Tag Archives: John Bolton

Political Rants

One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor.

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This week the airwaves were filled with more breathless speculation than we’ve seen since the last major award show. Biden meeting with Vladimir Putin! The newly repopulated set of Morning Joe was all a-twitter with neo-Kremlinology. They even invited John Bolton on board to share his valuable perspective (though his only use might be as a reverse barometer).

The talking heads, I kid you not, were hoisting charts that compared the wait times of various heads of state who met with American presidents over the past fifteen years. If Biden comes a half hour late, what does that mean? Is Tony Blinken frowning too much? Jesus Christ, I wish I were joking. You would think, with all the air time, they would talk about the IMF treaty, or Open Skies …. something substantive. Not a chance.

The only mildly interesting piece of this whole sordid drama was the competition for the moral high ground underway between Biden and Putin, each playing to his own domestic audience.

Sympathy for the Devil

In the lead-up to the summit, Putin was interviewed by an NBC reporter, who asked him about Alexei Navalny, the Russian dissident (and ultra nationalist, btw). Now, there are plenty of counter examples Putin could have invoked in response if he wanted to demonstrate American hypocrisy. He instead chose the January 6 insurrectionists as examples of people being arrested for expressing political views.

That’s just plain adorable. Putin sees a gang of white supremacists trying to overthrow elective government as dissidents and freedom fighters, even though they had the backing of the President of the United States and more than a few members of the institution they were attacking that day. Hardly outsiders, and treated with relative kid gloves by the police. Of course, they wanted Putin’s favored candidate to remain in power – not because Putin loves Trump, but because Trump is a burning disaster.

Suggestion Box

If Vlad wanted to perform some genuine what-about-ism, he could have chosen much better subjects. Now, I’m sure he has no sympathy for Reality Winner – who was recently released from prison – because she exposed some intelligence on Russia’s influence campaign in the 2016 Presidential election. But he might have gone with Edward Snowden, who after all, is relatively close at hand (in exile in Russia).

Probably a better pick would have been Julian Assange, who is now serving hard time in London and under indictment by the U.S. Justice Department and whose health is rapidly deteriorating. Assange’s “crime” was the release of the Iraq war documents, diplomatic cables, and collateral murder video, for which they’ve been hounding him non-stop for over a decade, through administrations of both parties (see my older posts on this). They are slowly killing Assange, in essence. That’s roughly equivalent to the Navalny accusation.

Of course, Putin could also point to, I don’t know, millions of other incarcerated Americans. Or perhaps the text of our 13th Amendment. The man just has no imagination!

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

The expendables.

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Sounds like a Bruce Willis movie from 1987, right? Well, it might as well be. The president appears to be okay with the notion of thousands upon thousands of us impaling ourselves on the altar of a boom economy; this after he left the door wide open to COVID-19, taking cues from the likes of Mick Mulvaney and John Bolton and other reactionary conservatives bent on shrinking the administrative state to a size that can be easily drowned in a bathtub, as Grover Norquist was fond of saying back when he was relevant-ish. Congratulations, America! Guess what? You’re all warriors now! Time to take a bullet for President Little Lord Fauntleroy, whose idea of sacrifice is taking uncomfortable questions from a relatively supine White House Press Corps.

Seriously, does anyone want to die for Donald Trump? Does anyone want to sacrifice a parent, a sibling, a child, a grandchild, an aunt or uncle, a neighbor … anyone for the betterment of Trump’s political fortunes? Because make no mistake about it – COVID-19 kills, and there’s no telling who it will kill next. You might be spared … or you might not. We simply do not know this virus very well yet. If we listen to the President and some of these red state governors and force people back to work (on pain of losing their unemployment benefits), more and more people will get seriously ill, the hospitals will be quickly overwhelmed (particularly in more rural states, where there is even less excess capacity in terms of ICU beds), and thousands more will die. Judging by the degree to which people are avoiding those establishments that have reopened, I would say that most people understand this dynamic fairly well.

Of course, we all know who is particularly expendable in the minds of our leaders. Elderly people in nursing homes? They’re expected to die at regular intervals – this much I know from experience. But the true expendables are the folks who take the crappy jobs – the meat packers, the farm workers, the restaurant workers, etc. People of color, mostly, and a lot of women. They are being compelled to return to work because the establishments they work for are being told to start up again, or because their bosses are getting impatient, and practically none of these companies are inclined to invest in protection gear or protocols that would keep their workers safe and well. Wealthier, whiter knowledge workers can work from home, no problem. Meat packers, not so much. There’s a greenhouse in a neighboring county to where I live – they tested their employees for COVID and more than 100 of them were carrying it. That’s an enormous number in a rural area like this. Multiply that by thousands and you’ll get some idea of what we’re looking at.

Trump wants to keep the cheeseburgers rolling. Trouble is, when you force meatpackers back to work, it’s likely that they’ll get sick. And when they get sick, they can’t work, so you’re right back to where you started from. We can either address the public health problem, or we can expect a massive level of disruption from here on out. Up to us.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Child’s play.

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Experiencing the miracle of America’s largely employer-based health care system, so revered by the likes of Joe Biden and others. The bills from my visit to the hospital two weeks ago have started rolling in. The price tag on an ambulance ride provided by our taxpayer-supported fire department? Close to $800. (First time I’ve ever used the service, by the way.) Based on the billing, this service appears to be at least partially outsourced – the bill was accompanied by a form that I had seven days to return if I wanted them to bill my insurance company. Glad I’m fully recovered and able to respond to my mail!

Meanwhile, I’m watching in horror as our child-president noodles around with this pandemic as if it were an H.O. scale train set. His recent advocacy for ingesting disinfectants is illustrative of almost everything that is wrong with this particular chief executive. Despite his lame gaslighting attempt at claiming that his comments were meant sarcastically, Trump was obviously proud of his idea, looking for validation from his medical specialists, and basically pathetically showboating like a five year old. He is owlishly grasping for imaginary miracle cures that will extract him from the tremendous mess he and his administration have created through a breathtaking combination of incompetence and an ideological commitment to the deconstruction of the administrative state.

I want to be clear about Trump – he is all of our worst tendencies, rolled up into a big, fat, greasy ball of slime. He is Little Lord Fauntleroy, born into privilege and yet always feeling slighted and resentful. And all you workers who voted for this shit bag, be advised: he’s never worked an honest day in his life. All that said, he’s just the hood ornament on the Cadillac of destruction that is the Republican party and the neoliberal tendency in American politics more generally. As the Majority Report’s Sam Seder recently pointed out, Trump didn’t just wake up in the middle of the night and insist that we have to disband the pandemic response team in the National Security Council. That idea was served up to him by John Bolton and others, the intellectual architects of the current crisis. Recall Mick Mulvaney’s critique of Meals on Wheels – the program is a failure because there are still hungry old people out there. Destruction of the pandemic response (really, anticipation) infrastructure is part of that same logic. Who wants a bunch of scientists hanging around waiting for something to do?

We need to get rid of Trump. But we also need to get rid of the party that created him. And we need to defeat the neoliberal governance movement that will survive Trump when he’s finally gone. As bad as our child clown fascist president may be, they are worse than him … and they, my friends, have got to go.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Truth and ideology.

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I don’t know how many of you have been following the impeachment trial of one Donald John Trump. I’ve watched some of the proceedings, and it has been at various times hilarious, painfully dull, and infuriating. It seems now, though, that it has come down once again to the question of whether or not to allow relevant witnesses to testify before the Senate; particularly former National Security Advisor John Bolton, whose forthcoming book has been strategically excerpted and propagated by anonymous reviewers in the White House. With respect to this, I find myself in rare agreement with Ezra Klein, who this week commented on how crazy it makes him that we’re all focusing on witnesses when we already know what the President did …. he said it himself. Whether or not you think that’s enough really just comes down to party affiliation.

Just a word about Bolton. This man is an ideologue and a warmonger. His views are so toxic regarding war and peace that he failed to win confirmation from a Republican Senate back in the 2000s. I don’t know him, but I believe he is neither a Trump acolyte or a never-Trumper. I think it’s likely that he merely saw in Trump an instrument of power – the belief that, though Trump, Bolton could climb higher than he had ever done before and push his policy agenda forward in a way that had been unthinkable previously. Over his brief tenure as NSA, he supported coups in Bolivia and (attempted) in Venezuela, helped carry us to the brink of war with Iran, derailed detente with North Korea, and quite a bit more. Quite a roster of grisly accomplishments in just a few months. Dream come true for that guy.

So to all of you center-leftists out there who may be singing the praises of John Bolton just lately, don’t forget – he is a walking disaster, book passages or no. His prescriptions for foreign policy would have us plunging into war again and again. It may be, though, that he doesn’t feel one way or the other for the President, thus his willingness to spill. What is obvious is that Bolton got himself hired by doing a little Trump dance on Fox News, then took up a position that allowed him to affect the course of American foreign policy in a meaningful way. That’s all he cares about. Trump can be damned, or not … it depends on what’s best for Bolton’s agenda.

Iowa Votes. Big week ahead, people, and I don’t mean impeachment. Barring disaster, I’ll do a post on the Iowa Caucuses. Stay tuned.

Political Rants

The line up.

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Bolton’s gone. We survived Bolton. That’s something to celebrate, at least. When Trump hired him, I honestly didn’t see how we would avoid a precipitous war with Iran, but thus far it hasn’t happened and now Johnny Mustache has died and gone to Fox. Good riddance.

Now that I’ve got THAT out of my system, just a head’s up that I’m going to do another debate night notebook this week. The major Democratic presidential candidates will all be on one stage this time around, and I’ll be tapping random stuff into my tablet as they spar. It’s either going to be really interesting or the usual bland corporate show we’ve gotten previously. Really a much stronger chance of the latter, but we’ll see.

First comment: What the hell corporate network is this debate on? This is the problem with this model of campaign debates. They become proprietary content, and as such, none of the other networks will talk about the details until the program’s over.

Next, health care. This exchange reveals what tremendous douchebags the so-called moderates are.  They roll out the same tired conservative arguments about people loving their health insurance. I can tell you, I’ve had what was described as a “cadillac” plan, and it was no great shakes. Why anyone would love their policy is beyond me. All I can say about the centrist plans is this: a public option is going to end up being an insurer of last resort, which is essentially what we have now. The only justification for it is preservation of profit.

Still too many ... but better.

Forty eight minutes in, I would say that Harris is doing herself some good. Bernie sounds hoarse, unfortunately – probably a lot of rallies. I haven’t heard a lot of Warren in the last half hour, which is annoying. Booker has gotten a few good comments in.

Lots of praise for Beto on stage for his time with victims in El Paso. Kind of a competition. O’Rourke gave a good speech on assault weapons, credit where credit is due.

Bernie and Warren have their hands up. Finally, another question for Warren, more than an hour in. Both she and Bernie make impassioned arguments against gun violence from a systemic perspective.

Some short takes:

  • Andrew Yang on immigration: “The water’s great.” What
  • Someone should elect Mayor Pete the next Bayer aspirin man.
  • Beto is speaking Spanish again. He’s makes some sense on immigration.

First foreign policy question is a trade question: tariffs on China. They seem to be attacking Trump more this time around. Warren is asked about trade policy, and she tilts against corporations. Good answer. Bernie takes a shot at both Biden and Trump on trade. Booker takes a shot at Trudeau’s hair. Harris makes a short joke to Stefanopolis. Warren argues for leaving Afghanistan, pretty eloquently. Mayor Pete argues for a 3 year sunset on every AUMF. Booker talks about veterans.

Bernie swats back a cheap shot about socialism and Venezuela. Climate change question: Warren gets specific and concise. Yang asked about education, gets some cheers. (Still no tie. Good on him for that.) Warren talks about universal pre-K.

Bernie makes an argument for more investment in education, debt cancellation via a tax on Wall Street speculation. Biden grinds out a response, muddled as hell.

Where was climate change? In the margins … again. I’ll post more on the reactions next week.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Iraq 3.0.

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Despite the occasional bleat that no one wants war and that we are not seeking conflict in the Gulf, the United States continues to move closer and closer to some kind of clash with Iran. Administration officials are blaming the Iranian government for attacks against tankers owned by nations who still do business with Iran, citing non-existent evidence of sabotage by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard – evidence contradicted by the owners of the Japanese ship that was attacked. Right wing blowhards like Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas are advocating for strikes against Iran, and this is treated as a serious policy proposal. Various spokespeople for the administration’s ever-emerging policy even raised the possibility of the U.S. providing naval escorts for commercial ships in the Gulf, modeling it on the tanker war phase of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

Who says I'm blowing smoke out of my ass? It's the ship, damn it, the ship!

This last bit fascinated me. It’s so unusual for our leaders to even mention the Iran-Iraq war, I suspect largely because we had a dog in that fight … and the dog was named Saddam Hussein. (Also, one of the ships we sent to the Gulf on that particular mission was the U.S.S. Vincennes, which on July 3, 1988 shot down Iran Air flight 655, killing all 290 passengers on board, 60 of whom were children.) If this is the mark of a successful policy to be imitated, god help us. Few Americans will recall that Saddam Hussein started that war, in 1980, using chemical weapons liberally against the Iranians – weapons whose primary components were purchased from (West) Germany, I believe. One of the principal outcomes of the Iran-Iraq war was the invasion of Kuwait, subsequent Gulf War, then the 12-year strangulation and ultimate invasion of Iraq by the U.S.

This is to say that war can sometimes sound a lot simpler than it actually turns out to be. People like Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, of course, are driven by ideology and really don’t care if their war with Iran turns out to be a disaster. But aside from the very crucial questions of whether the policy is right or legal, I think it’s fair to say that this administration’s deliberate push from functional diplomacy to the brink of armed conflict is reckless and potentially catastrophic, given the current state of international affairs. We are desperately in need of action on the ensuing climate crisis, and these nutjobs are driving us into another pointless war, damn the consequences.

I strongly suggest you contact your congressional representatives and urge them to oppose this policy. The switchboard is 202-224-3121. You may also want to use the Stance app, which is very easy to use when phoning your house member and senators. Right now, it’s our best chance at heading off this madness.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Like old times.

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I don’t know if it was at the start of this week or at the end of last week, but at some point recently I wondered aloud what became of the Trump administration’s coup plan in Venezuela. It seemed to have fizzled rather badly, despite their best efforts … but then this week it sprang back to life like Frankenstein’s monster. Washington’s hand-picked maximum leader of that unfortunate country, Juan Guaido, appeared in a cell-phone video surrounded by what appears to be a handful of soldiers, declaring himself president once again. This is, of course, not a coup, we’re told, because officials of the United States government have decided that Guaido is the legitimate president of Venezuela. Nothing screams freedom more than leaders selected by the regional hegemon.

Worse than neocons. Old-school imperialists.

Naturally, our execrable National Security Advisor John Bolton and our equally fragrant Secretary of State Michael Pompeo are behaving as if whatever they say randomly just has to be true. Pompeo claimed to CNN that Maduro had a plane ready to fly to Havana, but was talked out of it by the Russians. This doesn’t appear to be anything near the truth, it will surprise you to hear. Let’s just say these gentlemen have some serious credibility issues. As ham-fisted as they are, though, it’s hard to overstate the pressure that the United States can apply to a country like Venezuela. We basically control the international financial system, and Caracas has been cut off from the banking, loans, etc., since Trump applied sanctions in 2017. They are making the economy scream, as Nixon/Kissinger did with Chile in 1973, and this could bring the roof down eventually. (See the Center for Economic and Policy Research paper on these sanctions for more.)

We know from the Iraq debacle, and other comparable debacles before and since, that craven policy makers like Bolton, Pompeo, and Elliott Abrams can break a country in half, if we let them. What they’re not so good at is putting it back together (not that possessing that particular skill would make it in any way a worthy enterprise). There’s a better than fair chance that they will succeed in crushing the Maduro government, but very likely that will not be the end of it. Venezuela may be plunged into a bloody civil conflict that could last for years, perhaps decades. Not that such an outcome would be any skin off of Bolton’s ample nose, nor Abrams’. They’ve come through their previous disasters without a scratch. That’s more than I can say for their targets.

The only thing that can stop them is us. We need to raise our voices on this now, before it’s too late.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Empire news.

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Brazil’s fraudulently elected president Jair Balsonaro visited with the marginally less detestable Donald Trump this past week – a reported love fest in which Trump not only announced Brazil’s new status as a “non-NATO ally” (which means lots more weapons for Balsonaro to use against his own people) but breezily suggested elevating Brazil to full NATO membership …. which is a little strange, and may have taken Trump’s advisors somewhat by surprise. The two pretenders also discussed the ongoing U.S. attack on Venezuela, which Balsonaro is happy to join in on. Of course, that would only make him like most of our political class here at home, which has openly supported the coup attempt by right-wing Venezuelan politician Juan Guaido … as have much of our corporate media.

Just to single out a particularly egregious recent example, NPR’s insipid Morning Edition ran a piece by one-time journalist Phillip Reeves about the crisis in Venezuela. The framing of the piece was typical of Reeves and NPR – through the lens of U.S. historic role in the hemisphere; that of a hegemonic power. “How is the president of Venezuela still in power?” asks host Steve Inskeep in the intro, adding that the U.S. is “moving to choke off the oil revenue that supports the socialist government.” First of all, that revenue has already been “choked off.” Second, NPR always characterizes these siege-like sanctions as only punishing the government, not the people of Venezuela. Finally … “socialist”? What the hell kind of socialist country has as many wealthy people as Venezuela does? Yes, the government controls the oil industry, but that pre-dates Chavez. The neo-colonial economy of the country is one based principally on export of petroleum – that’s largely why the economy is in turmoil.

NPR: Giving Venezuela the Iraq treatment

Reeves’s story suggests an opposition under pressure, but what he’s describing is a self-proclaimed president, Guaido, who is still functioning inside the country, openly calling for intervention by the hemispheric superpower … and yet, still not incarcerated by this supposedly very oppressive government. Every mention of Maduro or the government emphasizes the label “socialist” and paints the regime as dictatorial. Chavez, Reeves writes, was Maduro’s “socialist mentor” who “took power in 1999” (i.e. won the first of several elections). Reeves talks to several Guaido supporters, most English-speaking, but only one Maduro supporter, whom he describes as “a lifelong communist” who lives in a “ramshackle home.” This sixty-five year old man, Reeves reports with seeming disbelief, is “convinced the U.S. is at war with Maduro to seize Venezuela’s oil.” Where would he get THAT idea? (Well … from Trump himself, from John Bolton … from recent and not-so-recent history.)

Pretty amazing stuff to run on the 16th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq – an anniversary that Morning Edition didn’t see fit to mark in any serious way. You’d think that any outlet that was as flat-footed as NPR was in the run-up to the Iraq War might have learned enough from the experience not to mindlessly serve the interests of a bellicose administration set on regime change. And you would be disappointed.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

No peace.

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The much-anticipated summit in Vietnam between Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un ended without a deal. It’s pretty obvious that Trump’s shoot-from-the-hip approach to diplomacy is less than optimal. On top of that, there’s plenty of space in the empty skull of his for unsavory characters like John Bolton to take up residence. I suspect he was the cause of the breakdown. It sounds as though the discussion about nuclear technology was broadened by the U.S. delegation to include chemical and biological weapon systems as well. The president’s post-summit statement didn’t go there, of course, but that’s no surprise. I’m not convinced that he knows entirely what took place in Vietnam, he’s such a ding dong.

There's a lot of love there.

Nevertheless, his impulse towards talking this out is positive, and I support the effort, even though he’s probably coming at it from entirely the wrong direction. Any effort towards peace on the Korean peninsula is worth pursuing, in my view, though U.S. policymakers of both major parties would likely disagree. I’ve written elsewhere in these pages about my thoughts on our government’s motivations for prolonging this conflict. I don’t think Trump is part of that consensus, and that is probably a frustration to the foreign policy establishment. It’s hard to be sure about what’s happening here, but we are faced with the unusual circumstance of the president being very nearly right about something.

Of course, the upshot of this is that the mainstream, center-left media, like MSNBC, are pummeling Trump over his failure to reach a deal. Worse, they criticize his decision not to hold those enormous joint military exercises with South Korea, characterizing it as a gift to Kim Jong Un. They have also been harping on American student Otto Warmbier, who died after being released from North Korean custody. And just this week, the focus has been on North Korea’s mothballed missile site showing signs of being brought back into operation. It’s kind of a full-court press on the evils of Kim and the incompetence of Trump.

This is just stupid. I understand the impulse to oppose Trump at every opportunity (except, of course, on Venezuela), but this hammering over Korea turns the heat up on a volatile situation that threatens hundreds of thousands of lives. We were a whisker away from all-out war a little over a year ago, and that was not a good place to be. I’m not saying to avoid reporting on this diplomatic dance; I’m saying that the editorializing is over- the-top and not helpful to the cause of peace.

So, liberals … dial back the Korea rhetoric a bit. Let’s encourage this administration to do something useful, like end this pointless conflict that began with our hubris and stupidity more than 70 years ago. There are plenty of things you can attack Trump over – this shouldn’t be one of them.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Old time religion.

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When I listen to mainstream reporting on the standoff in Venezuela, I come away with the strong impression that the press has not learned anything whatsoever from their failures in the run-up to the Iraq war back in 2002-03. I know – I shouldn’t be surprised. Ironically, Trump’s targeting of the mainstream press rings a vague bell with many who recall their catastrophic support for Bush’s big middle eastern adventure. As is often the case, the Orange Disaster  approaches being right on this issue from entirely the wrong direction. (The same might be said of his current policy on North Korea, though that might actually result in something positive, unlike his targeting of journalists.)

Do not adjust your television

From an institutional perspective, it makes total sense that MSNBC, CNN, and the major networks would be almost totally on board the Trump train as it steams towards Caracas. These outlets are owned by corporations that are deeply vested in the imperial enterprise. Their news organizations are run by people who can’t see this crisis in any kind of equitable, non-interventionist fashion. And it’s not like they haven’t had a lot of helpful hints thrown at them, like the hiring of notorious war criminal Elliott Abrams to run the Venezuela desk, or execrable John Bolton’s crowing about how American oil companies can do good business with a Guaido-run government. Even when the quiet parts are said out loud, the media hews to the official line.

I think it’s fair to say that our two-party political culture effectively sets the parameters of debate within which our mainstream press operates. So when the leadership of the Democratic party in essence agree with the Republican president that this extreme right-wing opposition legislator who declared himself president of Venezuela should be seen as just that, no major newspaper or broadcast outlet is going to step outside of that political boundary. That is why, for example, there is no better method of determining where the center of power is in America than listening to an hour of news programming on NPR. It is why corporate-fueled media so worship bipartisanship, calls for civility, and “reaching across the aisle.” It is why television news show hosts are the primary constituencies for Howard Schultz’s toy presidential campaign.

They still got religion, my friends. They have learned nothing in the last 18 years.

luv u,

jp