What's News Tonight: June 2009 Archives

Star Wars 2009-2050

By John Batchelor on June 30, 2009 2:19 PM | 8 Comments

Abandoned in Moscow.

Colleague George Friedman looks ahead to the scheduled pow-wow between POTUS and Russian President-stooge (and surprisingly doll-like) Medvedev in Moscow next week. George Friedman is keen on Poland as a future power center in Europe as the Russian federation sags under the weight of bad decisions and Russian pigheadedness. Turkey is another of George Friedman's choices for future power center. The US alliance with Poland is shrewd, long-term, sophisticated and a low-profile way of keeping a knife at Moscow's throat. POTUS Obama will likely offer to remove a Star Wars component (Reagan's and Bush's SDI: the defense system that cracked the Soviets and ended the First Cold War) from going into Poland, but POTUS will do nothing about the arms sales to Poland. POTUS will enjoy abandoning some small piece of Reagan's SDI; it's the prankster in him. Russia is in a strong position just now and regards POTUS as fresh, clumsy, naive and impressionable. May be true that POTUS is simple-minded about strategic defense; it is not a profound concern for this pow-wow, as not even Moscow cares that much about SDI. Putin is the potentate for now, and he keeps his eye on Georgia and Ukraine. Putin will fight to keep Georgia and Ukraine out of NATO. Easy to assume that Georgia has been abandoned by the Obama administration. Joe Biden is the VPOTUS because of his show-boating to Tblisi last August, but that was then and this is now. Ukraine is hopeless, another failed Soros operation. This makes Poland the front line of battle with Moscow. POTUS Obama may try to give up Poland but that is beyond his skills. Besides, the EU and NATO and Germany are keen on keeping Poland a non-Russian front porch.

George Friedman Future War.

See GF wondrous book "The Next Hundred Years," in which Japan and Turkey launch a sneak attack from their secret moon base to knock out the US Battle Stars in geosynchronous orbit in the year 2050. We then fight a ground battle for Poland. Once we get new battle stars up, we prevail. Intense. Where is Moscow in 2050? Cut up between Turkey and Poland. The Germans fight with us. China is a Japanese vassal. And the US is in the hands of a gritty cyberwar-fighting cadre that is born in the year 2012 and educated by men and women who are just graduating from college now. How far back are we in politics from 2050? POTUS Obama and cranky John McCain will be as dusty then as Nixon's "Bring Us Together" is to us now. And 1970 was when RMN backed this oilman in Texas who hailed from old Prescott Bush in Connecticut. Young guy named George H.W. Bush, bunch of kids, and a wife who wore the pants. The Beatles just broke up. Cool.

Twenty-first Century Bananas

By John Batchelor on June 29, 2009 8:19 PM | 8 Comments

Chavez Stooge.

What Mary Anastasia O'Grady told me Sunday 28 was that Manuel Zelaya, the thrown-out elected-president of Honduras, has been in cahoots with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela in order to run a phony referendum that will undermine the constitutional limitations on the presidency and make it possible for Zelaya to remain in office past his term end in January 2010. The US is said to have opposed the Zelaya scheme and to have warned him not to push it. The Honduran Supreme Court rejected Zelaya's scheme as illegal. The Honduran military refused Zelaya's order to distribute the referendum ballots, which had been printed in Venezuela and flown in by Chavez. In sum, Zelaya was looking to wreck the constitution in Honduras and consolidate power in his own hands with the same arch machinery that Chavez used to take over the apparatus in Venezuela and that Ahmadinejad has used to take over the apparatus in Iran. The Obama administration now asserts that it is against what POTUS calls a "coup," and wants Zelayta restored. Unlikely that this will happen. Note in this clip that POTUS avoids explaining why the military threw Zelaya out of the country. POTUS is more interested to concoct a flimsy Twenty-first Century version of Woody Allen's "Bananas" and claim that the US doesn't do those bad things anymore.

Carter II?

The Obama-leaning NYT coverage of the Honduran events is decidedly confused as to who is in charge of Honduras policy at the White House. It sounds as if the administration botched this argument over the last weeks, never acting effectively nor warning Zelaya what would happen to him if he moved too far. It's as if the Obama State Department didn't know about the crisis until after it was over. Hard to believe that the Obama team is this naive. POTUS says nothing about what the future will be if the US is successful in supporting the return to power of a stooge of Chavez despite the fact that this is against the decision of the Supreme Court of Honduras. It cannot be idle that Chavez and his lackies in Nicaragua and El Salvador have pulled their diplomats out of Honduras in a tantrum. The Obama adminsitration is beginning to look a deal like the Carter administration: too late, too clumsy, too inconsistent, too incoherent for anyone to worry about or remember. Why worry about a POTUS who apologizes no matter what happens? Zelaya is kaput. Chavez is irked. The US is marginalized. Street theater in Honduras will wane since Chavez does not pay his bills more than needed, and Chavez has lost Honduras.

Rap for Neda Soltan

By John Batchelor on June 28, 2009 4:54 PM | 10 Comments

Example of the Neda music going up, and I choose this one because it has cameos of her in fresh places and poses. Neda looks to have been a fun loving and affectionate young woman of many styles and much energy. I do not have the translation fo this singer, but his beat and his voice are charismatic and convincing. The Neda chorus grows and moves into many languages as it moves into music. Expect cinema, painting, dance, performance and style to be based upon those awful scenes in Tehran.

Hard News.

The unconfirmed reports out of Tehran continue threatening.

"Basij is after us. Slept in the streets last night. Internet is down in most of the city."

By John Batchelor on June 27, 2009 7:38 PM | 4 Comments

Hope Is Not A Plan.

Impossible to figure at this time if the BBC has changed its tone and direction about the Twelvers because of the Tehran sadism and tyranny of the last weeks or because the BBC has decided that, with the the deaf Bush administration safely retired, it is useful to support liberty again. The conduct of the Twelvers is vastly more open and far more restrained than the brutality practiced by the Saddamites the last sixteen years of the Baathists's reign in Baghdad. Saddam Hussein was an Idi Amin lunatic in comparison to the clumsy, pious, sophisticated, media saavy Ahmadinejad and his coterie. Imagine what the Baathists would have done to protests like those in Tehran. Yet the BBC stood by from 1991 until 2003 reminding everyone that it was wrong to interfere in Iraqi affairs. This despite the no-fly zones in the north and south and the intervention more than once by the US and Britain launching missile and bombing strikes at Baghdad. After 2003, the BBC stood for non-interference in Iraqi affairs, stood against the American and British removal of Saddam's cadre of desert savages. Now the BBC is pro-democracy and pro-protest and pro-harassment of the Tehran regime. Still against intervention. Perhaps Neda Soltan is supposed to rise up and lead a nation of open-handed children chanting "Mousavi," and the Pasdaran will crumble and the Basij will turn in their Brownings. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition works in a more timely fashion. Twenty years after Tiananmen Square (right) -- where the student rebels showed up with open hands -- there is no justice, no credibility, no plan in China; and the goons and their flunkies in Beijing are working to shut down what transparency exists while stoking the proliferation fires in Pyongyang, Rangoon, Islamabad, Tehran. Hope is not a plan.

Satellite Dish.

Watching the second part of the above clip, a Tehran victim leads a video cam to the roof of his building and complains that the security police broken in and wrecked the place because folk were shouting slogans at the mobs below. What I found more important is the number of satellite dishes spread out on the roof (right). Those are all communication devices linked to what used to be called Shah TV cable from Los Angles. They are also internet links via satellite. Compared to Baghdad 2003, Tehran in 2009 is a wide-open and voracious consumer of information that it also adept at feeding video back through the links. The regime is now said to be under ferocious cyber attack by what are called "hacktivists." Denial of service attacks and genuine penetration attacks of government sites.

"Internet is down in most of city..."

Late in the news cycle, London Times reporting a variety of messages from Twitter and Facebook that point to continued conflict and persecution not only in Tehran but also in other cities. None of these messages are confirmed. The regime is using the same services to insert agitprop and disinformation. The Beeb reported an unnatural and contrived dullness on the streets of Tehran Sat 27 (below). Sunday is the first work day of the new week. The predictable announcement that the election is fixed is due from the Qom Council of Elders, the dictator's privy council.

Reliable source Isfahan hospital -- many injured from last 24 hours Persiankiwi 11.30

Stay the hell out of our affairs!! We don't need your help to have an election!!!Iranian Facebook user 14.15

Basij is after us. Slept in the streets last night. Internet is down in most of the cityChange_for_Iran 14.30

I want a president like Obama to protect my people and I think so far Karoubi and Mousavi are better than the rest of those jackasses Iranian Facebook user 16.30

They are now arresting human rights activists in large scale. where is UN watchdog?! Change_for_Iran 16.40

Rally is on. Silent, calm, and peaceful. This is what we all want! Thanks for everyone who's there, and who's watching! parhamdoustdar 17.30

Not only that they attacked us, now they are hiding the bodies of those we lost! I will kill Ahmadinejad myself! Change_for_Iran 19.45

The Persian Empire will come back! The new age has come! Iranian Facebook user 21.15

"University Alley, University Alley, murder scene, murder scene" was the written message held aloft on a makeshift paper banner. Rather than ring out in the air, the rhythmic message reverberated inside the minds of all who read itTehranbureaublog.

Witness to Neda's Murder

By John Batchelor on June 26, 2009 12:31 PM | 5 Comments

Marked Man.

BBC interviews the Iranian physician who was nearby Neda Agha-Soltan when she was shot on Saturday, Dr. Arash Hejazi. Hejazi says that he did not know Neda Agha-Soltan. Hejazi is a physician, originally from Tehran, who now lives in London as a publisher. He was with friends in Tehran, visiting for several days. He and his companions went outside on Saturday 2o to see the protesters going by on the big streets. Teargas drove them and others down an alley away from the main protest. The sound of a shot. Hejazi turned to see a young woman collapse. He jazi is one of the two men leaing over the woman. The other man is her music teacher. The two cellphone videos we have tell the story brutally. I showed the videos to a nineteen year-old American male who is just now focusing on the story. Within seconds, the nineteen year-old understood the injustice. The Youtube generation measures what it see on video swiftly. No agitprop from Tehran or Washington can interfere. Hejazi's lengthy testimony to the BBC will stand up as an annotation of the video of Neda Agha-Soltan's death -- a video that is a sudden, damning indictment of the Twelvers -- much the same way the execution of a VC by a Saigon police chief during Tet in 1968 became the icon of what was wrong in Vietnam.

Basij Shooter

Afterward, Hejazi says that people in the crowd grabbed a Basij with a weapon whom they said had done the shooting. The Basij cried out, "I didn't want to kill her." The crowd complained, "Don't harm him; we are not killers, like them," then, "We can't turn him to the police, what should we do?" Hajazi says that the Basij shooter was just crying because he was afraid. "So they let him go... They were afraid to expose themselves to the police. They took his identiy cards. I know there are people there who know who he is. I know that some people were taking photos of him..."

Hejazi Remembers

"I was washing my hands complusively, for many minutes. A fear of death overwhelmed me. That guy who shot her could have still been there. It was the first time in my life I felt that fear of death...Profound sense of guilt that I couldn't save her.... I didn't sleep for three nights. The look in her eyes, she didn't have time to say anything. Very innocent look...."

"She wanted freedom of assembly."

"The most important thing is that I'm putting myseklf in jeopardy because I am talking to you.... She died for a cause....She wanted freedom of assembly, which is even mentioned in the Constitution of Iran... She died on the streets to say something... As an eyewitness... I haven't seen any of the protesters carrying a gun... they just had their hands and the their voice... This is a crime, unarmed civilians were on the street asking for something..."

Flowers.

"I hear that people were planning to gather in a mosque, and it was cancelled by the government... People put flowers there.... the next day... a rubbish truck came by and threw rubbish on the flowers... there were more than ten people gathering there and they were hit by the Basij to scatter... I've never been in politics,...I want the world to know that I'm here on my own will.... just the innocent look in her eyes before she died.... But the Basij is armed, it's an armed force..."

Thugs.

Hejazi is now a marked man, and he knows it. He knows he cannot return to Iran. Will the regime persecute his family in Tehran? Yes. Will the regime strike at Hejazi in London? Yes. Where is he safe? Nowhere. And the shooter? From Hejaz's remarks, his identity is known. There may be a photograph. The weapon may by available. Much turmoil ahead; much to discover; much for the regime to cover-up.

Last Days of the Republicans Part 16

By John Batchelor on June 25, 2009 10:50 PM | 5 Comments

GOP Lothario Losers

by John Batchelor

The political mystery of the moment is why two virile Republican presidential contenders with decades of hard work and years of political savvy both set themselves on fire on TV within weeks of each other.

Is this a mutation of Potomac fever that cuts down Republicans like dandelions? Or is this the sort of Allen Drury soap opera that comes to a waxen party that is out of touch with its own history, drained of a sense of proportion, shrunken to the size of a boys locker room full of cowboy manqués, Dixiecrat clones, and Lothario losers like Nevada Senator John Ensign and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford?

Sanford may look like a "19th Nervous Breakdown," but one week ago he was a cunning self-promoter who was creating the network needed to win the nomination and use his snake-charms, cruelty, lust, and cynical vanity to sneak into the White House.

The Ensign and Sanford cases are so similar that from just a little distance like Rome--where they have a genuine Don Giovanni--you would be safe assuming that this was all the same tawdry, cheatin'-heart tale, like a Nashville ballad on replay.

A chiseled-jaw, baritone voiced, self-righteous pol achieves lordly party acclaim from his peers in preparation for a presidential run and then, without warning, walks into a live TV conference to confess, grovel, obfuscate, and flee.

The facts available so far do not add up to a coherent timeline for either of these now self-disgraced has-beens.

For Ensign, what we have is chiefly his assertion in his clumsy, hasty, ill-attended media conference on June 14, that he separated from his wife, started an affair with a married staffer, Cynthia Hampton, in December 2007, ended the affair with the married staffer in August 2008, reunited with his wife, and has now come forward voluntarily to the media to confess because he may have become the target of threats of exposure by the married staffer's spouse, Doug Hampton, who was also an Ensign staffer at one time. Both of the unusual Hamptons left Ensign's employ in May 2008 and have yet to speak out on their own behalf, using a lawyer letter to plead, "please respect their privacy."

Speaking up loudly is a pesky watchdog, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, that has filed a complaint to Senator Barbara Boxer's Senate Ethics Committee, pointing to its suspicions that Ensign used his political action committee to pay money to Cynthia Hampton during and after the affair. Also making noise is the Las Vegas Sun, which has published its suspicion that Hampton sent by FedEx written allegations against Ensign to Fox News on June 12, three days before the Ensign voluntary presser on June 15, and that somehow not only did Fox not pursue the story, but also that someone may have "tip(ped) off Ensign."

Ensign continues to cringe mutely, resigning his staff-and-budget-rich position as chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, turning down all invitations to high-profile TV shows to explain himself, bowing for two minutes before his Senate Republican colleagues on Tuesday, June 22 in order to illustrate his contrition. The only thing that is convincing about Ensign is that his ambitions for the nomination are trash and that his dash to Sioux City, Iowa, on June 1, two weeks before his humiliation, was the high-water mark of his White House run.

After Ensign's brief apology to his peers, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell sounded like a mortician wishing a client well across the River Styx: "I think Senator Ensign will address whatever needs to be said from here on."

Mark Sanford's sudden dive overshadows Ensign's just because Sanford was much higher on the list of dream presidential candidates. Sanford's one-man campaign to force the state of South Carolina to refuse $700 million of the Obama administration's March stimulus package raised his profile as a conservative firebrand, both to the Tea Party set and to despondent party Brahmins. As recently as June 2, the leader of the South Carolina state legislature, Republican Glenn McConnell, prophesied usefully of Sanford, "He's moved into the national arena," while Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer coyly suggested to the Wall Street Journal that there were "no plans" to run for the presidency.

Sawyer and the rest of the governor's staff have spent the last week promoting bad adventure fiction about Sanford's whereabouts on the Appalachian Trail. We now are told that Sanford's absence included a rendezvous with a female paramour in Argentina whom he regards as "a dear, dear friend." Sanford's revelation of his deceptions is just the beginning of the yarn. The governor appeared stubbornly disconnected from reality as he rambled on about his romance and "the odyssey we're all on in life." He left the stage to the shouts of the not unbemused media asking if he would be resigning, as if that was the worst thing that was going to happen to his family and to him the next days of the tabloid cat o' nine tails.

The Republican Party cannot walk away with the same square shouldered self-pity as Sanford. According to just-released emails from Sanford to the Argentine woman, named Maria, he was boasting in July last year of the "VP talk" around him when he visited John McCain in Colorado. Before they took it back today, the other GOP governors had made Sanford the chairman of the Republican Governors Association, which was a first-class ticket on a one way campaign plane to 2012. Sanford may look like a "19th Nervous Breakdown," but one week ago he was a cunning self-promoter who was creating the network needed to win the nomination and use his snake-charms, cruelty, lust, and cynical vanity to sneak into the White House.

The twinned disasters of Ensign and Sanford expose the whole party apparatus for the laziness, pettiness, and emptiness of what is left of the leadership. Look at what the party has come to, Republicans: A handful of sharpies and a gang of back-scratchers, all persuaded that Ensign and Sanford were credible campaigners. Have you noticed how many of our pols look like Citizen Kane as he faced the inevitability of his exposure for fraudulence and refusing to back down, shouted, "Don't you worry about me! I'm Charles Foster Kane! I'm no cheap crooked politician, trying to save himself from the consequences of his crimes..."

John Batchelor is radio host of the John Batchelor Show in New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

Unconfirmed Tehran Partisans

By John Batchelor on June 24, 2009 2:38 PM | 8 Comments

We Were Cautioned to Surrender.

Good, connected Tehran news source (he is outside Tehran) sent me this Youtube of Joan Baez covering the famous partisan lyrics "La Complainte du Partisan," 1943, by Anna Marly and Emmanuel d'Astier de la Vigerie." I puzzled why he sent it to me. Received the clip about six hours ago. He had sent me additional grim news three hours beforehand. I checked his details with my best signals source and another long time signals source. All of it fit together. I put up Joan Baez now not because it is my taste but because it is what those who mourn the disappeared want to hear. "They poured across the border. We were cautioned to surrender. This I could not do. Into the hills I vanished..." Because what follows is not anything but rough news. I have received confirmation from best source that the crackdown Wednesday 24 in Tehran was total and thorough. I was warned last news cycle that the web had been penetrated. That no Twitter or Facebook or email was trustworthy, that the regime had command of the sites and IP proxies. This makes all information impossible to confirm. This caveat is critical. In war, the first three reports are wrong. In this information war, what we have now is raw and aimless and scary because we will never get the facts. Those who vanish now into those graves in South Tehran will not leave a mobile phone video record to mourn. "They poured across the border. We were cautioned to surrender. This I could not do. Into the hills I vanished..."

Unconfirmed.

Information received within the last nine hours: Iranian Student Solidarity Movement secret headquarters in Tehran. (G---- Street.) Attacked. Eight Basij, led by the identified thug "Seyed Fazl-o-Ilah Sabzevari." There was stiff resistance. No mention of gunfire. Basij thugs subdued five of the resisters. Many WIA. Basij thugs confiscated computers. Resisters and equipment slammed into SUVs and taken away. At least one of the resisters was badly wounded. The Iranian Student Solidarity Movement website is hacked. Many of the leaders are gone. The only way for the regime IT to get the passwords was from the arrested leadership. The assumption is torture and murder. Additional information is that one of the leaders was abducted Saturday 20 from her home. No name. Her body was found the next day, Sunday 21, near Karaj, north of Tehran. Multiple stabbings. Throat cut. Her family now said to be safely outside of Iran.

At 1806 London Time: the London Times live blogs:

18.06 Reporting restrictions make verification virtually impossible but it does seem that there have been outbreaks of sustained violence in the Iranian capital today. Associated Press is now also reporting that witnesses have seen protesters involved in clashes with Iranian riot police near Iran's parliament in Tehran.

Rafsanjani and Mousavi.

Best source reports that Mullah Rafsanjani and his stooge Mousavi will not be turned out of the leadership. There will be a false front to maintain order in the face of the student dissent and the working-class doubt. Yet Rafsanjani loses. Rafsanjani will not be the new supreme leader. The next big boss, once Ayatollah Khamenei dies, will be Mullah Yazdi, the gun-toting sadist and apocalyptic predator. What does this mean for the US and Israel? "They poured across the border. We were cautioned to surrender. This I could not do. Into the hills I vanished..."

Shape of Tehran to Come

By John Batchelor on June 23, 2009 6:04 PM | 11 Comments

"Twenty-four Hour-a-Day News Cycle."

Here is the puzzling moment when POTUS loses focus on his policy, whatever it is, as he moves too quickly from the rainmaking of one reporter (maybe Chip Reid) to the polite but still rainmaking of NBC Chuck Todd re Tehran. POTUS is not ready for more contretemps and mentions Neda Agha-Soltan's death as if a brief to a court:

"I'm not hinting... I think that when a young woman gets shot on the street, and, when she gets out of her car... that's a problem... Because I think, Chuck, that we don't know how this is going to play out... I know everybody here is on a twenty-four hour a day news cycle. I'm not. Chuck, I answered, I answered, I answered the question, Chuck, which is, that we don't know how this is going to play out..."

The rewrite desk at the White House has been struggling since last Friday -- when it tried the fatuous Father's Day theme in the face of Tehran violence -- to catch up with the events from the videos and Tweets. White House rewrite may not have caught up yet but better. Today's "appalled" and "outraged" is better. Why is POTUS cranky here? Because he knows the shape of things to come and cannot say so.

Briefings.

POTUS is getting briefed well ahead of the news cycle by competing intelligence teams with multiple assets. What POTUS hears is that there may be much worse, soonest. Situation remains highly unpredictable. Best source tells me that the mullahs of Qom have been toying with Mullah Rafsanjani and his stood Mousavi and have now tired of the game. The threat to the regime is demographic. More than half the population is under 30. It is one thing to watch Westernized doll-like elite students parade in Tehran with color cordinated outfits and banners in English. It is another to let that dissent seep into the working class. The decision has been made to close down the turmoil. Source says that Pasdaran (IRGC) boss Major-General Mohammed Ali Jafari is commanding the operation. I do not have a clock. Again, repeat, highly unpredictable. Best source emphasizes repeatedly, highly unpredictable. I am told by another excellent source from the expats that the students are not ignorant of the risk. And that there has been communication between the students and the working class that is organized. All of this the POTUS has heard and will hear again in the next hours. Am told there is a rally called for Wednesday 24 in front of the Majlis building. Today was for the regime creating video that the U.K. was the Wicked Witch of the West (right). Another rally on Thursday. There is also a protester campaign to organize a general strike. No independent confirmation. It is not immaterial that a top aide to Mousavi has been arrested. What does the POTUS know now, tonight? Dawn in Tehran in an hour. Once more, the situation remains highly unpredictable.

Tehran Scream

By John Batchelor on June 22, 2009 11:49 PM | 13 Comments

You can study this until the scream. No one can study it afterward. This is a second and longer version of what I posted Saturday evening 20, this version recorded from an additional phone: both videos are now all over Europe and Asia. The Twelvers are doomed by the slaughter of Neda Salehi Agha-Soltan, 27. We know that doomed men take a long time to fall and that the next few weeks are likely to look like an abyss. The rallying message "Neda" is written quickly on the streets. I have seen it in Twitters. The Beeb says she was shot by a Basij sniper on a rooftop. Twitter has started posting photos, names abd addresses of Basij snipers. Right, find a Basij sniper from two days ago. This is not the Neda Agha-Soltan's killer: Identified:

"This thug's name is, Sattar Najafi, home address: Azadi Square, Moein Blvd., Saadati Street."

There are no confirmed reports from anywhere, but there are tens of thousand of reports from everywhere. My best source confirmed that the British are evacuating their diplomacy people because there have been specific threats against them. And if you ask, are the Western intelligence agencies interfering, the answer is, You betcha. The regime is pushing back with brute force and with guile. The IP proxies are closing down, the high profile Western journalists are being detained, slowly the regime is closing off digital observation from outside. The arrests are said to be at night. Below find the sort of Twitter messaging that warns that the credulity, ruthlessness, moral vacuum, despondency, is only just starting. All of it points toward outrages to come. Remind, none of this can be confirmed:

"My sources, some Generals Rev Guard and Army unwilling to take orders from Khamanei

"Al Jazeera rpts 24 journalists have been detained by authorities since the protests began week ago

"Mousavi - I will announce route for Thursday March closer to the time to avoid Gov readiness

"Rafsanjani controls much of the army - until now he is silent - after trigger event he will act

"Again we say thank you to our friends who are helping from outside - you know who you are - Sea of Green"

Neda Agha-Soltan's Memorial.

Her family was directed to bury her in a section of the South Tehran Behesht-e-Zahr graveyard that is already prepared for victims of the turmoil. The family was not permitted a memorial service. The Twelvers are geniuses at providing rallying points for the rebellion. The Beeb still photo shows a lot of empty holes. Shot down standing beside her music teacher. In a side street away from the violence. Targeted. Through the chest. Her organs exploded when you see the blood burst from her nose. The estimate is that she took two minutes to die.

Once Upon A Time in Tehran

By John Batchelor on June 21, 2009 12:48 AM | 17 Comments

Khamenei Moved to Secure Location.

Notes from the sources outside Tehran in communication with the resistance and the bystanders, nothing confirmed, nothing can be confirmed. Above is fifteen rough seconds of a murder. No name, no location, appears to be a cell phone recording, sometime in the last news cycle, possibly at Revolutionary Square in East Tehran. Reports from source of indiscriminate by the security apparatus. Casualty counts very incomplete. Thirty mentioned, also fifty KIA. Also a report that the security forces pursued the demonstrators into the neighborhoods for the first time, and that there are arrests, beatings, severe abuse. Mousavi issued a dare to the regime within the last hours, saying that what happens next is on Khamenei. The Ayatollah is reported moved for security purposes to the citadel built near the old Shah's sister's house.

Rafsanjani.

Ayatollah Rafsanjani is directing the Mosavi resistance. Reports that Rafsanjani has been at the mullah dominated city of Qom the last days, negotiating with other mullahs. Rafsanjani said to have demanded Ahmadinejad resign, that the country be led by a counil for the interim, that a new election be held under supervision. The large city of Isfahan reported in support of Rafsanjani; and the links between Isfahan and Qom said to be controlled by Mousavi supporters. Mullahs in the large religious city of Mashad said to be among demonstrators against regime: this is confirmed by trusted source. This list is a long way around identifying that the Twelver regime is under assault. Men go to war, historians teach us about the 2oth century, not when they are strong but when they believe that waiting will make them weaker than the present.

Obama Administration.

The video coming will get worse. The White House rewrite script of Friday, replaced by Saturday, will not hold up to more shot down daughters on the ground with faces painted in blood and the stare of the dead. "The whole world is watching" trope by POTUS is so old it has whiskers when you use it in response to a mobile phone glimpse of a fresh corpse. The murdered woman has a name. We will get it. The Twelvers are a murder cult. War crime tribunals are coming once we outlast the missiles and the nukes. I do not have the Farsi of the scream on the video, but we get the point. Grief and rage and insanity coming. Reminds of that moment in May 4, 1970 when we 20-somethings saw that the chaos of the Vietnam war had just come home to Kent State and that the guys in charge in Washington had lost control of the narrative. "Four dead in Ohio" is what we called it once upon a time in America. "What if you knew her, and saw her dead on the ground, how can you run when you know?" This is trouble with a boldface capital T. Long knives. Jaw jaw back in the drawer. Warm up the jets. Move the fleet. The Twelvers are going for all of it. Eye on the Kim regime. IDF lock and load.

White House Twelver Rewrite Desk

By John Batchelor on June 20, 2009 3:31 PM | 5 Comments

Saturday Afternoon Script Meeting.

The White House has momentarily released a statement that seeks to rearrange its steps toward the Twelvers as scattered reports in the open source media point to the predictable mayhem and reign of terror.

"The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.

"As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.

"Martin Luther King once said - "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples' belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness."

Cairo?

The cut and paste style of the Potus remark --- "As I said in Cairo..." -- suggests an unsettled policy. What POTUS said in Cairo was soft power. What Martin Luther King said more than forty years ago does not translate to a state police apparatus in full riot gear to secure a rogue regime with nukes and ballistic missiles. This is hard power time. Try Churchill. One of those missiles is prepped for launch from North Korea in the general direction of Pearl Harbor. The White House rewrite desk is slow, foot-dragging. stubborn, defiant, and it will remain fixed on the fiction that Tehran's internal affairs are not for Washington to comment upon.

Who Worries the White House More?

I have an incomplete list of who or what the White House thinks about when it rewrites and repositions and refashions the Twelver apologies. First must be the TV audience: very dangerous lot, since it doesn't listen to words, it looks into the eyes and studies the body movement and can smell clumsiness and false witnessing. Secondly is the print media, leading with NYT but also including the hard working WaPo and the dutiful EU papers like the Financial Times and the Guardian. Then there is the Democratic left, the Republican right, the so-called independent bloggers, and also Maureen Down hearts Karl Rove. Way down on the list is the Iranian ex-pats and the Tehran demonstrators. Am unsure where the Twelvers are on this list. Or the Twelver factotums such as Hamas, Hizballah, Damascus, or the Twelver adversaries such as the House of Saud and the creaky Cairo lot. You can see why rewrite is maddening at the NSC.

Sunday Talk Shows Scrambling Chairs.

Big losers are the big ticket healthcare food fight, the John Ensign tackiness, and the not minor matter of a skyrocketing unemployment rate in eight states and a certainty of a nation 10% by fall (and youth unemployment may be unprintable). Big winners are the tough talking flag wavers on the Hill from both parties who crammed in a toothless condemnation of the lunatic Twelver regime that has been on a collision course with reason for about thirty years and has eaten nuke fuel for lunch since the 2002 Axis of Evil meetings. Mike Pence is a winner. State will be creative. Let the hand-wringing apologia begin.

Islamic Republic is the Standard Bearer of Human Rights

By John Batchelor on June 19, 2009 8:13 PM | 12 Comments

White House Cagey.

The White House cannot be unaware of the dilemma that, in choosing to go softly, softly, re the Twelvers, it permits many smart guys to flank on the right and left. Now the Obama administration strolls cheerfully into Father's Day weekend with much jovial expectation while in Tehran the final showdown begins between a routinely fascist police apparatus and what looks to be a misled or cynically incited student body and its friends. The hired common people cheering the regime and Ayatollah Khamenei (Right) will not be moved by Youtube video of police riots. All reports from Iran are untrustworthy, however there is a general report that the anti-regime demonstrators plan another rally within the next twelve hours in order to provoke the regime. Can it be called off? Likely not, since Rafsanjani's stooge Mousavi has crossed the line. The situation is Tehran is now unpredictable. Rafsanjani has not been seen in public for days. Rafsanjani's two adult children are forbidden to leave the country. A general round-up may be underway. The US Congress has anticipated the next outrages correctly by passing condemnations of the regime. Toothless condemnations but this is politics, not war. This leaves the Obama administration without a good punch. Come Monday morning, the Obama team will be scrambling to present a stern, anxious, cosmopolitan, puzzled voice. The generally well-mannered White House corps is signaling the clever Robert Gibbs here that it will come back to this topic with more bite when events warrant. Gibbs knows. He is cagey: "We can quibble on this, I think the president has been clear..."

Basiji.

The confidence is high, the Basiji are well-fed and well-paid, the slaughter will be random and purposeful, the sadism will be long term.

Khamenei Mocks the West.

Find below a translation by my Sunday 21 guest, Banafshe Zand-Bonnazi, Planet Iran, of the last five minutes of Khamenei's address to the faithful. Khamenei is artful with moral equivalence. The Ayatollah swerves cleverly into mocking HRC because of her husband's FBI that, under Janet Reno, blundered savagely in the Waco disaster. Identifying human rights abuses by the police apparatus of modern states is not challenging. Khamenei's remarks anticipate the condemnation by the Congress and the EU states. Also, POTUS has already noted in Cairo the fact of the MI6 and CIA plot that wrecked Mosadeqh in 1953 and installed the reluctant puppet Pahlevi from his Italian exile. There is nothing simple about the history of Tehran and London. Worse is to go farther back and look at the abuse of Tehran by the French and British during and after the Napoleonic wars. Washington came very late to the mischief and disregard. The Ayatollah speaks for the common sense opinion in Iran that London and its flunkie Washington are ruthless, treacherous, sinister assassins. Read the Khamenei remarks understanding that a goodly part of the Ummah agrees:

"What happened inside Iran made these people (the West) greedy. A few years ago some Zionist American investor said in the press that he spent $10 million in Georgia and started a Velvet Revolution, claiming: "I removed one regime and replaced it with another." These utter morons think that we, the Islamic Republic, Iran...I mean how dare you compare us? They think Iran is Georgia.

(laughter)

"The problem with our enemies is that they know nothing about the "people" of Iran still.

CHANTING

"The thing that for me is the ugliest, is the comments that was made about human rights and the statement fearing for the safety of the people which was issued by these American statesmen...that if people are dealt with in this way or that way, that we worry about people! You worry about people?! Do you even accept anything resembling human rights? Who dragged Afghanistan into bloodshed and to this day continues the bloodshed over there? Who crushed Iraq under military boots? In Palestine, who gave so much financial and political support to the cruel Zionist regime? Even inside the U.S., one is amazed, during the time of the administration of these very Democrats, THE Democratic Party in America, the time of the presidency of the husband of this very...so-called "lady" who expresses her opinions...80 something people who were a part of the Davoodi sect, were burnt alive; there's no room for denying this. These "excellencies" did this deed; it was these very Democrats...the Davoodi sect which they themselves call DAVIDIANS. For some unknown reason, these people incurred the wrath of Americans and inside a house...they went over there and besieged the place and whatever they did, they didn't come out and so they ended up setting the house on fire and 80 something men, women and children burned alive! You think you know something about human rights?!

"In my opinion, these American and European statesman ought to take some take the responsibility and accept as a duty, a little bit of humility and contrition. The Islamic Republic is the standard bearer of human rights and our defense of the innocent in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan,...wherever people are deemed innocent, it is signified. It signifies that human rights via the belief and faith in Islam and we certainly do not need anyone admonishing us on human rights."

Not Since 1854

By John Batchelor on June 18, 2009 2:44 PM | 13 Comments

Bloody Kansas.

Here my conversation with Norah O'Donnell last news cycle re the DailyBeast.com piece on the zombies. I didn't push into any new territory in these few remarks and kept myself to the general point that a party does not thrive when it permits a handful of celebrity talking heads to supervise the membership list like bouncers in Tribeca. I can see that my performance did not fill me with glee. It is somber to consider that this may be the passing moment of a great American party, fundamental to the success of the nation after the poisonous Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, crucial to the defense of the state after the early blows of the Cold War, yet now ransacked and burned out by a putsch of blowhards, apologists, parochialists, opportunists, thieves. It has happened before to American parties, such as the Federalists, the Whigs, the Liberty Party, the Greenbacks, the Prohibitionists, the American Party. Mostly third parties, mostly dying a slow death over many cycles. The future is an undiscovered irony.

Additional Comments from the Beast Site:

I read these comments for the wit as well as information, firepower, zest, impertinence, associations, curiousity, metaphors and puzzlement. You write what you write, and later everyone reads it differently, and you read what they write, and you wonder what you wrote, and then you stop wondering and just read them. The nature of controversy in politics.

neverlate

Enough already with the obituaries. Obama, the first person without a pale complexion to become President, has generated a bit of a buzz is a surprise? The Republican Party should just take a rest and leave the Democrats to do what they always do when in power. Screw it up.

(1)

9:06 pm, Jun 17, 2009

roger37

Yeah, by passing things that work, like Medicare, the Student Loan Program, Social Security (yes, they need to correct for a population bump), Unemployment, and the Marshall Plan, that built up the European markets for us. All passed over strenuous Rethug resistance.

Go look up how the deficits and National Debt happened, mostly under the Republicans, then check out the surpluses turned in by the Clinton administration. Congressional Budget Office archives.

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1:01 am, Jun 18, 2009

roger37

Not to mention: the GI Bill after WWII and Korea, that educated a generation of returning soldiers. Again with Republican resistance.

But Dick Nixon did pass the Food Stamp program, but then it took Clinton to reform welfare (for example, in The Banana Republic, Louisiana, we had 260,000 people on welfare in the 90's. Now the number is 10,000.) Yes, everybody talked about welfare reform for decades. But Clinton actually passed it.

1:11 am, Jun 18, 2009

beth11

The Republicans are whinners, now out of power, which by the way seems to be a problem for them. Cheney cannot handle having nothing to do all day. He misses the good old days of inhanced interrorgation. Rush Limbaugh just insites the fringe
crazies with his lies. They the Republicans just cannot stand where the country is headed. Away from their controll thank you very much.

4:51 pm, Jun 17, 2009

imdougandirule

"What is a political party that is vastly white, middle-aged, male, Southern, pious, conservative, aggrieved, impotent, nostalgic, rude-...?"

Sounds like the nazi party to me.

2:17 pm, Jun 17, 2009

judyfiore

Geez Jackee,
I guess I'm one of the few that understands what you're talking about. I am a loyal Rush listener and knew exactly what you meant.

(1)

12:58 pm, Jun 17, 2009

yourmomsaysshutup

Yes jackass I agree too.. I mean good night Bush has been just like democrats; wanting better Health Care, Regulation, transparency, Same Sex Marriages, Lower defense budgets, pro-choice, protection of the environment, stem cell research.

It was just that pesky Cheney that wouldn't let poor ol' George have his way...Anyone that takes Rush Limbaugh's word as the word of god is a zombie themselves.

11:26 pm, Jun 17, 2009

wiseone

John Batchelor author of this article has done an excellent job of defining the GOP in it's current status. In my opinion the so-called leaders of the republicans are desperate and may be ruining any chances of convincing the American people that they have our best interest. What good thriving company would hire a Palin type to run their business, or a renegade like Limbaugh to advertise or sell their product? We all know that each of these persons would not survive in national government. Yet the repubs have relegated their future in their hands. It's hard to believe that there are not young republican brainiacs with integrity out there somewhere to help this party gain some respect. The good ole boy network is probably ended, so we will never see another puppet like Bush again, however if this premise is retained, the GOP is certainly doomed. The current administration is young, energetic, intelligent, and hardworking from the President on down. They clearly have the American People as their top priority, and that's what Americans want. That's why Barack Obama is President, and he is operating as advertised. Republicans need an overhaul and they need to concern themselves with rebuilding rather than trying to degrade the President.

3:30 am, Jun 17, 2009

man-in-tx

Yes. John Batchelor -- ruler of the radio's air waves, influencer of tens of millions of listeners hanging on his every word! /sarc

8:48 pm, Jun 16, 2009

elldeen

With such ultraconservative dopes like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Liz and Dick Cheney, and Newt the Gingrich, is it any wonder that the Republican party is in such a mess? They and others like them have taken over the G.O.P., and turned it into a right-wing cult. They have ruined what was a good and decent party, and cost it the White House last November. So that explains it all. 'nuff said.

7:45 pm, Jun 16, 2009

gandolf

There is more vitriol and bile in this one small article than in all the targets of the author combined. It is this kind of unthinking infighting that turns of moderates to the GOP. Pile on all the self-proclaimed "lifelong Republicans" that no one's ever heard of now to write their I-told-you-so internet articles.

7:42 pm, Jun 16, 2009

imogen

Others have thanked you for writing such a pitch-perfect piece, so aside from seconding that notion, bravo for writing such a beautiful work of poetry! I read it aloud for a few friends just to feel the words' texture and ride their momentum. Nice, potent writing on all counts.

7:12 pm, Jun 16, 2009

clearthinker

I love the attempts of media to connect conservatism to "old white guys". Do they not know that Harry Reid, Barney Frank, John Murtha, Charles Schumer, and Joe Biden are ALL Democrats? I'm pretty sure Nancy Pelosi used to be an old white guy too.

6:35 pm, Jun 16, 2009

donatello

When a political party is so mentally diseased as Limbaugh Syphilis it will just die. There is no penicillin strong enough to cure it.

5:55 pm, Jun 16, 2009

This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.

4:59 pm, Jun 16, 2009

rjw-progressive

As a progressive, there are conservatives who I admire for the thought and reflection they bring to issues, even where I might disagree.

Right now, the "right wing" is simply acting like a scorned spouse being divorced.

The classic 5 stages of grief from a loss:
* Denial
* Anger
* Bargaining
* Depression
* Acceptance.

They'll get over it and start embracing the reasonable folks in the GOP ....

4:43 pm, Jun 16, 2009

Dolmance

Gee, I hope I'm not some kind of zombie necrophile pervert... But I found that story to be curiously arousing.

Tell me about the Republican's rotting brains falling out again! Please! Please! Please! I JUST CAN'T GET ENOUGH!!!

4:38 pm, Jun 16, 2009

Scruffyboo

Republicans don't accept the theory of evolution and that's fine.
But they should remember the consequences of their position ... those that doen't evolve ... die.

4:15 pm, Jun 16, 2009

Tantamnt

My bet is that a competent leader (say Ross Perot to give an example from another era) could set up a challenge to the Democrats and destroy the Republicans in the next 4 years. but you need a leader who can plan, execute a plan, and work with dissent. Obama can do that, McCain and none of the other Republicans have displayed that capability.
Look at the comments from the most conservative writers here and you'll notice that they require people to follow the party line rather than the party line reflecting the people. It's a key to the Republican demise. Political Darwinism seems to be in play!

(1)

4:10 pm, Jun 16, 2009

spotted

Agreed. Perot's entry into the fray make it possible for this country to have to most reasoned political dialog in our lifetimes. He did more in 1992 to educate the electorate on the economy and debt than anyone before or since.

Bring back the charts!

4:18 pm, Jun 16, 2009

rtchap2

CaliforniaScreaming is right, minus the insults. I will say that the Liberal Left has alot of HATE for conservatives. There is no tolerance or common ground in the liberal left. I voted for McCain but when he lost I had no choice but to support Obama. After all he is the President of our great country. But what he has done in a mere 5 months is troubling. Now I am forced to pray that he gets everything he would like to become policy or law. This will assure his defeat next election. Those that were duped (And you know you were) will hopefully see the light.

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4:03 pm, Jun 16, 2009

Dolmance

No, there's no tolerance for those who have demonstrated nothing BUT intolerance for the last thirty years. Now it's their turn to get a big fat helping of their own medicine. I hope it tastes good, because this is just the beginning.

(1)

4:40 pm, Jun 16, 2009

roger37

That attitude accomplishes nothing, except to make the right wing dig their heels in even more, put their hands over their ears and go, "Lalalalalala!"

In fact most lefties are tolerant and willing to find common ground once their (our) frustration is vented.

12:52 am, Jun 18, 2009

RNichols

Batchelor is probably the kind of Republican that is happy with Schwartzenegger and Charlie Crist and the kind that was excited about McCain getting the nomination because he really believed his liberal friends might vote for him.

3:50 pm, Jun 16, 2009

openhand

Mark Twain wrote in The Mysterious Stranger:

"Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception."

Why is that aspect of Mark Twain almost totally occluded?

3:04 pm, Jun 16, 2009

openhand

Comparing these GOP leaders like those religious fanatics proclaiming fatwa's and jihad's is frighteningly fair.

1:51 pm, Jun 16, 2009

SkeeterVT

Boy, talk about being in deep denial or reality! John Batcherlor is right: The Republicans have indeed degenerated into a right-wing, overwhelmingly middle-aged-and-older white-male cult. Those who dispute Batchelor's findings here and elsewhere have been drinking the right-wing Kool-Aid for far too long and desperately need to go into rehab.

About the only quibble I have with Batchelor's assessment is his point that Democrats are in "second place, behind independents." Actually, it's the other way around: Democrats are on top, comprising 45 percent fo the electorate. Independents are second, with 35 percent and Republicans bring up the rear with 20 percent.

1:38 pm, Jun 16, 2009

like-mind

Bravo, John!

You are a true representative of the decent Republicans I knew in my youth, in the 50's and 60's.

I remember when Christians spent their waking hours striving to be pious instead of hateful.

1:16 pm, Jun 16, 2009

Veronicaxy

I would love to believe you're right but I don't agree that the Repubs are irrelevant and doomed to history.

I know far too many people in real life who think they're right and watch Fox news religiously.

The Dems did not win the last Presidential election by a enough of a landslide for my comfort considering the truly horrifying divisive tactics the Repubs employed to win.

The DB loves Palin who now has David Letterman of all people apologizing! She taps into something deep in the American psyche that makes a lot of people stop thinking, not a part I'm proud of. But I can't deny its force. I've watched Republican "we're strong/right, they're weak/against God" messaging win over the majority nearly my entire voting life.

I think Stephen Colbert's trip to Iraq is exactly the kind of thing Dems need to do to strengthen the base while the opportunity is here. Don't let Repubs own America's pride in tradition, because they don't really.

10:25 am, Jun 16, 2009

muddog

The G.O.P.

Limbaugh.
Palin.
Newt.
FOX noise.
OReilley
Beck
Cheney.

Sad.

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10:12 am, Jun 16, 2009

RNichols

Limbaugh: 14.75 million listeners per week
Palin: approval ratings as high as 93% as AK governor
Fox News: has higher ratings in 2009 than CNN & MSNBC combined
O'Reilly: regularly the highest-rated show of any on the 3 cable news channels
Beck: author of 3 New York Times bestsellers; 8.25 million radio listeners

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2:25 pm, Jun 16, 2009

roger37

And what this shows is that to replicate the political climate in Germany in 1932 is not all that much of a stretch.

Adolf Hitler used the same techniques as RNichols' list of Republicans: demagoguery, cheap sloganeering, fear of minorities and immigrants, innuendo, victimhood, and jingoistic patriotism. All couched in a climate of an unspecified fear.

Just like lemmings marching to the friggin' sea.

12:48 am, Jun 18, 2009

yourmomsaysshutup

Notice all these are phony political entertainers.. Everyone of these deals with entertainment ratings. The rest of America and policy makers are actually working.. Except you zombies listening to these big crybabies...

11:45 pm, Jun 17, 2009

elldeen

But I noticed that you didn't give the ratings for Bush, who was given the lowest approval rating of any president in U.S. history. Hmmmmmm......

7:50 pm, Jun 16, 2009

spotted

You can fool some of the people all of the time,
and all of the people some of the time,
but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

- Abraham Lincoln

4:08 pm, Jun 16, 2009

BasPos

Depends - if you're a Democrat, this is a rosy future.

1:29 pm, Jun 16, 2009

Barbara416

I would not consider voting for the Republicans unless they showed themselves to be statesmen. They should step forward and educate their frustrated fringe in a responsible manner. Instead, they choose silence. Silence equals complicity.

RNichols

Mike Pence, Mark Sanford, Tim Pawlenty, Rick Perry, Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal,....the next generation of Republicans looks pretty good to me..

I still think Michael Steele, Giuliani, Romney, Ron Paul, etc. look more hopeful than Biden, Harry Reid, Pelosi, B. Frank and all those crotchety old socialists...

Republicans will need another Reagan to help engineer the recovery from the hit the economy will take from this massive buildup of bureaucracy and debt that Obama is piling on us...

10:47 pm, Jun 15, 2009

orsay54

WOW!!!!! A Republican wrote an HONEST article!!
Who would have thought!!!???!!!

9:51 pm, Jun 15, 2009

doko84

good article. fair, well thought out and to the point.

8:30 pm, Jun 15, 2009

Delisted

As a liberal Democrat, I kinda lament the zombification of the GOP. For one thing it seems as if everyone who isn't completely nuts is abandoning the GOP; this means conservatives who were GOP are now calling themselves Democrats, and our party is getting overrun by neo-Blue Dogs, and the President caters to the right wing of the Democrats in his excitement for the new converts he's brought on board. Which means the people like me, liberals, who elected him to begin with, are getting screwed. I mean, in what weird parallel universe do we live in when gay marriage is acceptable to Dick Cheney but is too liberal for Barack Obama?

On top of that, the GOP used to be the party of hard reality pragmatism. Their role was felt in the legislative process when bills that were well intended but poorly designed would get retooled to handle the worst case scenarios and still be viable. Now, the GOP doesn't try to improve anything, its just out to kill any bill that the Dems create. Whereas 40 years ago, the GOP would have taken that stimulus bill and suggested a plan B in case the unemployment rate went over the projected figures, they are now hell bent on making the stimulus fail just to score cheap political points. Thus, if we were to enter a scenario where the unemployment rate rises over the projected model, as it has, we are now in unknown territory-nobody has any idea what's going to happen to the economy.

In truth, what's happening to the GOP is worse than being run by zombies-the GOP leadership of today scarcely resembles the GOP as it existed prior to 1980. It's morphed into a theocratic party rather than a fiscally conservative one. what we have here is not just a party haunted by Reagan's ghost-we have a party of priests that worship the zombie of Ronald Reagan, forcing his rotting corpse to walk the earth against its very sincere wish to decompose.

8:25 pm, Jun 15, 2009

dailyplanet

The Republican voice is now a bizarre parfait of sadism and masochism served up with gluttonous self-indulgence. They don't comprehend that they've killed themselves by their own hand. Eight years of their "supremacy" under Bush practically murdered this country...but they don't get it and never will.

They want to do stuff and when it all goes wrong they lie their way out of the mess because like the toddlers they are, they deny responsibility.

It's scary to see grown people, in positions of influence and leadership prance around in this way. These loose wing nuts only empower a like-minded army of foot soldiers to arise from their hate blogs and act out in solidarity.

Where are the "sane" members of the Republican Party hiding out? Are there any of them left? Why aren't they yelling out to the rooftops against these fools?

(1)

7:15 pm, Jun 15, 2009

Trunk-Monkey

The 'sane' members of the Republican Party have been drummed out of the club for being insufficiently 'conservative'...or whatever it is that passes for conservativism these days. One must embrace ALL aspects of Republicanism in order to be considered a "REAL Conservative/Republican/American". Such ideological rigidity is pretty rare in the sane, hence the only ones left in the party are the INsane.
One cannot, for example, be simply a 'fiscal conservative'. One must ALSO embrace social and religious conservatism, too.

I was over at Politico the other day and was told straight up that I could not possibly be a conservative because I did not oppose gay marriage, did not approve of torture being used (not even on alleged terrorists!), did not believe that Obama was a socialist whose agenda is the destruction of America. And I had the gall to point out that deliberately slurring/mis-stating a proper name (like "Democrat Party" instead of "Democratic Party", "Osama Hussein" instead of "Obama" etc) is petty, juvenile, and small minded. That was enough to bar me for life from the rarified ranks of the Republican Party.

Forget what I DO support (balanced budget, PAYGO, entitlement reform, responsible oversight, etc). If I believe in personal freedom, in providing a safety net for those who're *proven* to need help, and that the government *must* respect the law even more than a private citizen...I cannot possibly be a 'conservative' and I would *certainly* not be welcome as a Republican.

At least that's what I was told...

(1)

10:26 am, Jun 16, 2009

beninabox

To Trunk: Well put. I always leaned Democratic but there was a time I could and did vote Republican. Unfortunately the spoiled brats and bullies took over and threw in anti-intellectualism for good measure. I see some young people in the Conservative camp of journalism who have a clue (Conor Clarke et al) and hope to see the adults take charge and restore the Republican party as a serious alternative to the Democrats. Everybody will be better off.

5:34 pm, Jun 16, 2009

kiksadi50

the real reason Sara Palin will never be president is because these kind of men in the GOP will never allow a woman, that they do not have the power to completely control, be president. Palin has demonstarted that she is a loose canon that the party cannot control. The present repub. party eats its own, witness the treatment of Michael Steele. Any real position of power that women will hold in the GOP will only occur after people like Limbaugh, Newt & Cheney are long gone.It is all about power & control with those guys. Bush was malleable, Palin is not.

7:07 pm, Jun 15, 2009

This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.

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6:47 pm, Jun 15, 2009

Ritarita

Bionically?
That would be attractive
If you could hide the stitch lines.

6:43 pm, Jun 16, 2009

BasPos

I thought you guys didn't believe in evolution. Anyhow, he'll be dead by than.

1:28 pm, Jun 16, 2009

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