U.S. Senate
See Full Big Line
(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
See Full Big Line
(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Michael Bennet
50%
50%
50%
Att. General
See Full Big Line
(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Jena Griswold
(D) Brian Mason
60%↑
30%↑
20%↓
Sec. of State
See Full Big Line
(D) A. Gonzalez
(D) George Stern
(R) Sheri Davis
50%↑
40%
30%
State Treasurer
See Full Big Line
(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
(D) Jerry DiTullio
60%↑
30%
20%↓
CO-01 (Denver)
See Full Big Line
(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
See Full Big Line
(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
See Full Big Line
(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Somebody
80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
See Full Big Line
(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
See Full Big Line
(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Somebody
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
See Full Big Line
(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
See Full Big Line
(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
See Full Big Line
(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Manny Rutinel
(D) Yadira Caraveo
45%↓
40%↑
30%
State Senate Majority
See Full Big Line
DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
See Full Big Line
DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
January 31, 2009 04:14 PM UTC
134 Comments
Under R. governor Jeb Bush, a pilot program was set up in Miami-Dade for the control of Medicaid costs. A private for profit company was set up to, essentially, be an HMO type decision maker and approver.
The Medicaid patients now have a long history of complaints of not being approved to even see a doctor or not being able to get prescriptions that they might have been on for years previously. Almost 25% of doctors have left the program in the last 18 months alone.
To top it off, the company billed the government $32 million for providing services to people outside of the catchment area. Imagine that, corruption in a profit driven entity.
Yet another patch on the patched up inner tube. Time for change, time for universal health care. Also time for the federal government to pick up the Medicaid tab 100%.
Forgot to mention that cost savings, the purpose of this disaster, is nowhere to be found. It seems like the “waste” got transmogrified into profit.
But CO Dems are trying to ‘centralize Medicaid’ along the same lines as J. Bush – except instead of a pilot, they’re shooting for the whole state at once.
The basic idea, a call center for applicants, run by a third party. Also many other options that would take control of Medicaid out of the hands of those who know what they are doing and putting it in the hands of a private third party.
All at an enormous cost to the State and local governments – without any proof this is what the state needs – or wants…
This comes from Health Care Policy and Financing – never known for their foresight or logic.
Take a look at HMSA which does this in Hawaii. It’s not perfect but it does work pretty well.
I think that is the central issue.
The theoretical advantage of private is that they won’t waste money. Unfortunately, this is countered by the need for profit and that oversight has a contractual barrier. What is going wrong might be invisible for a long time. Like in FL.
The theoretical advantage of government running the show is that the accountability is immediate to the lege and the communications conduit is in place. No profit motive. MediCARE has an overhead burdern of about 3%, one tenth that of most private insurers.
to the detriment of sound policy. As with most things, the variation falls along a continuum rather than falling into binary categories: At one extreme is a pure governmental enterprise, and at the other is a pure private sector enterprise, but in between are a great variety of hybrids, ranging from a marginal introduction of market incentives for employees of a government-run operation to heavily regulated private contractors, and including overlapping spectra of variously regulated private-sector contractors to variously incentivized public-sector service-providers. In the overlapping zone of very heavily regulated private-sector contractors and very heavily incentivized public sector providers, the distinction seems evaporate.
The point is that we should identify solid humanist goals (maximizing the sustainable productivity and social justice of our social institutional framework) but not presume how best to achieve them. The best answers are likely not at the poles, but rather are to be found in creative combinations of existing strategies that yield surprising results.
But I’ll bet MC representatives are like stink on shit all the time. Right there, monitoring.
Just wondering.
he says, as he opens his trenchcoat to reveal various hard-bound tomes dangling from hooks in the lining….
Give me a topic you want “sociologized,” and I’ll whip one up for you.
Your brother Bernie’s wedding? “Disparities in age and socioeconomic status are less indicative of probable future dissolution of a marriage when there is a recipricol coupling of interests which offsets the various incompatabilities otherwise implicated in such unions.”
Your dog’s tonsillectomy? “A growing number of human-companion animal relationships are characterized by an escalating commitment to the fulfilment of quasi-familial obligations toward the companion animal, even at considerable expense to the human care giver.”
The quesadilla you just ate? “Culinary cultural diffusion is most robust for high-sodium, high-fat content cuisine, due in part to the difficulty of satisfying such essential dietary requirements in the natural habitats in which humans evolved, and the subsequent evolutionary success in creating a strong desire to consume such dietary elements but a complete evolutionary failure to provide a trigger to preclude overconsumption.”
Very funny.
i dont kno what medicade is but i kno bush is teh suxxorz!
I’m not sure how to classify this song – definitely different. Natasha Koroleva has a beautiful voice and Nikolay Baskov is considered by many to be the greatest tenor in the world.
on 12.3? They’re so stupid, but in fable form. Laugh and learn I guess.
First we had Timothy Geithner who is supposed to be our country’s foremost expert on how to run the treasury department – yet he supposedly “forgot” to list his income on his taxes. And when told to do so for 2 years, didn’t clue in that he needed to for the other 2 years.
Yeah, right.
So now from ABC News we have:
Apparently being a top politico means never having to pay taxes…
This is a big deal because we need leaders who realize that the rules apply to them too.
And we Dems have to speak up loud and clear that we don’t approve of this, regardless of who does it.
Because a lot of us who are Republicans think that the Dems want people to pay more taxes, as long as they themselves don’t have to pay them.
for both parties and the elite who feel entitled.
But I agree its BS…
From Scrappleface: http://www.scrappleface.com/?p…
Honestly though, would we have a deficit if all of these Democratic leaders would simply pay their taxes? 🙂
tax liability on the friend’s car and driver but why would he think he didn’t have to pay taxes on consulting fees? And 83K in taxes represents a lot of consulting fees. I’m sick of this. Don’t see where Daschle is so uniquely qualified for this position that Obama can’t find somebody else. And he should.
I believe the tax statements to Daschle left off one month’s worth of the consulting fees, and his accountants paid taxes based on what was reported. Later, examining and reconciling everything, they discovered he’d been paid for one more month than had been reported. It’s an understandable, though worrisome, oversight. Frankly, the fact he audited himself and rectified it speaks well for taking responsibility for mistakes. The fact he made so much money for basically being a former elected official is what troubles me.
83K in taxes for one month’s worth of “consulting” fees? So the oversight is understandable because it was such a drop in the bucket? I share your concerns RedGreen. It certainly IS troubling and hardly represents the kind of change most of us are looking for.
..calling this what it is.
Does it seem that this is a little pervasive for a brand-new administration?
Daschle
Richardson
Geithner
So you’ve basically got two examples, and you’re spacing them out to make it look “pervasive.”
Personally I think it’s a “new money” problem. People in a Republican administration had fewer such problems, since if you’re friends with Bush you grew up learning how to shield your money from the IRS. People like Daschle first get money in their 40s and don’t know how to properly cheat on their taxes. So they do dumb things like comb through their records looking for ways to embarrass themselves, instead of waiting for the FBI to arrest them on tax fraud.
You’re trying to paint the Obama administration as corrupt? Do you have any historical perspective at all, any grip on reality?
It’s refreshing to see that “muckraking” is alive and well.
“Mr. Impartial” starts to show partisan cracks…
Nowhere did I say Obama’s admin was corrupt.
I’m curious why he’s nominated a number of people whose tax issues would have put any of us in bankruptcy or jail.
I’m a registered democrat and a passionate progressive. I agree quite thoroughly with the values and goals of the left, though I will continue to advocate tirelessly for ever-increasing sophistication in our identification of the most effective means for getting there.
Personally, I do not distinguish between a clearly implied meaning and an explicit statement when attributing a position to a speaker or writer. I also do not claim infallability. The post of yours to which I was responding seemed to me very clearly to imply an accusation of a tendency on Obama’s part to select corrupt officials for cabinet posts. I may have misinterpreted you, but, having re-read your post several times, I am unable to find any other interpretation that makes sense.
But I do appreciate your calling me “Mr. Impartial.” It’s an ideal worth striving for, in the sense of not starting with conclusions but rather arriving at them systematically and intelligently.
to Bush era GOP follies. For the most part very happy with Obama picks and don’t expect pols to be Mother Theresa. But I still would be perfectly happy to see Obama dump Daschle. Just don’t see what makes him uniquely qualified compared with many others who would smell a lot sweeter.
I work as a consultant myself and am very careful to do the research BEFORE I earn my fees re: taxes, liabilities, proper reporting etc. I also started in my 40s after working for 20 years in the non-profit sector, so its not like I already knew how to properly hide my assets.
That said, competence in a cabinet pick is what is most important–unlike Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, etc. which seemed more about neocon ideology and yes-man credentials than any other kind.
Rumsfeld doubted that the U.S. would be in Iraq for more than 6 months…!
Gonzales never could give a straight answer.
Ashcroft paid thousands in tax-payer dollars to cover up boobies on the fountain at the Supreme Court, gutted FOIA…etc.
Its apples and oranges between Bush’s picks and Obama’s. And no, I don’t see a ‘pervasive’ trend. There were numerous controversies around Bush’s and Reagan’s appointments too (think Bork, Watts)…
simple as that.
Our country is drowning in debt…our President doesn’t need a cabinet that is full of tax cheats…especially to the tune of $120K–more than most families bring in in 3 years.
These are beyond hilarious. (not all posted here because of the space it would take – but here’s my favorite:
damn elephants blocking progess…
Does anyone have a link to Michael Bennet’s new campaign website? I cannot find it. Also, Will he visit the Boulder or Ft. Collins area. Thank you in advance.
Not much content yet. I didn’t see a schedule posted, either.
for giving an informed and informative talk at ProgressNow’s Roots Camp in Denver this morning. I appreciated his straight-forward, non-dissembling style; the clarity and depth of his answers to questions; and his avoidance of thinking or speaking in plattitudes. Intelligence in government is a valuable commodity.
No comment.
Was Normandy worth it?
and were a battleground in a world war. The allied invasion was generally a welcome event. The invasion of Iraq, on the other hand, was the product of manipulated intelligence in order to con Congress and the People into engaging in an unnecessary war, one which was never broadly popular among the people of the country we attacked, with neither the threat of imminent danger to ourselves or other countries, nor with international support (not even of most of our allies, and certainly not of their peoples). Throughout our occupation of Iraq, over 90% of Iraqis have considered us foreign aggressors who should be resisted, and over half considered it justified to kill American soldiers at any time, any where, as long as they continued their occupation. Our invasion directly caused tens of thousands of civilian deaths in Iraq, and indirectly caused hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, inflicting about one 9/11 per month for over four years.
The entire world cried out in horror at what America was doing. But of all of America’s remarkable talents as a nation, our collective ability to maintain a blind and irrational faith in our own completely discredited benevolence is the most impressive of all.
You not only lessen the importance of D-Day, but you ignore the fact that we were invading France to attack the Nazis.
We invaded Iraq because we didn’t like the guy who was running it.
We landed at Normandy to throw out the people who invaded France. You know, people kind of like us.
I view the invasion of Iraq as justifiable. I know you all disagree, but that’s how I feel. I don’t base my opinions on anything other than my knowledge and my values. But please, for the sake of discourse, assume hypothetically that you agree with me.
If so, then Normandy and the occupation of Iraq were both military actions for good reasons that were tactically carried out very poorly. Many lives were wasted, war crimes occurred, and post-conflict, much better choices that could have been made became apparent.
I don’t want to get into a pissing match over the colonial ambitions of Bush, or whomever. I think most of that is nonsense. But in a purely military planning sense, the two actions are very similar in my eyes.
Rule #27 from the Handbook of Ideological Argumentation: “When confronted with stronger arguments, always argue against something that no one ever said.”
The invasion of Iraq was the exploitation of expediency: Bush really wanted to attack Iraq and take out Saddam, and 9/11 gave him a unique political opportunity to do so. It was open season on Arabs (How many Americans saw the invasion of Iraq as an attack against those who had attacked us on 9/11?).
As for your original comparison being one based on “a purely military planning sense,” that’s like comparing the Holocaust to the Moon landing (both being very systematically and scientifically pursued highly ambitious goals that involved some trial and error and ad-hoc innovation along the way, and both prosecuted with considerable success). Yet, oddly, if someone asked “was the Holocaust worth what it cost Germany?” the response, “I don’t know, was the Moon landing worth what it cost America?” would seem a bit of a non sequitor.
As did your response.
..comparing the MIlitary planning of Normandy and OIF is like comparing the first three Broncos Super Bowls to the last two.
Normandy was planned over two years, and drew extensively from experience (good and bad) with Dieppe, Sicily and other ops in the Pacific.
OIF was in comparison, drawn up in the dirt by GEN Franks who committed gross command negligence by letting Rumsfeld dictate to him his force levels, mix and deployment. He didn’t even plan it – he abdicated his responsibility to FORSCOM HQ, who protested repeated that the mission could not be accomplished with the force mix dictated.
GEN Eric Shinseki ended his Army career by testifying before Congress that Rumsfeld and Franks were full of shit. We know now he was right – and 4000+ SM have paid with their lives for it.
The joint force attack at Normandy was a resounding success, and aside from one Beachhead, blew away all the Axis forces defending the area, and opened up a gaping hole that Patton would later blaze thru. Planning and leadership made sure that the initial operation would be the foundation for later successful operations.
OIF was an iffy thing, all the way thru the consolidation operations outside of Baghdad. NO planning was made for the end of military operations, and when commanders on the ground realized that irregular forces would be the greatest threat to the operation, Rumsfeld and Franks went into denial mode. They had put all their chips on a disgraced lunatic refugee, who told them the sweet lies they wanted to hear.
But…
We had 10,000 casualties in a single day, and troops were dropped off at the wrong places, were ill-equipped to jump out of boats and not be dragged to the bottom by their equipment, and the naval and aerial bombardment did little to soften up the coastal defenses. In fact, hundreds were killed in a training exercise for the landings at Normandy.
Whereas,
The first three weeks of the invasion of Iraq were the most successful and fast-moving invasion in human history. It was the aftermath that was totally blown by Rumsfeld and others. The CPA was a disaster. De-Baathification was a disaster.
My Gulf War was the most successful in Military History. GWII was a goat-rope from the time most units crossed the LD.
It’s not just my opinion – Fort Leavenworth’s AAR was not kind to Franks and the rest of the jerks running the war. I wish I could send you a link for it, but it was classified the moment the press got ahold of it.
That activity is here (http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/cgsc/) – if you can find where they hid it, share!
Or, you can read Cobra II by Michael Gordon and GEN Trainer – http://www.amazon.com/Cobra-II…
Claiming Op Overlord was a disaster is just not true – only Utah beach went badly. And in the end, the US forces still pushed the Germans out of hteir positions and made them run away. The Canadians were looking for someone to shoot at. Axis forces were pretty much routed after Day 4.
.
Actually, there was a well-developed plan for how to handle the short-term occupation and transition to Iraqi control.
It’s preparation was led by the appropriate executive agency, the Department of State.
It was not used.
.
.
Are you asking me to assume that there was a legit US national security concern that justified the invasion ?
We disagree on that. But for the sake of discussion, I will suspend my disagreement on this point and pretend I think that military action was called for.
Both Operations, Overlord and Iraqi Freedom, had adequate military planning and preparation. The CENTCOM staff has had an invasion plan on the shelf since before Stormin’ Norman Schwarzkopf was CINC.
Both invasions were adequately executed.
The decision to bypass strongpoints was written into Air-Land Battle doctrine as far back as the 1970’s, when I studied it at Infantry Officer Basic.
Staff Sergeant Dan’s criticisms of force levels, mix and deployment didn’t impinge on the Thunder Run to Baghdad, which was important to destroy the enemy’s will to fight – as an organized conventional army.
What suffered was the mop-up, the going back to defeat the strongpoints in detail.
We had REMF’s like Jessica Lynch driving into a Fedeyeen roadblock when there should have been combat units to clear the way.
Tactically, the invasion was adequate.
The consolidation failed. As you say, the occupation was a tactical failure.
That was not a matter of tactical failures at the unit level.
It was a leadership failure.
Tommy Franks tried to duck responsibility for he follow-up. He sought the glory of quick victory and shirked the duty of finishing what he’d started.
Overall he is a failure and a coward and a partisan hack, and it is appropriate that GW Bush awarded him a Medal of Freedom. Those go to cowards, failures and partisan hacks.
Our Army never trained to conduct a hostile occupation before 2003, and they should NOT have trained for it.
Such an operation is against the values in the Declaration of Independence.
As someone who dearly loves our Army, I am glad that we did such a poor job of brutal occupation. We shouldn’t be doing that job at all, not for more than a couple of weeks, anyway.
Even if we defeat a conventional foe like Russia, we should not be planning to follow that up with a hostile occupation.
We should transition to indigenous rule in a matter of weeks, after removing the problematic leadership that took them to war against us in the first place.
In contrast, I don’t have as much of a problem with benign occupation.
If Maliki wins these elections,
and he asks the US military to stay,
and the Iraqi people agree with that,
then even I would be OK with a US military presence of extended duration.
I strongly believe in “the consent of the governed.”
I just can’t imagine that happening.
.
…but to make my point clear to Barron X, I need to pull out FM 100-5-1, and start talking about things like TPFDL. We’ll loose the rest of our web audience shortly after that.
BX, I was there at III Corps G3 TacOps for GWI. I know how long and careful the process was for Desert Storm – because we were smart enough not to implement Desert Paladin.
In contrast, I have both friends still in and books like Cobra II which show Franks was less interested in planning the Op than he was on being on TV. People were screaming for 4th ID to be in the force mix immediately, and instead Rumsfeld treated the war like he was running a Staples, and held it back because it might cost too much.
The plan(s) you’re talking about were always being revised – and when the FORSCOM guys tried to pull in some of those into Cobra II, they got shot down by Franks.
The Thunder Runs worked, but they weren’t the Medal of Honor playstation level like the press depicted. The only reason they didn’t get their asses handed to them on the early runs was the skill of the troops, not the dumbass plan to drive an M1 Abrams down a street without Infantry support.
Maybe this is my first diary on Pols….
Hitler, (or Die Fuhrer, as boyles calls him) feared Russia because it was a Communist power. He feared that the Russian army would come across the plains of Poland and invade Germany. The invasion of Poland was a “blitzkreig”…a lightening war. The Germans met little or no resistence, few causalities. The occupation was relatively peaceful. There was a problem with the Jews. But, again, Hitler saw the Jews as communist sympathizers; saw they had “control” of academia and financial institutions; saw them as a potential “fifth column” which had to be destroyed. Other than that, what Hitler did to protect Germany would be consistent with your beliefs. If I am incorrect, and you would not have supported the invasion of Poland, why not??
Dwyer is 100% on the money, especially having just read the history of the invasion and the Russian response.
The Russian response was to invade from the east, and amicably split Poland with Stalin’s Non-Aggression Pact pal.
Doesn’t change anything said so far.
Totally different circumstances, and I think you’re missing out on the skapegoating of the Jews much earlier than the invasion of Poland, and that they were used as a tool for Hitler’s ascent to power.
I doubt the Germans feared a Jewish 5th column in any way.
The occupation of Poland was anything but peaceful, and the Germans had no intention of the Poles self-managing at any point. It was about “Lebensraum” more than any fear of the Soviets. There was no desire to ever withdraw from Poland.
The German advance into Poland was purely a stepping stone into more territory for the Germans. That is the principle difference between that Nazi aggression and anything the U.S. has done in Iraq. The Nazis would not have celebrated a free election in Poland that could result in them being asked to leave ASAP.
BTW, the Germans didn’t really fear the Russians, either, other than they didn’t want to fight on two fronts at once. If Hitler had invaded Russia 8 weeks earlier than he did, there’s a good chance that we wouldn’t be calling it Russia today.
My question to you, LB was would you support Germany’s right to invade Poland in order to promote its self interest as a nation…be that defense or “living space?”
Certainly, Germany felt its survival was more important that
the national integrity of Poland.
The leader of Poland had never been caught trying to hide chemical weapons or assassinate the Kaiser.
Among many other examples of how 1930s Germany is not congruous with the U.S. in 2002-2003.
The Kaiser was twenty years long gone when Germany invaded Poland. The justification for invading Iraq was that they were caught trying to hide chemical weapons. No. That is not true. Bush tried to get the UN to sanction the invasion of vague grounds such as that and they would not. You are all wet.
What I am trying to do, here, LB, is get you to define what international law applied to Germany’s invasion of Poland which did not apply to US invasion of Iraq.
In both cases, it was a preemptive strike. International law says that such preemptive strike is justified only when the threat is imminent. ….such as if Poland had tanks on Germany’s border ready to invade OR if Iraq had long range missiles pointed at the US with the capacity to strike us and the stated intent to do so, immediately.
I am looking for you to cite the law and why it should be applied differently..to Germany than to the US.
The difference, to LB, is that it’s okay to be an ultra-nationalist American advocating military aggression in advancement of perceived national interest, because America is “good,” but not okay to be a 1939 ultra-nationalist German advocating military aggression in advancement of perceived national interest, because Nazi Germany was “bad.”
What LB doesn’t understand is that such subjective evaluations are dependent on one’s point of view. The significance of the fact that so many people in the world see Bush Administration America as an aggressor, much as we see Nazi Germany as an aggressor, escapes LB, and others like him, because they can’t look at the world through a lens that is not tinted by their nationalist ideology.
And while there are many significant differences between Nazi Germany and Bush Administration America, that blindly aggressive nationalist impulse is, sadly, not among them.
Were certainly not the sole justification. There were many other reasons and here’s a good place to read them.
We have a different role in the world as the sole superpower. After 9/11, a State sponsor of terrorism that was as much of a loose cannon as Saddam couldn’t be tolerated. He had the ability and had shown the desire to hurt the U.S. in any way possible.
Another difference is that there was no U.N. at the time of the Nazi invasion of Poland. We had the just-barely-more-pathetic-than-the-U.N. League of Nations which proved to be a waste of everyone’s time in stopping Hitler. After 9/11, we couldn’t risk the inability of an inept organization being able to stop Saddam from deploying weapons that he already said he had that he would no longer account for, among his myriad of other violations.
Germany invaded Poland in a quest for territory. We invaded Iraq to remove Saddam’s government, and then bumbled our way through Iraq’s reconstruction at a horrible cost. If we’d made better decisions immediately post-invasion and withdrawn earlier, we’d be in a different ballgame right now.
I understand a pacifist’s point of view and I respect it. I wouldn’t be so rude or elitist as Steve to say that you guys simply don’t understand the way of the world. That’s a chickenshit way out of a debate, and a terribly petty and intolerant way to view others.
The truth is, we just have different beliefs.
But any time someone compares Nazi Germany to the modern U.S., in my opinion I think there’s a misunderstanding of the Nazis motivation versus ours, but it’s not because anyone is dense or simple.
I appreciate the honest debate, Dwyer. Steve, kiss the squirrel.
Who claimed to be a pacifist?
Serious conflation of Steve’s point here. His–as usual–thoughtful response hardly compared Nazi Germany to the modern U.S., merely pointed out that world opinion viewed the U.S. as the aggressor here.
The U.S. did in fact hide behind the U.N., using various resolutions as rationale. Saddam said he had disarmed–and our own inspectors and U.N. inspectors–who we said we would allow to finish their jobs, confirmed this.
The myriad other justifications came after the fact–after it was apparent that the primary excuse for invading Iraq was bogus. You remember, right?–in testimony before Congress and the U.N. about mushroom clouds, yellow cake, etc. all proved to be false.
As they say, reasonable people can disagree but you are re-inventing history here.
I was responding to Dwyer:
***
I don’t think this is true. In fact they said there was a desire to reconstitute his WMD and atomic programs at the time of the invasion.
***
Um, No.
Although, the way my job is looking, I may join the ranks of full time bloggers momentarily…However, LB, Steve Harvey and Club Twitty can carry on the discussion far better than I, at this point. But I did want to follow up on one thing:
Even if true, this does not represent justification for a preemptive strike. i think it is generally conceded, now, that Saddam was afraid of his traditional enemy, Iran, and “talked big” to try to discourage aggressive action from that quarter.
it’s recognizing the military “solution” as being the last option rather than the first, to be used as a last resort rather than as a first reflex.
The UN is what the UN, and what we allow it to be. As you said, it has just slightly more teeth than the League of Nations before it. The evolution of international law and governance is slow, and depends on powerful nations’ willingness to facilitate it. If you would prefer a less “inept” international organization, you have to empower it to perform the functions which you delegate to it.
We have been doing just the opposite. We are the least willing to submit to any kind of international law that we don’t dictate the terms of. That’s hardly an admirable or helpful stance to take.
Most importantly, our unilateralism hasn’t worked very well, and it will backfire with increasing ferocity the more we adhere to it (which, fortunately, does not seem to be our current foreign policy trajectory).
respectful, tolerant, and well-reasoned discourse for us. I tried to take your advice, but the squirrel reminded me that “no means no,” and I quickly relented.
I think what offends you is that I do precisely what people in rational discourse should do: Argue the issues, logically, systematically, and effectively. I don’t call you names, suggest that you try to engage in intimate acts with possibly rabid animals, or complain that you are intolerant of my views. I just argue the issues, pointing out fallacies in opposing arguments, and taking particular aim against blind ideologies, including those of the left.
Yes, certainly, I find some points of view more inviting of relentless, reasoned opposition than others. I find some points of view to be more dangerous than others, more similar to endemic historical forms of divisive and destructive tribalism than others, and all-the-more a cause for concern given their popularity in the most powerful nation on Earth. I see paths into the future that serve the interests of humanity, and paths into the future that undermine the interests of humanity, and I advocate passionately in favor of the former and against the latter. Without apology.
I don’t rely on plattitudes and oversimplistic ideologies: I recognize the robustness of markets, and their value in addressing human needs and goals; I understand that we are embedded in complex dynamical systems rather than just being a collection of individuals; and I dedicate myself to trying to understand how to work with these realities to achieve what I hope all people of good will want to achieve.
No need to take offense.
Which is rare, it’s in a snarky sense, and not in a combative one, hence the squirrel. I have a buddy who’s constantly harping about anyone that disagrees with him as not being “evolved” enough to understand the issues, and it’s tremendously annoying.
I don’t have any problem defending the reasoning we used to invade Iraq, and it’s not because I’m dense, but I don’t think you think that either.
I look forward to the continuing debate, then, and a pleasant beer together, giving each other a good-natured hard time.
BTW, the squirrel is STILL playing hard to get….
Let’s hope the Squirrel is MIA at every Pols meet up.
“Was My Lai worth it?”
it’s pictures like this that inspired someone to say “a picture is worth a thousand words.”
Fantastic day for Iraq…despite how we/they got there…
I agree, and am sorry that so many others here obviously don’t.
Don’t suppose we’d ever know, since nobody gives a shit who this woman actually is and how she might be doing several years later. Hope she doesn’t live in East Shariaville where she can’t go outside unless her husband or brother escorts her.
You must really hate Muslims to project that kind of fate on her!
If so, it does indicate poor character, but not sxp’s. If not, then re-read sxp’s post a bit more carefully, consider what it was in response to, and recognize that you have recast it according to your needs rather than according to its meaning.
What I should have said is, “You prefer that she be raped if she had caught the eye of a Baath Party official or her husband offended the same?” If we are going to talk about extremes that is. And I’m sure the term Shariaville might be considered bigoted.
And I respect Christians, but if you somehow had me executed for having a little sodomy once in a while, I wouldn’t respect your views.
Iraq before this latest war wasn’t a great place to live; if you kept your mouth shut you were usually fine, but torture, political executions, and rape were widespread if you didn’t. It sucked for many people.
We spent a lot of money, killed a lot of people, and destroyed a lot of shit to change that. So if we failed to get rid of torture, political executions, and rape, I think we have a serious problem. It then becomes fair to ask whether it was really worthwhile.
Women are totally free in Iraq and face no intimidation if they go outside without a full-body covering?
http://riverbendblog.blogspot….
I may be wrong about the purple fingers getting cut off; I remember there being threats to do that, but trying to find a source now it doesn’t seem to have happened. Strange.
please keep them up
Hopefully it will make people quit using misattributed or made up quotes around here…
The Franklin quote has a lot more weight than the BS Limbaugh one on Friday.
You DICK!
(_*_)
I agreed that the Limbaugh one was probably wrong, just as I think the Franklin one is probably wrong, and the Cicero one was most definitely wrong, and those are just the ones that have happened since I starting caring two days ago.
But it IS AIMED RIGHT AT YOUR FACE!!!
Did you ever see “Waiting for Guffman”? Classic meltdown scene with Chris Guest on the phone –
“Bastard People!”
I’ve seen Spinal Tap, Best in Show, Mighty Wing, and For Your Consideration. Gotta get around to it eventually.
I’ll bring it to you if we can get together this week. New badass work Mac Pro is ripping my DVD collection as we speak so I don’t have disks lying around anymore for 2-year-olds to mess up.
I would recommend “The Grand,” with David Cross.
I’ll put it on my Netflix queue.
I love poker and its sort of poker spoof, like Best in Show was a spoof on dog shows.
…they had running water and electricity and women went to school. Society was stable and most people’s needs – other than freedom – were met.
Yes, if you were on his wrong side, it was a painful experience. But worse than the several hundred thousand dead since we invaded?
I think not.
It depends on whom you ask. I didn’t notice the electricity or the running water in the background, but I’m sure it was there somewhere.
during the period when we were funding both sides of the dirty war–helping our (then) boy Saddam in Iraq buy chemical weapon precursors and weaponry AND funneling (illegal) weapons to the Iranians out of the WH basement (via illegal transactions with the right-wing killers in Nicaragua, and perhaps through drug proceeds)…
Funny how your memory is so selective LB. I don’t think anyone here is saying Saddam was a good guy, but let’s be reasonable enough to put it in context and understand the complexities…
BTW–Bush’s Iraq war is one of the best things that has happened to Iranian hardliners since…well, since Ollie and Ronnie.
they had statues of Saddam.
Now they have a statue of a shoe:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl…
By the order of the Government. I wish they hadn’t done that – free speech is probably unsettling to them.
How about those American-style freedoms that 4,000 of our sons and daughters died for? You know, the ones that neocons decided they could push on people who didn’t understand freedom?
Disgusting.
I hope you’re not suggesting that critiquing an American military invasion of another country is off-limits if one good outcome can be identified? (Almost any historical military invasion would be rationalizable by that method, including those of the Axes powers in WWII and the Soviet Union during the cold war). Similarly, I hope you’re not suggesting that the means justify the ends?
I agree that it was “a fantastic day for Iraq,” but not a fantastic year, or several years, or probably decade or several decades to come. As for how to measure the virtues of our invasion, I would think that the widespread opinions of the people we were supposedly benefiting would have some place in the analysis.
As for the occurence of a democratic election justifying all of the violence we have inflicted, well, while I consider a democratic election to be a big gain, I also consider the destruction of hundreds of thousands of lives and of the country’s infrastructure and economy to be considerable costs.
A little less jingoism and a little more rational discussion is in order.
Is that there are some here who either willfully or in ignorance, cannot see the significance of what is happening there. They have to downplay if not actually dismiss the fact that a nation that was under a brutal totalitarian regime less than a decade ago has progressively conducted free elections over past few years. They cannot allow themselves to acknowledge any improvements from the days of Saddam Hussein’s regime without the obligatory knee-jerk attack on the means used to remove him from power.
When you said, “The entire world cried out in horror at what America was doing.” That wasn’t supposed to be jingoistic or inflammatory? Not to mention hyperbolic.
It may be that the sheer hatred of former President Bush leaves them psychologically unable to believe that anything good or positive can possibly can result from his time in office. I really don’t know. All I know is that I can read the absolute hatred of the free elections in Iraq from some of the postings here.
Iraq has just conducted their second free election since the American invasion. Most seem to acknowledge that such elections fall on the plus side of the ledger. Beyond that, Iraq is, by all material measures, including personal safety, in worse shape than it was the day before the invasion. That’s just a fact. If you want to rewrite history for ideological reasons, by all means, have at it, but then you have to expect people who are a bit more interested in factual accuracy to respond accordingly.
My statement that “the entire world cried out in horror at what America was doing” certainly wasn’t jingoism (look up the word). If it was hyperbole, it was only marginally so: International opposition to our invasion was widespread and strongly felt. Again, that is just a fact, and, again, you are free to try to rewrite history for ideological purposes, but, again, those who prefer accuracy will probably respond accordingly.
But, so that you don’t feel that we are unable to agree on anything, I do believe that something good and positive came out of Bush’s time in office: A country so disgusted that it swung hard in the opposite direction in our own recent presidential election. Now that’s something for which we owe Bush a debt of gratitude.
There was the January 2005, the December 2005, and then this one. That is fact, not rewriting history. (Was that what you were doing, or are you just unfamiliar with the facts?) We will see if President Obama will be willing to support Iraq so that they may enjoy the freedom of choosing their own government rather than having it imposed upon them. Which is something to be celebrated by anyone who finds the use of rape as and physical mutilation as a political tool and the use of chemical warfare as a form of controlling the populace an act of repugnance.
.
he may be thinking that the first one or two didn’t count as “free and fair.”
If so, he could cite some reasons.
#1. The UN has a team that assesses elections. They didn’t think those first two passed muster as “free and fair.”
#2. Next door in Iran, a council of Mullahs decides who is allowed to get on the ballot. For those first two elections in Iraq in 1995, a panel of US officials manned the comparable Mullah council.
#3. During those first 2 elections, the US Government paid campaign expenses for particular candidates, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.
#4. Remember how every third candidate on each party list had to be a woman ? That was dictated by US officials. That was not an Iraqi idea.
#5. And as far as the lists go, the US designed the elections to produce a certain type of outcome. Who else uses that type of election ?
I certainly don’t know how they deigned a specific outcome, but the UN folks referenced above could explain it. Maybe Steve could.
Both of the 2005 elections were rigged.
The Bush administration was not going to permit the Iraqi people to choose their own leaders at that early date.
In June 2003, shortly after the invasion, a citizen group in al-Hillah organized municipal elections. Bremer shut them down. Back then, the administration publicly stated that the Iraqis were not yet ready for democracy. Voting is no good if the wrong folks win.
.
in part because of the insurgency, in part for reasons you gave above, which is why I used the word “progressively” when describing them.
I think the basic difference between Steve, sxp, parsing, ect, and myself is that I find joy that the Iraqis are having these elections and they think it is wrong that I do so.
for the vitriol that resulted from LB’s original posting.
.
I tried to prevent the war. I hated the war. I worked to try to get the occupation ended sooner.
I hate that Bush will now claim credit for the elections last week, and that he will never count the cost.
But, as for the elections themselves, I love them and the fact that, as near as I can tell, they were planned and conducted by Iraqis.
Even if this set of elections is later faulted as not fully “free and fair,” that is an Iraqi responsibility now, not ours.
.
You’re literally unable to imagine that anyone might have an opinion different from yours for a good reason. You think we’re all just nasty hateful people, and that’s why we disagree with you.
“I think the basic difference between Steve, sxp, parsing, ect, and myself is that I find joy that the Iraqis are having these elections and they think it is wrong that I do so.”
The basic difference is that we’re all handsome and charming, and you’re, well, uh, hmmmm….
Just kidding (obviously). No, the basic difference btwn myself and you, on issues such as this, is that I don’t select a single variable to emphasize to the exclusion of all others, and select it on the basis of what I find most emotionally gratifying to believe. Rather, I acknowledge (over and over again) that the one variable you exalt as wonderful is indeed wonderful, but that it is surrounded by other variables that are horrible.
I don’t think it is wrong, per se, to celebrate whatever good has come, or will come, of our invasion of Iraq, but I do think that it is wrong to do so without simultaneously lamenting all the bad that has come, and will come, of it.
Parsing, sxp, and I disagree on many issues. The one thing we sometimes agree on is that it does not best serve the honor and dignity of our nation to ignore its errors and embrace its imaginary benevolence and infallability. America is neither a saint nor a devil, but rather a nation-state, far less exceptional than both its fanatical worshippers (almost all of them Americans) and its fanatical detractors (quite numerous among non-Americans) believe. Its differences from other nations are of degree rather than kind: It is more powerful than other nations, a characteristic that always falls upon some nation in any given historical epoch. It has gotten some things right, and some things wrong. It is a club organized to protect the interests of its members, and when their interests and the interests of humanity do not coincide, it is generally humanity that loses.
Such truths offend many Americans, because we have created a particular breed of ultra-nationalism, one in which the failure to exalt the supreme benevolence and infallability of the patria is a sin against all that is good and right. But, for my part, I think it is the ultra-nationalism itself that is a sin against all that is good and right.
Just one man’s opinion.
Of course, a but. Or butt!
I’m happy as hell they are having elections.
I just think the pricetag was way too high. And none of our beeswax to be there.
you’re going to have to un-but it. I agree with your bottom line.
On the Friday Edition of KCRW’s “To The Point”, Bruce Bartlett and Peter Ferrara, two Reagan-disciple Repubs, were invited to discuss the topic of the day(“Does Bipartianship really matter?”)
Bruce Barlett delivered a pretty well-reasoned analysis of why the House Repubs refused to play nice, and had some harsh criticism for them taking his Party to super-minority status.
Peter Ferrara was next and only offered the usual Think-Thank Repub dismissal of any Economic Theory he didn’t like, and started parroting the usual “only tax cuts can save us now!” crap.
Mr Barlett’s reply was both direct and vicious:
“I think that anybody who follows Peter’s advice is an idiot, just as he is. He has no idea what he is talking about. He is just reading the Republican Party’s talking points.”
Mr. Ferrara’s response was equally venomous:
“Well, I take Bruce’s name-calling as an admission that he has no substantive response — the economics that I’m talking about here have been proven over and over again, and the Keynesian economic approach that he is talking about has been proven a failure, in the 1930s, in the 1970s, and in the 1990s.”
It got better as the show went on – more here: http://www.kcrw.com/news/progr…
That same argument has been played over and over again by our Conservative Alumni, but seldom have you see two Reagan Clones duke it out like this.
Their former boss had a saying about Republicans and fighting…I wonder if they remember that?
Gotta love it – from ABC News
“She lied to us,” said a Republican at the retreat.
“I told you she would never consciously betray the rebellion,” said another.
“Terminate her, immediately!”
What, am I the only one who’s reminded of Grand Moff Tarkin every time I hear Republicans at retreats or conventions?
http://www.google.com/hostedne…
So Gregg (R-NH) wants the job in Obama’s administration, and Mitch McConnell gets assurances that the Democratic governor of New Hampshire will appoint a Republican?
Sorry, did the Steelers agree to repaint all the lines on the football field 10 yards down, so the Cardinals might have a fair shot today? Why do we have to keep pretending that Republicans won enough elections to be taken seriously? Why are we in a power-sharing agreement with them?
The Dems sure are pussy-footing around.
Bet you that beer that either Gregg declines or te Governor appoints a Republican…
The article I linked to basically says that the governor has already agreed to appoint a Republican (or at least an independent who would caucus with Republicans).
But yeah, it’s weird how we need one hand and one foot tied behind our backs before we get to actually govern.
This is a GOP senator saying he won’t leave for a cabinet position unless he’s replaced by a GOP member. Since it’s his option, and the replacement can easily be a placeholder leaving it an open seat in ’10, I thin that’s quite reasonable.
As you mentioned elsewhere, New Hampshire is trending Democratic. Gregg doesn’t stand a great chance of winning re-election in 2010 in any case. I don’t know if he cares all that much about the Republican position in the Senate.
Besides, apparently Cabinet appointments are a big deal. Everyone who’s offered seems to have accepted regardless of the political implications (Janet Napolitano being only the most obvious example).
On the other hand, it’s a Democratic governor appointing a Senator in 2009, so the only thing you can really bet on is the fact that he probably won’t be from Mars.
Well I just taught my two younger ones how to check the oil & tire pressure on their cars. It seems like yesterday that they were in elementary school…
And short skirts don’t count (although highly effective.)
Honolulu: Unions, company agree to 10% pay cut
The two-year contract extension for about 550 employees at The Honolulu Advertiser ends years of talks that included a first-ever bloggers’ strike, and revealed the paper is now losing money in Hawaii’s weakened tourism-based economy. A union members’ vote has been scheduled for Feb. 8.
In a statement yesterday, the unions’ Newspaper and Printing Trades Council said: “During the extension agreement, the unions will audit the books two times each year in April and October to determine the company’s cash flow. The company must restore wages when it returns to the break-even point, which is when revenue equals expenses.”
As recently as November, Gannett had sought pay cuts as high as 31%, said the competing Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
http://cwahawaii.org/index.php…
so I doubt this story will change their minds.
from the Denver Post – key quote:
I knew he was a drug user, but I didn’t think he was this bad.
Vitter’s primary opponent in New Orleans may be porn star Stormy Daniels
This would actually be an interesting race with Vitter’s record of using prostitutes – sort of “hard” for him to claim that her job makes her unacceptable.
telling of available services for the families of service men and women killed in Iraq. Seems they forgot to insert the appropriate soldier’s name.
Oops. (They have apologized.)
and LB’s streeeetched analogy to Normandy that set people off–and I seriously doubt that its about you and LB, i.e. that people just want to bring you down in your moment of joy…
I thought conservatives hated playing the ‘victim card.’
Suddenly it seems in vogue for the GOP…
That should be obvious. But I have no problem celebrating newly free elections anywhere. We just disagree on the worth of the cost.
And my point was that there are millions of Iraqis that would disagree with lefty bloggers on the cost, as well.
has come to exactly the opposite conclusion: Iraqis overwhelmingly perceive the Americans as foreign invaders, aggressors, and unwelcome.
How many Shia are there in Iraq?
For that trillion dollars (boy, couldn’t we use it now!?),
-We never found the WMDs;
-We never dealt with the original problem of Al Qaeda in the tribal areas;
-We created a new haven for Al Qaeda in Iraq;
-We made Iran stronger;
-We abandoned Afghanistan before the mission was done; thereby
-Dumping the problem upon Bush’s successor;
-The region has yet to see any sign of stabilization from Saddam’s removal;
-We broke Iraq, and still have not created a sustainable central government structure;
-The world’s oil markets got no benefit from Saddam’s removal;
-The Bush Administration let Osama Bin Laden run free for seven years;
-We destroyed military readiness for a generation;
-We starved the VA and nearly destroyed it;
-We, by our actions, directly set in motion the deaths of more Iraqis than Saddam killed; and
-We sent over 4000 soldiers to their deaths, and maimed tens of thousands more.
(h/t Steve)
If it were possible, I’d have the 4000 vote on whether Iraq was worth it. What do you think they would vote?
I think their vote should count on whether the benevolent action that destroyed their country, killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions, was worth it. Geez, mahn, with friends like that….
.
through my interpretation,
a vote for ISCI, which used to be SCIRI, can fairly be interpreted as a vote in favor of a continued American presence to help the Iraqis with the gradual building of the structures of governance.
A vote for any other party is a vote to get the Americans out as soon as possible.
Every other party, even al-Maliki’s ad-Dawa, is running on the promise to kick us out.
Early indications are that ISCI is going from the party with the most votes in the last election to about 5% or less this time around.
.