So then it accomplished its mission, protected the banks, de-fanged the opposition from the left, even got praise out of Matt Taibbi.

You can almost see the light bulb going over some aide’s head in the White House. Hey, let’s put this in the State of the Union…No, no, no, we don’t have to do anything…Right…Exactly…

Such a decision would also spark a democratic (small-d) uprising the the likes of which we haven’t seen in a while, if ever. Not so for the very unpopular mandate and/or unpopular health care bill, most of which hasn’t even kicked in yet. Indeed, the unpopularity of the health care bill will no doubt emboldens the conservative justices to try to strike it down. This is yet another reason, as if we needed another, that it’s preferable to pass bills that are popular with the public.

Kevin Drum is a fucking embarrassment.

He finds it’s impossible to believe that President Obama would support the persecution of a journalist who’s put out damning information about the US’s Terror War in Yemen (and who would keep doing so were he allowed to report freely.) Has Drum been asleep for the past three years? Has he been asleep his entire life?

Against Scahill’s detailed and sourced reporting, we have Drum’s tautology: this cannot be true, because this cannot be true.

unintentional humor from the NY Times:

“(Which Congressional offices did not take meetings? Those of Representative Ron Paul, the Texas Republican campaigning for the presidential nomination; Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat who has frequently voted against Aipac’s positions on Israel and Iran; Representative Donald M. Payne of New Jersey, who died Monday; the office vacated by Representative Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona Democrat recovering from an assassination attempt; and a lawmaker Aipac officials would not name.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/07/world/middleeast/pro-israel-lobbyists-have-washingtons-ear-on-iran.html

Well you don’t sit down for a chat with Jeffrey Goldberg unless you plan to talk “tough” on Iran and generally tout your “pro-Israel” cred. And Obama certainly delivers.

…one of the things that I like to remind them of is that every single commitment I have made to the state of Israel and its security, I have kept. I mean, part of your — not to put words in your mouth — but part of the underlying question is: Why is it that despite me never failing to support Israel on every single problem that they’ve had over the last three years, that there are still questions about that?

GOLDBERG: That’s a good way to phrase it.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: And my answer is: there is no good reason to doubt me on these issues.

Some of it has to do with the fact that in this country and in our media, this gets wrapped up with politics. And I don’t think that’s any secret. And if you have a set of political actors who want to see if they can drive a wedge not between the United States and Israel, but between Barack Obama and a Jewish American vote that has historically been very supportive of his candidacy, then it’s good to try to fan doubts and raise questions.

But when you look at the record, there’s no “there” there. And my job is to try to make sure that those political factors are washed away on an issue that is of such great strategic and security importance to our two countries. And so when I’m talking to the prime minister, or my team is talking to the Israeli government, what I want is a hardheaded, clear-eyed assessment of how do we achieve our goals.

And our goals are in sync. And historically, one of the reasons that the U.S.-Israeli relationship has survived so well and thrived is shared values, shared history, the links between our peoples. But it’s also been because it has been a profoundly bipartisan commitment to the state of Israel. And the flip side of it is that, in terms of Israeli politics, there’s been a view that regardless of whether it’s a Democratic or Republican administration, the working assumption is: we’ve got Israel’s back. And that’s something that I constantly try to reinforce and remind people of.

GOLDBERG: Wait, in four words, is that your message to the prime minister — we’ve got Israel’s back?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: That is not just my message to the prime minister, that’s been my message to the Israeli people, and to the pro-Israel community in this country, since I came into office. It’s hard for me to be clearer than I was in front of the UN General Assembly, when I made a more full-throated defense of Israel and its legitimate security concerns than any president in history — not, by the way, in front of an audience that was particularly warm to the message. So that actually won’t be my message. My message will be much more specific, about how do we solve this problem.

Pathetic pandering.

Okay, I’ll play.

Justice Kagan does what she was picked to do, crack down on civil liberties.
http://www.salon.com/2012/02/21/justice_kagan_sides_with_the_right_on_miranda/singleton/

Ross Douthat thinks Sick Rantorum is an economic populist.
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/21/can-santorum-win-in-november/

Prez to speak at AIPAC conference (along with Pelosi, Levin, and others) ahead of meeting with Bibi. Should be edifying.
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/02/21/obama_to_speak_at_aipac_before_netanyahu_meeting

More than 50 civilians dead in country most recently liberated by NATO.
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/115731

But worry not: Libyan militias are seriously considering joining the national army because John McCain is asking them to.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle-east/mccain-urges-libyan-militias-to-join-national-army-raises-issue-of-rights-abuses/2012/02/22/gIQAr2TUTR_story.html

Peace.

So we’ve got a one-candidate race, the candidate being the protege of the former dictator. President Obama calls this a “model.”

The message was conveyed by the American counterterrorism chief, John O. Brennan, who presented a letter from Mr. Obama to Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour al-Hadi during a meeting here in the capital, Sana.

“I know you face challenges ahead, but I am optimistic that Yemen can emerge as a model for how peaceful transition in the Middle East can occur when people resist violence and unite under a common cause,” the letter said, according to The Associated Press.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/20/world/middleeast/ahead-of-yemen-vote-obama-supports-vice-president.html

Tell me if I have this right? There’s no deal, which means nothing’s been signed, which means there will still be further haggling.

And what if the banks angle for an even better deal, which of course they will. Do AGs still have the ability to walk away at this point, or are they locked in, having surrendered all their leverage?

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/libya-deaths-detainees-amid-widespread-torture-2012-01-26

Amnesty is also out with a report on “widespread torture” in Libya.

Several detainees have died after being subjected to torture in Libya in recent weeks and months amid widespread torture and ill-treatment of suspected pro-al-Gaddafi fighters and loyalists, Amnesty International said today.

Amnesty International delegates in Libya have met detainees being held in and around Tripoli, Misrarah and Gheryan, who showed visible marks indicating torture inflicted in recent days and weeks. Their injuries included open wounds on the head, limbs, back and other parts of the body.

The torture is being carried out by officially recognized military and security entities as well by a multitude of armed militias operating outside any legal framework.

“After all the promises to get detention centres under control, it is horrifying to find that there has been no progress to stop the use of torture,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s Senior Crisis Response Adviser, from Libya.

Oddly, the interventionists — who care so deeply for the people of Libya (Just ask them!) — have been silent on this.

So what, DD, is your best guess as to Schneidermann’s motivation. I mean, he was being hailed as hero on the left, doing quite well politically by all signs. What does he get out of this either on the issue or career-wise?

Did he decide that being an opponent of Obama in an election would hurt his career?

Treat them like prey until you kill them, at which point you must treat them with respect. I’m not excusing this horror, of course, just pointing to the irony of imposing rules on war, an inherently dehumanizing and barbaric event.

Anyway, David, title of the video aside, I don’t believe it’s been established that the bodies belong to Taliban. They could be civilians.

must-read on Libya in the LRB. Here’s one bite, but people should read the whole thing, and D-Day I hope you blog it.

Gaddafi dealt with many revolts over the years. He invariably quashed them by force and usually executed the ringleaders. The NTC and other rebel leaders had good reason to fear that once Benghazi had fallen to government troops they would be rounded up and made to pay the price. So it was natural that they should try to convince the ‘international community’ that it was not only their lives that were at stake, but those of thousands of ordinary civilians. But in retaking the towns that the uprising had briefly wrested from the government’s control, Gaddafi’s forces had committed no massacres at all; the fighting had been bitter and bloody, but there had been nothing remotely resembling the slaughter at Srebrenica, let alone in Rwanda. The only known massacre carried out during Gaddafi’s rule was the killing of some 1200 Islamist prisoners at Abu Salim prison in 1996. This was a very dark affair, and whether or not Gaddafi ordered it, it is fair to hold him responsible for it. It was therefore reasonable to be concerned about what the regime might do and how its forces would behave in Benghazi once they had retaken it, and to deter Gaddafi from ordering or allowing any excesses. But that is not what was decided. What was decided was to declare Gaddafi guilty in advance of a massacre of defenceless civilians and instigate the process of destroying his regime and him (and his family) by way of punishment of a crime he was yet to commit, and actually unlikely to commit, and to persist with this process despite his repeated offers to suspend military action.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n22/hugh-roberts/who-said-gaddafi-had-to-go

Wow, great job, FDL.

OWS has managed to focus the nation’s attention on the the criminality of banks and their contribution to economic inequality; I hope it also highlights another primary cause of inequality: globalization, in all its hideous manifestations. Obama signed unfair trade agreements after OWS had started, when he was saying he “understood” the frustration. Yeah, right.

Tell that to the AP, which today talks about all the old folks’ stealing from the young.

http://news.yahoo.com/us-wealth-gap-between-young-old-widest-ever-050259922.html

“wealth gap between young and old widest than ever.”

This is true —

“the Occupy Wall Street protesters have done more to change the political dynamic in the country in a month than national Democrats have done in 30 years.”

–though that’s because the national Democrats haven’t wanted to change the political dynamic. They could have and should have made economic inequality the focus. They chose not to.

well said.

Yes, these issues were lying around waiting for someone to pick them up, but a lot of people and groups had picked them up, but OWS — for reasons that historian will chew on — took off.

I do think, though, in retrospect, you can see a lot of pre-9-17 sparks. The outrage in 3-09 during the AIG bonus scandal that the White House quite actively sought to suppress, Wisconsin, U.S. Uncut and all the other groups that held anti-bank demonstrations, and

Great piece – one of the best I’ve read recently.

It would be hard to find a better example of what the United States is about right now, foreign policywise, than drones. They’re American exceptionalism machines, removing American blood as a consequence of American violence. Literally no skin in the game.

And drones have a voice in Congress, the “unmanned systems caucus.”

http://unmannedsystemscaucus.mckeon.house.gov/about/purpose-mission-goals.shtml

By the way, what’s up with the snotty I-didn’t-know-he-was-still-alive comment about Walesa?

Joe Diaz sounds pretty smart and admirable, especially compared to Joan Walsh, who said this in one of her questions:

so much of the left declared the Democrats hopelessly corrupt, and moved outside of electoral politics, or to third parties – to the point that the party was taken over by its corporate wing.

Got that? It was the lefties fault that the corporate wing took over the party. Yeesh.