Tag Archives: Georgia

Do You Want to Fight for Estonia?

Since under the NATO treaty, an attack on any of the Baltic States (Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia) is considered an attack on the United States, I went back to see how the Senate vote (May 8, 2003) went to admit those countries to NATO.

People, it was 96-0.  As if they were naming a post office.  No one seems to have thought about if we really want to go to war over the Baltic States.

What troubles me most is that Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia were part of the old Soviet Union, and not simply Warsaw Pact countries like Poland or Bulgaria.  I see a distinction between adding former Warsaw Pact nations to NATO and adding former republics of the USSR.  The latter strikes me as in-your-face overreach, NATO on the Russian border, designed to infuriate the Russians and perhaps come back to bite us on the tush.

Okay, we “won” the Cold War, but there’s winning smart and winning dumb.  The Treaty of Versailles was winning dumb.  Expanding NATO as far as we did may have been winning dumb too.

 

 

Quote of the Day

“I do not believe that Crimea will slip out of Russia’s hands. … Putin invaded Georgia when George W. Bush was president. Nobody ever accused George W. Bush or being weak or unwilling to use military force,” he said. “I think Putin saw an opportunity here, and he has seized it.”

Former Bush 43 and Obama Defense Secretary Bob Gates

 

 

No Soup for You — Unless You Sweep the Floor

Congressman Jack Kingston of Georgia is hoping to become Senator Jack Kingston next year.  So you gotta bring out the crazy if you’re gonna win the primary, right?

Kingston wants to abolish the federal lunch program for students from low-income families.  But if he can’t do that, he said today they should have to sweep the floor to get their lunch.

How Gerrymandering Hurts GOP

Much has been made of all the safe GOP House Seats, of how their occupants don’t have to fear a general election, just a primary challenge.  Much has been made of how the gerrymandered seats let the GOP keep control of the House even though Dems got 1 million more House votes in 2012.

But there is an enormous downside to the GOP’s failure/inability to develop a strong bench for higher office by electing nut jobs to the House.

You get people in Congress like Todd “Legitimate Rape” Akin who don’t just make fools of themselves when they run for Senate, they hurt the party nationally.  Akin didn’t just kill the GOP’s chances of picking up a Senate seat in Missouri, he hurt other Senate races and he hurt Mitt Romney because of his damage to the overall GOP brand.

In the 2014 races, we may see the same thing play out with Steve King in Iowa and with Paul Broun in Georgia.  Their inflammatory and bizarre beliefs will make news all across the country.

All politics may be local, but the politics of crazy has national consequences.

So This Is How It’s Going To Be…

In my post about the six crazies to watch in the 2014 Senate races, I gave a shout out to Congressman Paul “Pit of Hell” Broun (R-GA), who is running for Saxby Chambliss’ seat.

In a fundraising letter, Broun takes great pride in the fact that “I was the first Member of Congress to call him [Obama] a socialist who embraces Marxist-Leninist policies…”

So now being delusional is a qualification for the Senate.  It’s depressing enough to have someone like this as one of 435, but it’s sickening to think of him as one of 100.

Quote of the Day

“I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge.”

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) about his never-raise-taxes pledge to Grover Norquist and Americans for Tax Reform.

Norquist wasn’t on the ballot, but he lost big in the election.  His days of getting all the GOP lunch money may finally be over.

When Is a Supreme Court Loss Actually a Win?

Law professor Peter J. Spiro has a very interesting “briar patch” take on tough state immigration laws and the Supreme Court:*

“Such laws [Arizona’s S.B. 1070 and similar laws in Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Indiana] are misguided at best, mean-spirited and racially tainted at worst.  The conventional wisdom among immigration advocates is that immigrant interests will be best served if the Supreme Court makes an example of Arizona’s law by striking it down.

“But in the long run, immigrant interests will be better helped if the Supreme Court upholds S. B. 1070.  Laws like Arizona’s are such bad policy that, left to their own devices, they will die a natural death — and their supporters will suffer the political consequences.

“Undocumented immigrants may themselves be politically powerless, but they have powerful allies.  In Alabama and Georgia, dismayed farmers have watched crops rot in the fields for want of immigrant labor. Arizona is estimated to have lost more than $140 million from convention cancellations made in protest.

“Even more important is the prospect of lost foreign investment.  Caught in the net of Alabama’s law in November was a German Mercedes-Benz executive, who left his passport at home while out for a drive and as a result found himself in a county jail.  Mercedes has a plant in Tuscaloosa that employs thousands of Alabamans and adds many hundreds of millions  of dollars to the state economy.  That embarrassment will make the next foreign company think twice as it scouts out a location for a manufacturing facility in the United States.”

*  “Let’s Arizona’s Law Stand,” NYT