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Huckabee: Opposing Israeli Settlements Is ‘Racism’ And ‘Apartheid’

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Feb 2, 2011 at 4:45 pm

Former Arkansas governor and likely 2012 presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is in Israel this week, where he attended the ceremony for the opening of a new Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank. At the ceremony, he called it “inconceivable in many ways that we would have to even argue and debate” about whether settlements are wise or legal. But today, Huckabee took his radical stance much further, repeating his call for Palestinians to move out of Israel, and telling Israel Today Magazine that anyone who opposes the consturction of Israeli settlements is guilty of racism and aparthied:

“I think there probably should be [a Palestinian state], but it doesn’t necessarily have to be on the tiny postage-stamp-size piece of land that is Israel,” he said. “I’m not against a Palestinian state. I am against, and not really against, but I’m just being realistic – I don’t see how it works to put two people and two governments right on top of each other.”

Huckabee went on to blast the Arab position – which has been adopted by the rest of the world – that the Jews must stop building in Judea and Samaria, lands claimed by the Palestinians, in order for peace to be achieved.

“To tell Jewish people, ‘You cannot live here, you cannot raise your children here,’ this is the true racism, this is apartheid,” said Huckabee. “I cannot imagine as an American being told that I could not live in certain places in America because I was Christian, or because I was white, or because I spoke English.”

Jewish settlements on Palestinian land in the West Bank are a key roadblock to the Middle East peace process, which is why, for decades under both Democratic and Republican administrations, it has been official U.S. policy to oppose settlement construction. President Reagan called settlements “ill-advised” and “unnecessarily provocative,” while President Bush said settlement activity “must stop.” The U.N. and the European Union also both oppose settlements. Does Huckabee really believe the American government, including Bush and Reagan, are racists and guilty of Apartheid?

Alyssa

Steady Paychecks

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Feb 2, 2011 at 4:32 pm

New York, in a list of other questions for the NBC network’s new head of programming, Bob Greenblatt, says he has to decide whether or not the flailing channel should aim for a broader sense of humor in its programming, or whether it should keep developing small, smart programming that attracts dedicated, but not huge audiences.

So, I have a dumb question that I’m hoping some of you can help me answer. I assume the NBC network’s revenue is larger than a unit like Bravo or SyFy, which have niche audiences and shows with smaller audiences, but I don’t actually know that for sure. A SyFy show, for example, has lower-profile and thus lower-cost actors and sometimes lower production values, and Bravo relies heavily on very low-cost programming like reality television. I went digging in GE’s annual report for the revenue breakout by network and couldn’t find it. Does anyone have a sense of what the relative revenue by network is?

I think the small, smart v. big, broad comedy decision is largely one of what profit margin networks are willing to accept. It’s a lot like internet and print publishing. The future’s likely in the niches in both mediums, but it’s a question of whether networks and publishers are willing to accept small, stable profits, or if they want to keep throwing expensive experiments at the wall in hopes of discovering the holy, high-revenue grail.

Yglesias

The Trouble With “Jobs”

By Matthew Yglesias on Feb 2, 2011 at 4:31 pm

Coming and going on vacation through DCA over the past week, I had occasion to see a bunch of ads about the 9.6 million jobs in the oil and natural gas industry. Here’s a representative sample:

This is, in fact, a good illustration of why progressive reform is hard. Dirty energy doesn’t just have a lot of money behind it, there are tons and tons of people working in the field and they don’t want to lose their jobs. And the same is true of health insurance, banking, and any other sector you might want to take on.

But as an argument on the merits, it’s a huge fallacy. Suppose someone invented a Magical Energy Device tomorrow, a cube that costs about $1,000 to build and provides enough energy to power a city the size of Philadelphia. Even better, the cube has no operating expenses and causes no pollution. What should we do? Well, obviously, we should start building MEDs! A lot of them. We’d need somewhere between 300-400 of them to power the whole country, and we’d want more than that since with this new source of basically free, zero-pollution electricity we’d want to pursue electrification of our automobile fleet very aggressively. This technological breakthrough would be an enormous step forward for mankind. And not because of the jobs that would be created in the MED-manufacturing sector. Even if all the MEDs were built in China, America would benefit, and even if all the MEDs were made in the USA the benefits would be modest since the total size of the global market for MEDs would be pretty modest in dollar terms.

The MED would be a boon to humanity, in other words, just because an unlimited supply of cheap pollution-free energy would be a great thing to have. And yet, just like all forms of dramatic technological progress it would, in fact, disrupt a lot of people’s careers.

Health

Sen. Kyl Blames Health Care Reform For Arizona’s Cuts To Transplants

By Guest Blogger on Feb 2, 2011 at 4:00 pm

Earlier this month, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s (R-AZ) elimination of organ transplants for Medicaid recipients and the resulting death of two Arizonans prompted a national outrage that eventually led her to restore funding for the program. Yesterday, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), the GOP’s number two leader in the Senate, defended Brewer’s draconian cuts and blamed them on the health care reform law signed last year by President Obama:

“Even more controversial and very sad, Arizona has stopped Medicaid funding for several kinds of transplant surgeries on October 1. This is a kind of rationing required by Obamacare. The state cannot afford the most expensive procedures therefore it has to cut them back all because they are prevented by law from dialing back the coverage of these adults without children. The one place they can cut is on transplants…there is no other option. Many of those who have been critics of the decision with respect to transplants have failed to tell the whole story. The Governor had to make that difficult decision, because the health care reform bill eliminated a key option she otherwise would have had to dial back the coverage to the level of other states.”

Watch it:

As ThinkProgress has reported, Brewer did not have to cut funding for organ transplants, as Kyl claims — she was even presented with twenty-six alternative funding proposals by one Republican official. Brewer, and now Kyl, ignored these alternatives and argued that “the state only has so much money,” even though Brewer’s budget still managed to find funding for corporate tax cuts, algae research, a coliseum roof renovation, and “bridges for endangered squirrels.”

Although the Governor eventually restored funding for Medicaid transplants, she has now proposed to slash Medicaid for more than 280,000 Arizonans. A recent report from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that this year Arizona was one of only two states to reduce health service for low-income families and the only state to cut health insurance for children. Brewer’s cuts were an outlier even among Republican governors, and were not, as Kyl claims, the result of provisions in the health care reform law.

In fact, the health care reform law provides states with almost 100% of the funding to expand their Medicaid program and grants matching funds to states that don’t reduce their Medicaid eligibility. While thirty-three Republican governors have asked for waivers from the federal government to cut Medicaid eligibility in order to close budget shortfalls, only Brewer has cut Medicaid so deeply and dramatically. Now, as the Senate debates repealing the Affordable Care Act, Brewer’s deeply unpopular, draconian healthcare policies have won the support of one of the Senate’s most influential Republicans.

– Kevin Donohoe

Yglesias

Business and Growth

By Matthew Yglesias on Feb 2, 2011 at 3:47 pm

A friend emailed me to complain about ANC 6B’s concern that more bars and restaurants in Barracks Row will turn the area into “the next Adams-Morgan.” As he points out, you could just as easily call it “the next Bethesda.” They’ve got lots of restaurants and they brag about it. It’s nice. And I agree—entertainment, broadly construed, is a lot of what modern cities are about and it’s not all Adams-Morgan.

But I think the whole question of urban liquor licenses is an excellent parable about the insane “pro business” discourse we’ve recently been afflicted with here in Washington. The success of businesses, of for-profit firms, is crucial to economic growth and prosperity. But this is overwhelmingly a question of businesses that don’t currently exist. If you call up a bunch of incumbent businessmen and ask them what they want, then any relationship between their pro-business agenda and a growth agenda is going to be pretty coincidental. For example, whatever the merits of restrictive liquor licensing policies, they’re clearly bad for the growth of new businesses in the bar and restaurant sector. But they’re just fine for many incumbent bar and restaurant owners, particularly the less aggressive and less skilled ones.

If you’re concerned about growth you need to be concerned about the ability of people to found new firms, and about the ability of small firms to grow rapidly. Talking to executives at today’s large firms tells you basically nothing about this. You just chatting to a bunch of comfortable rich guys who want to pay lower personal income taxes and to get some firm-specific regulatory favors.

Yglesias

China’s US Dollar Holdings

By Matthew Yglesias on Feb 2, 2011 at 3:45 pm

Here’s a striking fact from Eichengreen’s Exorbitant Privilege: “Today, in contrast, Chinese holdings of U.S. government and agency securities exceed $1,000 per resident.”

That dramatizes the under-comprehended fact that China’s exchange rate policy is a huge ripoff for the bulk of the Chinese population. At market exchange rates, China’s per capita GDP is under $5,000 per head. Disbursing that horde of dollar-denominated financial assets to the population so that people could obtain additional foreign-made goods would be a boon to Chinese people’s welfare. But it would be bad for the owners of politically influential export factories, so it doesn’t happen.

Politics

Frank Gaffney: Muslim Brotherhood Is Waging ‘An Influence Operation Against The Conservative Movement’

By Scott Keyes on Feb 2, 2011 at 3:43 pm

Yesterday, ThinkProgress reported on leading neoconservative Frank Gaffney and his claim that the Muslim Brotherhood has already “infiltrated” the United States government. Appearing on Fox News last night, Gaffney took his Muslim Brotherhood fearmongering even further.

During Hannity last night on Fox, Gaffney reiterated his extraordinary claim that the federal government was already being manipulated by the Muslim Brotherhood, who he alleged was giving surreptitious advice to the Obama administration. The problem went even further, according to Gaffney. The Muslim Brotherhood was currently waging “an influence operation against the conservative movement” as well.

Assuming the role of a modern-day Paul Revere, Gaffney yesterday tried to “warn” a group of “senior conservative leaders” about the ongoing threat of an Islamist takeover of the conservative movement. Yet according to Gaffney, “They don’t want to hear it either! This is endemic”:

GAFFNEY: What is going on here in part is that the Obama administration’s policies are being viewed through and actually articulated and now implemented through influence operations that the Muslim Brotherhood is running in our own country. It’s really extraordinary. The Justice Department has prosecuted some of these guys and the Obama administration – and for that matter the Bush administration before it – has been reaching out to some of these same organizations. You cannot possibly get your strategy right, you cannot execute it effectively if you don’t know that the enemy is actually giving you advice on how to proceed. I have to tell you, just this afternoon, I had a confidential meeting with some senior conservative leaders to warn them about an influence operation against the conservative movement. They don’t want to hear it either! This is endemic. We will not get this right if we don’t understood the Muslim Brotherhood there and here is the enemy.

Watch it:

When even today’s conservatives find Gaffney’s claims laughable, it does not bode well for his one-man campaign against Muslim Brotherhood infiltration in the United States.

Climate Progress

Republicans vote to repeal Obama-backed bill that would destroy asteroid headed for Earth

By Climate Guest Blogger on Feb 2, 2011 at 3:23 pm

From America’s Finest News Service:

WASHINGTON””In a strong rebuke of President Obama and his domestic agenda, all 242 House Republicans voted Wednesday to repeal the Asteroid Destruction and American Preservation Act, which was signed into law last year to destroy the immense asteroid currently hurtling toward Earth.

The $440 billion legislation, which would send a dozen high-thrust plasma impactor probes to shatter the massive asteroid before it strikes the planet, would affect more than 300 million Americans and is strongly opposed by the GOP.

“The voters sent us to Washington to stand up for individual liberty, not big government,” Rep. Steve King (R-IA) said at a press conference. “Obama’s plan would take away citizens’ fundamental freedoms, forcing each of us into hastily built concrete bunkers and empowering the federal government to ration our access to food, water, and potassium iodide tablets while underground.”

“We believe that the decisions of how to deal with the massive asteroid are best left to the individual,” King added.

Read more

Climate Progress

EPA and greenhouse gases 101

By Climate Guest Blogger on Feb 2, 2011 at 3:13 pm

Why the agency needs to be allowed to reduce carbon pollution

Shortsighted members of Congress dropped legislation this week to block the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, from regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The EPA’s enforcement of clean air laws””which is already underway””will reduce pollution, stabilize our climate, and protect the health and welfare of the American people. Preventing EPA from doing this work is flat-out dangerous and goes against the letter of the law.

CAP’s Jake Caldwell has the story in this repost.

Let’s examine why enforcement of clean air laws is necessary to protect us from the impacts of climate change, what the law permits EPA to do, and what actions the EPA has already taken to mitigate carbon pollution. The agency is clearly taking a cautious and common sense approach that values the public’s input and takes the effects of regulation on businesses and power suppliers into consideration.
Read more

Security

Mubarak’s Last Push

By Max Bergmann on Feb 2, 2011 at 3:10 pm

After Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak declared that he would “die on its [Egypt's] land” yesterday, it became clear that he wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

The clashes in Egypt today reflect a last push to stay in power. The “pro-government protesters” are clearly pro-government agents not protesters, as they include members of the police force that suddenly melted away days ago. The pro-Mubarak agents have surrounded Tahrir square blocking all the exits for the anti-Mubarak protesters, thereby preventing them from leaving even if they wanted to. The anti-Mubarak protesters, who have peacefully protested for days, are now under siege. Molotov cocktails have been raining down on the anti-Mubarak protesters, as the Egyptian army has completely passively stood by. This is no doubt a critical juncture.

The Mubarak strategy seems clear, if not desperate: split the opposition by announcing you will step down and permit elections in an attempt to look reasonable and appease the international community and fence sitters within Egypt. Then when the protests don’t disperse, create violent chaos by deploying thousands of “pro-Mubarak protesters” and hope that the anti-Mubarak crowd gets blamed for the unrest. The next step would seem to involve the Army inserting itself to “restore order,” but the prospect that would entail the end of the anti-government protests has to concern the opposition. With order restored, Mubarak slowly initiates some reforms, none of which result in him going anywhere.

With Mubarak pushing to hang on, attention is shifting to the response of the Obama administration. President Obama’s call last night that the transition to democracy begin “now” seemed to serve as a direct rebuttal to Mubarak’s speech yesterday. But Mubarak has directly shunned Obama, as today’s violence indicates. The White House says it was blindsided by today’s events and says it told Mubarak it wanted a peaceful transition. That call has clearly been defied. Middle East expert Steven Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations, who was interviewed by Josh Rogin of FP, explained:

Now there’s a strategic game going on between the Obama administration and Mubarak… Either the administration has some other strategy or they didn’t realize that there’s the potential for Mubarak to take the opportunity of the next few months to manipulate the political process to favor whomever he wants to follow him… I can’t believe they thought this would satisfy the crowds.

The ball is now back in Obama’s court. With the events of today, there is almost no chance the US could maintain a close relationship with an Egypt ruled by Mubarak. To do so would inflict a tremendous cost on the image of the US in the region and the world. There is no going back to the past status quo. That’s gone. Since there is now no going back in relations with Mubarak, it is time for the White House to go further and finally call for Mubarak to leave.

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