be an exit:

President Obama decided in recent weeks to authorize a more expansive mission for the military in Afghanistan in 2015 than originally planned, a move that ensures American troops will have a direct role in fighting in the war-ravaged country for at least another year.

Mr. Obama’s order allows American forces to carry out missions against the Taliban and other militant groups threatening American troops or the Afghan government, a broader mission than the president described to the public earlier this year, according to several administration, military and congressional officials with knowledge of the decision. The new authorization also allows American jets, bombers and drones to support Afghan troops on combat missions.

………

The decision to change that mission was the result of a lengthy and heated debate that laid bare the tension inside the Obama administration between two often-competing imperatives: the promise Mr. Obama made to end the war in Afghanistan, versus the demands of the Pentagon that American troops be able to successfully fulfill their remaining missions in the country.

Once again, we see the pattern.

Obama knows what the right thing to do is, but he has to accommodate the ones who f%$%#ed up in the first place, much like he did with Obamacare.

I understand the desire to be a conciliator, particularly given Obama’s life story, but the role of POTUS is to be the adult in the room, because the Pentagon cannot be.

The generals, and the civilian side of the defense establishment, is simply incapable of making the call to cut their losses and leave.

They subscribe to the Green Lantern theory of Geopolitics, in which the limits of American military might are limited only by the will, and where any realistic examination of the risks and rewards are assiduously eschewed.

This is insane.

Japan Once Again Proves that Contractionary Economics is ……… Contractionary

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It is no surprise that the Japanese, in their haste to go back to austerity when the first glimmers of light has driven their economy back into recession:

Japan’s economy unexpectedly fell into recession in the third quarter, a painful slump that called into question efforts by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to pull the country out of nearly two decades of deflation.

The second consecutive quarterly decline in gross domestic product could upend Japan’s political landscape. Mr. Abe is considering dissolving Parliament and calling fresh elections, people close to him say, and Monday’s economic report is seen as critical to his decision, which is widely expected to come this week.

………

Rising sales taxes have been blamed for triggering the downturn by deterring consumer spending, and with Japan having now slipped into a technical recession, the chances that Mr. Abe will seek a new mandate from voters to alter the government’s tax program appear to have increased significantly.

The preliminary economic report, issued by the Cabinet Office, showed that gross domestic product fell at an annualized pace of 1.6 percent in the quarter through September. That added to the previous quarter’s much larger decline, which the government now puts at 7.3 percent, a slightly worse figure than in its last estimate of 7.1 percent.

………

Although the second part of the tax increase would not be carried out until October, Mr. Abe needs to decide what to do about it soon, to give Parliament time to change legislation if he opts to cancel or postpone it. If fully enacted, the plan would increase the tax on all goods and services sold in the country to 10 percent over 18 months. It now stands at 8 percent after the first increase in April.

Yeah, imposing crushing sales tax increases, taxes were taken from 5% to 8%, with an as yet not implemented increase to 10%, will discourage consumer spending, and have a deflationary effect. (See also Krugman saying, “I told you so,” here and here and about a gazillion other places.)

If you are concerned about the deficit, tax financial and currency speculation,  which, in addition to reigning in destabilizing speculation, would encourage that money to go into investments in plant, equipment, training, etc.

Republicans Simply Do Not Understand Rock and Roll

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There was a concert on the Mall in Washington, DC for memorial day , and right wing heads exploded over his singing the John Fogerty song Fortunate Son:

It’s still unclear if Bruce Springsteen, one of the musicians at the center of the latest controversy, will be similarly apologetic.

Pretty much everyone has had something to say about Springsteen’s performance Tuesday at the “Concert for Valor,” an HBO musical event for veterans held on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Performing with Zac Brown and Dave Grohl, Springsteen sang “Fortunate Son,” Creedence Clearwater Revival’s classic Vietnam War-era anthem that examines issues of class and jingoism in America. John Fogerty, the CCR frontman, said that his own experience as a drafted serviceman served as an inspiration for the song.

“I was the same age as the soldiers serving in Vietnam and from the same lower-middle class as them,” Fogerty once said.

 ………

Springsteen also performed his hit “Born in the U.S.A.,” a song that, as the Washington Post’s Justin Moyer pointed out, actually includes many of the same themes as “Fortunate Son.”

Of course, as Charlie Pierce pithily observes, the song supports the troops,  It condemn the people who profit from war without fighting themselves:

Apparently, one of the Fox peawits did notice what the song actually is about. (And it’s here where I point out that, unlike most of the people pretending to be offended today, Fogerty actually is a veteran, and that, when I was covering Vietnam veterans issues in the late 1970’s, most of the guys I talked to absolutely adored this song.) It’s not about people like this.



It’s about people like this.



Glad I could clear that up.

Republicans do not understand Rock and Roll.

QED.

Another Candidate for the Dumbest Guy on the F%$#ing Planet.

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Who in their right mind would mess with perfection?

Everyone who ever suggested that Sophia Loren get a nose job:

When you were starting out, as hard as it is to believe, some people told you to change your appearance, right?

 I always tried not to listen to these people. They were saying that my nose was too long and my mouth was too big. It didn’t hurt me at all because when I believe in something, it’s like war. It’s a battle. But even Carlo said, “You know the cameramen, they say that your nose is too long. Maybe you have to touch it a little bit.” And I said, “Listen, I don’t want to touch nothing on my face because I like my face. If I have to change my nose, I am going back to Pozzuoli.” At that time, they used to do noses like a French nose with a little tip at the end — they liked that. Can you imagine me with a nose like that?

Seriously?

She’s still gorgeous in her at 80.

That is nucking futs.

Rush Limbaugh is a Whiny Bitch, Part MMMMMMCMLXIX

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Yeah, he’s threatening to sue the DCCC over their use of his quotes in the last campaign:

Rush Limbaugh is hopping mad at the Democratic Party — but this time he’s threatening to do more than just talk about it on the radio.

The conservative pundit is threatening to sue the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for a series of fundraising e-mails that suggested Limbaugh was condoning campus rape in comments he made on his widely syndicated program on Sept. 15.

In a letter to the Washington-based organization intended for delivery Monday morning, Limbaugh’s lawyer demanded a retraction and a public apology for the fundraising e-mails. The letter indicated Limbaugh will sue for defamation and business “interference” if his demand isn’t met.

DCCC representatives were not available Monday; the organization’s offices are closed for the Veterans Day holiday.

The legal threat is the result of DCCC fundraising appeals sent out in the wake of Limbaugh’s on-air comments about a new policy at Ohio State University that instructs students to get verbal consent before having sex. The DCCC highlighted one particular sentence from his commentary — “How many of you guys . . . have learned that ‘no’ means ‘yes’ if you know how to spot it?” — saying it was tantamount to condoning sexual assault.

………

The legal threat is the result of DCCC fundraising appeals sent out in the wake of Limbaugh’s on-air comments about a new policy at Ohio State University that instructs students to get verbal consent before having sex. The DCCC highlighted one particular sentence from his commentary — “How many of you guys . . . have learned that ‘no’ means ‘yes’ if you know how to spot it?” — saying it was tantamount to condoning sexual assault.

Yeah, well I listened to what he said, and even if he weren’t a public figure, this would be laughed out of court, because, in the United States, the truth is always a defense against accusations of libel and slander.

As a public figure, there is no evidence of malice or a reckless disregard for the truth in this.

Also, considering how the DCCC did no November 4, why the f%$# would Limbaugh, who is Republican to his core want to force the Democratic party to change its strategy?

Seriously Rush, take one for the team, and man up.

Tommy Franks Needs to Apologize to Douglas Feith

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Because it appears that the good Mr. Feith appears not to be the dumbest guy on the f%$#ing planet.

Rather, it appears everyone at Breitbart’s research/fact-checking department are way stupider:

Members of the conservative media are attempting to scandalize President Obama’s Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch by suggesting she was involved in the Whitewater investigations of the 1990s. However, the Loretta Lynch that played a bit role in Whitewater — an investigation into fraudulent real estate deals that did not include any wrongdoing by the Clintons — is a different person than Obama’s attorney general nominee.

According to a November 8 Breitbart.com article by Warner Todd Huston, “few are talking about” the fact nominee Lynch “was part of Bill Clinton’s Whitewater probe defense team in 1992.” Huston pointed to a March 1992 New York Times article that “reported that Lynch was one of the Clintons’ Whitewater defense attorneys as well as a ‘campaign aide.'” And in a November 9 article Huston’s colleague, Breitbart.com Senior Editor-at Large Joel Pollak wrote, “The connection to Whitewater ought to provide additional fodder for Republicans during Lynch’s confirmation hearings”:

The connection to Whitewater ought to provide additional fodder for Republicans during Lynch’s confirmation hearings. It is odd that Obama chose someone so close to the Clintons–or perhaps not, given the prominent role played by Clinton insider John Podesta in the second term of the Obama White House. Lynch has been rewarded throughout her career for her political loyalty–not an unusual path up the career ladder for federal prosecutors, but certainly one that will allow the GOP, as well as Obama, to raise the political stakes.

Because it is so easy to confuse the two:

Morons.

That place must have even been more dysfunctional before Andrew Breitbart drank himself.

Bush with a Tan

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Obama is escalating in Iraq:

President Barack Obama has approved doubling the U.S. military force in Iraq and allowing troops to venture beyond headquarters already established in Baghdad and Erbil, in an escalation of the U.S. effort to defeat Islamic State extremists.

………

The president’s approval to send as many as 1,500 personnel is in addition to 1,600 he previously authorized, 1,400 of whom are in Iraq today protecting U.S. facilities and assisting the Iraqi military. Troops that have been confined to Baghdad, the capital, and Erbil in Kurdish northern Iraq now will be permitted to train and advise Iraqi forces at a number of Iraqi military facilities, according to a White House statement.

This of course, not going any sort of escalation, they promise:

“U.S. troops will not be in combat, but they will be better positioned to support Iraqi security forces as they take the fight” to the Sunni extremists, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said today in the statement.

  • Double the troops.
  • Double the exposure to possible violence.
  • Double the possibility that one of them will be taken captive.

Nope, no escalation here.

This is Not The Onion

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The head of Naval intelligence has unable to do his job because his clearance has been suspended:

The head of naval intelligence has not been able to view classified information for an entire year.

 Vice Adm. Ted Branch, the director of naval intelligence, had his security clearance suspended in November 2013 after being investigated for possible misconduct. In the year since, no charges have been filed and there is no sense of when they might be, leaving the Navy in an untenable situation.

 If classified information is being discussed at a meeting, the director of naval intelligence has to leave the room.

 If Branch drops by a subordinate’s office, the space must be sanitized of any secrets before he enters.

 Branch can’t attend morning intelligence briefs, or sit with the other services’ intel chiefs when they meet with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, said a naval intelligence source, who spoke on background because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

 This festering situation has sown resentment among some in naval intelligence, who feel they don’t have the pull in national security circles that comes with having a three-star at the table. Meanwhile, the Navy brass is hamstrung — with no idea when or if Branch will be charged or cleared.

Yes, the biggest concern is that they don’t have a 3-star to engage in dick swinging at the annual Intelligence Community Sock Hop.

You have a f%$#ing 3-Star who has had his security clearance pulled because concerns about his possibly being bribed with Lion King tickets: (seriously, not joking here)

Branch’s clearance was suspended along with that of a deputy, Rear Adm. Bruce Loveless, the director of intelligence operations, for possible connections to Glenn Defense Marine Asia — the husbanding firm at the center of one of the Navy’s biggest bribery scandals in decades. Their clearances were pulled while the Justice Department investigated their connections to GDMA and its larger than life CEO, Leonard Glenn Francis, who is accused of bribing Navy officers to steer ships to ports where he allegedly overcharged the Navy in exchange for junkets, prostitutes, even “Lion King” tickets.

Why the f%$# is this guy still in charge there?

He clearly cannot do his f%$#ing Job, so either Naval Intelligence isn’t functioning, or it is completely redundant.

It appears that the Admiral’s 3-star status is linked to his current assignment, and he would revert to a 2-star and I guess that the General Officer coffee klatch is working full time here.

Give Me a High 4, Jose

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There are a number of rules to responsible gun ownership.

Number 1 on the list should be, “Make sure that the gun is unloaded before you try to clean it.“

It appears that this bit of common sense has escaped former Baseball all-star Jose Canseco:

Former major league slugger Jose Canseco blew his middle finger clear off his hand while cleaning his handgun at home in Las Vegas.

Jose’s fiancée Leila Knight tells TMZ Sports … he was sitting at a table in their home cleaning the gun when it went off. She says he didn’t know it was loaded — and the shot ripped through the middle finger on his left hand.

Leila tells us 50-year-old Canseco is in surgery right now as doctors desperately try to save what’s left of the finger. She says the bullet tore through the bottom part of the finger and doctors have already said he’ll never have full use of it again … even under the best of circumstances.

Here is a suggestion for gun owners out there, and I am not kidding: create a checklist for yourself for each weapon that you own, much like the one that is used for flying aircraft.

If you use it, one of the early steps will be something along the lines of, “Remove the magazine and confirm that there are no rounds in the chamber.”

Really, I am not being snarky here.

Everyone has a brain fart occasionally, and that is what check lists are for.

I Think that This is an Indication that Glenn Greenwald’s New Employer is Circling the Drain

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First, Matt Taibbi has left First Look:

Matt Taibbi, the star magazine writer hired earlier this year to start a satirical website for billionaire Pierre Omidyar’s First Look Media, is on a leave of absence from the company after disagreements with higher-ups inside Omidyar’s organization, a source close to First Look confirmed today. (UPDATE: Taibbi has left the company. See statement below.)

Taibbi’s abrupt disappearance from the company’s Fifth Avenue headquarters has cast doubt on the fate of his highly anticipated digital publication, reportedly to be called Racket, which First Look executives had previously said would launch sometime this autumn.
………
UPDATE:  Omidyar announced on Tuesday night that Taibbi has left the company. Here’s the full statement posted on FirstLook.org:

I regret to announce that after several weeks of discussions, Matt Taibbi has left First Look. We wish him well.

Our differences were never about editorial independence. We have never wavered from our pledge that journalistic content is for the journalists to decide, period.

 We’re disappointed by how things have turned out. I was excited by Matt’s editorial vision and hoped to help him bring it to fruition. Now we turn our focus to exploring next steps for the talented team that has worked to create Matt’s publication.

I remain an enthusiastic supporter of the kind of independent journalism found at The Intercept and the site we were preparing to launch. As a startup, we’ll take what we’ve learned in the last several months and apply it to our efforts in the future.

Above all, we remain committed to our team and to the First Look mission.

The word for Mr. Omidyar’s claim about it not being editorial independence is best described as a lie.

When this enterprise was announced, Taibbi noted in interviews it would be “focusing on financial and political corruption,” while Omidyar described it as, “A new digital magazine with a satirical approach to American politics and culture.”

These are not the same things, and Taibbi’s understanding was that he would be going after people who are very much like Pierre Omidyar friends and business associates.

There is also the issue of Marcy Wheeler’s brief tenure with First Look, which appeared to be caused by her writing about entities linked to Pierre Omidyar being linked to the coup in the Ukraine. (Though Wheeler denies that this the proximate cause of her exit.)

When all this is juxtaposed along with Omidyar’s own statements about how First Look was moving from news organization to news platform, (think eBay for journalists) will leave him with very little in the way of a news organization:

I mean, I get it. Editorial is expensive. Christ, it’s so expensive… But it gets worse: Not only is editorial expensive, but nobody wants to pay for it. Readers, we’re told, don’t want to pay for it (I’ll deal with that bullshit another time). And investors certainly don’t want to pay for it… No investor of sound mind thinks he or she will make money from a magazine, any more than they think investing in restaurants or airlines is a smart move.

A platform, on the other hand… well, that’s the answer to everything. Noone ever went broke building a platform. For one thing, a platform doesn’t need to commission editorial: some other sap takes care of that — either clients (Atavist, Punch!) or Joe User (GOOD magazine).

First Look is not going to mature into an internet news org like Pro Publica,  Talking Points Memo, or Pando, and I expect to see further staff defections in the not too distant future.

History Repeats Itself, First as Tragedy, then as Farce.

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After having seized defeat from the jaws of victory in her race against Scott Brown for Senate in 2007, it looks like Martha Coakley is about to turn over the Governor’s Mansion to the Republicans:

National Democrats are haunted by memories of Martha Coakley’s unforced stumbles and missteps in 2010, which cost them a U.S. Senate seat in one of the country’s bluest states.

 Four laters later, the Massachusetts attorney general might be about to blow another major contest: The race to succeed Deval Patrick as governor.

 With two weeks left to go, a new poll by WBUR, which tracks the race weekly, found Coakley trailing for the first time against Republican Charlie Baker, a former health care CEO who served as secretary of finance and health under Gov. William Weld in the 1990s.

 It’s still a close contest: Baker has 43 percent while Coakley has 42 percent, well inside the poll’s 4.4 percent margin of error.

 But the troubling sign for Coakley is that Baker appears to be gaining steam down the stretch after consistently trailing throughout the campaign.

I was a bit alarmed when Coakley got the nomination, seeing as how she had run the worst campaign this side of Kathleen Kennedy Townsend in 2002.

I’ve always had this suspicion that the Democratic Party establishment in Massachusetts discovered that they preferred having Speaker of the state House, and the President of the state Senate as the most senior Democrats in the state, and as such, they have subtly worked to make Republicans governor.

It’s what I call the Iron Law of Organizations Institutions, where people will work for power within an organization at the expense of the power of that organization.

Blessed are you, Lord our G-d, King of the Universe, Who has not Made me a Moman.*

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You know the reasons.

  • He’s assertive, she’s a bitch.
  • I get paid more for the same work.
  • He’s a playa, she’s a slut.
  • He’s cool, and she’s an ice queen.

Finally, and most importantly, I’ll never have to deal with the mountain of bullsh%$ that has been sliding toward Renee Zellweger.

Seriously.

What the f%$# is wrong with people?

*This is actually part of the traditional morning prayers for Jewish males. The Hebrew is, “בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ אֶלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, שֶׁלֹּא עָשַֽׂנִי אִשָּׁה.”

Not the Onion

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You can get a slightly translation in the subtitles

A motorcycle gang from the Netherlands is going to Syria to fight ISIS:

Already battling air strikes from the US and its allies, including the UK, terrorist organisation Isis (Islamic State) now have a new threat to look out for – a motorbike gang from the Netherlands.

The Dutch bikers, who go by the name No Surrender, reportedly journeyed to Iraq to fight alongside Kurdish troops against IS militants last week.

Charged with commenting on the legality of that move, the Dutch public prosecutor said that the bikers are not necessarily committing any crime.

Prosecutor spokesman Wim de Bruin told AFP: “Joining a foreign armed force was previously punishable, now it’s no longer forbidden.”

“You just can’t join a fight against the Netherlands.”

If it weren’t for the likelihood, that they are going to end up on the next ISIS beheading videos, the skills associated with being a bad-ass biker are not necessarily the same as those required for urban or desert warfare against a dedicated foe who is not constrained by the requirements of law enforcement in a western society.

This is not going to end well.

Mission Accomplished, Frau Merkel*

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It looks like Germany is finally running out the string on its beggar thy neighbor economy:

Germany’s exports are falling at the fastest rate since the global crisis in 2009, raising fears of a triple-dip recession and a disastrous relapse for the rest of the eurozone.

The country’s five economic institutes – or “Wise Men” – slashed their growth forecast for Germany from 2pc to 1.2pc next year, warning that the latest measures unveiled by the European Central Bank will add “hardly any” extra stimulus to the real economy and may be unworkable.

Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, warned that the eurozone is at “serious risk” of falling back into recession if nothing is done, and is in danger of suffering a lost decade. “If the right policies are decided, if both surplus and deficit countries do what they have to do, it is avoidable,” she said. The wording is a clear call to Germany for an immediate shift in policy.

German exports slumped by 5.8pc in August as the crisis in Ukraine and Russia took its toll. “We’re no longer in a recovery,” said Volker Treier, head of the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (DIHK). He said geopolitical upsets may have pushed the economy over the edge into a “technical recession”, but added that Germany itself is also to blame for failure to break out of a slow-growth trap. “We have too little investment. That’s been the case for years,” he said.

The Wise Men said in a joint report that the German economy is now in “stagnation”, with unemployment likely to rise next year. “There are no signs of the long-awaited recovery yet. Corporate investment fell in the second quarter and there is hardly any evidence to suggest that this cautious approach to investment will change in the near future,” they said.

Germany has been running its economy by suppressing worker wages and domestic demand, and focusing on exports and trade surpluses.

Of course, that is also what they are suggesting for everyone else in the Euro zone, which of course does not works, because for every trade surplus, there has to be a corresponding trade deficit.

It’s a zero sum game, and they have managed to sufficiently impoverish their Euro Zone “partners” to the degree that they no longer can import German products, and now the Germans have no one to export to.

It should result in some policy changes in Germany, but it won’t while Merkel is Chancellor, because she has staked her political career on depicting the other members of the EU as lazy and profligate to her constituents.

*Horses whinnying.

This is a Sauce for the Gander Moment

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Frank Wolf (R-VA), who chairs the subcommittee that writes the Department Justice budget, has demanded an investigation of foreign money taken by think tanks:

The Justice Department should look into whether Washington think tanks may be violating federal law by accepting money from foreign governments — and then issuing reports that promote the donors’ agendas — without registering as a “foreign agent,” a senior House lawmaker has said in a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.

The request, from Representative Frank R. Wolf, Republican of Virginia, who has already criticized the Brookings Institution for taking large donations from foreign governments, puts pressure on the Justice Department to get involved in the debate, particularly given that Mr. Wolf is the chairman of the House panel that controls the Justice Department‘s budget.

The letter, sent on Wednesday, refers to an article published in The New York Times in September that detailed the tens of millions of dollars that foreign governments, including Norway and the United Arab Emirates, have donated in recent years to think tanks as those governments have sought help in highlighting their priorities in Washington.

Federal law requires any organization taking money from a foreign government and acting at its request, direction or control to file documents with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

………

He noted in the letter that money has also been included in next year’s budget bill for the Justice Department’s inspector general to investigate the quality of the agency’s enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act and to consider possible changes needed in the law. The legislation was first passed in 1938, based on fear that Germany was secretly funding Nazi propaganda in the United States.

The distinguished from Virginia should be aware that this can go places he does not intend.

Even ignoring the various peccadilloes of Grover Norquist, the right wing think tank ecosystem is at least as awash in foreign money as places like the Brookings Institute.

Honestly, in a perfect world, I think that we would be better off without think tanks, which on both sides of the which seem to primarily function be a full employment system for political hacks, defeated politicians, supporters of American empire, which ill serves both America and the world.

Never Stop Your Enemies from Stepping on Their Own Dicks

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If you ask me, and you’re not asking me but I’m saying so anyway, Georgia has suddenly become the most interesting Senate race in the country. It was mighty interesting during the Republican primary, but then slipped in status as the race devolved into a plain vanilla case of the Republican Business Robot holding a safe lead over the Centrist Democratic Robot. The Centrist Democratic Robot’s Robotic Centrist Democrat campaign strategy leaked, and the Republican Business Robot used it predictably to tar the Centrist Democratic Robot as a Terrorist ISIS Mexican Democratic Robot — the worst kind of robot there is.

But now, things — things are happening. The Republican Business Robot, David Perdue, apparently went on the record some years back describing how he’s spent “most of [his] career” outsourcing. This was in response to a direct question asking him, “Can you describe your experience with outsourcing?” It’s unambiguous and it reinforces the central attacks on both Perdue and Republican economic priorities. It is the sort of thing on which a late-stage move can be made.

It’s not complicated. You, Michelle Nunn’s campaign, make an ad quoting directly from the deposition. “Q: Can you describe your experience with outsourcing?” “A: Yeah, I spent most of my career doing that.” You just take this dialogue and cut the ad and then make like 10 more and show them all on every channel, for a month. Hey, look at that:

Perdue’s defense? That he is proud of his sending American jobs overseas:

U.S. Senate candidate David Perdue said Monday he is proud of outsourcing he has done in his career as a corporate executive, pushing blame for lost jobs back on Washington.

Perdue, a former CEO for Dollar General and Republican nominee to replace retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss, was stung by his own words last week in an article on Politico.com. The Washington political news website quoted Perdue from a 2005 deposition where he said he “spent most of my career” outsourcing.

“Defend it? I’m proud of it,” he said in a press stop at The White House restaurant in Buckhead. “This is a part of American business, part of any business. Outsourcing is the procurement of products and services to help your business run. People do that all day.”

The deposition was taken as part of a lawsuit in the bankruptcy of Pillowtex, a failed textile company where Perdue was CEO in 2002 and 2003. In remarks Monday, he attempted to draw a line between his business decisions and Washington policies.

Yeah, this is going to go over to all those folks who lost their jobs in the textile industry.

There is a peculiar kind hubris that is a part and parcel to the American management class.

They cannot allow themselves to admit that what they do is not a heroic John Galtesque exercise, because once they do that, the fact that they are parasites (moochers) becomes inescapable.

We are Halfway to Boots on the Ground in Iraq

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We are now deploying attack helicopters to Iraq:

The United States sent attack helicopters into combat against Islamic State targets west of Baghdad on Sunday, the first time low-flying Army aircraft have been committed to fighting in an engagement that the Obama administration has promised would not include “boots on the ground.”

The U.S. Central Command, in a statement about U.S. activities against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, provided few specifics about the helicopters. But they were likely AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, which were deployed to Baghdad International Airport in June to provide protection for U.S. military and diplomatic facilities.

Until Sunday, U.S. airstrikes in Iraq have been limited to fast-moving Air Force and Navy fighter aircraft and drones. But the use of the relatively slow-flying helicopters represents an escalation of American military involvement and is a sign that the security situation in Iraq’s Anbar province is deteriorating. Last week, the Islamic State militants overran numerous Iraqi bases and towns and were becoming a widespread presence in Abu Ghraib, the last major town outside of Baghdad’s western suburbs.

Jeffrey White, a former senior Defense Intelligence Agency analyst who closely follows developments in Iraq, said the use of helicopter gunships by the United States means that U.S. troops effectively are now directly involved in ground battles.

(emphasis mine)

Note that, notwithstanding their design for damage resistance, Apaches have been taken down by small arms fire.

Add a few ZSUs (self propelled anti-aircraft artillery) to the mix, and we are going be have helicopters shot down, and either a very risky rescue mission or US troops held prisoner.

We are going to be back in ground combat sooner rather than later.

Barack Obama now owns the “stupid war” that he opposed in 2003.