We Are A Sick Country

Thing One plays for a premier league team in Newtown, CT.

He practices at a field with 26 newly planted trees around it.  The parking lot of that field was a staging area for the news media last December. After I drop him off, I drive to a Starbucks with wi-fi to do some work.  I drive by the entrance to the school, which is barricaded off about 100 yards down the main road, with some Jersey barriers under some fir trees in the gathering shade of early evening.  The fire station where some of the families gathered to wait for children who would never come home is right there, strangely small after seeing it in TV.  Across the road is a plywood shrine with 26 hearts and the spray painted invocation: "Pray for the families".  Every other car has a green ribbon.

Twice a week, my son and I dip the tips of our toes into a sorrow I can't comprehend nor do I want to.

So to the NRA, who successfully recalled at least one legislator in Colorado for passing common sense gun safety legislation, I say this:

You are the servants of Moloch, to whom the ancient Canaanites sacrificed children.  Every breath that you take is a breath you have stolen from children across this country.  This weekend, in Yellowstone National Park, a three year old child was killed with her father's handgun.  Because freedom.

We have had a remarkably open and productive debate over the past week about whether or not to use deadly force to protect international conventions about the use of chemical weapons.  But we are afraid to have such a debate when it comes to the hundreds of children each year who are fed to Moloch, sacrifices to the god who devours children.  And when that debate is joined, you work to force out of office those who would join it.

You are a cancer on the body politic.  You have warped our commonwealth to the fears and needs of a paltry, craven few who cling to cold iron more than they cling to the lives of children.

You are slaves to the Cult of the Gun.  And as a better man than me said about another cult in the service of slavery:

“In thinking of America, I sometimes find myself admiring her bright blue sky-her grand old woods-her fertile fields-her beautiful rivers-her mighty lakes and star-crowned mountains. But my rapture is soon checked when I remember that all is cursed with the infernal spirit of slave-holding and wrong; When I remember that with the waters of her noblest rivers, the tears of my brethren are borne to the ocean, disregarded and forgotten; That her most fertile fields drink daily of the warm blood of my outraged sisters, I am filled with unutterable loathing.”

This Is Awesome

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/09/surgery-wife-video-man-hot-funny.html

The Russian Gambit

So it looks like Vladimir Putin has found a way to be relevant on the global stage.  By being the "honest broker"... stop laughing... stop it... it's just a phrase... Putin can claim the lion's share of global glory for averting US strikes in Syria.

Right now, with the Winter Olympics and the headaches of likely protests from athletes and LGBT activists around the corner, Putin needs a little international good will.  With John Kerry doing his Travis Bickle imitation, the US played bad-cop to the hilt.  Whether this was ironed out at the G-20 seems doubtful.  Kerry seemed surprised when the offer came through.

And let's be clear, there are a million ways this could fall apart.

But this always had to be about the chemical weapons.  Not regime change, not feeding the war pig.  It was about the chemical weapons.

And now, with this offer on the table, the question of chemical weapons is back in the forefront.

Obama obviously needs to make his case - to the public and the UN - in order to keep the pressure on Assad.  But if Assad even turns over MOST of his chemical weapons, Obama can rightly proclaim a victory in his fight for the non-proliferation and non-use of WMD.

It's not over, by any stretch, but this is the first good option the US has had in weeks.

Give It A Greenwald Unit

(A Greenwald Unit is 24 hours long, since most Greenwald revelations tend to erode under 24 hours of scrutiny.)

The news today that John Kerry may have said something and then Vladimir Putin said, "OK" and that could mean no bombing of Syria is... good news.

For me it was always about the chemical weapons and the ban against the use of same.

If Syria hands over its chemical weapons, we will have done what we wanted to do.

WTF People?

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/group-advocates-secession-for-5-western-maryland-counties

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/colorado-county-puts-initiative-to-secede-from-state

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/county-board-votes-to-secede-from-northern-california

Secession talk shouldn't come of anything, but as the GOP increasingly makes itself irrelevant by embracing its whackaloon base, you could see more of this.

Secession is the whiner's way out, the political equivalent of trying to take your ball and go home, except it's not your ball.

Breaking Bad

Hooooo

Leeeeee


Sheeeeeeeeeeet

Summer's Over

Where did it go....

Dysfunctional

Last night I had to run out to the local sports bar to watch the USMNT crap the bed against Costa Rica, because - despite buying every sports channel possible - I don't get the one channel that carried that particular game.

There are so many sports events, heck, so many sports, that traditional television can't properly cover them.  Instead, you should have the option of selecting what you want to watch off your cable box on demand.

But since that only serves the consumers, I'm sure it will never happen.

On The Merits

My Senator, Chris Murphy, voted against the AUMF for Syria.  I disagree, but I completely understand.  He doesn't see the merit in striking Assad's regime, and there are reasons to believe that's true.

But then you have things like this: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/09/rep-coffman-backs-away-from-military-action-in-syria.php?ref=fpblg

Here's a guy who was clamoring to strike Syria until the President put it to Congress and now he'll probably vote against it.  You saw something similar - I'd warrant - in Britain, where the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition was not strong enough to back Cameron.

The merits of a case like this are tricky.  There are rarely "slam dunks" in intelligence work and "beyond a reasonable doubt" is not usually the benchmark.  But after Iraq, no one trusts nobody in the intelligence world.

But this is the politics of the modern GOP and this is why Obama's decision to go to Congress will probably mean that Assad - in my opinion - will get away with gassing civilians.

This Counts For Good News

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/09/john-boehner-may-save-america-after-all.html

If Boehner indeed is tired of managing the monkey House, then riding off to K Street makes a lot of sense.  If he can avoid shutting down the government, defaulting on the debt and maybe getting immigration reform passed, my guess is that he would indeed find a comfy landing spot amongst the lobbyists.

Obamacares

Getting the ACA up to speed and running smoothly will require a great deal of painstaking work and diligent management.

But so far it look pretty good.

This Is Why You Don't Go To Congress

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/report-mccain-says-he-wont-support-senates-syria?ref=fpblg

The reason foreign policy - and with it being Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces - was invested in a single executive was that action, energy and decisiveness are key in that area.

Obviously commitments like treaties should be ratified by the people's representatives, but Obama won't get his Syrian resolution because  - not substantive reasons - the Congress is full of lunatics and prima donnas.

This Seems Right

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/09/obama-can-win-by-losing-in-congress.html

Key 'graph:

For the purpose of deterring chemical-weapon attacks, the intent to strike matters nearly as much as the strike itself. Imagine that Congress votes not to authorize Obama’s plan. Then further imagine that Bashar al-Assad, emboldened, carries out another chemical attack. The media coverage would be far more intense. And members of Congress who voted no will have to answer for the carnage that will appear on television screens across the world. If the first vote lost by a relatively narrow margin, Obama would probably then call for a second vote and stand a good chance of winning.

Happy Labor Day

via Anne Laurie

Here's to a livable wage in a market economy rather than a market society that treats people as cost problems to be solved.

Choking On Success

The Left (including the Center Left) in this country are on a pretty good run.  Since 1988, they have lost the presidential popular vote once, to an incumbent in the middle of a war who had the lowest margin of re-election since Woodrow Wilson.

They control the Senate and while they don't control the House, more people voted for Democrats for the House than for the Republicans in the last election.

And while Obama's and the Democratic Party's approval ratings are not great, they are stellar compared to the GOP's.

Iraq, Katrina and the Crash of '08 have widely discredited the GOP, as have their continued intolerance of minorities and the poor.

But at the same time, I'm really worried.  Will Rogers famously said, "I'm not a member of an organized political party, I'm a Democrat."  And during the latter part of Rogers' life, FDR cobbled together an somewhat unsustainable coalition of urban ethnic groups, Southern conservatives and the old Progressives.

By 1972, that coalition had collapsed at the national level.  While it could still control Congress because of its conservative Southern members, it was basically hapless at the national level for 20 years, with only Watergate gifting it the White House.

And the reason was because the Democratic Party seemed to be carrying on a conversation exclusively with itself.  In other words, they were in exactly the same place that the GOP is now: talking to itself, ignoring the broader political culture and alienating large swaths of voters.

Obama's recent agonistes over Syria has alienated large swaths of his base, but his actions from a long range perspective have been trying to balance prudence with America's commitment to international norms and laws.  But watching the commentariat at several left wing blogs, there were not a few "just like Bush" comments floating around.

Reading Salon has been interesting, as it has been like a caricature of leftist gobbledy gook.  There was a piece yesterday about the oppressive nature of the word "wife".

When I was in college in the late '80s, "liberalism" was also becoming a caricature of itself.  I remember the "Antioch Rules" for dating, Catherine McKinnon's arguments that most heterosexual sex was rape and the beginning of "meat is murder".

As the Left moves into ascendancy, it has a tendency to eat its young.  It forgets that it takes a coalition and compromise to govern.  This was the outrage over the public option in the ACA that was simply never going to happen.  If the Democrats lose the Senate seat in Louisiana next November, they may come to regret not having Mary Landrieu in the Senate, not matter how annoying it can be to work with her on environmental issues.

Now, this is happening just as much or more on the Right.  Part of this is the effect of parties re-aligning ideologically over the past twenty years.  As the parties become more polarized, it becomes harder to stray from the party line.  We see this in the House, as Boehner's inability to govern is because his Caucus demands a level of purity that is unreasonable and unsustainable.

What I worry is that we are just a few election cycles away from the same sort of internecine warfare and purity standards.

When Democrats stand for marriage equality, they will win elections.  If they have to pay for hormone treatments for transgendered prisoners, they will lose.  If Democrats stand for health care and a livable wage, they will win.  If they stand for massive redistribution of wealth, they will lose.  If Democrats try and thread the line between imperium and prudence in foreign affairs, they will win.  If they become isolationist and pacifist, they will lose.

We shall see what the future holds.