Justin Green

Political Theory and Punditry from a native of Flyover Country

On Whether or Not Netanyahu is Clever

On the world stage, the United States is a bit like the popular guy who, love him or hate him, the whole school aligns themselves in relation to. Israel is a bit like the popular guy’s troubled friend who most people try to get along with a bit because the U.S. will take it personally if they don’t.

Or, to put it slightly differently, Israel is an important regional ally to the United States. The United States is the critical ally of Israel. And if Israel does something to seriously tick of a large or influential portion of the U.S., Israel is in serious trouble.

Now the U.S. is having a hugely contested election. Netanyahu apparently decides that this is a good time to start criticizing the Obama administration. The Romney campaign runs with it, as Netanyahu knew it would. So now Israel is tampering with—and taking sides—in a U.S. election.

It should go without saying that our election is none of Israel’s business and Israel should butt out of this one. But that’s not the part that makes me question Netanyahu’s intelligence. It’s that he seems to have tied himself to the Romney campaign.

Why in the world would you put a high stakes bet on that horse?

Lol, Squashed.

The key isn’t to win. It’s to push US policy on Israel to the right, and that’s been accomplished by allying with Romney.

This Changes Everything!

kohenari:

Sarah Kliff has a great piece about reactions to the new calorie information found on the food at McDonald’s. This is my favorite quote, but there were a bunch I considered posting here:

I did find one customer who had noticed the calorie labels: Dick Nigon of Sterling, Va. He and his wife, Lea, had stopped by McDonald’s after seeing an exhibit at the Renwick Gallery. Dick had ordered for the couple, noticed the calorie labels and liked them.

“I like that you have the information before you order,” he told me, when I asked about the labels. “It’s better than some kind of government health mandate in Obamacare.”

I told him that the calorie labels were, in fact, a government health mandate in Obamacare.

“Well that changes things a bit,” he responded. “I thought this was more of a voluntary sort of thing. Now I’m not quite sure how I feel about it.”

I like this quote so much not only because it demonstrates what we all already know about Obamacare, the role of government, and people’s perceptions of those things, but also because Jonathan Bernstein ran with it to talk about the political process itself:

[It’s] a reminder of how difficult it is for anyone to talk about “Obamacare” as a particular thing because the ACA just contains so many different, and in many cases largely unrelated, pieces. It’s also a reminder that one of the outdated bits of “I’m Just a Bill” is the idea that a “bill” is one specific idea written by one Member of Congress in response to one problem. Most things nowadays that pass Congress do so as part of larger, omnibus bills which contain many different bills, many of which began life as individual measures. Most of these bills/provisions (or whatever we should call them) never receive separate votes on the House or Senate floor, or even in committee. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but good or bad it’s just how Congress does business.

Amusing stuff.

Zadie Smith: “It has never been hard for me to pay my taxes.”

motherjones:

Appropriate today, from “The North West London Blues”:

Some people owe everything they have to the bank accounts of their parents. I owe the state. Put simply, the state educated me, fixed my leg when it was broken, and gave me a grant that enabled me to go to university. It fixed my teeth (a bit) and found housing for my veteran father in his dotage. When my youngest brother was run over by a truck it saved his life and in particular his crushed right hand, a procedure that took half a year, and which would, on the open market—so a doctor told me at the time—have cost a million pounds. Those were the big things, but there were also plenty of little ones: my subsidized sports centre and my doctor’s office, my school music lessons paid for with pennies, my university fees. My NHS glasses aged 9. My NHS baby aged 33. And my local library. To steal another writer’s title: England made me. It has never been hard for me to pay my taxes because I understand it to be the repaying of a large, in fact, an almost incalculable, debt.

Chuckling at the use of a British national to talk about American culture.

theheritagefoundation:

Yep.

Am I to take it he shouldn’t be meeting with his Vice President?

You people…

" There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax."

motherjones:

EXCLUSIVE: When he doesn’t know the camera’s rolling, Mitt Romney says what he really thinks about American voters.

I hope this was a lucrative fundraiser, because this will be in a campaign ad by this evening.

50 Shades of Election Days…

As we’re hitting what is bound to be most aggressively stupid segment of the election (the interlude between conventions and debates), I figured I’d change the subject on Tumblr.

So, each week I’ll be hosting a little open forum here on Tumblr. Let’s start with healthcare.

The first I’d propose is probably the core problem with our current system, which is having insurance coupled with employment. Many of the horror stories we encounter via conversations with friends, ads on the television, or in longform articles on MoJo are a product of this system.

Decoupling insurance from work would be a major step in improving our system.

Anyway, I must go to work (commence joke about healthcare).

Let’s make this a thread, and perhaps even Tumblr can manage to rise above (you see what I did there?) this election?

Kansas considers removing Obama from ballot

pol102:

May I please refer all (white) Americans to Title 8, Section 1401 of the US Code? It clearly states that, though I was born in Bolivia (as my passport and birth certificate clearly state), I am nevertheless a “natural born” citizen of the United States and therefore eligible to run for the presidency. Please apply as needed to other cases. Thank you.

Via kohenari:

In today’s Not-From-The-Onion news:

A GOP-controlled board in Kansas is trying to decide whether to remove President Obama from the state ballot over objections about his birth certificate.

The State Objections Board — consisting of three of the state’s top Republican elected officials — ruled Thursday it did not yet have enough information and postponed a decision until Monday.

“I don’t think it’s a frivolous objection,” Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach told the Topeka Capital-Journal. “I do think the factual record could be supplemented.”

Seems reasonable. No?

HT: Josh Sternberg.

Fun fact. I interviewed Kobach this summer when Obama enacted his mini-Dream Act.

Kobach cited facts and legal interpretations that my editor, when I took them to him, told me were just garbage. (Note: my editor was wildly, staunchly conservative).

So I wouldn’t trust Kobach with my morning bowel movement.

This seems an appropriate moment to say: Americans don’t appreciate the courage, skill, and competence of the civilians who represent the United States in embassies around the world. They often offer a less-armored target to America’s enemies than do US military personnel. In embassies from Caracas to Kabul, I’ve watched in action some of the most impressive Americans I’ve ever had the honor to know. During the Wikileaks affairs, we all had the chance to read sensitive cables and to discover how perceptive, shrewd, intelligent -and often funny - America’s diplomats can be. Today we are reminded of another fact they live with every day: diplomats also serve on the front lines of global conflict, doing the nation’s work often at great personal risk.

David Frum — “Our Boys In Striped Pants”

I'm running an open thread on the reaction to last night's murder of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya

Let me know what you think, what needs to be added, and if you run across something interesting or unique, let me know!

think-progress:

The chart on public employment some Republicans just can’t admit is real.

I mean, this isn’t exactly thrilling for me to see, but could we please use just a bit more scale in the chart? To many (unthinking) readers, this chart will tell a tale that didn’t happen.