Journalist Tom Ricks ‘Beginning To Believe The Worst’ About Greenwald And Snowden

Glenn Greenwald – Tom Ricks

Interesting…

TPM LiveWire

Tom Ricks has a growing suspicion that Glenn Greenwald and Edward Snowden are up to something.

On Saturday, the Pulitzer Prize-winning national security reporter posed a question to Greenwald on Twitter.

“Glenn, any comments from you or Edward Snowden on the recent round of media shutdowns in Russia?” Ricks asked.

After initially referring Ricks to Snowden’s representative at the ACLU, Greenwald asked Ricks if he had any comment on “Peruvian police corruption,” “corporate waste dumping in E Africa,” or a U.S. drone strike from last year that killed 13 people en route to a wedding party in Yemen.

Sure, Ricks said, he’d be “happy to comment,” but not before he saw Greenwald denounce Vladmir Putin “and his crackdown.”

The next day, after he evidently didn’t get the response from Greenwald that he was looking for, Ricks took to Twitter to denounce “Peruvian police corruption and US drones that kill innocents.”

“Now [your] turn to discuss Putin,” Ricks said to Greenwald.

By Monday morning, the silence had distressed Ricks so much that he was ready to suggest a pretty harsh criticism of both Greenwald and Snowden.

 

The clock strikes 13: The longer @ggreenwald and Snowden remain silent on events in Ukraine, the more I suspect their previous motives.

— tom ricks (@tomricks1) March 17, 2014

 

All of this is a far cry from where Ricks stood in January, when he wrote that he was beginning to “edge toward Snowden.” Those days, apparently, are over.

In a post published Monday on his blog, Ricks once again seemed to insinuate that Greenwald and Snowden are in cahoots with the Russians.

“Bottom line: I am no longer going soft on Greenwald and Snowden,” he wrote. “In fact, rather the opposite, I am beginning to believe the worst about them. If they acting on moral beliefs, now would be the time for both of them to speak out against Putin. It could have a great impact, I think.”

In response to the criticism, Greenwald directed TPM to a quote from Noam Chomsky, who said that his “own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by my own state.”

“Tom Ricks hasn’t condemned corporate waste dumping in East Africa; by his standards, this means he’s probably in cahoots with the polluters and profiteering off of it,” Greenwald said in an email.

Ricks told TPM in an email that his “exchange with Greenwald speaks for itself.”

This post has been updated.

Paul Ryan’s race flap even worse than it looks

Paul Ryan (Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin)

Salon

The notion that Ryan was dog-whistling to racists is actually the best-case scenario. Here’s the scary alternative

I spent a depressing amount of time this weekend trying to think up a scenario in which someone might say the following without being motivated, to at least some degree, by malign intent.

“We have got this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work, and so there is a real culture problem here that has to be dealt with.”

What I came up with was strained and unlikely, but troubling if true.

In case you slept through last week, the person who said this was congressman and one-time GOP vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan. It ignited a fairly heated debate over whether he was intentionally trafficking in racial code words to pander to white conservatives. Ryan claims he spoke inarticulately and was thus misunderstood. For proponents of the dog-whistle theory, the fact that Ryan cited Charles Murray, author of “The Bell Curve,” was the smoking gun.

For my part, I don’t think they need a smoking gun, because Occam’s razor does all the dirty work. You can take Murray completely out of the equation and the likelihood that Ryan wasn’t at least subconsciously playing to the prejudices of resentful or racist whites is pretty low.

But let’s assume Ryan’s playing it straight, and his defenders, like Slate’s Dave Weigel, are correct when they argue that this is just how Ryan and other conservatives “think about welfare’s effects on social norms.” If that’s true, it’s actually a bigger problem for the right. If Ryan was even a little bit aware of how people would interpret his remarks, or understood the reaction to them when it exploded online, we could just say that some conservatives want to play the Southern Strategy at least one more round, and leave it at that. Close the book on this controversy, without drawing any larger conclusions about the state of conservative self-deception.

But if Ryan genuinely stumbled heedless into a racial tinderbox then it suggests he, and most likely many other conservatives, has fully internalized a framing of social politics that wasdeliberately crafted to appeal to white racists without regressing to the uncouth language of explicit racism, and written its origins out of the history. If that’s the case it augurs poorly for those in the movement who are trying to broaden the Republican Party’s appeal, because it’s easier to convince people to abandon a poor tactic than to unlearn rotten ideology.

---

---

In his 1984 book “The Two Party South,” political scientist Alexander Lamis quoted a conservative operative later revealed to be Ronald Reagan confidant Lee Atwater, who traced the evolution.

”You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘N—-r, n—-r, n—-r,’” Atwater explained. “By 1968 you can’t say ‘n—-r’ — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, ‘We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘N—-r, n—-r.”’

Treating intergenerational laziness of inner-city men as established truth, and bemoaning the ways social spending programs supposedly nurture that “culture,” blends seamlessly into Atwater’s framework.

Weigel interprets the fact that Charles Murray has lately softened his claims as exculpation for Ryan and other conservatives who cite him. But Murray’s just following a social Darwinist’s rendition of the trajectory Atwater traced. I suspect both men are wiser to their intentions than their apologists give them credit for. There are ways to promote conservative social policies that aren’t remotely racialized — they just don’t ignite the passions of resentful white people in a politically meaningful way. If I’m wrong, though, conservatives better hope the party doesn’t nominate Ryan or any like-minded thinkers in 2016.

A quick point of trivia: I first learned about Atwater’s comments years ago, in this New York Times column by Bob Herbert questioning why anybody was surprised to hear GOP education secretary-cum-talk radio host Bill Bennett say, “I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could — if that were your sole purpose — you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down.”

Guess whose program Ryan was a guest on when he stepped in it last week?

Amazing photos show us why the American transportation network has fallen off the rails!

Daily Kos

(Written by an American expat living in the European Union)

“Forget the space race. The new arms race is over high-speed trains. China is in negotiations to build a high-speed rail network to India and Europe that would make a trip from London to Beijing last just two days”.

The network would begin in London and extend to India, Pakistan and Beijing. It could eventually carry passengers from on to Singapore, a trip that would last three days, according to project consultant Wang Mengshu, as reported in the Telegraph (UK). A second line would extend from Beijing northward, through Russia to Germany, linking with the European railway system.

Read more: http://www.smartplanet.com/…

Most Americans have no experience with hi-speed rail from a passengers perspective. Therefore this diary tries to give some background as to what your experience maybe on hi-speed rail.

(Photo on the left is the Belgium Thalys hi-speed train which offers a service from Koln, Germany to Paris, France in 3 hours.)

As an American expat living in the European Union I was recently able to travel in a German hi-speed rail train, clipping along at excess of over 300 kilometers an hour from Frankfurt to Cologne. It was a very smooth ride, much smoother than any airplane I’ve ever been on. It was also much quieter than any plane I’ve ever been on, and of course there were more bathrooms than any plane I’d ever been on. I kept my tray during my trip in the upright position, except when I was using my laptop, which I was able to plug in under my seat. Instead of being served that really tacky tasting airline food, I was able to go to the dining cart and pick out from a full menu of tasty dishes. During the ride I was able to use my cell phone as well as wireless internet, and of course there could be no luggage lost, because I was able to keep a hold of my luggage, not just a carry on. Then let me state the obvious there was no pre-flight check in, no pat downs, no scanners. When you buy your ticket, you don’t even have to go to a ticket counter, you can buy it from a vending machine. If you miss your train it is never a problem, because there will be another train usually within the hour. Watching the German countryside whisk by at a speed of over 300 kilometers an hour was breathtaking, as well as beautiful. It beats looking out your window at clouds that’s for sure.

Stewards came by with a cart at regular intervals filled with refreshments, for those who did not want to get up and stretch their legs and go for a bit of a walk. Oh by the way did I mention they had more toilets than any flight I’ve ever been on. Hmm oh yes, I guess I did. How about this, the bathrooms were larger than any airline toilet I’ve ever seen. The food was better than any airline food I’ve ever tried. I grant you there was no in flight movie, but with the breathtaking scenery going by of castles, rivers and charming countryside who has time to watch yet another cheesy Hollywood production. There were a lot of radio stations you could jack in to through your headset. I especially like the ones that play classical music. You could go with reserve seating for about 3 Euros (just under $5), or do the al La Carte thing and change seats if you felt like it. Try doing that on an airliner sitting next to someone that doesn’t stop snoring!

(This is a picture of a French hi-speed rail train)

Well is there more, yes there is more. The seating was comfortable in first class as well as coach. I’ve traveled both. The seats reclined. They had footrests, and for any one who is traveling by air, the trains get this, stop right at the airports in multiple German cities to include Cologne, Frankfurt and Munich. Of course this scenario is repeated through the entirety of Europe in London, Paris and Rome to name but a few. Of course within the European Union there is no customs or border controls, so traveling is convenient and easy, as well as comfortable and convenient. It should also be said that main German railway stations as is the case throughout the European Union usually connect to subways and other local transportation networks directly.

German rail stations in major cities are spacious. There are a large number of restaurants, something for everyone’s palate and budget ranging from Subways to McDonalds to Starbucks or original German restaurants, grocery stores, bookstores, newsstands, any shop you can find at an airport, you’ll find three of those (smile) at a rail station and vicinity. For first class passengers there is always a first class lounge for waiting travelers in Germany. Unlike most of the airports, the train stations in Europe are usually centrally located, such as Kings Cross or Victoria station in London. It is convenient because believe it or not you can get from London to Paris by train quicker than you can by air now that the Channel tunnel is in operation. The train journey takes about 1 hour and 20 minutes, when we take the 1 hour time zone difference between Paris and London into account. Here is a typical timetable for schedules.
http://www.eurostar.com/…

Now to be clear this is an action diary and not a rail travel guide through the European Union. This action diary asks you to write your member of Congress today and tell them to get on board with hi-speed rail. While much has been written about America’s love affair with the automobile, with rising gasoline prices and long driving times, the American traveling public has also had a long time love affair with air travel. Now with America’s airports and interstate highway system in a state of perpetual gridlock, especially at peak travel times, isn’t hi-speed rail quick as air travel an idea whose time has come. Or do we perpetually want to invest in operating the only antiquated railway system of this size and scope of any major industrialized nation in the world, that operates at speeds that have been in existence since the 1950’s. Therefore the word hi-speed rail for Americans has become science fiction instead of science and engineering fact. This is directly attributable to the fact that America’s plutocracies economic interests in the automotive and airline industry have prevented the investment of hi-speed rail which they see as an economic rival which provides a badly needed upgraded in America’s critical transportation infrastructure network.

(The above picture is a hi-speed German rail ICE train which is capable of traveling at 186 mph)

Continue reading here…

10 things you need to know today: March 17, 2014

An election official stands next to ballot boxes in Bakhchisaraj, Ukraine. | (AP Photo/Max Vetrov)

The Week

1. Crimea votes to leave Ukraine and join Russia
Crimeans voted overwhelmingly Sunday to secede from Ukraine and join Russia. Officials said 96 percent favored breaking away. Crimea’s parliament voted Monday to formally declare independence for the primarily ethnic-Russian peninsula. The U.S. and Europe were expected to announce sanctions on Moscow and warned it not to annex Crimea. President Obama said the U.S. would never recognize the secession vote. [The New York Times, The Associated Press]
………………………………………………………………………………

2. March Madness begins
Florida was named the top-seeded team in this year’s 68-team NCAA basketball tournament, which gets underway this week. The Gators, the favored team in the South region, went undefeated in the Southeastern Conference on the way to the SEC tournament championship. They play their first game Thursday. The No. 1 seeds in the other three brackets went to Arizona (West), Wichita State (Midwest), and Virginia (East). [Los Angeles Times]
………………………………………………………………………………

3. Guinness pulls sponsorship of New York’s St. Patrick’s parade
Irish brewer Guinness, a key sponsor, pulled out of New York City’s Monday St. Patrick’s Day parade over organizers’ refusal to let gay organizations participate openly. Heineken and Sam Adams had already made similar moves. Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to boycott the parade, too. On Sunday, Boston Mayor Martin Walsh skipped his city’s parade after the collapse of a deal to let gay groups march. [The Boston Globe, The Washington Post]
………………………………………………………………………………

4. General strikes a plea deal in sexual assault case
Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair reportedly has agreed to a plea deal calling for the dismissal of a rape charge in exchange for guilty pleas to lesser charges, including that he had an affair with a junior and later “maltreated” her. Army officials declined to confirm any deal, saying the outcome of the negotiations between prosecutors and the defense would be presented to a judge at Fort Bragg, N.C., on Monday. [The Washington Post]
………………………………………………………………………………

5. Westboro Baptist Church founder may be near death
The Rev. Fred Phelps Sr., founder of the virulently anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church, is “on the edge of death at Midland Hospice house in Topeka, Kansas,” his son, Nathan Phelps, posted on Facebook. Spokesmen at the church, which is known for picketing military funerals and declaring soldiers’ deaths to be God’s punishment for tolerating homosexuality, said Phelps, 84, was not as sick as his son claimed. [Kansas City Star]
………………………………………………………………………………

6. Syria takes a key border town from rebels
Syrian government forces seized the longtime rebel stronghold of Yabrud near the Lebanese border on Sunday, dealing a painful blow to opposition fighters as their battle against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime enters its fourth year. Government troops were aided by Lebanese Hezbollah militiamen, who had also helped take the border town of Qusayr last spring. [The New York Times]
………………………………………………………………………………

7. Thousands of Nigerians die in stampede of job applicants
At least 16 people died in Nigeria when 500,000 hopefuls rushed to apply for 4,556 government jobs, the official News Agency of Nigeria reported Sunday. Interior Minister Abba Moro said the people who were trampled “lost their lives through their impatience.” Human rights activists, however, said the government bore responsibility because it invited more applicants than it could handle. [The Associated Press]
………………………………………………………………………………

8. Navy SEALs retake rebel-held tanker filled with Libyan oil
Navy SEALs recaptured a hijacked oil tanker from Libyan rebels late Sunday. The raid, off the coast of Cyprus, was requested by the governments of Cyprus and Libya. The tanker, Morning Glory, was seized earlier this month by three armed Libyans. It left a rebel-held eastern Libyan port on March 10, filled with 234,000 barrels of oil that militia seeking autonomy for the region hoped to sell. [BBC News]
………………………………………………………………………………

9. Greenland’s ice sheet is melting faster than expected
Rising temperatures are melting Greenland’s ice sheet at a quickening pace, according to a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. Greenland is even losing ice in its northeast region, which was stable for 25 years but has seen its ice loss triple since 2003. Scientists say the melting of so much of Greenland’s ice sheet, second in size only to Antarctica’s, will cause global sea-levels to rise. [USA Today]
………………………………………………………………………………

10. Seinfeld‘s “Newman” is the victim of a death hoax
Wayne Knight, known to Seinfeld fans as Newman, emphatically denied on Sunday that he had died, after several outlets reported a day earlier that the actor was killed in a tractor-trailer accident near the Pennsylvania-New York state border. “Some of you will be glad to hear this, others strangely disappointed,” Knight tweeted. “But — I am alive and well!” [Daily News]