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Sunday Morning Open Thread

Round 2 of the NBA Playoffs start today.

Heatles v. Celtics at 3:30. The more interesting game imo, is at 1 - Memphis v. OKC. In the serieses (?) I like the price on the Celtics (+155), though I like the Heat today (-4). I like the Grizzlies (+7) over OKC in Game 1.

Right now I am rooting for Arsenal to beat ManU so that Chelsea can have a chance catch them in the EPL.

Open Thread.

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    Re: God's punishment of the South (none / 0) (#1)
    by Harry Saxon on Sun May 01, 2011 at 09:23:24 AM EST
    From Firedoglake a few days ago:

    And just recently, Glenn Beck said that the earthquakes and tsunami in Japan was God's rebuke of that country's behavior.

       

    I'll tell you this -- whether you call it Gaia or whether you call it Jesus, there's a message being sent. And that is, `Hey you know that stuff we're doing? Not really working out real well. Maybe we should stop doing some of it.'

    Elizabeth Hasselbeck helpfully served as an Amen Chorus to Beck, adding,

        I believe God speaks to all of us in ways.

    OK.

    Well, the states hit the hardest by the tornadoes are all Republican strongholds: Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Georgia. Surely, that can't be a coincidence.

    So is God punishing these conservative states because they're not taking care of the poor, the elderly and the sick, as Jesus commanded?

    Somehow, I doubt we're going to hear Glenn Beck or John Hagee speculate about this today.



    Firedoglake Link


    hey, maybe god is (none / 0) (#2)
    by observed on Sun May 01, 2011 at 09:55:42 AM EST
    Expressing his anger at desegregation and interracial marriage


    Parent
    I think he is mad at climate change deniers (none / 0) (#31)
    by ruffian on Sun May 01, 2011 at 07:43:56 PM EST
    Suppose you jinxed Manchester (none / 0) (#3)
    by Militarytracy on Sun May 01, 2011 at 10:23:48 AM EST


    Author of the book (none / 0) (#4)
    by brodie on Sun May 01, 2011 at 10:45:23 AM EST
    "The Fix Is In" Brian Tuohy said on radio last night that it's likely the NBA will want the Chicago Bulls -- not the Heat or the Celtics -- to reach the Finals.  Apparently because of the favorable publicity of the Bulls being Obama's hometown team and favorite.

    He says the Lakers will again reach the Finals from the West.  (Chas Barkley disagrees, picking the Mavs to upset the Lakers.)  

    One key indicator in these games that something is up, in the author's view, is if one team is consistently given more free throws in a series, or considerably more in a crucial game.

    How liberal is President BHO (none / 0) (#5)
    by Politalkix on Sun May 01, 2011 at 10:55:29 AM EST
    Nate silver explains. link

    I probably agree Obama (none / 0) (#6)
    by brodie on Sun May 01, 2011 at 11:16:26 AM EST
    largely has been somewhere in the middle between the two wings of his party as that party has not gone leftward nearly as much as the GOP has gone rightward.

    Not quite sure though about the comparison with other presidents.  That chart had JFK, slightly more liberal than most, not being as liberal as either Carter (!) or Clinton.  Unclear how they arrived at that, as Carter's FP was as much hawkish (Brzezinski leaning) as oriented towards human rights (the Cy Vance leanings).  And budget-balancing incrementalist Clinton domestically didn't seem as progressive minded as the bold-strokes JFK who proposed major legislation re Medicare and CR.

    Parent

    Seems to me that how liberal (none / 0) (#8)
    by BackFromOhio on Sun May 01, 2011 at 12:36:11 PM EST
    a past president is judged to be might take into account the times.  I'm sure might not have been on board with gay marriage, but who was in those days? To have advocated such a position then, would have put someone to the left of the FSU.  

    Parent
    You have to take acct of (5.00 / 1) (#10)
    by brodie on Sun May 01, 2011 at 01:25:31 PM EST
    the political tenor of the times and lay of the land, no question.  But JFK did lead both on CR and re beginning to end the Cold War ('63 major test ban treaty with Soviets, call for joint US-USSR space cooperation going to Moon, etc).  

    As of post-Missile Crisis for instance, the evidence shows he and Khrushchev beginning to come together to avoid future such near-disasters and to begin to end their countries conflict with each other.  (see. e.g, book by James Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable

    By comparison, Carter 15 yrs after Kennedy, and increasingly under the sway of hawkish adviser Zbig, was only ramping up hostilities with the Soviets, not seeking ways to decrease tensions.  How liberal was that?

    JFK also on women's rights -- not exactly a huge issue for his time -- advocated for and got his Equal Pay Act.  Also -- with the WHCA dinner last night -- called for that ass'n to end its men only policy.  That area in the early 60s is about as close to today's gay rights comparison, only the women weren't actively organizing to the extent gays have been in recent years, so it was Kennedy leading as much as anything.

    Parent

    Re:Small potatoes (2.00 / 1) (#38)
    by Harry Saxon on Mon May 02, 2011 at 07:53:40 AM EST
    I wouldn't call the actions mentioned in my excerpt from the Wiki article about Operation Cuban "small potatoes", seeing as they involved assassination attempts on Castro and sabotage.

    But thanks for demonstrating what revisionism looks like, brodie.

    Parent

    Sorry Harry, but (5.00 / 2) (#39)
    by brodie on Mon May 02, 2011 at 08:55:47 AM EST
    there's never been any evidence that JFK authorized any assass'n attempts against Castro or any foreign leader.  The admin docs don't show that, and testimony by his aides and his own remarks to one journalist on the subject strongly suggest he was morally against such conduct.  It was the CIA acting on their own, w/o presidential authorization, which was responsible for pushing the envelope into those dangerous areas.

    No revisionism here, just a fair and complete assessment of the situation.  It's been the Kennedy bashers, often from the far right and far left, rather who have insisted on cherry-picking the evidence to find fault and distort his actual record.

    Last post in this thread for me -- time to move on.

    Parent

    You may be correct about (none / 0) (#40)
    by Harry Saxon on Mon May 02, 2011 at 09:38:48 AM EST
    the assassination attempts, but he did authorize attempts that were almost as discreditable:

    At this time the CIA received authorization for 13 major operations in Cuba, including attacks on an electric power plant, an oil refinery, and a sugar mill.[6] Rabe has observed that the "Kennedy administration... showed no interest in Castro's repeated request that the United States cease its campaign of sabotage and terrorism against Cuba. Kennedy did not pursue a dual-track policy toward Cuba.... The United States would entertain only proposals of surrender." Rabe further documents how "Exile groups, such as Alpha 66 and the Second Front of Escambray, staged hit-and-run raids on the island... on ships transporting goods...purchased arms in the United States and launched...attacks from the Bahamas."[6]

    It's been the Kennedy bashers, often from the far right and far left, rather who have insisted on cherry-picking the evidence to find fault and distort his actual record.

    I don't have to cherry-pick, the record sans assassination attempts is bad enough.

    Last post in this thread for me -- time to move on.

    Legacy

    The Cuban Project, as with the earlier Bay of Pigs invasion, is widely acknowledged as an American policy failure against Cuba.

    Oh, I'll take it up with you in the next open thread if you like.

    Parent

    Per Wiki: (none / 0) (#12)
    by oculus on Sun May 01, 2011 at 01:38:05 PM EST
    After the National Press Club admitted the first African-American male journalist in 1955, female journalists escalated their fight for entry. In December 1970, members of the Women's National Press Club voted to allow men into their club and renamed it the Washington Press Club. The next month, the National Press Club voted 227 to 56 to admit women. In 1985, the two clubs merged. Shortly after women were admitted to the National Press Club journalist Gloria Steinem, a feminist leader and founder of New York and Ms. magazines, became the first woman to address the organization.



    Parent
    Right -- on women's issues, (none / 0) (#14)
    by brodie on Sun May 01, 2011 at 01:50:55 PM EST
    Kennedy was a little bit out ahead of his times, certainly ahead of the D.C./NY Media Establishment, as he called for women to be admitted to the WHCA.

    Parent
    Kennedy (none / 0) (#9)
    by Harry Saxon on Sun May 01, 2011 at 12:48:55 PM EST
    was a Cold War warrior Liberal, to compare him to Clinton who didn't have the USSR to deal with is a bit unfair to either President.

    Parent
    You're wrong re (2.00 / 1) (#11)
    by brodie on Sun May 01, 2011 at 01:28:10 PM EST
    Kennedy being a cold warrior -- though he was a liberal who sought to end the CW by the final year of his presidency (see James Douglass' book).

    And I sought to compare Kennedy's bold strokes domestically with Clinton's more modest domestic, not foreign, moves.

    Parent

    Really? (none / 0) (#27)
    by Harry Saxon on Sun May 01, 2011 at 05:02:50 PM EST

    Lansdale's biographer, Cecil B. Currey, argues in Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American (1988): "It is odd that Kennedy, distrustful of the CIA in the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs, still sought out Lansdale - a former CIA agent - to help organize his next Cuban endeavour." Robert Kennedy argues in his interview with John Bartlow Martin that the reason Kennedy was angry with the CIA was not because it was immoral but because it had been an "amateur operation". That is why he suggested to President Kennedy that Lansdale should "take this on". He argued: "I thought he'd (Lansdale) done so well in the Philippines and was impressed with him, so I got the President to assign him."

    Harris Wofford supported this view. After the failure of the Bay of Pigs he hoped Kennedy would change direction. Instead, he "lashed out" at Chester Bowles "for allegedly leaking to the press his opposition to the Cuban invasion". It was important to Kennedy that he continued to be seen as a "Cold War Warrior". As Wofford points out, after the Bay of Pigs: "John and Robert Kennedy committed themselves to counter-insurgency, covert action, and increased military effort as the way to counteract the Cuban defeat and to win in Vietnam."
    ...............................................
    However, as James W. Douglass has pointed out in JFK and the Unspeakable (2008): "Only nine days after his American University address, Kennedy had ratified a CIA program contradicting it. Kennedy's regression can be understood in the political context of the time. He was, after all, an American politician, and the Cold War was far from over. For the remaining five months of his life, John Kennedy continued a policy of sabotage against Cuba that he may have seen as a bone thrown to his barking CIA and military advisers but was in any case a crime against international law. It was also a violation of the international trust that he and Nikita Khrushchev had envisioned and increasingly fostered since the missile crisis. Right up to his death, Kennedy remained in some ways a Cold Warrior, in conflict with his own soaring vision in the American University address."


    JFK Biography

    You gotta beef with Harris Wofford?
     

    Parent

    Yes, I have a problem (5.00 / 1) (#32)
    by brodie on Sun May 01, 2011 at 08:18:01 PM EST
    with taking too seriously anything Harris Wofford said about JFK's foreign policy.  Wofford was after all JFK's civil rights advisor and then later was sent over to the Peace Corps in Africa.  He not only wasn't in on JFK's policy formation in foreign matters, but wasn't fully apprised of Kennedy's cold war position since he wrote his book at a time when many of the FP docs hadn't yet been released.  

    Even JFK's national security advisor, McGeorge Bundy, didn't learn of Kennedy's actual VN policy of withdrawal by '65 until many years later in the mid-90s, just before his death as he was able to get ahold of recently released docs (the time period is just after Wofford had published, in fact).

    (re Bowles, JFK was probably more upset with him about what he considered an act of disloyalty; Arthur Schlesinger also opposed the plan, but he wasn't criticized or re-assigned/fired because he didn't squeal to the press later, at the president's expense, about his wise counsel on the matter)

    Dispensing with Wofford, now let's move to the Douglass quote.  Do you have a page cite for that?  B/c I couldn't find it in my copy of the book, and the thrust of the statement goes squarely against the author's own very favorable view of the president in that post-Missile Crisis period, when Kennedy and Khru were working quietly behind the scenes, then in open with the Test Ban Treaty, to put finis to the Cold War.

    It would seem odd -- unless in some extraordinary circumstances absolutely unavoidable as Kennedy saw it --that on the other hand he would have green lighted the CIA as your quote suggests and thereby put in jeopardy his hard work with the Soviet premier.

    "Cold warrior" Kennedy, post-Missile Crisis, gave his famous Peace Speech at American Univ, the one Khrushchev considered the best speech by a US prez since FDR, then got the Test Ban Treaty with the Soviets a few months later, then, according to Sergei Khrushchev (son of Nikita), the Soviet premier in Kennedy's final days in office supposedly agreed to a joint US-USSR mission to the Moon.  

    "Cold warrior" Kennedy also planned a visit to the Soviet Union in his 2d term, after a second major arms control agreement with the USSR, according to Douglass who says JFK told two close intimates (British amb to the US David Ormsby-Gore and JFK friend William Walton) in his final days of such a plan:

    President Kennedy knew the political impact his visiting the Soviet Union would have on the Cold War. It would end it. Jacqueline Kennedy would have accompanied her husband on such a journey of reconciliation.  The Kennedys would have been greeted by Nikita Khrushchev and the Russian people with the kind of welcome that would have ended the Cold War resoundingly ....  Soon after Kennedy's murder, a man Press Secretary Pierre Salinger described as "a high official of the Soviet Embassy in Washington" told Salinger over a private lunch how Khrushchev had reacted to the assassination.  He had first wept, then withdrew into a shell.  "He just wandered around his office for several days, like he was in a daze," the Soviet official said.

    (Douglass, p. 379)

    So much for the "cold warrior" nonsense put out by his political enemies or those not in the loop -- the actual record shows JFK moving boldly towards détente and an actual end to the Cold War.

    Parent

    Re Sources (none / 0) (#33)
    by Harry Saxon on Sun May 01, 2011 at 10:17:24 PM EST

    Do you have a page cite for that?

    I'm so glad you asked:

    Google Book Link Page 66

    B/c I couldn't find it in my copy of the book,

    I used to have that problem until I quit buying my books from suspicious-looking men in dark alleys.

    and the thrust of the statement goes squarely against the author's own very favorable view of the president in that post-Missile Crisis period, when Kennedy and Khru were working quietly behind the scenes, then in open with the Test Ban Treaty, to put finis to the Cold War.

    Well, brodie, it's in there, and I suggest that any further protests on your part on this subject be settled by you and Reality going into the Octagon, and only one leaves.

    The book does support your portrait of Kennedy and his relationship with his Soviet counterpart.

    This has been most educational, let's do it again sometime soon.

    Parent

    Thx for the page cite, and it (none / 0) (#34)
    by brodie on Sun May 01, 2011 at 10:41:05 PM EST
    sounds like the sort of bare-minimum JFK felt he needed to do to keep his nat'l security forces in line and not in an outright mutiny.

    It also didn't seem to bother either Khrushchev or Castro sufficiently as Kennedy as I noted began aggressively pursuing a détente/end of Cold War route with a willing and eager Soviet premier, while in JFK's final 6-8 months in 1963 Castro (presumably while anti-Castro elements via the CIA were working to undermine his govt by more indirect means) too was not only open to the idea of a positive feeler from Kennedy, but on the day of JFK's murder Fidel was meeting with a Kennedy 3d party emissary to hear directly from him about some of the positive and realistic things JFK had to say about a new beginning for the two countries.

    Imo, clearly Kennedy was directing policy in the direction of ending the cold war and, after being safely re-elected, beginning to create a new understanding with Castro, with any admin backed CIA effort to indirectly undermine Castro merely a sideshow operating more as political show for the time being -- almost a dog and pony show by the admin for the purposes of keeping the nat'l security boys entertained -- as opposed to being of real substance.

    Now, on to Ben Laden ...

    Parent

    Re: Cuba (none / 0) (#35)
    by Harry Saxon on Sun May 01, 2011 at 11:11:24 PM EST

    sounds like the sort of bare-minimum JFK felt he needed to do to keep his nat'l security forces in line and not in an outright mutiny

    The bare minimum, post-Bay of Pigs, was nothing to sneeze at:

    Harvard Historian Jorge Domínguez states that the scope of Mongoose included sabotage actions against a railway bridge, petroleum storage facilities, a molasses storage container, a petroleum refinery, a power plant, a sawmill, and a floating crane. Domínguez states that "only once in [the] thousand pages of documentation did a US official raise something that resembled a faint moral objection to US government sponsored terrorism."[1] Actions were subsequently carried out against a petroleum refinery, a power plant, a sawmill, and a floating crane in a Cuban harbour.



    Wiki Cuban Project

    It also didn't seem to bother either Khrushchev or Castro sufficiently as Kennedy as I noted began aggressively pursuing a détente/end of Cold War route with a willing and eager Soviet premier

    I would suggest to you that Krushchev neither knew the scope nor direction of the operations taken under the CIA and known as Operation Mongoose, and that it was in Kennedy's interest to make sure that he remained ignorant about it.

    Parent

    Actually it was in Kennedy's interest (5.00 / 2) (#36)
    by brodie on Mon May 02, 2011 at 12:19:43 AM EST
    to give the CIA only the barest minimum number of toys he felt he had to.  The real action wasn't with some small potatoes stuff that you cite in disrupting Cuba's economy, if such he actually authorized, but with the rather courageous diplomatic efforts JFK was making to sincerely open a new dialogue with Castro.

    JFK apparently tried his best to keep the CIA in the dark about those efforts, but likely they found out -- with possible backlash results against him by our spook agency.  Certainly it was politically dicey, even dangerous, if these back channel efforts had been made public before the '64 election, yet Kennedy went ahead anyway.  Courageous. (I believe the Douglass book covers this.)

    As for Khrushchev and Kennedy, do you really believe JFK was going to undo the great progress he'd made with Khru and then risk another major cold war crisis with the Soviets by going too seriously with the anti-Castro sabotage angle?  I think that flies in the face both of the substance of Kennedy's overt and inside efforts, plus it goes against what's known of JFK's new skeptical thinking about the cold war and US efforts along military and paramilitary lines.  

    That is, he was much wiser and much more cynical post-Bay of Pigs and post-Missile Crisis about the stupidity and extremism of our nat'l security/military/intel people -- his American Univ speech plus the Test Ban Treaty clearly signal he was determined to go in a different direction.  His call for a joint US-USSR mission to the Moon -- also a huge blow against the usual Us vs Them mindset so prevalent among cold warriors back then -- which mindset JFK did not belong to after the Missile Crisis, and probably never fully did before that.  

    Parent

    Meet the Press and David Axelrod (none / 0) (#7)
    by samsguy18 on Sun May 01, 2011 at 11:38:56 AM EST
    On Meet the Press today he was visibly agitated and very much on the defensive. His reaction to mayor Bloomberg's commentary and Governor Mc Donnell was very surprising.......
    He has always been cool calm and deliberate.

    Axelrod (none / 0) (#13)
    by Ga6thDem on Sun May 01, 2011 at 01:40:59 PM EST
    is terrible PR for the White House.

    Parent
    I actually thought he did alright (none / 0) (#15)
    by Militarytracy on Sun May 01, 2011 at 01:57:14 PM EST
    He was dropping a hint I felt to the Republican opponents who would rather see this country burn than Obama succeed in any way, the Obama administration has decided to fight some now.  The press, including MTP, is so used to this White House dancing a beautiful dancing/fawning jig for the press while they get backed up against the wall and kicked in the cojones they think it is always going to be that way.  I took Axelrod's interview as a sign and a warning that after some sitdowns, some people realize that they must fight now.  I thought Gregory was sort of a douche about campaign finance :)  Trying to back Obama up against the wall and beat the crap out of him while Obama and all Dems are trying to survive Citizens United and have to do what it takes to do that.

    Parent
    While I agree (none / 0) (#17)
    by NYShooter on Sun May 01, 2011 at 02:21:48 PM EST
    that its going to take really big bucks to survive in today's corporatocracy,  I just don't believe the motives are overly altruistic with Obama. He sees the Goliath coming after him to steal his candy and so, he wants to stock up with a whole lot of stones.

    Either way, we lose, albeit slightly less with one than the other.

    Parent

    Most likely (none / 0) (#28)
    by Militarytracy on Sun May 01, 2011 at 05:53:01 PM EST
    God knows he doesn't deserve to be viewed through anything other than a crap prism.  At the correspondents dinner I thought his Matt Damon joke was hollow as hell.  He dared to compare letting us all down with super crappy policy and legislation to the let down of a $7.00 two hour crappy movie.  I can easily recover from a crappy movie.  I can't recover easily at all from a crappy President :)  Maybe never, depends on how super crappy he is and what he destroys with his crap :)

    Parent
    Will the Padres beat the Dodgers in (none / 0) (#16)
    by oculus on Sun May 01, 2011 at 01:59:59 PM EST
    game 3 of the series?  Doesn't Don Mattingly look a lot like Joe Torres?  

    Yes!!! 7 to zip. (none / 0) (#29)
    by oculus on Sun May 01, 2011 at 06:58:26 PM EST
    Up next, can Chris Young beat (none / 0) (#30)
    by oculus on Sun May 01, 2011 at 07:10:34 PM EST
    the Phillies?

    Parent
    No decision for Chris Young. But (none / 0) (#37)
    by oculus on Mon May 02, 2011 at 01:02:30 AM EST
    Mets prevail in 14 innings.   Sounded like the Phillie fans stuck it out to the end.

    Parent
    Key Largo (none / 0) (#18)
    by brodie on Sun May 01, 2011 at 02:24:07 PM EST
    is on TCM today, 3:15 Pacific.  Easily one of my favorite John Huston movies, and a favorite "major weather event" movie.

    Others would be John Ford's The Hurricane (1937), which I had the privilege of once seeing magnificently shown on the big screen at a Ford festival, and of course The Wizard of Oz.

    I didn't care much for the Spielberg movie Twister (or whatever its title) from a decade or so ago.  Helen Hunt was fine, but the movie was too predictable and mainly intended as another Gee-whiz! f/x vehicle for younger folks I guess.

    Is "Poseidon Adventure" on your list? (none / 0) (#19)
    by oculus on Sun May 01, 2011 at 02:31:03 PM EST
    (Did you know Shelley Winters also was in an Italian comedy film entitled "Silence of the Hams"?)

    Parent
    I managed to miss (none / 0) (#21)
    by brodie on Sun May 01, 2011 at 02:52:36 PM EST
    all those 70s disaster flicks from the Irwin Allen stable, and related.  Seen only a few snippets of the one you cite, and couldn't even tell you how the ship went down.

    In Largo, I always liked the way Huston set up various stories and personal dramas to go with the building drama of the hurricane outside.  Quite a bit of suspense being developed by the time it hits, yet there's plenty more to come.  

    Parent

    Here's a map of where the storms hit in AL. i (none / 0) (#20)
    by jeffinalabama on Sun May 01, 2011 at 02:41:55 PM EST
    map.

    In the northeast section, above Gadsten, the area you can't see under the red, that's where I live.

    Holy cow, Jeff! (none / 0) (#26)
    by sj on Sun May 01, 2011 at 04:47:14 PM EST
    Now I'm even more glad that you're OK.

    Parent
    More Bartlett & Steele in Phila Inquirer (none / 0) (#22)
    by Peter G on Sun May 01, 2011 at 03:16:18 PM EST
    on how high tech jobs went overseas, and failed to save the US economy as promised.

    Therefore. . .what? (5.00 / 1) (#23)
    by andgarden on Sun May 01, 2011 at 03:20:24 PM EST
    I don't have any easy or ethical answers to address the reality that people in other countries are less expensive to employ.  

    Parent
    This is (none / 0) (#25)
    by Ga6thDem on Sun May 01, 2011 at 04:45:55 PM EST
    a point that a lot of people don't want to deal with and it's the fact that corporations operate on the cheap labor model and they are going to go where they can get that.

    Parent
    Extremism in rise in France (none / 0) (#24)
    by Politalkix on Sun May 01, 2011 at 04:42:26 PM EST