More Commentary On Right Wing Nuttery

Published on The Smirking Chimp (http://www.smirkingchimp.com)

What if Fox News actually wants mob violence?

By Eric Boehlert

Created Mar 30 2010 - 10:11am

Conservative commentators were atwitter last week following news that Ann Coulter's speech at the University of Ottawa was canceled in the face of protests. Of course, Coulter has the right to speak her mind on campuses. But in announcing the cancellation, her conservative Canadian sponsor, pundit Ezra Levant, put the blame on out-of-control liberals who had allegedly made it unsafe for Coulter to speak, breathlessly telling reporters [1] that "the police and the security have advised that it would be physically dangerous for Ann Coulter to proceed with this event and for others to come in" and stressing the presence of an "unruly mob" outside.

Naturally, right-wing bloggers south of the Canadian border then went ballistic. Gateway Pundit claimed [2] a menacing mob of 2,000, armed with "rocks and sticks," had surrounded the Ottawa campus building where Coulter was to speak. And yes, a fire alarm was even pulled.

Oh, my!

But it turns none of those hysterical claims were true (except for the part about someone pulling a fire alarm without cause). The 1,000 protesters were peaceful, according to university officials (good luck finding those rocks and sticks). And no, the police did not cancel the event [3] out of our concern for Coulter's safety. They simply thought the event should have been held in a bigger venue to facilitate the large crowd. (Who invites Ann Coulter to campus and then books a lecture hall that, according to one estimate, holds just 400 people [4]?)

Fact: Coulter and her promoters canceled the show on their own. There were no imminent signs of mob violence or threats of personal harm, just good old-fashioned, raucous, campus-style debate. But faced with a boisterous crowd, Coulter took her marbles and went home, while her conservative allies concocted tales of looming left-wing violence and feasted on the publicity.

Later, whining [5] about her traumatic no-show in Ottawa, Coulter told a reporter, "I would like to know when this sort of violence, this sort of protest, has been inflicted upon a Muslim?" [Emphasis added.]

Oh, so now pulling a fire alarm qualifies as "violence"?

The hysterical hand-wringing was predictable. But the real stunner last week was watching the same conservatives who fretted over Coulter's safety then turn around and excuse and rationalize actual right-wing violence and intimidation [6] stateside in the wake of the historic health care vote. Speaking out of both sides of their mouths with astonishing ease, conservatives denounced liberals who protested Coulter's appearance in Canada, and then played defense on behalf of marauding [7] right-wing radicals who unleashed death threats, threw bricks through office windows, and hurled epithets at politicians. All in the name of saving America from President Obama's brand of evil socialism.

That form of intimidation and harassment the GOP Noise Machine had no problem with.

Indeed, Democrats themselves [8] were to blame [9] for the rash of political violence.
Or so said the Tea Party team at Fox News, where there was little sense of remorse or shame -- or even apparent concern -- about the unprecedented bouts of violence and intimidation last week. (See list below.)

Instead, like Sarah Palin, Fox News simply reloaded and kept spraying the poisonous rhetoric all around. Worse, the "news" channel spent parts of last week either denying or rationalizing [10] the uncorked madness. For instance, Glenn Beck suggested the incidents had been concocted. "It's almost as if the left is trumping all of this up just for the politics," said [11] Beck.

Fox News friend Rush Limbaugh agreed [12]:

Our side doesn't do this kind of stuff. It's all made up -- 95 percent of it's made up and it's being done to divert everybody's attention."

And from [13] Andrew Breitbart's Big Government: "We doubt these threats are actually real."

Those who weren't denying the acts of violence were busy whitewashing them. On Fox News, S.E. Cupp made fun [14] of Democrats who she claimed sought sympathy after being on the receiving end of a "couple of angry voices mails." Cheered Cupp, "I'm glad people are angry."

Hmm, "angry" voice mails? Here's an example [15] of one of the actual hate messages left on a Democrat's voice mail:

"Congressman Stupak, you baby-killing mother f***er... I hope you bleed out your a**, got cancer and die, you mother f***er," one man says in a message to Stupak.

By skimming over the unpleasant details, Fox News talkers did their best to trivialize the illegal, terrorist threats made against elected officials. In fact, they were glad Democrats received voice mails like that.
And yes, it's been the rationalizing that's been so disturbing to watch -- the way the GOP
Noise Machine fervently excused last week's violent behavior and eagerly tried to shift the blame onto the victims of the intimidation, and then demanded to know what the big deal was.

I mean, who hasn't had the line on a propane tank outside his house slashed by vandals [16]? This stuff happens all the time, right? Didn't scores of members of Congress, immediately following the vote in 2002 to authorize the invasion of Iraq, find their office windows shattered by flying bricks hurled under the cover of darkness by nasty anti-war libs? Didn't they receive a steady stream of specific death threats and watch as relatives (and even their children) came under attack? Doesn't this kind of harassment and intimidation come with the territory, and hasn't it always been pushed out and legitimized by mainstream media outlets?

Um, not in America. But that may be changing as Fox News fuels the hate and does its best to provide cover and refuge for those supporting the intimidation campaign, as Fox News and the rest of the right-wing media rationalize the wave of political violence and do their best to shift the blame onto the targets -- onto the victims -- while always avoiding responsibility. (Did anyone on the left suggest Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) was to blame when a YouTube nut job posted a threat against his life?)

Note how so many embraced the frightening notion that because conservatives didn't like health care reform, the violence was expected [17] and nobody should have been surprised [18] because Democrats, by passing the bill (i.e. desecrating the Constitution), pushed people too far. "So why are people angry?" asked [19] Fox News' Steve Doocy last week. "Maybe because they didn't want this bill?"

Talk about the rise of tyranny and the minority-rule mob [20].

And that's where the fear of the perpetual angry mob comes in, and perhaps why Fox News, rather than lamenting the ugly and cowardly eruptions, seems to be encouraging it, or at least rationalizing it. Perhaps Fox News wants that threat of mob intimidation on the table, and Fox News, the de facto Opposition Party [21], wants Democrats to be thinking about the political consequences of further upsetting that unhinged mob.

As the blogger known as Digby [22] noted last week:

They know that serious violence is very likely. They are simply inoculating themselves against the charge that it was their inflammatory rhetoric that caused it. It will be the Democrats complaining about their inflammatory rhetoric that made the teabaggers snap. If they'd just stayed quiet and not made daddy mad, he wouldn't have had to hit them.

And speaking of irresponsibility, who helped created the red-hot aura of right-wing hysteria [23] over health care reform? Who has been driving the dangerous insurrectionist [24] rhetoric? The right-wing media, of course. This was Beck, just days after the vote [25]:

Get down on your knees and pray. Pray. It's September 11th all over again, except that we didn't have the collapsing buildings.

That's right, the U.S. government (by moving to help insure millions more Americans) had unleashed a surprise terrorist attack against the defenseless civilian population. But no, Glenn Beck doesn't incite people [26]. Why would anybody think that?

And why would anybody think there was a connection between Fox News' hate speech and the recent police blotter of violent and frightening political incidents:

• Rep. Tom Perriello's (D-VA) brother's address was erroneously [27] posted online by a Tea Party blogger who invited activists to descend on the house. A gas line outside the brother's house was cut [28].

• Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) was the target of threatening faxes and phone calls, including death threats [29]. Some of the faxes included "racial epithets used in reference to President Obama," according [30] to CBS News.

• A brick was thrown through the window [31] of the Democratic Party office in Rochester, New York. The note attached read: "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice," roughly quoting 1964 Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater.

• Rep. Anthony Weiner's office in Kew Gardens, New York, had to be evacuated [32] after suspicious white powder was found in an envelope mailed to the office.

• A thrown brick smashed a window [33] at Rep. Louise Slaughter's district office in Niagara Falls, New York.

• Slaughter also received a message claiming that "snipers were being deployed to kill those members who voted yes for health care," according [34] to Politico.

• A tossed brick demolished a window [35] at the Sedgwick County Democratic Party headquarters in Wichita, Kansas.

• There were confirmed accounts [36] of Tea Party protesters hurling anti-gay slurs at Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) on the eve of the health care vote.

• "Vandals also smashed the front door and a window at Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' office in Tucson early Monday, hours after the Arizona Democrat voted for the health care reform package," reported [37] the Kansas City Star.

Fox News' response to the mayhem? "This happens all the time," shrugged [38] paid contributor Stephen Hayes. His colleague Charles Krauthammer added, "I'm sure a lot of this is trumped up."
It's a chilling prospect, but one that seems more and more plausible: What if Fox News actually wants mob violence?
_______
Let The Sun Shine In......

Ranpaging Right

Published on The Smirking Chimp (http://www.smirkingchimp.com)

 

Rampaging Rightwing Retreats, Slightly - Shot Their Wad with Armageddon

 

By Robert Becker

 

Created Mar 30 2010 - 10:15am

To no one's great surprise, itself a point of interest, unhinged Republicans predicted the Democratic relief of worst-case insurance abuses meant the end of the world. Imagine the pandemic heart attacks, let alone exhausted rhetoric, had the public option sneaked through. When single-payer happens, someday enlarging Medicare, fire and brimstone will rain down - and won't that augment global warming!

Until then, health insurance will have to do, ending not just freedom as we know it, but national fiscal sanity, oppressing our indebted grandchildren and forcing millions unto indentured servitude. Health reform is so onerous 14 zealous states rushed to court against, well, blatant legislative terrorism that forces health care on most, but hardly all.

House minority leader John Boehner warmed my heart when pledging the bill passes only "over my dead body." Sounds like a suicide threat to me. Rush Limbaugh swore on the world's tiniest Bible he'd drag his drug-laden body to Costa Rica. Don't cry yet, Costa Rica, no guts, no glory. Shock jock Neal Boortz predicted passage meant "more damage than 9/11" - but Neal, think of all the new emergency medics to aid the "wounded."

The Rapture, fast track to heaven

But there's more. With no sense of shame, history, or intellectual scrutiny, Boehner predicted nothing less than Armageddon - the end of times battle between good and evil. This boehnerism won't even wash with radical charismatics, down on their knees praying for instant Rapture, the fast track to heaven. And, as the Final Judgment ends time and space, think how long those socialist-fascist-Democratic bad guys will be suffer somewhere dark and deep. Hell has no fury like a Tea Party Congressman scorned.

Look, if Boehner so disregards the growing Rapture Party, his re-election may not be secure. You'd think rightwing nutcases and religious fans would get their metaphors and mindsets in sync. How in the other world did Boehner miss "Final Judgment" as the ultimate, no-appeal death panels, a universal parade of punishment of endless death of the already dead? Invoking Armageddon, about one broken health system in one country on one obscure planet, invites ridicule.

Didn't Boehner even get the anti-terrorism office message about the Rapture completing God's plan against fanatic terrorists. End of times depends on Jews defeating Muslim infidels and controlling Palestine, setting up the promised land for Tea Party traditionalists - a bastion of white, patriarchal, theocratic, authoritarian rule for the pure of heart. When will the fearful, anything but pure fringe would make up its mind: is the Rapture a good thing, or is it so bad you can use it to bludgeon an incomplete, but significant legislation that endorses health care as an American right?

Baby killers plus granny killers?

Of course, you object, how can I be so literal? Apoplectic, apocalyptic Republican die-hards speak in metaphor, not literal Biblical prophecy. Oh. That would explain the entirely earthly, vicious rantings focused on real-world House members abused while doing their job. And the equally irrational defenses of spitting Tea Party rage as perfectly understandable - really, if only the Democrats weren't so obtusely stiff-necked. Plus extreme partisan rancor, as when nominal party leader John McCain declared a total strike against co-operation. Without resigning?

Or the totally bizarre, reactionary lawsuits challenging insurance mandates, ironically the original GOP response to single-payer. Or the "shoot-first, ask questions later" retaliation school headed by Sarah Palin: don't give up your anger, or be violent, just "reload" your gun sight graphics against anyone you hate. "After all, the party of Reid and Pelosi have it coming: they moved on from pulling the plug on granny to baby killing."

Good news to report: some rightwingers are retreating from indefensible, fear-bating grenades. The not always insane Lindsay Graham assures us the world won't end; otherwise why complain "one-party rule" will "blow up the deficit" and "affect every business, every family in this country." So, we're blowing up national deficits, and American families, not the entire universe, Sen. Graham? Apparently, the Almighty backed off from Armageddon to plague us with a mere "Ponzi scheme of the first order." Whew, no Ponzi scheme devastates like the end of times, especially for us non-Christians.

"Repeal" only repeals the GOP

Now a devilish Ponzi scheme is no walk in the park (except for the early in, early out con artists) but we did survive the Madoff Ponzi. That was $55 billion but the crooked spoils were at least squandered domestically (more than you can say about Bush's wars). Odd that Graham would invoke the worst business fiasco highlighting Republican misrule. Madoff proves what happens when GOP business think dominates, viewing all regulation as a crime against free market "innovation."

Whatever the retreat, the Party of No Class, No Change finds ever new death panels for its future, forfeiting all the leverage a year of lies gained them against Obama. The GOP remains so doctrinaire, so incapable of being embarrassed, its continues to blather about "repeal and replace." Useful for partisan fundraising, delusions about repeal only turn today's prominent horses asses to incredible buffoons. Even if state litigation succeeds, extremely unlikely, the result would be fixed with minor changes, withholding penalties but also subsidies for non-joiners.

Where have we seen this show?

What this parade of angry, self-parodying rogues brings to mind are the classic authority figures targeted for ridicule throughout TV history. "What a revolting development this is," cried William Bendix in the "Life of Riley," foaming with wrath and indignation, forever his own worst enemy. Likewise, "The Honeymooners" Ralph Kramden reinforced the angry, permanently misguided fool, overblown and over-reacting, tethered by delusion and paranoia. Does any politician sound more like Archie Bunker or Al Bundy these days than Boehner, Gingrich, McCain, and McConnell, among others?

The reigning queen of congenital tone deafness remains Sarah Palin, the willfully ignorant, infinitely mockable parody of herself. Last week, treating ugly street violence as mirage, she campaigned for zombie John McCain by bragging "the Party of No" didn't go far enough. It was, she shouted, the "Party of Hell, No." Then, in glowing terms, she praised indisputably thuggish Tea Party as "a beautiful grassroots movement that is putting government back on the side of the people." Let's see: not "beautiful" (unless spitting on civil rights heroes is beautiful), not "grassroots" (with billionaire funding), not a "movement" (more a staged, media tantrum) that defies any positive role for "government" to serve "the people." Is this woman a Democratic plant?

Conservative dementia

A very few Republicans, like ex-Bush staffer Bruce Bartlett, admit reality, "Rigid conformity is being enforced, no dissent is allowed, and the conservative brain will slowly shrivel into dementia if it hasn't already." Likewise, ex-Bushie David Frum was fired for declaring the Party of No lost everything, not just zero impact on health reform but core credibility with an absurd caricature of what the bill said and didn't say. Failure is doubled when losers lie about what's at stake, then lie about their lies.

I stand firm: the Repugs continue to shoot themselves in both feet. They have no leaders except mockable loud mouths incapable of winning national office. They not only poisoned health care debate for a year but are now reinforcing the greatest "hell, no" hissy fit since Newt Gingrich got suckered by Bill Clinton, humiliating the GOP by closing down the government. But then, the GOP controlled the House and the Senate, whereas today it has boxed itself into a discredited, solipsistic end game.

Astonishingly, the once staggered President Obama is now the heroic Comeback Kid, who routed Party of No Class, No Change and finally looks like a pro-active leader in charge of the White House. He owes Boehner and the GOP team of bozos thank you notes: such mindless blunders won't come every season.
_______
Robert Becker

Let The Sun Shine In......

Special Relationship?

Why Britain's Affair With the U.S. Is Over

By CATHERINE MAYER

March 29, 2010 "Time" --  If anyone still doubts that George Bush and Tony Blair were the closest of allies, the text of a July 2002 note from the U.K. premier to the U.S. President, revealed in a new book, should dispel any lingering skepticism. "You know, George, whatever you decide to do [about Iraq], I'm with you," Blair assured his friend.

The End of the Party, an account by British political commentator Andrew Rawnsley of how Britain's Labour government came to squander a huge popular mandate to face possible defeat in the forthcoming parliamentary elections, identifies a multiplicity of contributory factors. Blair's unwavering determination to stand "shoulder to shoulder" with a martial U.S. is prominent among them. (See pictures of the Bush-Blair friendship.)

The damage may be permanent. On March 28 an influential cross-party committee of MPs in Britain weighed in on the wider impact of that policy. "The perception that the British Government was a subservient 'poodle' to the U.S. Administration leading up to the period of the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath is widespread both among the British public and overseas," states the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. "This perception, whatever its relation to reality, is deeply damaging to the reputation and interests of the U.K."

The committee goes further, with a call to jettison the term "special relationship" as ruthlessly as colonists once dumped tea into Boston Harbor. The expression was coined by no less a person than Winston Churchill in 1946 to describe the intricate skeins of mutual interest, cultural heritage and sometimes gloopy sentiment that bind Washington and London. Globalization and "shifts in geopolitical power" mean that both countries are inevitably forming new and deep alliances with other players, and talk of a "special relationship" is increasingly misleading, says the report. "The overuse of the phrase by some politicians and many in the media serves simultaneously to devalue its meaning and to raise unrealistic expectations about the benefits the relationship can deliver to the U.K." (See the top ten most outrageous MP expense claims.)

There is no doubt the U.S. and Britain remain important strategic partners. But the U.K.'s one-sided obsession with the relationship has made it overestimate its influence in some areas and fail to assert itself in others. Since last July a public inquiry into the Iraq war chaired by former civil servant John Chilcot has been hearing testimony from British politicians, military chiefs and officials involved in the decision to go to war and planning for its aftermath. Much of the testimony so far has laid bare the way in which Washington called the shots, often ignoring British advice and excluding British diplomats and military commanders from discussions. Chilcot and his fellow committee members plan to travel to the U.S., probably in May, to interview members of the Bush Administration and U.S. military figures of similar heft to the inquiry's British witnesses, who have included not only Blair but also Britain's serving Prime Minister Gordon Brown. (Read: "Unbowed on Iraq, Blair Argues for Targeting Iran.")

If Chilcot finds Bush and other senior U.S. figures reluctant to submit to such a process, he shouldn't be surprised. The special relationship has always been full of rejections and failed passes. Blair was initially rebuffed by his then special friend President Clinton when he pressed the White House to commit ground troops to Kosovo in 1999. In 2003 the U.K. agreed extradition terms that made it easier to extradite a Briton to stand trial in America than a U.S. citizen to face the British courts. Two years ago evidence surfaced contradicting U.S. denials that an American air base on the British dependency of Diego Garcia had been used for extraordinary renditions of terror suspects in 2002. "We share the disappointment that everybody has about what's actually happened," said Gordon Brown, who succeeded Blair in 2007, after his government made a public apology.

A passionate Atlanticist, Brown confided to TIME in an interview two years ago "I love the States." "America," he added, "is still a beacon to the world for its defense of liberty and support for individual opportunity." His two main parliamentary opponents, who will square off against Brown in elections expected in May, have both indicated to TIME that they will recalibrate London's approach to Washington. "Blair was too much the new friend telling you everything you want to hear rather than the best friend telling you what you need to hear," says Conservative chief David Cameron. What America needs is "the candid friend, the best friend." Liberal-Democrat leader Nick Clegg, speaking to TIME in February, was even more outspoken, deploring "this almost unseemly knee-bending allegiance to the White House." (Read: "Nick Clegg: In the Balance.")

Polls suggest Britons may return a hung parliament but whoever Downing Street's next incumbent proves to be, he's likely to encounter in Washington a bracing lack of sentimentality towards London. David Manning, a former British ambassador to the U.S., told the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee that President Obama "comes with a very different perspective. He is an American who grew up in Hawaii, whose foreign experience was of Indonesia and who had a Kenyan father. The sentimental reflexes, if you like, are not there." The committee concluded - and many observers of U.S.-U.K. relations agree - that Britain can only benefit from shedding those reflexes too.

Certainly no one can deny that there has been a special relationship between the U.S. and Britain for a very long time. Just look at WWII. We didn't enter the war until after the continent had fallen to the Nazis. Only Britain remained, scarred but not bowed. She had been supported with Lend-lease for years before we actually entered the war. (I can imagine that France felt slighted.) 

If, indeed the "special relationship" is over, it was ended by the old cold warriors in the Bush administration and a not so savvy Tony Blair. 

Everyone says that the Iraq war is about oil. They are right, up to a point. It would be far more accurate to say that, from the American perspective, that it was about O.I.L. (Oil, Israel and Logistics).


Let The Sun Shine In......

Fear and the teabaggers

The only thing to fear is becoming like them, the violent fringe that is.

I couldn't agree more, though some of them do bear watching. I'm hopeful that the Southern Poverty Law Firm is doing just that, so I'm keeping an eye on their website for updates

Yesterday, in the right's wake of bricks hurled and epithets spewed at pols of a progressive bent, Doris Kearns Goodwin, on ABC's "This Week," strained to introduce some historical perspective -- but she did so in a rather peculiar way that, to me, underscored the left's ambivalence.

First, she reminded the audience that today's polarization is, if you will, a proverbial tea party compared to the catastrophic breakdown of the American political system in the 1850s, a time when mere bricks would have been an atmospheric improvement. Goodwin then noted the right's hostility to various 20th-century social legislation, as it arose, yet she further noted that such hostility would indeed spike, then quickly exhaust itself.

Finally, she approvingly referenced Frank Rich's column of yesterday morning -- that today's "Rage Is Not About Health Care"; that it is, rather, in Rich's own words, merely "the same kind of national existential reordering that roiled America in 1964."

Which is to say, today we're within the final phase of an American demographic makeover, politically expressed, in which "a dwindling and threatened minority," continued Rich, is frightfully reacting to the representative ascendance of a black president, a female speaker, a Chicano justice and a gay congressman.

For the frightened, their battle against health care reform as a socialist plot is but a convenient, euphemistic proxy war waged on behalf of much deeper but now socially unacceptable fears.

What Goodwin omitted, however -- and this is what I deem as the left's aforementioned ambivalence -- was any approving reference to Rich's rather over-the-top conclusion: that because GOP politicians are "frightened of offending anyone in the Tea Party-Glenn Beck base" -- so frightened "that they would rather fall silent than call out its extremist elements and their enablers" -- then "the rest of us have reason to fear them too."

I find this a fascinating divergence. Rich was emphasizing that Congressional Republicans "can’t pretend that we’re talking about 'isolated incidents' or a 'fringe' utterly divorced from the G.O.P.," while Goodwin was emphasizing, Sure they can -- to the extent, that is, that the fringe makes little difference; that it's but an exotic collection of malcontented humbuggers and bogeymen who've always been with us, and always will be.

Rich's loophole, I suppose, lay in the term "utterly divorced," which of course the brick-hurling right-wing fringe cannot be, any more than the elemental left-wing fringe of, say, 9/11 Truthers could ever be utterly divorced from the Democratic Party. Both groups are an incorrigible embarrassment to responsible liberals and conservatives, but hey, whatcha goin' to do? Paranoia isn't illegal.

Rich's evidential proof of a permanent courtship -- some vague, romantic coalition of the violent fringe and the GOP? This came in a logically spectacular sleight of hand: "A Quinnipiac poll last week found that 74 percent of Tea Party members identify themselves as Republicans or Republican-leaning independents."

Which in itself sounds ominous, but proves ... absolutely nothing. (In the passage not only was there an inexplicit transition from violent fringe to "Tea Party members," there is no way to know what percentage of the 74 percent is actually violent. Statistically speaking, correlation is often an empty assurance.)

Here, above the cries of liberal horror, I should hasten to add the standard disclosure: I love Frank Rich. As a progressive columnist he's unsurpassed, yet at times -- and this is all, I think, that progressive historian Doris Kearns Goodwin was getting at yesterday, in her own muted manner -- Rich himself, as a preeminent voice of modern progressivism, goes to the gratuitous extreme.

In his admonition to fear the "Tea Party-Glenn Beck base," as Rich advised, the fundamental danger lies in becoming like them -- of paranoically blowing an essentially dismissable opposition into a kind of Hofstadterian "amoral superman" of unconquerable powers.

Let me shortcut to the point by quoting from a mass email I recently received from TeaParty.org: "Isn't it ironic that the beginning of this nation, 'The United States of America' was founded by a courageous 13 colonies? Now, another assault, every bit as great as that faced when 'The Declaration of Independence' was completed and it now is 2010.... Our beloved nation has tasted the bitter poison of Global Marxism. The poison has reached our veins, if it reaches our national will, we shall die a slow convulsing death."

Quite aside from the insufferably poor writing of that missive, quotation-marked proper nouns and all, its frantic call to arms isn't to be feared. It is, in all its profound ignorance, merely to be pitied.

It also merely represents the authentic fringe, as Goodwin reminded us -- and the last thing we should do is empower it by fearing it.

Let The Sun Shine In......

The GOP's Double Standard on Anger

By Nat Parry
March 27, 2010

In the wake of the bitter health-care debate and some ugly incidents of violence against Democratic members of Congress, there have been some belated – and halfhearted – appeals from Republican leaders to tamp down the fiery rhetoric on the Right.  

In a statement on Wednesday, House Minority Leader John Boehner said the recent wave of violence and physical threats against Democrats is “unacceptable” – but he was quick to point out that he sympathized with the motivations:

“I know many Americans are angry over this health-care bill, and that Washington Democrats just aren’t listening. But, as I’ve said, violence and threats are unacceptable.”

While stumping for Sen. John McCain’s reelection in Arizona on Friday, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin also dialed back from the implications of her own recent comments, like telling her backers to “reload” and putting crosshairs on the districts of endangered Democrats.

“We know violence isn’t the answer,” Palin said. “When we take up our arms, we’re talking about our vote.”

She also blamed the controversy on “this BS coming from the lame-stream media, lately, about us inciting violence.”

So, while Republican leaders may be disavowing specific acts of political violence, their broader message appears to be that these feelings of anger are a healthy and legitimate response to objectionable Democratic policies.

This lenient attitude toward expressions of anger may come as a surprise to many progressives who remember that several years ago anger over President George W. Bush’s actions, such as having his political allies on the U.S. Supreme Court put him in the White House and his launching an unprovoked war in Iraq, was dismissed as a sign of mental illness.

Neoconservative columnist Charles Krauthammer (a onetime psychiatrist) dubbed it “Bush Derangement Syndrome,” a term he coined to describe “the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency – nay – the very existence of George W. Bush.”

The term was picked up by commentators in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Fox News and the blogosphere.

While Krauthammer came up with his diagnosis of angry liberals in 2003, its origins could be traced to the earliest days of the Bush administration, when Americans were told they must unite behind the new President despite the fact that he had assumed the White House after losing the national popular vote and stopping the counting of ballots in Florida.

On Inauguration Day 2001, as thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators protested in the streets, Bush promised to usher in a new era of civility in Washington. Most of the press corps and congressional Democrats took him at his word. Those Americans who were still bitter about the outcome of Election 2000 were told to “get over it.”

Anger on the Left

This pressure to forget the circumstances behind Bush's "victory" became overwhelming after the 9/11 terror attacks with the American people rallying behind the President in a show of solidarity. But anger on the Left persisted, demonstrated by a flourishing of anti-Bush Web sites.

As the months wore on -- and Bush led the nation toward war with Iraq -- these Web sites provided a daily alternative source of information that proved invaluable. Readers of these sites were more likely to question the rationale for invading Iraq and the legitimacy of Bush’s claims about Iraq’s WMD, contributing to an unprecedented pre-war protest movement that brought millions into the streets of American cities.

In March 2003, when Bush launched the war despite these voices calling for restraint, many Americans experienced anger and despondency, which seemed like a natural response to a government disregarding their concerns.

When no WMD stockpiles were found after the invasion, anti-Bush anger grew among those who had opposed the war, but so too did the conventional wisdom that the “angry left” was delusional, irrational and unreasonable.

Heading into the 2004 presidential campaign, “liberal anger” was considered an albatross that could pull down any Democratic politician who was tied to it. An early victim was former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean. Although Dean emerged as an early favorite in the Democratic primaries, his fiery speeches were considered by some commentators as “too angry.”

“Mainstream America,” pundits warned, would not relate to Dean’s “angry persona,” an argument that contributed to the collapse of his candidacy and the selection of the calmer John Kerry, who was considered more “electable.”

The avoidance of anger was taken to absurd extremes at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, where the Kerry camp ordered speakers not to criticize Bush harshly or even at all. The keynote address by then-Senate candidate Barack Obama didn’t even mention Bush’s name, stressing instead a positive message about America’s traditions and potential.

Supposedly polarizing figures, such as documentarian Michael Moore who had produced the anti-Bush film “Fahrenheit 9-11,” were kept at arm’s length.

Despite -- or perhaps because -- the Democrats showed such equanimity, Bush retained the White House in 2004. Still, the “angry” label kept dogging the Democratic Party, which continued trying to mute harsh rank-and-file criticism of Bush’s policies on Iraq and many other issues.

The GOP so frequently painted Democrats as irrationally angry that the criticism took on the appearance of a national political strategy.

At his 2006 State of the Union address, for example, Bush warned that “our differences cannot be allowed to harden into anger.” The next month Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman said on ABC News that Hillary Clinton “seems to have a lot of anger.”

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, denounced Democrats’ criticism of Bush’s political adviser Karl Rove as “more of the same kind of anger and lashing out that has become the substitute for bipartisan action and progress.”

Deviant Emotion

In those days, anger was considered dangerously subversive, a deviant emotion that contradicted the essence of what it means to be an American. Real Americans simply don’t get angry, the message seemed to be, and if you do, you should probably seek professional help.

The Republican strategy of insisting that the Democrats play nice proved very effective through the first six years of Bush’s presidency. Indeed, the only time anger seemed justified was when right-wing voices on talk radio and Fox News were excoriating Bush's critics for displaying even relatively mild disapproval of the President.

Ironically, it wasn’t until Campaign 2006 – when Democrats sharpened their criticism of Bush over the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina and other bungled policies – that the party began its comeback with a stunning congressional victory in November 2006.

Still, the anti-Bush rhetoric and protests never reached the level of today’s right-wing fury against President Obama.

And just compare the Republican attitudes toward political “anger” during the Bush years with their new-found appreciation for anger today. The anger now is fully justified because “Washington Democrats just aren’t listening,” John Boehner maintains.

In other words, if you were angry about Bush’s actions, you were irrational, but if you’re furious about Obama’s policies on health reform, your fury is considered “understandable.”

Even while calling for some restraint, Republicans have continued to feed the right-wing anger by putting the blame for the anger back on the Democrats. In a blaming-the-victim twist, House Republican Whip Eric Cantor accused Democrats of provoking violence by complaining about violence.

"It is reckless to use these incidents as media vehicles for political gain," the Virginia Republican said, specifically faulting Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Democratic National Chairman Tim Kaine for "dangerously fanning the flames by suggesting that these incidents be used as a political weapon."

Cantor said, "By ratcheting up the rhetoric some will only inflame these situations to dangerous levels."

Riding the Tiger

The Republican leadership appears to want it both ways, riding the tiger of right-wing political anger to victories in November while blaming the Democrats for any damage the tiger might cause.

This Republican strategy – and its possible consequences – are surely keeping Democrats awake at night, wondering if the death threats they’ve been receiving are empty bluster, or a serious cause for concern.

Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Virginia, whose brother’s home suffered a cut gas line after two Virginia Tea Party activists mistakenly listed it as Perriello’s home address, is not satisfied with Minority Leader Boehner ’s limited reprimand of the right-wing extremists.

“What he was saying was, for those of you who are threatening people’s children, we want you to channel that anger into the campaign,” said Perriello. “No, we want those people to go to jail.”

But it may be difficult for Republicans to abandon the anger on the Right that they helped foment. Since the beginning of the Obama presidency, Republicans have been hyping charges of creeping socialism and a loss of American liberties.

Those are fighting words for many Americans on the Right. And as this right-wing anger has escalated following the health-care vote, U.S. law enforcement agencies will start to take a closer look at right-wing movements.

When the FBI begins investigating, conservative paranoia over Obama could fuel a self-fulfilling prophecy, in which heavily armed right-wingers feel persecuted and strike out in even greater anger.

It’s a violent cycle that was last seen in the United States during the early years of Democrat Bill Clinton’s presidency -- when angry Republican rhetoric about his legitimacy gave rise to armed militias and to talk about "black helicopters" and plots to eradicate American sovereignty. That contributed to Timothy McVeigh and a couple of other right-wing extremists getting together to bomb the Oklahoma City federal building on April 19, 1995, killing 168 people.

With that history in mind, it might be time to heed Bush’s 2006 warning, whether disingenuous or not, that “our differences cannot be allowed to harden into anger.”

Nat Parry is the co-author of Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush.

Let The Sun Shine In......

Hate Groups Grow by Staggering Numbers in 2009

Hatred is getting a lot of press this week as reports of violent harassment against Congressional Democrats continue to surface. It began last weekend with Tea Party activists shouting racist and bigoted comments at House Democrats during the final push for health care reform.
But new research shows the Tea Party may be the nice guys amid soaring numbers of hate groups.

An "astonishing" 363 anti-government or "Patriot" groups appeared in 2009, with the totals going from 149 groups to 512, according to a report released by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

That's a 244 percent increase in one year. Many of the "Patriot" groups are militias. Before 2009, there were 42. Now, there are 127. Hate groups overall stayed at a record high of nearly 1,000 despite the disintegration of one of the largest neo-Nazi groups in the country.

According to the SPLC, a non-profit dedicated to fighting intolerance, the numbers are cause for "grave concern."
 
Story continues.....

Let The Sun Shine In......

Still doon't know what to think of the current GOP.....

.....but I do know that my deceased father is spinning in his grave. 

They have truly become the party of projection.

BARBARA'S DAILY BUZZFLASH MINUTE

Straight from Karl Rove's playbook: Blame someone, anyone, else for that which you yourself are doing, and it's the one lesson Sarah Palin has down pat! Try as she might though, Sarah Palin cannot blame anyone else for the violence she's inciting.

Using the words, "Don't retreat", "Reload" and pictures of gunsight "crosshairs" targeting Democrats is not part of one's First Amendment rights. These are pointed and intentional acts of terrorism and should be treated as such!

For those who are unaware of the meaning of terrorism:

Terrorism - political violence - violence or the threat of violence, especially bombing, kidnapping, and assassination, carried out for political purposes

Key words here being, "the threat of violence"!

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John Boehner Signals to Fundamentalist GOP Base That President Obama is the Anti-Christ
Now that we know the game the Repuglicans play; you know, the one where they project their own persona on their opponent? You can be sure that John Boehner is the real "Anti-Christ"!  Think about it, who actually called on "hell", who said, "like 'hell' we will", who's the one that needed the devil's backing for the destruction he's causing for the American people? John Boehner, that's who!

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Some people forget that not that long ago most of the healthcare industry was a non-profit service, subsidized by local and federal government! They forget that the American people were told that "privatizing healthcare would provide better quality care at a much cheaper price" and we now know just how well that worked out.

We have the most expensive healthcare system in the world and contrary to what the Repuglicans would have you believe, America is not #1, in fact we're quite a ways down on that list. We're even ranked below Cuba and Chile in life expectancy! Wake up to the fact that Americans spend the most money for health care and we're not getting what we've paid for -- we're being scammed! Healthcare reform is long overdue!

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Where do conservatives find so many brainless sad sacks to run for office?  It's no wonder the Repuglicans are losing respect when these ding-bats represent the GOP:

Bachmann: '100% Of Our Economy Was Private' Before September 2008

The woman doesn't have the brains God promised a brass monkey. The whole world is laughing at her and the Repuglican Party!

---

I give you House Minority WIMP, Eric Cantor:

Eric Cantor's latest defense: I didn't know that the police had concluded the bullet in my (sometimes) office was randomly fired until after my press conference in which I said my office had been targeted. You know it's bad when your fallback defense is reckless disregard for the truth.

A WIMP and a LIAR, no wonder the Repuglicans are losers!

---

So he did know and five will get you ten that the Pope will not resign:

Dr. Huth said he issued the explicit warnings — both written and oral — before the future pope, then Joseph Ratzinger, archbishop of Munich and Freising, left Germany for a position in the Vatican in 1982.

Which leaves us wondering: Was the "future pope" more concerned with his promotion to the Vatican than he was with the children being molested?

BARBARA'S DAILY BUZZFLASH MINUTE

Let The Sun Shine In......

Death of a Loophole, and Swiss Banks Will Mourn

 It's about damned time!

By GRETCHEN MORGENSON

WITH all the hoopla over the health care bill, hardly anybody noticed that a job creation bill that President Obama signed on March 18 makes it much harder for United States citizens to avoid taxes by hiding money in overseas bank accounts.

Nobody likes to pay taxes, of course. But for those of us dutifully handing over our share each year, there is nothing more maddening than stories of tax-avoidance schemes created by fee-hungry bankers for well-heeled clients.

We’ve heard a lot of these tales in recent years, alas. Foreign tax havens like Switzerland, Liechtenstein and some Caribbean countries thrive by keeping their clients’ money under wraps and safe from tax authorities’ reach.

Now, Congress is attacking some of these schemes, courtesy of interesting provisions aimed at curbing tax avoidance that legislators wrote into the new jobs bill, known as the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act.

The most substantive section of the bill states that foreign financial institutions will face a 30 percent tax on their United States investments if they refuse to disclose information about accounts they have opened for American citizens in offshore jurisdictions. Another aspect of the bill eliminates a clever derivatives strategy used by investors to make their tax bills on dividends disappear.

Individuals have stashed an estimated $1 trillion in offshore accounts, the government says, allowing them to avoid up to $70 billion in taxes each year. The federal government estimates that abusive offshore schemes by corporations cost our Treasury an estimated $30 billion in tax revenue as well.

Given our large and growing deficits, $100 billion in annual tax revenue would sure come in handy.

“The bill is a huge step in the right direction because you cannot imagine how negligent we were with this stuff for years and years,” said Lee Sheppard, contributing editor of Tax Notes, a tax journal in Washington. “We’re getting serious about tax enforcement on cross-border investment flows in a way that we never have before.”

UNDER the bill, a 30 percent withholding tax would be imposed on foreign financial institutions that refuse to provide details on their United States clients’ accounts, such as who owns them and how much money moves through them. The tax would be assessed on earnings generated by investments these foreign institutions have in United States Treasury securities, stocks, bonds or debt and equity interests in American businesses.

The law was written broadly and covers banks, hedge funds, securities houses, derivatives dealers, commodity traders and private equity firms. Indeed, any financial firm that holds or trades assets for its own account or for clients must comply with the new reporting requirements.

It will be up to the Treasury Department to decide how the law applies to insurance companies. The Treasury will also have to create a system to withhold the tax from institutions that do not comply with the reporting requirements. It has until the end of 2012 to do so.

“Before this bill was passed, the I.R.S. had no reliable way to learn about offshore accounts, and that gave people the opportunity to cheat the system,” said Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who leads the Senate Finance Committee and pushed for the bill’s reporting rules. “Tax evaders cost our country tens of billions of dollars every year in unpaid taxes, and honest, law-abiding taxpayers pay the price.”

It might seem surprising that the bill sailed through the legislative process, given its implications for financial institutions. But United States banks had no interest in lobbying against it; in fact, they may well benefit from the law as potential customers find it harder to shelter money in foreign institutions.

The law also closes a gaping tax loophole that allows investors who receive dividends on companies’ shares to pay no taxes on them. The Government Accountability Office estimates that billions of dollars in potential tax revenue are lost each year through the use of so-called dividend equivalent strategies.

Under our laws, dividends paid by United States companies to foreign shareholders are supposed to be taxed at 30 percent. But for many years, banks have structured deals using derivatives that allow clients to turn dividends into “dividend equivalents.” Though these payments look like dividends, because they are embedded in a derivative they do not generate a tax.

Here’s how they work: Say a hedge fund holds shares in General Electric. By entering into a swap agreement with a financial institution, the fund can simultaneously sell its G.E. shares a few days before the dividend is issued and receive a derivative tied to the value of the shares and the dividend payment.

After G.E. pays the dividend, the swap is canceled and the investor gets back the shares plus the dividend equivalent payment. The bank that did the trade typically charges a fee linked to the amount of tax savings the hedge fund reaps.

The new law eliminates the tax-free aspect to this transaction, because it treats the swap payments as dividends.

Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who leads the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, has been scrutinizing tax-avoidance schemes for years. His staff’s investigations turned up the dividend equivalent transactions that the law addresses.

“We’ve got a ways to go, but these are significant steps,” Mr. Levin said last week. He added that he still hopes to pass a law “that would allow us to take the same measures against foreign financial institutions that impede our tax-collection efforts that we do against our own.”

While Ms. Sheppard predicted that the new law would have a big effect, she said there were more effective ways to clamp down on schemes. “If you really wanted to stop this, you would define tax evasion as a predicate act to money laundering,” she said. “Currently the money-laundering information the banks give the government is not given to the I.R.S. for civil tax enforcement.”

Such a move would be deemed too radical by many. As a result, we must be content with incremental changes.

ROBERT M. MORGENTHAU, the former Manhattan district attorney who spent many years cracking down on tax-avoidance schemes, commended the new law.

“When citizens don’t pay their taxes, then other citizens have to pick up the burden,” he said. “It’s important that no group of people have immunity from U.S. laws, and this will go a long way to reaching these offshore accounts where U.S. citizens hide their earnings.”
With our nation’s debt levels swelling by the day, we all face the prospect of higher taxes levied to cover those obligations. That makes chasing down tax evaders more important than ever.

Let The Sun Shine In......

The Fight Over Resources at the North Pole

Throughout human history, the Arctic has had little trouble retaining its reputation for austere beauty. However as the irreversible effects of global climate change continue to negatively impact ecosystems worldwide, the once ice blanketed region is rapidly melting away. This climatic shift has caused unexpected political tension between several northern nations. At the same time, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) as much as 90 billion barrels of oil and 1,670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas may be available for extraction beneath the ice barrier.

The United States, Canada, Norway, and Russia are at odds as they compete for access to the potential wealth. When American politicians debate drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, they must realize that the 7.7 billion barrels of oil and the 3.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas to be found there pales in comparison to what the Arctic almost certainly has to offer. In a world where large energy consumers are scrambling for every last drop of oil they can find and energy resource exporters desire to maintain their hegemony on the political-economic ladder, any source of oil is worth pursuing, no matter how high the cost of extraction. Despite the still debated status of the Arctic Circle’s sovereignty arrangement, it represents a more desirable area to extract oil in contrast to the complicated diplomatic and geopolitical dealings with the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.

Breaking the Ice, Laying a Groundwork for Today

Dating back as far as the Vikings’ colonization of Iceland, Greenland, and small coastal settlements in Canada, humans have tried venturing northward to their limits. It has not been until the last several hundred years that efforts were made to explore and discover the extremely harsh environment of the North Pole. Laying claim to the Arctic Circle has been a constant theme in international politics since exploration of the area began. The issue has reacquired international importance to the world’s commercial and environmental interests in the wake of an ever-dwindling supply of fossil fuels.

Russia and the United Kingdom led the initial push to establish defined sectors of ownership of the Arctic Circle. The Anglo-Russian Convention of 1825 delineated the territorial boundaries between Britain’s adjacent territories in Canada and Russia’s Alaskan holdings based on the 141st meridian. Forty-two years after the signing of the Anglo-Russian Convention, the United States bought much of Russia’s position when it purchased Alaska from the Kremlin in 1867.1 As more states acquired grounds to lay title to the Arctic, it became necessary to create a clearer basis for territorial claims. At the African Conference of Berlin in 1884, territorial sovereignty was defined as the “so-called right to discovery to the principle of effective occupation.”1 The treaty set an international standard for territorial acquisition just as the Treaty of Westphalia defined the characteristics of a sovereign nation-state at the conclusion of the Thirty Years War in 1648. Canada’s first declaration of effective occupation occurred during the 1896 Klondike Gold Rush when Ottawa sent a quarter of its armed forces to patrol the Yukon.1

The “right to discovery” clause within the Berlin Conference formulations provided a framework agreement that invoked a period of frenzied Canadian exploration. The Arctic became highly romanticized in Canadian culture, which appealed to the country’s spirit of adventure and its sense of expansionism based on discovery. Captain-turned-explorer J.E. Bernier represented Canada’s newly vested sense of mission when he drew maps to assert Canada’s claim over the Northwest Passage to facilitate his efforts to reach the North Pole throughout the early 1900s. Despite the fact that his efforts to reach the North Pole were never fully successful, his contributions remained an integral part of early Canadian manifestations in its attempts to register its claims to the Arctic. His repeated gestures of inviting Canadian scientists aboard his vessel, while at the same time claiming islands in the name of Canada, represented his desire to legitimize the newly expansionist country’s claims to the Arctic. At the same time, in contravention of Canada’s claims to the Arctic, the U.S. Congress funded expeditions undertaken by Robert Peary and Frederick Cook whose adventures lasted from the 1890s to 1909. The American pioneering spirit meant that this country at least had to try to reach the North Pole first.

A Cold Race

Despite the heavy investment in the race to claim the Arctic, it would be almost fifty years before expeditions began to garner any serious, sustained, international interest. Between 1900 and 1950, two ravenous world wars engulfed the globe, diverting international interests and wresting attention away from any northern ambitions. At the conclusion of World War II, a newly polarized world had emerged as the Soviet Union and the United States became the two dominant superpowers of the 20th century. The Arctic Circle’s appeal once again quickly turned from a land of romance and adventure to the most frigid battlefield of the Cold War. For the United States and Canada, the Arctic became a new geopolitical venue upon which to focus.

The Bering Sea offered the shortest passage between the United States and the former Soviet Union, and traversing it represented a serious geopolitical threat for both states. To curb the threat of a potential strike from Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), the United States and Canada have cooperated on the construction of a series of radar based detection systems. Under the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the United States and Canada built the Pinetree Line, the Mid-Canada Line, and the North Warning System (still active), and the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System, which the United States Air Force continues to operate in order to monitor the Arctic. These facilities have maintained a defensive network that complemented the constant presence of nuclear submarines and bombers in the Arctic maintained by the United States and NATO to counter Soviet forces.5, Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990‘s, the military presence in the Arctic dissipated; however, the Arctic remains an integral part of the national defense grid for the United States, Canada, and Russia.

Current Complexities of Arctic Sovereignty

To help alleviate territorial water issues, the United Nations (UN) created the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). According to the UNCLOS guidelines, territorial waters can extend 12 nautical miles from the shoreline, while exclusive economic zones (EEZ) can extend 200 nautical miles along the continental shelf. If a nation can prove its continental shelf extends further, then it can extend its respective EEZ an additional 150 nautical miles.9 The EEZ allows the nation exclusive privileges to exploit the region’s resources. To establish these extended sovereignty rights, a nation must collect scientific data to prove the extension of the continental shelf and submit it to the UN to be voted on by states that have ratified the treaty as per UNCLOS terms.9 Even though these procedures and definitions seem democratic and fair, a number of inherent problems persist that have emerged from their application.

The primary issue with territorial acquisition in the Arctic Circle is that UNCLOS does not provide explicit definitions of how to address EEZ overlaps in circular-based terrain. Moreover, the establishment of a claim over the Arctic by other states has been further complicated due to the fact that the United States has yet to ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty.
The opposition in Congress believes that ratifying the treaty would result in ceding American sovereignty to international authorities and environmental groups. The opposition further argues that ratification would also prove redundant because the United States already adheres to many of the UNCLOS provisions. However, without the United States ratification, this creates cognitive problems for both the international community and for Washington, as the United States, in effect, voids its voting privileges. Without voting, the United States mutes its right for others to acknowledge oversight concerning economically viable territories with international recognition being affected. In order for international comity to be advanced as well as the Arctic’s long-term status to be resolved, it is imperative for the United States to act accordingly by becoming a full signatory (which Secretary of State Hilary Clinton stated was a priority in her January 13, 2009 confirmation hearing).

Gas and Geopolitics: An Ottawa and Washington Affair

Arctic sovereignty arguably encompasses larger implications for Canadian and American projections of their interests. In terms of claiming territory where there is a high probability of finding natural gas and oil, the Beaufort Sea falls within the two countries’ EEZs. According to the USGS, the Beaufort Sea area alone is estimated to contain approximately 8.22 billion barrels of oil and 27.64 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. For the United States to continue to satisfy its domestic requirements, it becomes imperative to guarantee the most territory possible by having its maritime border run perpendicular to the coast. As for Canada, splitting the Beaufort Sea along the 141st meridian would provide it with a major economic advantage by allowing it to maintain its energy exporting status. This would be especially important since the United States plans to cut back on oil imports produced from Canada’s oil sands in the wake of Canada’s new environmental policies. By securing more oil and natural gas from the Beaufort Sea, new American refineries would replace exports that will not be available from Alberta’s oil sands.

Another major theater of Canadian-American engagement revolves around control of the Northwest Passage. For the first time in recorded history, the Northwest Passage was ice free in 2007. This trend will most likely continue for longer stretches of time, as the Arctic is expected to have ice free summers by 2013, which will afford the single biggest breakthrough in potentialmaritime expansion of trade since the development of the Suez and Panama Canals. By using the Northwest Passage, 5,000 nautical miles would instantaneously disappear from Asia-European shipping routes. Because this passage is within the 200 nautical mile zone, the Northwest Passage falls directly under Canadian jurisdiction, drastically increasing shipping traffic off of Canada’s northern coast. The United States, on the other hand, disagrees with Canada’s assessment of its territorial rights and insists that the Northwest Passage should be considered international waters to facilitate international trade and to allow the U.S. military to freely navigate and conduct operations in the area without meddling in Canadian territorial waters.

In response to Washington’s demands to make the passage an international waterway, Senior Administrative Officer of Canada’s northernmost settled community, Resolute, Josh Hunter said, “If the Americans try to come through unwanted, we’ll be out there on our snowmobiles blocking their passage.” To show Canadian commitment to the cause under an “use it or lose it” attitude, Prime Minister Harper ordered the construction of six to eight new patrol ships dedicated to policing the Arctic, and requires that every ship entering into the Northwest Passage register with the Canadian Coast Guard. As the race to claim the resources in the Arctic gains momentum, Canadian versus American competition appears to be heating up.

A Continuation of Friendship

Despite incidents of non-cooperation, there is still plenty of room for Canada and the United States to perpetuate their bonds as allies when it comes to a unified response to bold diplomatic steps taken by Russia. In a similar space-age symbol of power, a Russian expedition to the North planted a Russian flag on the Arctic seabed where, according to GPS coordinates, the geographic North Pole lies. In a practice that harkens back to the Cold War era, long-range bomber patrols on 20 hour flights as well as the redeployment of naval fleets to the Arctic demonstrate how the Russian government intends to retain its possessions. A resolution of Arctic jurisdiction will improve bonds not only between Canada, the United States, and its NATO allies, but also with Moscow, as well. Just as the Cold War augmented prompt Canadian-American cooperation with the creation of NORAD, these provocations by Russia can serve to create another set of cooperative arrangements between Washington and Ottawa. Furthermore, according to Dr. Valur Ingimundarson, an Associate Professor of History and Chairman of the History Department at the University of Iceland, Russia’s particular behavior would be a great opportunity for other Atlantic states, like Iceland, to improve their relations with NATO and provide further fronts for inter-NATO cooperation.
With the Russians acting in an allegedly suspicious manner, NATO members, especially Canada and the United States have even more incentive to mutually strengthen their ties through collaboration.

One of Canada’s biggest concerns regarding Arctic sovereignty deals with ownership over the Northwest Passage. Although Canada and the United States have already expressed political discontent, there is still hope to come to a mutually beneficial agreement. The Rush-Bagot Treaty of 1818 and the Arctic Cooperation Agreement are perhaps the best examples of such an arrangement. The Rush-Bagot Treaty demilitarized and established clear regulations concerning the presence of weapons in the Great Lakes region, facilitating friendly border relations between the two neighboring countries. Furthermore, the treaty grew to promote interagency cooperation by utilizing border patrols to prevent smuggling through the Great Lakes. The Arctic Cooperation Agreement, signed by President Ronald Reagan and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in 1988, allowed for the United States Coast Guard to patrol the Northwest Passage as long as it notifies Canada. Canada can provide for the Coast Guard bases along its long stretch of border while the United States can provide the manpower, equipment, and supplies to maintain continuous patrols. By sharing the burden, Canada will be able to maintain a significant amount of control over Ottawa’s long stretch of wilderness, while the United States would have its security concerns adequately addressed.

Going to the Cleaners

The largest oil deposits are often located in extreme environments, ranging from the tropics of South America to the deserts of the Middle East. With the diminution of the Arctic ice cap, the world will begin to look to the Arctic for potential energy reserves and, as such, must find a way to peacefully divide the natural resources in the newly available territory. This is absolutely crucial to avoid potential large scale security dilemmas. In light of the inadequate territorial definitions laid down by UNCLOS regarding EEZs in circular-based terrain as well as the United States’ failure to ratify UNCLOS, it is apparent that changes to the treaty are not only prudent but critical. These international jurisdictional issues would seem to provide another opportunity for cooperation between Canadian, Russian, and American officials for economic, military, and political reasons. Whether concerning oil, natural gas, or rights of passage, the United States has to compromise in order to improve relations with its faithful neighbor to the north and its former enemy to the west.


Let The Sun Shine In......

Obama announces 15 recess appointments,

scolds GOP

By BEN FELLER, 
Associated Press Writer Ben Feller, 
 Sat Mar 27, 7:22 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Fed up with waiting, President Barack Obama announced Saturday he would bypass a vacationing Senate and name 15 people to key administration jobs, wielding for the first time the blunt political tool known as the recess appointment.

The move immediately deepened the divide between the Democratic president and Republicans in the Senate following a long, bruising fight over health care. Obama revealed his decision by blistering Republicans, accusing them of holding up nominees for months solely to try to score a political advantage on him.

Like the divide could really get any deeper!

"I simply cannot allow partisan politics to stand in the way of the basic functioning of government," Obama said in a statement.

The 15 appointees to boards and agencies include the contentious choice of union lawyer Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board. Republicans had blocked his nomination on grounds he would bring a radical pro-union agenda to the job, and they called on Obama not to appoint Becker over the recess.

Obama went ahead anyway, while also choosing a second member for the labor board so that four of its five slots will be filled. The board, which referees labor-management disputes, has had a majority of its seats vacant for more than two years, slowing its work and raising questions about the legality of its rulings.

Overall, Obama's appointments will take place throughout the week, allowing people to make the transition to their new jobs, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. The news of Becker's appointment drew the bulk of the ire from Republicans.

"Once again the administration showed that it had little respect for the time honored constitutional roles and procedures of Congress," said Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, Obama's foe in the 2008 presidential election. "This is clear payback by the administration to organized labor."

Both Republican and Democratic presidents have made recess appointments, which circumvents the Senate's authority to confirm nominees, when they could not overcome delays. President George W. Bush made more than 170 such appointments in his two-term presidency. President Bill Clinton made nearly 140.

Obama had been on record as warning of recess appointments if the Senate didn't act. He followed through at the end of a week in which his political standing was significantly bolstered by the party-line passage of a historic health care bill, a student loan overhaul and a hard-fought nuclear arms treaty with Russia.

The White House dropped the news in a press release on a quiet Saturday, with Obama at Camp David and lawmakers home in their districts.

The recess appointments mean the 15 people could serve in their jobs through the end of 2011, when the next Senate finishes its term. A recess appointment ends at the completion of the next Senate session or when a person is nominated and confirmed to the job, whichever comes first.

Obama filled two posts at the Treasury Department: Jeffrey Goldstein as under secretary for domestic finance and Michael Mundaca as assistant secretary for tax policy. He singled them out: "At a time of economic emergency, two top appointees to the Department of Treasury have been held up for nearly six months."

On Becker, Republicans have held up his confirmation for months, saying they fear he would circumvent Congress to make labor laws more union-friendly.

Democrats had failed to overcome Republican delaying tactics on Becker's nomination, and all 41 GOP senators wrote to Obama on Thursday urging him not to appoint Becker over the break — to no avail. Becker is a top lawyer at the Service Employees International Union and the AFL-CIO.

Labor unions were especially keen on getting Becker installed on the board that is responsible for certifying union elections and addressing unfair labor practices. Under a Democratic majority, the labor board could decide cases or make new rules that would make it easier for unions to organize workers. The board could allow speeded-up union elections that give employers less time to counter organizing drives.

The other pro-union lawyer Obama named to the board, Mark Pearce, has not faced opposition from Republicans.

The White House says its appointees have been awaiting a vote for an average of seven months.

Obama named three people to the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, which has also been operating without a quorum.

The Senate's top Democrat, Harry Reid, welcomed Obama's move. "Regrettably, Senate Republicans have dedicated themselves to a failed strategy to cripple President Obama's economic initiatives by stalling key administration nominees at every turn," said Reid, the majority leader from Nevada.

Obama and Democratic leaders say he faces more obstruction, in terms of the number of pending nominees and the length of their delay in getting a vote, than Bush did. The hyper-partisan atmosphere in Washington began long before Obama's presidency but remains as entrenched as ever, if not worse, during his term.

Already in a struggle with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over a financial overhaul, Obama now has another one over Becker. "The business community should be on red alert for radical changes that could significantly impair the ability of America's job creators to compete," the chamber said in a statement.

In February, Democrats fell far short of the 60 votes they needed to push through Becker's nomination. Two Democrats joined Republicans to halt Becker.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Saturday that Obama's move is "another episode of choosing a partisan path despite bipartisan opposition."
___
Associated Press writer Sam Hananel contributed to this story
___
On the Net:
Bush recess appointments: http://tinyurl.com/y8rlart
Recess appointments FAQ: http://tinyurl.com/c8s4vy

Let The Sun Shine In......