Afghanistan support, Huckabee gaffe, Gorbachev peer award, Israeli arrogance

Notes 69

Buy the poppy crop and burn it, bring the troops home, eliminate the dope problem domestically, close the for-pay prison system which is a classic free market incentive for the justice system to fill them up.

Ex-Pentagon adviser says US should cut Afghan aid
By Bradley Klapper, Associated Press –
WASHINGTON – By pumping more than $100 million into a hydropower plant, the United States sought to improve the lives of Afghans and win the hearts and minds of tribesmen and farmers who might otherwise turn to the Taliban insurgency. Instead, a prominent outside Pentagon adviser argues, the bungled boondoggle ended up funding the insurgents while doing little to help the United States end the war and bring troops home
He argues that grand gestures such as the dam have flopped, largely because development spending does little to increase popular support during an insurgency. Half the electricity from the project in the volatile Helmand province goes to Taliban territory, enabling America's enemies to issue power bills and grow the poppies that finance their insurgency, he says.
It is written by a well-regarded counterinsurgency theorist who asserts that money and good will — the currency of counterinsurgency — can turn out to be counterproductive. In some ways, it surprisingly echoes Afghan President Hamid Karzai's sentiment that the volume of U.S. contract cash and development money fuels corruption and delivers as much harm as good when directed to a place where wealth is so scarce without it.

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Huckabee’s gaffe a reflection of America’s flawed view of how the world works and what we need to do to change it. Exactly at the heart of the attack on unions, health care, education, the social safety net. One false assumption can lead you over a cliff.

FACT CHECK: Huckabee claims Obama grew up in Kenya
By Philip Elliott, Associated Press – Tue Mar 1
WASHINGTON – Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee suggested in a radio interview that President Barack Obama's childhood in Kenya shaped his worldview — even though Obama did not visit Kenya until he was in his 20s.
The potential Republican presidential candidate told New York radio station WOR on Monday that Obama's youth led him to resent the West, which he said explains why, in Huckabee's view, Obama's foreign policy differs so greatly from that of his predecessors/
“If you think about it, his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather . he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.”

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When history is out from the umbrella of the Reagan mystique, Gorbachev will be the real hero in ending the folly of the Cold War started by the white paper written by the man called X in the Truman State Department in 1946.

Gorbachev, at 80, gets Russia's highest honor
By Vladimir Isachenkov, Associated Press – 51 mins ago
MOSCOW – Mikhail Gorbachev was awarded Russia's highest medal on his 80th birthday Wednesday, a belated tribute from the homeland where many blame him for the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told Gorbachev during a meeting that he would be awarded the Order of St. Andrew for his service as the last Soviet leader. Medvedev said leading the Soviet Union during a "very complex, dramatic period" was a tough job.
"It can be assessed differently, but it was a heavy load," Medvedev said, adding that he will invite Gorbachev to the Kremlin to give him the award

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Workers will rue the day they have to fight for their rights on their own rather than as a collective group and the people in power, whether government or corporation, will rule again. That will take us back alright, to the day before the middle class raised all boats.
Think “Divide and destroy.”

AFL-CIO President: Wisconsin 'The Fight of Our Lives'

NEW YORK – If Gov. Walker defeats the public union, AFL-CIO president Richard L. Trumka predicts disastrous results for American workers. Trumka talks to Eve Conant about the price of union-busting.
Richard L. Trumka has seen his share of strikes and protests, but now as president of the AFL-CIO, his fight for Wisconsin has the scent of a final battle, a last stand for America’s organized labor movement.
for labor leaders like Trumka, those rights could spell disaster, both for workers and for the politicians trying to defend public workers. “This is about all Americans having the basic right to use the strength of their numbers to pursue the American dream. This is a crystallizing political moment—we’re already seen from Wisconsin polling that voters think Walker has gone too far,” Trumka tells The Daily Beast.
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Like dancing on the grave of a dead man. Israel will soon be learning moderation is prudent.

Housing for Jews approved in east Jerusalem
By AMY TEIBEL, Associated Press Amy Teibel, Associated Press – Wed Mar 2, 5:54 am ET
JERUSALEM – Jerusalem officials approved new housing for Jews in the heart of an Arab neighborhood, officials said Wednesday, infuriating Palestinians who see the growing Jewish presence in the city's war-won eastern sector as undermining their aspirations to statehood.
The approval further complicates efforts to restart deadlocked negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

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Reminiscent of Israel, the governors want all the chips, States’ Rights AND Federal money to support them.

GOP governors and Obama at impasse over Medicaid
By Ricardo Alonso-zaldivar, Associated Press –
WASHINGTON – Strained state budgets and a new crew of Republican governors have combined to reopen the debate over Medicaid, the health care program for the poorest and sickest Americans.
GOP governors want control of the purse strings and leeway to rewrite coverage and payment rules. So far President Barack Obama has turned them down.

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No honor among thieves

Rajat Gupta and Goldman's Insider Trading Bombshell
Allan Dodds Frank Allan Dodds Frank – Wed Mar 2
NEW YORK – Rajat Gupta was trusted by some of the world’s top companies. But the SEC says he shared insider secrets so a hedge fund could make millions improperly in the market. Allan Dodds Frank reports.
The reputation of McKinsey, the world’s most important consulting firm, is built on the perception that its high-priced consultants are the brightest and most trustworthy group available anywhere. Now Rajat Gupta, who served as McKinsey’s global managing director for nearly a decade, is enmeshed in Wall Street’s biggest insider trading scandal ever.
The ultimate kings of capitalism—Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and the boards of directors of Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble—are the latest alleged victims of a vast insider-trading ring that penetrated Wall Street during the last decade.