Motley Moose – Archive

Today, the New York Times reports: Nazis Were Given ‘Safe Haven’ in U.S.

A secret history of the United States government’s Nazi-hunting operation concludes that American intelligence officials created a “safe haven” in the United States for Nazis and their collaborators after World War II, and it details decades of clashes, often hidden, with other nations over war criminals here and abroad.

The 600-page report, which the Justice Department has tried to keep secret for four years, provides new evidence about more than two dozen of the most notorious Nazi cases of the last three decades.

This report, uh, reportedly details the triumphs and travails of Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations, which was created in 1979 to deport Nazis.  People have long acknowledged the Central Intelligence Agency’s involvement with Nazi scientists with regard to postwar intelligence, but per the NY Times, “this report goes further in documenting the level of American complicity and deception in such operations.”

For decades, stuff like this has made great fodder for conspiracy theorists, who like to suggest that US collaboration with Nazi technokrauts after WWII marked the beginning of fascist domination of the upper echelons of the US establishment and the military-industrial complex.

Six months ago, Britain’s left had an enthusiasm gap too.

Prior to the General Election of May 2010, a lot of progressives were disaffected with the Brown Premiership, jaded after 13 years of New Labour. However, despite the makeovers and compassionate conservatism, the Tory Party still wasn’t detoxified from the days of Thatcher and Major. David Cameron hadn’t sealed that deal. So many people I know decided to experiment with their votes.

Our first ever Prime Ministerial TV Election Debates had a huge impact too. For the first time the leader of the smaller third party, the Liberal Democrats Nick Clegg, got equal billing with major party leaders Gordon Brown and David Cameron. He looked plausible, articulate, and could throw his hands up in Ronald Reagan fashion (“there you go again”) when the two big party leaders slugged it out.

For a while the papers were filled with Cleggmania. The media narrative was all about this new force in British politics. The polls spiked up and Mark Penn explained how consumer politics had changed the UK forever. Many ‘progressives’ (like my son and his mother) decided to vote tactically. They were bored and disappointed with New Labour not being radical enough. So why not go for a more radical alternative? The Lib Dems were different. They must be more progressive. (No less an authority than Jerome Armstrong on MYDD told me they were way to the left of Labour)

As it turned out, the swing to the Lib Dems wasn’t great. Come election night, thanks to anomalies of first past the post, there were actually fewer seats for them. But the Lib Dems had, in the seat where my son and his mother live, stolen enough votes from Labour to let the Tories in.

More importantly, for the first time in living memory there was a ‘hung parliament’ with no one party with an overall majority. And what happened next? Our first Coalition government since World War II.

Now you’d think, given the overwhelming overlap of policies, especially on welfare, Europe and Green issues, this would have been a Labour/Lib Dem Coalition. But thanks to the Parliamentary mathematics, the abrasive style of Brown and the subtle shift in Lib Dem thinking since Clegg had taken over, a Conservative Lib Dem Coalition was created.

Of course, we on the left immediately called it the ConDem Coalition, but the public liked to see Cameron and Clegg outside Number Ten together. They looked young. They looked different (even though they went to the two most elite private schools in the country). Meritocracy, pragmatism, youth and reasonableness had returned the the land. The cameras flashed. The media fawned.

But follow me below to find out how tactical protest voting ended in tears….

OK, so against my better wishes I find myself writing a diary.  It’s all Strummerson’s fault for getting me going, but I suppose I had a few pages stuck in me somewhere.

The topic is this: “Sell me on being concerned about the Democrats keeping control of Congress.”

I’m exactly the kind of person who was extremely motivated and involved in the Obama election who is today mostly sitting on the sidelines while – in theory – the Dems might get a trouncing in the mid-terms. I will vote in November and it looks like I will vote Democrat mostly, but I’m doing nothing other than my usual talking (here and elsewhere) about it.

Most of you know that I am pretty Centrist on average and hold views on different topics which are in many ways deep parts of both the political right and left. At first glance I put down most of my ennui to an “in power” as opposed to “out of power” situation combined with general up tick in busyness. The more I think about it, however, the more I realize that the answer is more:

“I already got everything I was after.”

So, assuming I am doing more than rambling my fingertips in late-night stupor, I ask my fellow Moose and any passerby who feels like chiming in to convince me that there is some urgency I should feel about November.

Consider this a “Short Attention Span Theater” Open Thread.

The rise of Islamophobia across Europe in recent years has filled me with a kind a foreboding I haven’t felt since the early 90s and the Nationalism in Former Yugoslavia. So I salute your President for taking on Palin, the TeaPartyers and Islamophobes over the Mosque Prayer Room in Downtown Manhattan as he celebrated the beginning of Ramadan at the White House last night.

President Obama made 15 “recess appointments” today, breaking a logjam of appointments that has been part of the Republican Party’s “Just Say No” policy of governance.  These 15 appointments have been – on average – held up for 214 days each by GOP lawmakers.

Seven of the roles these individuals are filling are in key economic areas – something that the GOP has reasonably assumed could be left waiting, since it has had no real importance to the country over the past year.  Two of the roles filled today are in the Department of Homeland Security, something else the GOP has determined to be of little to no importance to the United States.

Tonight, the President and the Congress will pass comprehensive health care reform.  There are absolutely no voices left to refute this fact.

At this moment – 9:39 pm ET – on FOX News Hannity is spending time to forecast the defeat of certain Democratic Congressfolks in November: a Far Right concession speech if ever there was one.  On MSNBC Ed Schultz is saying that Barack Obama may just be a genius: a stronger nod from the Far Left than is usually found from that source.  CNN is running its viewers through the benefits of the now-finished reform bill as they will – not “may” – unfold over coming years.

Consider this a Victory Celebration Open Thread

Words Fail me. This is someone who’s internalised all those great speeches and great thoughts, and then says the right thing at exactly the right moment…learned not by teleprompter, but by heart

But he didn’t do it alone: great footage here of Nancy Pelosi pissing off Teabaggers, marching arm in arm, Selma like, with John Lewis, and wielding a mighty scary weapon – the gavel

A transcript of the whole amazing extempore speech after the flip

As the second year of his first term cranks up, President Obama is perhaps showing some of the maturity that comes with having been around the block already.  Perhaps he is following a plan he has intended all along.  In either case, he is showing a set of canines that Congress had forgotten about.

The New York Times is reporting that he is planning a raft of executive action in the face of congressional gridlock, something that will either light a fire under legislators on both sides of the aisle, leave them standing looking fooolish – or both.

With much of his legislative agenda stalled in Congress, President Obama and his team are preparing an array of actions using his executive power to advance energy, environmental, fiscal and other domestic policy priorities.

Have I gone crazy, or is it everyone else?

Overnight there is news that the Obama administration is considering cutting around 2% of the budget in 2011 – this after a large stimulus package. But to go from the blogs I swing by, you’d think that the President had just invaded a small country, and started torturing the inhabitants.

The Great Blogfather on MYDD posts up these two images (the second stolen from FDL apparently.)

David Plouffe is back to run the 2010 mid term elections for the Democrats, and he gives a stirring message to Democrats in today’s Washington Post. Hat tip to Dansac at Dailykos for this, one of the few mature and sane bloggers there who hasn’t written a GBCW in the last few weeks.

Among the other sterling bits of advice and comfort he has for the coming year is this:

No bed-wetting. This will be a tough election for our party and for many Republican incumbents as well. Instead of fearing what may happen, let’s prove that we have more than just the brains to govern — that we have the guts to govern. Let’s fight like hell, not because we want to preserve our status, but because we sincerely believe too many everyday Americans will continue to lose if Republicans and special interests win.