Five Things I Learned Today

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1. Nixon kept the Vietnam War going for his own political ends. OK, I already knew this, but now there is stronger evidence he de-railed peace talks in 1968 so that the war wouldn’t end before the elections.

2. Joe Nocera reports that the wingnuts are making dissolution of the Export-Import Bank their next “pinata.” The Export-Import bank costs the taxpayers no money and protects jobs by promoting exports, but it’s still too much like socialism, or something, to appease the baggers.

3. There is astonishing silence (well, with some exceptions) on the Right about Sunday’s mass shooting in Las Vegas. However, there is some pushback against Paul Waldmans’ carefully reasoned argument that right-wing rhetoric incited the shooting. See Digby and Steve M for pushback on the pushback.

4. This is a terribly sad story about two people who fell in love and got married — in Pakistan.

5. The rightie hate swarm goons have been attacking Bowe Bergdahl’s home town with a vengeance. John Cole writes,

And where do these warpigs think they are going to find their next warm bodies to run through a meat grinder? Small towns like Hailey, Bethany, and every other town like us in the country. You can be damned sure people are going to be thinking twice after watching this reaction to bringing one of ours home. Who the fuck is going to sign up to get blown up in some meatgrinder when you know the Republicans sending you there under a lie aren’t going to fund the medical care you need and will then shit all over you, your family, and your town if it helps their political agenda?

I used to think that if I had kids, I would want all of them to go into the military. Do a stint in the Air Force or Navy, see the world. Fuck that noise. I’m not having any kids, but I would tell any kid from 17-21 to stay as far away from the military as is humanly possible. If me from 1989 was thinking about the military and watched what has happened the last decade, my attitude would be “Fuck that shit. My shit’s fucked up but I want all my limbs and don’t want my parents being called traitors.” Not to mention, we used to believe in not leaving people behind, even if Sean Hannity didn’t like their dad’s beard. The only possible outcome to military service is negative, these days, unless you are higher level brass.

BONUS: Two Things I Already Knew

George Will and Tucker Carlson are assholes.

11 thoughts on “Five Things I Learned Today”

  1. 1. Not news to me, either.
    2. Of course! They don’t know why, exactly – but probably because Obama and the Democrats don’t want to dissolve it.
    And that’s enough, nowadays.
    3. Ales Jones is trying to say that what happened in Las Vegas was a “false-flag” operation by Obama, Reid, and Pelosi.
    4. Religious extremism, Middle East style!
    Coming soon as American Christian Talibanism, to a theatre near you!
    5. Stupid and completely counter-productive – but what in Modern Conservatism isn’t?

    Will and Carlson aren’t just assholes. They are festering pustules on the anus of humanity.

  2. Waldman said:
    “It’s long past time for prominent conservatives and Republicans to do some introspection and ask whether they’re contributing to outbreaks of right-wing violence”
    Yeah but we all know right-wing politicians don’t do introspection, that’s for whiney merica hating libruls. There is no question that right-wing media figures in particular are contributing to this nonsense and the tea-bagger politicians are more than willing to exploit the tea-tard anger for votes. Most of them have the sense to stay just far away enough so they can claim immunity when the crazy gets out of control like what has happened in Vegas. So the conservative politicians will never look toward themselves but maybe after a few more of these “revolution starters” they may call out the right-wing pundits, maybe?

  3. I read the John Cole piece – and can relate, coming from a smallish city in the mid-west where “going into the service” was often heard, and where a smallish Veteran’s memorial – dating from WW1 – was a few blocks away. This commenter spoke to me:

    I find it profoundly tragic that the GOP rants on endlessly about citizenship (usually in the context of welfare and/or immigration) and yet has no concept of what being a good citizen would mean. They are making this country smaller, sadder, meaner and madder in the cause of “proving” that their worthless ideology works. There was so much potential for good here – and they’ve managed to poison the well for pretty much everyone outside their charmed circle of billionaires, courtiers and grifters.

    If that doesn’t sum up the last thirty years, I don’t know what does.

  5. When I saw the face of Bergdahl’s mother in the Rose garden I absolutely knew that President Obama had done the right thing. My first thought was something from the beatitudes. Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. I don’t know exactly how that scripture is to be interpreted but to me it says that Obama acted as a human being regardless of what the political fallout would be. It’s something I didn’t see in Bush when he ridiculed and rejected Carla Fay Tucker’s pleas for mercy.
    I also think of Lincoln when he showed mercy to the mother of a soldier he could have easily condemned to death.
    I don’t want to deify Obama but he could have just as well caved to political expedience and cast Bergdahl’s fate to the wind.
    It was touching to me to see the face of a mother whose kid wasn’t coming home in a box when the possibility of his coming home in a box was so great. And Obama made that joy possible.

  7. So far, only two.
    A student, and the shooter.

    I’m sure the NRA is very disappointed at the “body count.”

  8. 1. Nixon kept the Vietnam War going for his own political ends.

    When you take in consideration this fact and that Reagan’s people put a halt to the hostage negotiations and that Bush II only got to be president via a Supreme Court decision that they had no business deciding, there has not been one Republican that has legitimately won the presidency since Eisenhower.

  9. I have renamed the GOP in my head to the OMGP. Anything that helps people is verboten-anything that aids corporations and the rich is GOOD. I’m so old I can even remember when Repubs were people instead of bought robots. *sigh*

  11. Killing Ex-Im is also going to kill Boeing, which is the main beneficiary of the bank’s existence. Its biggest business is lending money to overseas airlines (and governments) that want to buy US-made aircraft. Boeing almost literally cannot stay in business without it.

    This is going to devastate not only Seattle, but also all the other places in the US where Boeing has plants, management offices, and design centers.

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