Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm Needs More Money For His Legal Defense Fund

Neither Democrat running against Staten Island Mafia thug Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm deserves to be elected-- not even over one of the worst and most corrupt Members of Congress ever. Domenic Recchia is a typical Steve Israel-recruited mystery-meat hack who isn't fit to collect a civil servant check, and Erick Salgado, a hate-mongering bigot and right wing sociopath, is even worse. (If Salgado sounds vaguely familiar, it may be be cause he came in 6th-- after Anthony Weiner-- in the primary in the recent NYC mayor's race.) Last Sunday, though, we discussed how Grimm is one of the first two candidates in Bill Maher's Flip-A-District extravaganza.

Maher, who hasn't delved the depth of Grimm's criminal character yet, explained that "he’s a guy who thrust himself into the running this year by threatening to throw a reporter off the balcony of the Capitol. He seems to be all of Staten Island distilled in one man and there is a lot of enthusiasm out there for making him go away."

Grimm, who has virtually no positive case to make for reelection in the blue-trending district, was quick to grab at the attack by Maher as a lifeline-- and is already whining in fundraising e-mails that he's being picked on. He terms the Staten Island and Brooklyn congressional district as "My Congressional seat," rather than a seat that belongs to the unfortunate constituents who keep being told to pick between the lesser of two evils. This is from a letter he sent out over the weekend:

The liberals are coming and apparently, they want MY Congressional seat!  Bill Maher announced that he’s taking aim and wants to “Flip This District...”

What Maher doesn’t understand is that the voters in Staten Island and Brooklyn do not agree with his anti-Catholic, leftist propaganda. Bill Maher is hardly the spokesman for traditional American values, in fact-- he’s the opposite.

Maher not only offers advice to what districts need to be flipped, just this week he shared some words of wisdom to Democrat candidates on how to best “sell” Obamacare to the American people,  “Stand your ground. When a Tea Partier says, ‘Obamacare is a government takeover,’ say, ‘I wish’.”  …He also said, “We are a nation that is unenlightened because of religion.  I do believe that.  I think religion stops people from thinking, I think it justified crazies.”

Like Bill Maher, the DCCC and Mayor de Blasio (aka the most progressive Mayor of New York City has ever seen) want this seat because it would make their lives much easier-- let’s face it, I am the only one standing between them and a liberal take over of NYC.

I am the only Republican Congressman who represents a borough within New York City, a city of 8.5 million people. THEY WANT ME GONE!

They want to unseat me because I’m an outspoken, conservative Republican.

They despise the fact that I am a United States Marine combat veteran and a former undercover FBI agent and that I continue to fight for the honor of this country.

The reality is the liberal left is destroying this great country.  They don’t share our values.

Not many people who have examined Michael Grimm's sleazy career, much of it steeped in criminal activities, look to him for a definition of reality. Widely considered the shadiest Member of Congress and a spokesperson in Washington for the Gambino Crime Family, Grimm never stops screaming how he was a Marine. So was Lee Harvey Oswald. So? He also says he was a former FBI agent but never explains that he's under investigation by the FBI for a wide range of offenses and never discusses how he left the FBI for a life in organized crime. And for all his wailing about Maher being "anti-Catholic," Grimm has raised thousands of dollars in suspect funds from pornographers. I wonder if the DCCC will ever allow a candidate worth voting for to run against Grimm.

Marxism: So great before it went mainstream

Supermarx. Via Inciclopedia.

Well, glory be, the Revolution must have been and triumphed without anybody noticing it, because here's the New York Times seriously running a debate as to whether the theories of the noted economist Karl Marx could have some contemporary relevance—

many of the forces that Marx said would lead to capitalism’s demise – the concentration and globalization of wealth, the permanence of unemployment, the lowering of wages – have become real, and troubling, once again. The fall of communism discredited Marx’s political vision. But, as observers have wondered before, is his view of our economic future being validated?

featuring commentary by actual leftists of somewhat differing views, Doug Henwood and Yves Smith, a little like finding two different kinds of chili on an East Side French menu, something that may never have happened since the paper's origin (when Marx himself was helping to cover international politics for the rival Tribune). As well as the totally unexpected resurfacing of the traditional 1950s anti-communist liberal in the form of J. Bradford DeLong deliberately misunderstanding the theory of exchange value in order to condemn it:

Marx was dead certain for ontological reasons that exchange-value was created by human socially-necessary labor time and by that alone, and that after its creation exchange-value could be transferred and redistributed but never enlarged or diminished. Thus he vanished into the swamp, the dark waters closed over his head, and was never seen again.

DeLong is a lot smarter than me by any reasonable standard (it's true I know more about Baroque opera or Japanese grammar or what have you, but only because he doesn't care about these things), so I know he's just making fun of me here, but

1. Exchange value is an artifact of the theory, so complaining that it always conforms to Marx's definition of it is like complaining that feet always have 12 inches ("Really? You're telling me I could never find an 11-inch foot?" );
2. it is perfectly clear, though perhaps not very well thought through, that different kinds of labor requiring different kinds of "human capital" produce different kinds of use value, and since training is part of the time-cost of labor produce different quantities of exchange value as well; and
3. it is sometimes convenient to ignore it (I know the idea of simplification-for-the-sake-of-argument must be deeply shocking to a neoclassical economist), but it is never denied that exchange value is added to, or conversely lost, between the initial sale of labor and the final sale of commodity, in all sorts of ways, to say nothing of the other things that can affect price.

Also, I just learned that the vulgar-Marxist theory of value as nothing but undifferentiated labor-time is actually a theory that Marx accused Adam Smith of, complaining that Smith

confuses the measure of value as the immanent measure which at the same time forms the substance of value [i.e., labour-time], with the measure of value in the sense that money is called a measure of value.

Thanks, Wikipedia!

Image via Black Star Rujabes.

Anyway what's really priceless (or should I say free of use value?) is Michael Strain of the American Enterprise Institute channeling the anti-Communism lessons of my 10th-grade history teacher, Mr. Gallucci, who always seemed to be saying, "Imagine a little C-minus schnook like me tearing apart a major Jewish professor!—Is America great or what?"

Marx was a brilliant thinker and writer, but economists who have meticulously studied his writings easily find its flaws.

He must have meant them to be discovered, huh?

In 1970, 26.8 percent of the world's population lived on less than one dollar per day. In 2006, only 5.4 percent did — an 80 percent drop in this extreme poverty measure in less than four decades. What economic system was responsible for this accomplishment? It wasn't "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." It was free enterprise. Far from exploiting workers, free enterprise liberated them from deep poverty.

Oh, right. Or as Marx put it in the 1848 Manifesto, capitalism

has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former Exoduses of nations and crusades....It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life. Just as it has made the country dependent on the towns, so it has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilised ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West.

Remember, you have to get through capitalism to get to the other side. This was why Marx insisted, as we all remember (talk to me after class, Vladimir Il'ich!), that there could be no workers' revolution in Russia or China. Uh-oh, incoming:

as devastatingly wrong as Marx was about the most important questions he tried to tackle (see also: "Union, Soviet")

Hm, now, what did he say wrong about the Soviet Union? And of course the theory of exchange value gets into the mix too:

An obvious [flaw] is central to his theory, that the value of an object is determined by the labor required to produce it. This is obviously false: I could spend hundreds of hours writing a song; Bruce Springsteen could write one in 15 minutes worth far more than mine. Q.E.D.

(See also: "Capital, human". Don't you think Springsteen might have put in that 10,000 hours, and somebody has to pay for it?) He could probably write a better Op-Ed too, but unlike you he'd take more than 15 minutes to do it. But look how you can increase your productivity by using "obvious" twice in two consecutive sentences! There's an alienated proletarian trick for you!

In any case, Strain's got a big surprise in store for us:

Likewise, the flipside of communism is mistaken: The economy is not a holy, untouchable, object. In fact, both Marxism and pure laissez-faire elevate the economy above its proper station, ignoring the ability (Marxism) and the duty (laissez-faire) of culture, and through it politics, to soften the rough edges of the free enterprise system.

In the bowels of the American Enterprise Institute, a stealth Social Democrat! Did you ever? What on earth is going on?

Exclusively in the new print issue of CounterPunch

MARX: A HERO FOR OUR TIME? — Suddenly, everyone from the Wall Street Journal to Rolling Stone seems to be talking about Karl Marx. Louis Proyect delves into this mysterious resurgence, giving a vivid assessment of Marx’s relevance in the era of globalized capitalism. 

Image via anticap.

A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Waste Dept.: Fun with the "eraser challenge"

For once, I was able to embed the clip, but not without its starting automatically, and goodness knows we don't want that. So instead, you can view it here.

by Ken

Even when I was able to embed the clip I had mixed success with actually getting it to play. At first, for example, I was able to get audio, but for video just a couple of still pictures. At other times I wasn't able to get that much. If you can't get it to play, or don't want to bother trying, here's a text version of this Fox CT story:

Students Warned Of Danger Of 'Eraser Challenge'

by Mike Krafcik
WTIC | Hartford, CT

BETHEL -- Bethel Middle School is warning parents about a dangerous new game. It's called "The Eraser Challenge" and videos popping up on YouTube show the game being played by mostly teenagers.

To play the game, teens will use an eraser and rub it back and forth on their arm between the wrist and elbow while reciting the alphabet and coming up with a word for each letter.

Once they reach the letter Z, the opponents will compare their wounds.

Bethel Middle School Principal Derek Muharem says a random collection of a dozen students in different games that are part of the challenge. Muharem said he first found out about the game after several students told the school's nurse they had marks on their arms after playing the game.

On Thursday, Muharem sent a letter to parents of every student at the school asking parents to talk to their kids about the challenge and explain the dangers. (Click here to read the  letter.)

Muharem is also concerned about injuries potentially caused by the game.

"What I found out was kids were sharing erasers, so as they broke the skin they were passing the eraser off to somebody else, body fluids being shared, and that's a concern of mine," said Muharem.

Bethel Middle sixth grader Alexandra Luhrs says she has seen many of her classmates play the game, mostly in the hallways. Luhrs says playing the game never appealed to her.

"They were like, oh it stings so bad, but they just kept going," said Luhrs.

Educators worry peer pressure is driving the trend.

Many parents we spoke to weren't aware of the game before they were notified and were puzzled by it.

"I don't understand why kids are mutilating themselves or doing things to hurt themselves," said John Luhrs, parent of a Bethel Middle School student.

"I just thought it was strange. Very strange things these children are doing," said Lara Fusara, a parent of a Bethel Middle School student.

The principal says no students will be reprimanded for their actions in the challenge. The goal is to make sure teenagers don't hurt themselves.

Now the currency this story is experiencing seems warranted. Apparently the videos are going viral, and there's no question that the "eraser challenge," even allowing for its potential boost to vocabulary building, is in a bunch of ways a really, really terrible idea, and one that communities have a powerful interest in warning their children against.


JUST TWO QUESTIONS

But what elevates the story in my mind to, well, something else, is the response I saw to AOL's posting of the video. Most of the comments seemed to be variations of this sort of thing: What are you, nuts? This isn't new. We were going it 30 years ago when I was a kid. I still got a scar from it. Like these:

[Click to enlarge]

Or these:

[Click to enlarge]

The comments were so consistent in content ("whaddaya mean, new?") and tone (how dare you?), suggesting that the only problem perceived here is that this isn't "news," that I wished AOL had attempted a follow-up. The commenters might have been asked questions like these:

(1) Since the days when you had all that fun with the eraser challenge, do you feel you have been helped by your interventions from the mental-health system?

(2) Would you say you vote:
-- frequently
-- occasionally, or
-- rarely or never?

HOW TO INTERPRET THE RESULTS

(1) This is a trick question. Anyone who answers "I have not had any interventions from the mental-health system" or equivalent should be provided with appropriate mental-health referrals.

(2) If many people answer "frequently" or "occasionally," be afraid.

#

HEY, KIDS! LET'S GET UPSET ABOUT KERMIT GOSNELL ALL OVER AGAIN!

Over in Conservistan, folks are all excited about a crowdfunding effort for a docudrama about convicted abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell. Until now, the filmmakers behind this project -- Phelim McAleer, Ann McElhinney, and Magdalena Segieda -- have specialized in "I'm rubber, you're glue" documentaries such as FrackNation (a pro-fracking answer to Gasland) and Not Evil Just Wrong (an attempted rebuttal of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth) Not Evil failed to get commercial distribution; FrackNation appeared in a couple of theaters and on Mark Cuban's little-known AXS.tv.

The Gosnell movie seems to be aiming higher -- or at least the filmmakers seem to have succeeded in making themselves darlings of the wingnut media this time. They announced the project last week and have received coverage at The Weekly Standard, the Daily Caller, Breitbart, Hot Air, Twitchy, Townhall, Newsbusters, the Washington Examiner, and LifeSiteNews, not to mention The Hollywood Reporter and the Toronto Sun. They've got a snazzy poster:





And that "serial killer" line is a fairly clever hook, which the filmmakers back up with a lot of whining about media suppression of the truth:

Dr. Kermit Gosnell is the most prolific serial killer in American History, but almost no one knows who he is....

The mainstream media or Hollywood don't think this is a story. Even though Gosnell killed more people than Gary Ridgeway, John Wayne Gacey, The Zodiac Killer and Ted Bundy combined. In a 30 year killing spree, it is thought he killed 1000s of babies. And that wasn't a national story?

But Jodi Arias who was on trial at the same time as Gosnell, for killing her boyfriend, just one person, was national news.

Hollywood think the Jodi Arias story is so important they have already made a movie about her which has been shown multiple times on TV.

The censorship of the Gosnell story ends now.

Oh, and Breitbart says the brave truth-tellers were even censored by Kickstarter!

... their plan to raise more than $2 million via the crowd-funding website Kickstarter was thrown off course when the website objected to the description of the project and raised concerns about the political convictions behind it.

"This is unacceptable to us and it should be unacceptable to any filmmaker particularly on a platform such as Kickstarter which claims to be all about artistic freedom," McAleer said. "Kickstarter's actions are particularly odious and alarming because they are an attempt to censor factual descriptions of a serial killer's actions."

In a news release, the trio said that Kickstarter attempted "to restrict the detailing of Gosnell's crimes."

... Kickstarter has so far not responded to questions about the allegations made by McAleer.

Way to up your profile, folks! You're martyrs already!

Is there a larger plan in this? Although the filmmakers are planning to do this one as a drama rather than a documentary, they want this to be a TV movie rather than a feature film. Is this something they think might appear during an election cycle, perhaps? Maybe sometime in 2016? Are they concerned that Hillary Clinton might have a good chance at winning over socially conservative white ethnics who might have rejected Barack Obama, even though she'll run as a pro-choice candidate? Are they trying to make precisely the kind of movie/political ad that was the focus of the Citizens United case? Is it supposed to be a counterweight to any Hillary Clinton biopics that might ultimately emerge?

Or is this yet another conservative attempt to persuade African-American voters that the "Democrat Party" is the party of black genocide? (Phelim McAleer described Gosnell to The Hollywood Reporter as "a black man who is racist against blacks and Hispanics"; the Reporter story says that "white women were afforded a cleaner waiting room and medical equipment than were women of color" in Gosnell's clinic.)

I'm not sure. But righties think they have a winner here.

Marianne Williamson: "I Will Slam It!"

Is there any candidate for Congress anywhere like Marianne Williamson? Short answer: "No." Slightly longer answer, "Alas, no." I want to ask you to watch the remarkable video statement she just released explaining why she's running for Congress and what she expects to achieve if she gets there. That's why it's embedded on the top of the page. It's almost Grayson-like or Bernie Sanders-like in its scope.

We don't do that in America. No, no, no… we repudiated an aristocracy 200 years ago. And I have the sense that we need to repudiate it again… Both of [the parties] are beholden to the same monied interests. As long as this is the case, we will never be able to deal adequately with global climate change because fossil fuel companies continue to dominate the system. We will never be able to deal adequately with GMOs, herbicides, pesticides, and other ways that our food supply is being corrupted. Chemical companies and big agricultural companies dominate the system. And we will never have universal health care as long as health insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies dominate the system.

We have shrinking civil liberties; we have expanding corporate influence; and we have domestic surveillance. This is a very toxic brew. This can put American democracy into a death spiral. We need a serious pattern interruption. It is not enough to just tweak it here and tweak it there. We're past that. We can't any longer just deal with the effects without dealing with the cause of all this. We can't any longer just deal deal with the symptoms without calling the disease what it is. There is a cancer that is eating our democracy. There is an issue that is underlying all these other issues-- and that is the issue of money in politics. That's why getting the money out of politics is the greatest moral challenge of our generation.

Do you think an opportunistic career hack like Wendy Greuel-- the Big Money Establishment favored candidate-- has even ever thought about the issues Marianne talks about? Greuel is the worst kind of business-as-usual exemplar of political dysfunction at the heart of everything that's wrong with the system Marianne wants to course correct. The primary in CA-33 is shaping up to be the most profound and most interesting House race anywhere in the country. And it isn't just a good (Marianne) vs evil (Greuel) contest. Greuel, a former Republican who stands for nothing whatsoever beyond her own ambitions, is certainly counting on other progressives in the race, particularly, state Senator Ted Lieu, to split the progressive vote and let her slip in through name recognition alone.

Over the weekend, Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, posting at Truthout, talked the same language as Marianne:

We must build a mass movement that is independent of the two parties, especially the Democratic Party, because their agenda is too corrupted by the ‘rule of money.’ We recognize that what is considered to be politically acceptable does not challenge the current system and therefore fails to actually solve the problems we face.

We adopt the view of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who did not ally with either party. King said “I feel someone must remain in the position of non-alignment, so that he can look objectively at both parties and be the conscience of both-- not the servant or master of either.” Just as King faced two parties dominated by segregationists when he was fighting Jim Crow segregation, we face two parties dominated by mega-corporate power when we are fighting the domination of government by big business interests. Just as King made the immorality of racism unacceptable, we must take a moral stand against putting the interests of money before the necessities of the people.

The obscenity of tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations-- which has occurred at every level of government-- while cutting necessary public services is not just misplaced priorities, these are immoral decisions. A child going hungry while the already wealthy hoard more wealth is one of the many immoral outcomes of these decisions. We need to explain these choices and be the conscience of a political system that is off track and of elected officials who put increasing the wealth of their campaign donors ahead of the necessities of their constituents.

The rule of money has become so deep in US government that the menu at the political table is very limited. The real solutions to the multiple economic and environmental crises we face are supported by the majority of the public but are not allowed in the political discussion. It is not our job as activists to limit ourselves to the choices allowed by this corrupt system but to expand the choices. Occupy’s greatest impact was to put issues on the political agenda that were not on it.

Are You A Marjorie Margolies Democrat Or Are You A Daylin Leach Democrat?

This morning, Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders endorsed a Democrat running for a House seat in Pennsylvania. Senators don't often endorse in House races and almost never endorse in primaries in other states. Bernie is backing Daylin Leach because of his record of accomplishment in the Pennsylvania state legislature and because of the campaign he's running for Congress and for Daylin's unflinching focus on raising the minimum wage, making college more affordable, shrinking the gap between the rich and the poor and, most important in this particular race in PA-13, expanding Social Security benefits. "At a time when our country has more income and wealth inequality than any other major country on earth," said Bernie, "and when the gap between the very rich and everyone else is growing wider-- it is imperative that we send candidates like Daylin Leach to the U.S. Congress."

Unfortunately, there aren't that many candidates like Daylin Leach. Pennsylvania's "liberal lion" is a lot like Sanders, motivated by standing up for ordinary working families. Probably the issue that has made him stand out the strongest is the difference between himself as the corporate media/Beltway pundit front-running, Clinton in-law and ex-Congresswoman Marjorie Margolies. Compact explanation: Daylin wants to expand Social Security; Marjorie wants to shrink it.

We've covered this dichotomy in the past. Back in February we pointed out a Phildadelphia Inquirer story from June, 1994, "Social Security Curbs Proposed Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky Is Touting Major Changes. Her GOP Foe, Jon Fox, Opposes The Plan." As we said then, Voters in PA-13 should read it carefully. This is a candidate who is eager to cut Social Security and other benefits for working families. She sounds like a garden variety Republican, although the Republican that beat her in 1994 was more a defender of Social Security than she was-- and the way she disappointed the Democratic base and kept voters away from the polls is why she was really defeated that year. Her proposal to cut back on Social Security for retired Americans was even too conservative for Bill Clinton, who pointedly told her that "we do not deal with a problem like the deficit by (creating) income stagnation among the elderly." Now her son is married to his daughter and he's selling out the American people by backing her campaign to get back into Congress. This candidate, of whom the Inquirer wrote "Calling it the first fruit of last year's conference on entitlement spending, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky announced legislation yesterday that would raise the retirement age for Social Security recipients and limit their cost-of-living adjustments… The current legislation, which Margolies-Mezvinsky is sponsoring with Minnesota Democrat Timothy J. Penny, would raise the retirement age to 70 by the year 2013-- beginning in 1999 and increasing the age by four months annually… The proposal would give only the bottom 20 percent of Social Security recipients the full cost-of-living adjustment, which is tied to the Consumer Price Index. Other recipients would receive a flat cost-of-living adjustment equal to that for recipients at the 20th percentile."

Predictably, Margolies has learned nothing from her electoral loss. Today she is still part of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party and still pushing the Chained CPI scheme to reduce Social Security payments for retired Americans. Last December, Daylin, pushed back against the Paul Ryan/Marjorie Margolies Chained CPI plank: "Social Security has literally lifted entire generations of seniors out of poverty. But at a time when pensions are shrinking or going away and people are living longer, we must do better if Social Security is going to fulfill its promise of a reasonable life for retirees." This morning he told us that "Making the wealthy pay their fair share is the right way to reform Social Security. Cutting benefits is the wrong way, and a clear difference in my Congressional race… It is important to occassionally assess our policies in the context of what is actually happening in the real world. For example, we see a dramatic decline in the availability of and value of private pensions. Yet Social Security benefits continue to stagnate at best and atrophy at worst. Given how seniors are actually living their lives, it is time we boldly call for not only protecting Social Security, but expand it and increasing benefits. We need to remove the cap on the FICA tax and use that money not only to ensure the stability of Social Security, but to start employing E-COLA to ensure the cost of living adjustments reflect what seniors are actually spending, and to start making reasonable lump-sum payments to new retirees to enable them to settle bills and begin their retirement in a financially healthy position."

That's why Bernie Sanders has chimed in on his behalf. Last week, the highly regarded PoliticsPA interviewed Daylin and he sounded a little frustrated that Margolies' entire campaign is based on one thing-- that her son married Clinton's daughter. She has steadfastly refused to join the other candidates in debates and has tried as best she could to cover up her conservative record.

“Marjorie has a 20 year record of trying to dismantle Social Security; [she] introduced legislation that would cut cost of living adjustments and raise the retirement age,” Leach said. “And recently, when she was asked about the fiscal health of Social Security she said that we could ask wealthy people to voluntarily contribute more.”

But in this election, Leach claims that Margolies has been absent on substance.

“I’ve taken controversial positions, Marjorie has no issue that she’s spoken about at all,” he said. (Margolies has yet to attend a candidates forum with the rest of the challengers.)

May 20 is primary day in Pennsylvania. PA-13 is blue enough so that whoever wins the Democratic primary is sure to go to Congress. The PVI is D+13 and Obama beat Romney two to one-- 210,902 (66%) to 105,024 (33%), an even stronger margin than the one by which he beat McCain there 4 years earlier. PA-13 can be the next home of a brilliant and innovative Representative who stands up for working families-- or they can back a hopeless relic from the past who is from the Big Business/Wall Street wing of the party. I'm very happy that her son married their daughter… but that has absolutely nothing to do with what's good for the families in Montgomery County and Northeast Philadelphia. If you'd like to help Daylin win this race, you can contribute to his campaign here.

DEMOCRATIC VOTER DEMOTIVATION: NOT JUST FOR DUDEBROS

I see from The New York Times today that NSA- and drone-obsessed neckbeard millennials aren't the only voters in key Democratic demographics likely to stay home on Election Day 2014:

AURORA, Colo. -- As the weather warms, Lizeth Chacon is anticipating a new season of registering Latino voters -- yet dreading experiences like one late last year, when she came upon a skate park full of older teenagers.

"I thought, 'The perfect age! They're turning 18,'" said Ms. Chacon, just 26 herself, born in Mexico and now the lead organizer at Rights for All People, a local immigrant organizing group. But among the roughly 50 people she approached in this increasingly diverse city east of Denver, "not a single person" was interested in her pitch, including those already old enough to vote: "They were like, 'Why? Why would I bother to vote?'"

Across the country, immigrant-rights advocates report mounting disillusionment with both parties among Latinos, enough to threaten recent gains in voting participation that have reshaped politics to Democrats' advantage nationally, and in states like Colorado with significant Latino populations. High hopes -- kindled by President Obama's elections and stoked in June by Senate passage of the most significant overhaul of immigration law in a generation, with a path to citizenship for about 11 million people here unlawfully -- have been all but dashed.

To some extent, this is mission accomplished for the GOP. It's widely assumed that blocking immigration reform is an act of party suicide for Republicans, but if it leads Hispanics to the conclusion that voting is futile, then the demographic shift that's supposed to kill Republicans just gets delayed. Oh, sure, the Democratic coalition will probably go to the polls to vote for a new president in 2016, but, after Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, Republicans have the process of bottling up Democratic presidents down to a science, so they'll be fine. If Republicans stonewall President Hillary Clinton, the Democratic base's disillusionment will reemerge after 2016. This could go on for some time.

Not that Republicans get all the blame for demotivating Hispanic voters. Far from it, as the Times story notes:

Latinos mainly blame Republicans, who control the House and have buried the Senate bill, but they also have soured on Mr. Obama. The federal government has so aggressively enforced existing immigration laws that one national Hispanic leader recently nicknamed the president "deporter in chief" for allowing nearly two million people to be deported.

There are steps the president could take:

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has now written a letter to the Obama administration urging action to ease deportations.... [T]he Conference ... lays out a number of ways it says DHS could act legally to mitigate its impact.

Among them: Expand prosecutorial discretion to factor in people's family ties in de-prioritizing deportation. Make more aggressive efforts to prioritize those undocumented immigrants who are top offenders over lower-level ones. Reform deportation policies so they are safer, such as ending night-time deportations. Improve procedures for notifying those detained of their rights.

But The Times story describes what it calls "Mr. Obama's bind":

If he suspends more deportations, he could mend relations with Latinos and perhaps motivate more of them to vote. But he could lose what chance remains for new immigration law, his second-term domestic priority, since House Republicans have signaled they would cite such executive action as proof that he cannot be trusted to enforce any law.

STOP. JUST STOP. If that's what the president's thinking -- that an effort on his part to show Republicans that he understands their concerns will be met by comprise on their part -- then he's as naive on immigration as he has been in the past on the budget and health care.

Republicans are not going to yield on this in the run-up to 2016 -- I don't care what the conventional wisdom says. If they were to try, the GOP base would scream and throw fits. Any Establishment candidate who wants the Republican presidential nomination will have to stake out a hardcore position on immigration just to stay in the race. That may be suicidal in the general election, but Republicans can handle that.

Republicans are not going to yield, so Obama should give up on trying to mollify them, just as he gave up on trying to negotiate his way out of budget shutdown fights. But will he?

Worthy Candidates-- Realistic Goals

Blue America reached and surpassed our March goals for most of our candidates. Today's the last day of the month. We can make up for the contributions we didn't deliver next month. But, if you're inspired by all the spam from the DCCC and their dreadful candidates to give to candidates who would represent our values in Congress, these are the candidates we fell a little short on. Actually, first, these are the candidates where we hit the goals:

• Alan Grayson (FL-09)- $13,000/ $13,694
• Tom Guild (OK-05)- $3,500/ $3,734
• Patrick Hope (VA-08)- $1,000/ $2,470
• Daylin Leach (PA-13)- $6,500/ $7,048
• Mike Obermueller (MN-02)- $1,200/ $1,202
• Eloise Reyes (CA-31)- $5,000/ $5,339
• Michael Wager (OH-14)- $500/ $547
• Kelly Westlund (WI-07)- $500/ $646
• Rob Zerban (WI-01)- $7,000/ $9,400

A lot of awe-inspiring over-achievement from Rob Zerban's, Daylin Leach's and Patrick Hope's teams. Here's where we've fallen a little short and where you can help out. The amounts are how much we're short of our goals:

• Stanley Chang (HI-01)- $263
• Paul Clements (MI-06)- $32
• Greg Howard (OH-06)- $30
• Pat Murphy (IA-01)- $80
• Lee Rogers (CA-25)- $255

We know our candidates so well-- and write about them so frequently-- that sometimes we make the inaccurate assumption that everyone knows who they are and what they stand for. See that little white rectangular box in the upper left hand corner of this blog? That's a search box. If you were to type in, for example, "Greg Howard," all 8 mentions of Greg on DWT would pop up and you could read about all his positions. We're going to make it even easier this time, though. I asked each of the 5 candidates we haven't reached our goals for to give us a one sentence explanation about what they would like to accomplish in Congress. Perhaps their answers will help you decide which one or two you want to contribute to:

Lee Rogers: "I want to go to Congress to work with Members like Rep. Alan Grayson, Rep. Barbara Lee and Sen. Bernie Sanders to reorient spending towards building a strong, vibrant domestic economy that benefits hard-working American families."

Paul Clements: "I want to defeat the member of Congress the L.A. Times called 'one of the biggest threats to Planet Earth' and get Washington focused on real solutions to invest in education, infrastructure, and job creation while combatting climate change and income inequality."

Stanley Chang: "I'm running for Congress to enact a bold agenda for change that will set Hawaii and America on a path to prosperity by raising the minimum wage, reforming Wall Street, and fixing our broken immigration system."

Pat Murphy: "I will protect our seniors by increasing Social Security benefits and ensuring it is solvent for more than the next century, by working to raise the cap on the Social Security tax."

Greg Howard: "When elected to Congress, I will fight to reverse NAFTA, reducing the incentives for corporations to take jobs out of the United States and once again creating jobs for the working people."

If you'd like to chip in, there is no such thing as a contribution too small. Here's the place you'll find all of our House candidates.

THE GOP BASE DOESN'T LIKE MIKE ROGERS OR HIS EMPLOYER, AND HE DOESN'T LIKE RAND PAUL

The Hill reported this yesterday:

House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said Sunday that his new radio gig will give him the chance to stand up to "celebrity politicians" with dangerous ideas on national security.

Rogers ... announced he would not seek reelection on Friday...

"There's a lot of celebrity politicians that are using issues, candidly, in Washington, D.C., today that are detrimental to the national security of the United States, and the politics in Washington has gotten as small as I've ever seen it," Rogers said, declining to name the politicians to which he was referring.

I think he's referring primarily to Rand Paul-- not, say, to Hillary Clinton. He was not a fan of Paul's drone filibuster:

One of Paul's fellow Republicans from across the Capitol, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan, called the day's discussion in the Senate "irresponsible."

"It would be unconstitutional for the U.S. military or intelligence services to conduct lethal counterterrorism operations in the United States against U.S. citizens," Rogers said. "I would never allow such operations to occur on my watch. I urge the administration to clarify this point immediately so Congress can return to its pressing oversight responsibilities."

Fear of Rand Paul, as The Washington Post noted over the weekend, is also fueling "Draft Jeb" talk. It's a huge motivator on the Establishment right. (Quiz question: If it's Hillary vs. Rand, will some Republican foreign policy hard-liners decide not to endorse the party's nominee, on the assumption that Hillary is a better choice from their perspective? I could imagine Bill Kristol doing that.)

But if Mike Rogers thinks a radio gig could lead to a successful bid of his own for the 2016 presidential nomination, I'd say he's being naive. He's talking as if that's what's on his mind:

On "Fox News Sunday," Rogers said the quality of the current debate on national security and foreign policy made him worried "for the future of this country."

"So when someone walked in and said, 'Hey, we're going to give you the opportunity to have a discussion in people's cars, living rooms and kitchens, every single day, from California to Iowa to New Hampshire to South Carolina. We think you can change the needle on this debate,' I thought long and hard about it and thought, 'You know, I think they're right.'"

The states Rogers named aren't just a random assortment: Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina are the first three states on the presidential primary calendar.

The GOP base really doesn't like him. Go to Free Republic and you find headlines like "Joe diGenova tells WMAL GOP Congressman Mike Rogers (MI-8) is trying to kill Benghazi Investigation." (DiGenova is a veteran GOP operative who's been spreading Benghazi cover-up claims lately.) Rogers's handling of Benghazi came up over the weekend in a Washington Post interview:

We've heard in the past few hours from some of your colleagues in the House Republican conference, who've expressed concerns with how your committee investigated the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Libya. There's some suggestion from them privately that the committee might not have been as aggressive with some administration officials as they would have liked. Care to respond?

I find that interesting. We have been the most aggressive committee, we've had the most hearings, the most investigative time from my investigators. I'm having the third hearing with the deputy and then acting CIA director Mike Morrell, and it's going to be open. Part of the problem has been that there are conspiracy theorists who wanted us to find conspiracy A, B, and C, and I ran a very aggressive fact-based investigation. I didn't go into it -- as an old FBI agent you don’t get into it with a conclusion, but a premise.

And by the way, all the reports that you saw, all the interim reports, that all came from our investigation off the Intel Committee. I take that with a grain of salt, it’s been the most aggressive investigation. I'll keep going with it until we get to the logical conclusion.

If he's actually bragging about not working backward from the conclusion that Hillary Clinton is an anti-American Antichrist, no wonder the base hates him.

The base doesn't even trust Rogers's new employer, Cumulus, which, after all, let Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity go last year. Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey acknowledged that the Sandra Fluke siuation lost Limbaugh advertisers, which was regarded on the right as a heretical statement.

Rogers may be thinking he'll run for president with an eye toward being the vice presidential nominee, given the fact that the nominee could be a governor with no foreign policy experience (Jeb, Walker, or Kasich, if not Christie). Or maybe he thinks he could be the running mate picked to reassure neocons that it's safe to vote for Rand Paul. (That would be the running-mates-as-erstwhile-opponents scenario -- Kennedy/LBJ, Reagan/Bush.) But the base may not approve, unless he becomes a Benghazi attack dog on the radio.

That Feeling

When we first walked into this house, we knew. We looked at each other and couldn't stop the grins from taking over our faces. With each room we walked through, that feeling grew stronger and stronger. 

A feeling of love. A feeling that this house had provided some wonderful memories to a family before us. A feeling that it would be the best place for us to live. It was that feeling. That feeling that this was our home.

As of right now, everything we own is in this house. A lot of it is still in boxes; we're far from settled in. We're likely going to be living in complete disarray for the next few weeks. But we're home. There are boxes everywhere. All my clothes are in suitcases on three different floors. I have no idea where my slippers are (I seriously was ready to kill this morning for my damn slippers). 

Everything crammed into the living room

And that feeling? That feeling is stronger than ever. And while my back hurts and my feet hurt and I'm completely exhausted, I don't care because we're home.

Yesterday, we got a card in the mail from the couple who sold us the house. We have never met them, just seen their name on 100's of pieces of paper we signed our name on. They were listed as the seller; us as the buyer. They live somewhere in Indiana. But we have learned that this was their first home. They lived here when they started a family. They had many happy and wonderful memories here.

They sent us a card saying congratulations on our first home, which neighbors were awesome, telling us how much they loved the house and wishing us the best of luck in making this our home and creating wonderful memories in this place that they once loved. And a Home Depot gift card. I almost cried. Doug laughed at me, but I just couldn't get over the fact that it was the sweetest thing. 

We walked into this house and got a feeling. It was obvious to us that the house was well loved and taken care of. Someone else had once had that feeling about this house. And before them and before them and before them. 

Names and dates of people who have lived here, all written in the basement

It's our turn to love this house and create memories. And to keep that feeling alive. 

Not All Democrats In Hawaii Have Been On The Side Of The Angels In The Struggle For LGBT Equality

Last week, you may recall, Blue America did a end-of-the-quarter fundraiser for our House candidates. The name of one of the most generous contributors looked vaguely familiar, so I looked him up. Steven H. Levinson was a judge on the Hawaii Supreme Court and the reason why I had his name in my memory bank was because he authored the lead opinion in Baehr vs. Lewin, the first-ever court ruling to determine that denying marriage to same-sex couples was discriminatory. That was 2 decades ago and that battle has come a long way-- in the face of bitter on-going opposition, not just from Republicans, but from conservative Democrats. Ironically many of those conservative Democrats who have voted against marriage equality-- like Donna Mercado Kim, Will Espero, and Mark Takai-- are now running for the Honolulu-based House seat left open by Colleen Hanabusa's campaign against Brian Schatz. (Schatz has been a full-on advocate for equality and Hanabusa has flipped and flopped on the issue, having held back progress while in the state Senate.) In any case, Judge Levinson made it clear that the candidate he's backing in the congressional race is Honolulu City Councilman Stanley Chang, an equality champion.

In my years of fighting for civil rights on behalf of Hawaii’s LGBT community, I have worked with public officials and community leaders to build grassroots support for a just cause. Some have always supported marriage equality, but others have “evolved” on the issue-- motivated by personal reflection, political considerations, or a combination of both.

There is reason to celebrate such conversions and welcome support from all quarters when building a coalition. But when choosing a leader, we want someone who has been on our side, fighting for our rights, from day one. That leader is Stanley Chang.

Stanley is serving with distinction on the Honolulu City Council and is running for U.S. Congress in Hawaii’s first district. He has never needed to “evolve”-- he has always been with us on full equality under the law for the LGBT community in Hawaii and in America.

In Congress, Stanley will be a strong advocate for enacting employment nondiscrimination protections. He will fight for treating our LGBT kupuna with the utmost respect and for repairing harm done to gay and lesbian veterans who were unfairly given dishonorable discharges under the former “don’t ask don’t tell” policy. Stanley understands the pressures faced by our keiki, who often experience bullying and harassment in schools just for being different.

Stanley’s command of the issues will make him a valuable representative for Hawaii in Washington. He’s with us not just on LGBT rights but on all of the key struggles, from raising the minimum wage to reforming Wall Street; from defending Social Security to protecting our environment. What Hawaii needs now is a progressive champion who will have our back.

Hawaii’s values don’t merely tolerate diversity; they celebrate it. We deserve a representative in Washington who will not only vote with us but will be a champion of our cause, leading the fight for the next generation. Stanley knows that our spirit of aloha does not deny full membership in the community to anyone based on whom they love.

Please join me in supporting Stanley Chang.

As you know, Blue America has also endorsed Stanley Chang for this House seat, not just because of the equality issue, but because of a record of across-the-board progressive leadership. Earlier today he explained-- in one sentence-- what he hoped to accomplish in Congress, telling us he wants to work with other Members "to enact a bold agenda for change that will set Hawaii and America on a path to prosperity by raising the minimum wage, reforming Wall Street, and fixing our broken immigration system."

Stanley is up against a gaggle of candidates from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. If you'd like to join Justice Levinson and Blue America to help make sure he wins the crowded primary, you can do that here on our ActBlue page.

A Prop 8 supporter as the new guy in charge of Firefox -- is that OK?

Click to enlarge. Note that the live link to automatically sign the petition is here.

by Ken

I'm coming late to the controversy that erupted late this week about the choice of a new CEO for Mozilla, the company that produces Firefox, the country's second most popular Net browser. So I'm grateful for Credo Action's political director, Becky Bond, for bringing me up to speed. I'm not big on petition-signing, but the cause certainly seems worth airing.

Becky directs us to HuffPost's unbylined Thursday post "Mozilla's Appointment Of Brendan Eich As CEO Sparks Controversy After Prop 8 Donation News Re-Emerges," which included these responses from Brendan Eich and other people at Mozilla:

Eich addressed the controversy in a lengthy blog post, noting, "I know there are concerns about my commitment to fostering equality and welcome for LGBT individuals at Mozilla."

He added, "I can only ask for your support to have the time to 'show, not tell'; and in the meantime express my sorrow at having caused pain ... I am committed to ensuring that Mozilla is, and will remain, a place that includes and supports everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, age, race, ethnicity, economic status, or religion."

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Mozilla released a statement in defense of Eich's appointment, saying the company was "deeply committed to honoring diversity in sexual orientation and beliefs within our staff and community."

"With thousands of people spanning many countries and cultures, diversity is core to who we are," the statement continued, "And we’re united in our mission to keep the Web open and accessible for everyone."

Similarly, Mozilla's Education Lead Christie Koehler, who is gay, also defended the company in a blog post, despite stressing that she was "disappointed" to learn that Eich had made donations in support of Prop 8.

"Certainly it would be problematic if Brendan’s behavior within Mozilla was explicitly discriminatory ... I haven’t personally seen this (although to be clear, I was not part of Brendan’s reporting structure until today)," she wrote. "To the contrary, over the years I have watched Brendan be an ally in many areas and bring clarity and leadership when needed."

IS THIS GOOD ENOUGH?

That's the obvious question, and obviously a lot of people don't think it is good enough. Here are a couple of portions of Becky's open letter (there are footnotes on the Credo Action website):

Mozilla, maker of the world's second most popular browser Firefox, announced a leadership change this week. In a highly controversial move, Brendan Eich was named CEO despite his public support for the anti-gay Proposition 8 which ended the marriage equality for gays and lesbians in California until it was overturned by the Supreme Court last summer.

There is not a simply a public disagreement about an individual's personal beliefs, but rather a serious crisis involving a powerful global organization and a leader with a history of explicit advocacy to deny gays and lesbians equal rights under law.

Mozilla is an organization that has demonstrated a deep commitment to openness and equality. That's why it was so shocking that its board of directors named a CEO with a public record of anti-gay advocacy.

Tell Mozilla: Your brand should be identified with openness and equality -- not anti-gay hate. New CEO Brendan Eich must reverse his anti-gay stance, resign or be replaced. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Many people have evolved their views on equality as American attitudes on gay rights have shifted dramatically in recent years. It's time for Eich to join them. As the representative of a global brand that represents openness and is committed to equality and inclusiveness, Eich should make an unequivocal statement of support for marriage equality. If he cannot, he should resign. And if he will not, the board should fire Eich immediately. . . .


Tell Mozilla: If Brendan Eich doesn't make an unequivocal statement of support for marriage equality, he must resign. If he refuses to do so he should be fired. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Since announcing the selection of Eich as CEO, Mozilla has faced an incredible backlash. Some members of the broader Mozilla community have advocated for a boycott of the Firefox browsers. There are employees calling for Eich's resignation via Twitter. Eich himself released a statement that stopped far short of addressing his anti-gay advocacy but instead affirmed his commitment to enforcing Mozilla's strong anti-discrimination policies for its employees. And Mozilla’s board chair took pains to make clear her support for gay rights even as she defended the choice of Eich to lead the organization. Facing increasing pressure, Mozilla later released a second blog post on the matter underscoring the organization's commitment to "openness and equality for all people" and making an explicit statement in support of marriage equality.

But the board's decision to elevate Eich, whose history of anti-gay advocacy was public before he was hired, to the position of CEO is a forceful gesture that elevates an advocate of writing discrimination into our laws to the head of a global brand representing openness and equality. The people at Mozilla and their massive community of users deserve better than a leader that advocates for inequality and hate.

It’s not enough for Eich to pledge that he will enforce Mozilla's strong internal policies that ensure all employees are treated equal when he continues to refuse to renounce his advocacy for legislating hateful discrimination against gays and lesbians with constitutional amendments such as Proposition 8.

We hope for and would welcome a public statement from Eich of unequivocal support for equality not just within Mozilla but for all Americans. If he cannot do this he should resign or be fired.

Thank you for standing up for equal rights for all Americans.

#

The Teabaggers Will Be Denied… Again

Who will Sheldon & Miriam want to get into bed with?

Roland is in Las Vegas for the long weekend. So are some of the most venal characters in American politics-- Gov. Scott Walker, Gov. John Kasich, Gov. Chris Christie, John Bolton, ex-Gov. Jeb Bush and Dick Cheney. The Republicans-- other than Cheney, who just shows up wherever evil is pulsing strongest on earth-- are there for the Sheldon and Miriam Adelson Primary where each presidential wanna-be is vetted in terms of how slavish they are to the national interests of Israel-- this is a strictly Israel-first/America-second confab-- and the gambling interests of the Adelson branch of the Mafia.

Although the government of Binyamin Netanyahu and the Adelsons have a lot of say in the decision of who will be the next Republican nominee, they don't get to decide all by themselves. The grassroots, of course, are ignored. They can suck air with their fervent intentions for winning the nomination for right-wing extremists like Ted Cruz or Rand Paul. The serious people don't consider them any more serious than the German plutocrats considered Hitler in the early 1930s. The power brokers who laugh at the teabaggers and the religious right grassroots dredges, have pretty much settled on Jeb Bush now that Christie is damaged goods. If this sounds like it was written by a Jeb Bush press flack… well… how coy can one be when one is breaking sucking up to the detestable Adelsons in their garish Mafia haven?

Many of the Republican Party’s most powerful insiders and financiers have begun a behind-the-scenes campaign to draft former Florida governor Jeb Bush into the 2016 presidential race, courting him and his intimates and starting talks on fundraising strategy.

Concerned that the George Washington Bridge traffic scandal has damaged New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s political standing and alarmed by the steady rise of Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), prominent donors, conservative leaders and longtime operatives say they consider Bush the GOP’s brightest hope to win back the White House.

Bush’s advisers insist that he is not actively exploring a candidacy and will not make a decision until at least the end of this year. But over the past few weeks, Bush has traveled the country delivering policy speeches, campaigning for Republicans ahead of the fall midterm elections, honing messages on income inequality and foreign policy, and cultivating ties with wealthy benefactors-- all signals that he is considering a run.

Many if not most of Mitt Romney’s major donors are reaching out to Bush and his confidants with phone calls, e-mails and invitations to meet, according to interviews with 30 senior Republicans. One bundler estimated that the “vast majority” of Romney’s top 100 donors would back Bush in a competitive nomination fight.

“He’s the most desired candidate out there,” said another bundler, Brian Ballard, who sat on the national finance committees for Romney in 2012 and John McCain in 2008. “Everybody that I know is excited about it.”

But Bush would have serious vulnerabilities as a candidate. Out of public office for seven years, he has struggled in some appearances and has had difficulty navigating the Republican Party’s fault lines on immigration and other issues. A Bush candidacy also would test whether the nation still has a hangover from the George W. Bush administration.

On Thursday night, Bush was feted here at a VIP dinner held by Sheldon Adelson inside the billionaire casino magnate’s airplane hangar. When one donor told Bush, “I hope you run for president in 2016,” the crowd of about 60 guests burst into applause, said a donor in attendance.

Bush also met privately with Adelson. One person with knowledge of the conversation said that the former governor was “very laid back and comfortable” and that they did not discuss the 2016 campaign.

…He would enter a wide-open contest for the GOP nomination with other advantages, as well: deep ties to his party’s establishment and evangelical wings, and a reputation as a reform-minded policy wonk. Fluent in Spanish, Bush has credibility within the Hispanic community that could help broaden his coalition. He also has the gravitas many Republicans say is required to compete with former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democrats’ leading potential contender.

“Jeb has the capacity to bring the party together,” said [Nixon's Jew counter] Fred Malek, a top Republican official who said he has been in regular contact with Bush.

…Bush’s vocal support for immigration reform and Common Core education standards-- lightning-rod issues for tea party activists-- could dog him in the GOP primaries… In any campaign, Bush would have to grapple with the legacy of his brother George W. Bush and his unpopular wars. A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found that almost half of all Americans surveyed say they “definitely would not” vote for Jeb Bush for president.

“The ‘Bush fatigue’ question is always there,” said former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour (R). “If his name was Jeb Brown instead of Jeb Bush, he’d be the front-runner.” … Strategists for other prospective candidates said they are growing nervous about Bush and fear that he could lock up the donor class. “He would take some of the oxygen out of the air,” said David Carney, an ally of Texas Gov. Rick Perry ®.

Paul Ryan may not have been there this weekend… but apparently someone grabbed his iPod to better entertain the fat cats:

White House fool report: I channel Maureen Dowd

Normal Chelovechik.

Apologies to President Obama, who was as it turns out not trolling me at all. Actually he was trolling National Review's Andrew Stuttaford-Stuttaford of That Ilk, I think:

(I’m sorry Mr. President, Russia is rather more than the “regional power” that you were — ludicrously — claiming the other day)

And Dr. Krauthammer:

Where does one begin? Hitler’s Germany and Tojo’s Japan were also regional powers, yet managed to leave behind at least 50 million dead. And yes, Russia should be no match for the American superpower. Yet under this president, Russia has run rings around America, from the attempted ingratiation of the “reset” to America’s empty threats of “consequences” were Russia to annex Crimea.

And obviously Tsar Vladimir Vladimirovich himself, the emperor of the regional power, the person to whom the president was in fact addressing himself. I think we were mistakenly listening as if he were talking to us in the Brussels speech, making it sound completely presposterous, as Mr. Pierce said, when we were in fact merely overhearing his message to V.V., which was something like the following, with the offending text first and then a translation in the language of Maureen Dowd.

Now, it is true that the Iraq war was a subject of vigorous debate, not just around the world but in the United States, as well. I participated in that debate, and I opposed our military intervention there. But even in Iraq, America sought to work within the international system. We did not claim or annex Iraq’s territory. We did not grab its resources for our own gain. Instead, we ended our war and left Iraq to its people in a fully sovereign Iraqi state that can make decisions about its own future.

Now, it is true that the Iraq war was one of the stupidest and most criminal enterprises the United States ever undertook, as you may recall my hinting at the time—you wouldn't expect me to come out and say it, would you, and then get stuck putting half my predecessor's cabinet under indictment? I'm dealing with people who'll call me a dictator for a minor deadline extension on people buying health insurance. No, Volodya, I guess that doesn't happen in Russia.

But even George W. Bush, I was saying, possibly the most irrational person to occupy the White House since the last time it was occupied by a freedom-loving slaveholder, tried to come up with a pretext the international community could live with when he wanted to have a war; he didn't go after Baja or Michoacán. There's only one principle the United Nations really cares about, and that's the one he chose to respect: the principle of territorial integrity. Whereas you, you Ruritanian, had to go precisely after that one and grab a province, giving me my opening.

"Blinchiki tigryata".

What exactly was your plan there, little guy? Compensating much? Nine time zones not wide enough for you?

Whatever, it didn't work. Georgie who you think you are so superior to got his coalition of the killing together back in 2003, you no longer have any kind of coaltion at all: you just lost Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, for heaven's sake, and you can't even get reliable support from Belarus or Armenia! And just when China and Kazakhstan have realized how much they have in common that doesn't necessarily include you. Kyrgyzstan is still good though, so there's that.

And while it's true that Georgie's party had to pay a price as yet not fully determined for Iraq, and I had to clean up his mess, or rather walk away from it as quietly as I could, I was able to do it without any loss of face. But you, Vladitka, my little fur-coated herring, have no way out that isn't humiliating. And your stock market's down 18% for the year! Not very pleasant for your friends, is it?

Nevertheless I believe in looking forward, not back, as I always say. And unlike Georgie you haven't killed anybody on your adventure there. It's a little too late to get you out of Crimea, but maybe I can help you look a bit better, if not taller. Give me a call, chelovechik.

Which, of course, Putin did. He got to read his possibly imaginary anti-Russian thugs into the record, and he got to bring up Transnistria (O my prophetic soul! You read about it here), and we got Paris talks between Kerry and Lavrov, commencing as I'm just about to post this. We'll see what happens next.

In the meantime, hardly anybody seems to have noticed, but it looks like there's an Obama Doctrine and Gary Sick has figured out what it is. I advise you to have a look.

Image via Putinator.