Austerity, ideology, and the UK elections

By Frank Moraes

It’s hard to get too upset about this last week’s elections in the United Kingdom. The truth is that the UK still has a decent welfare state and the Tories aren’t nearly as crazy as our own Republicans. (There are indications that it is getting worse, though.) But I find the whole thing interesting. It’s especially notable that what happened in the UK is the same thing that happened in Israel: the people have become more polarized. The Conservative Party won the election outright, but not because people stopped being liberal. Its gains came from the destruction of the centrist Liberal Democrats.

It’s actually remarkable. In 2010, the Conservative Party got 306 seats and the Liberal Democrats got 57 seats. So the coalition got 363 seats or 56% (they got 59.4% of the popular vote). This time, the Conservative Party got 330 seats but the Liberal Democrats got only 8 seats. So the coalition got 338 seats or 52% (just 44.8% of the popular vote). So all that really happened was that a large part of the Liberal Democrats moved to the Conservative Party — but over half went somewhere else completely. This does not bode well for the Conservative Party. And again, it is just like what happened to Likud in Israel — it hangs onto power because all the conservative minded people jumped to its defense. But where does that lead? After all, the Conservative Party may have won 51% of the seats, but it only won 37% of the vote.[1]

Read more »

British judge wants to know if Mormonism is a fraud

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Telegraph reports:

A British magistrate has issued an extraordinary summons to the worldwide leader of the Mormon church alleging that its teachings about mankind amount to fraud.

Thomas S. Monson, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been ordered to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London next month to defend the church’s doctrines including beliefs about Adam and Eve and Native Americans.

A formal summons signed by District Judge Elizabeth Roscoe warns Mr Monson, who is recognised by Mormons as God’s prophet on Earth, that a warrant for his arrest could be issued if he fails to make the journey from Salt Lake City, Utah, for a hearing on March 14. 

It's an odd request, "issued in response to a private prosecution attempt by Tom Phillips, a disaffected former Mormon who now runs MormonThink a website highly critical of the church," and of course Monson won't show.

But still, wouldn't it be great if organized religious institutions were required to explain themselves, to tell us why their shit doesn't stink?

It's easy to target Mormonism, just like it's easy to target, say, Scientology, but such ridiculousness is hardly limited to these newer religions/cults. Have you ever actually thought about, oh, to take just one prominent example, mainstream Christianity? It's utter nonsense. The whole lot of it. And the only reason we don't think about it the same way we think about, say, Scientology is that it's very old, as if being so old somehow shields it even from the glare of Enlightenment. So it's Monson for now, but...

Next up: Pope Francis!

Police state intimidation: British authorities detain Glenn Greenwald's partner at Heathrow Airport

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Honestly, the surveillance state apologists all across the spectrum, on both sides of the Atlantic and around the world, can go fuck themselves.

Because this is how their beloved "democratic" governments operate, this is what they do when you dare challenge their undemocratic rule, their regime of secrecy and surveillance:

The partner of the Guardian journalist who has written a series of stories revealing mass surveillance programmes by the US National Security Agency was held for almost nine hours on Sunday by UK authorities as he passed through London's Heathrow airport on his way home to Rio de Janeiro.

David Miranda, who lives with Glenn Greenwald, was returning from a trip to Berlin when he was stopped by officers at 8.05am and informed that he was to be questioned under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The controversial law, which applies only at airports, ports and border areas, allows officers to stop, search, question and detain individuals.

The 28-year-old was held for nine hours, the maximum the law allows before officers must release or formally arrest the individual. According to official figures, most examinations under schedule 7 – over 97% – last less than an hour, and only one in 2,000 people detained are kept for more than six hours.

Miranda was released, but officials confiscated electronics equipment including his mobile phone, laptop, camera, memory sticks, DVDs and games consoles.

*****

"This is a profound attack on press freedoms and the news gathering process," Greenwald said. "To detain my partner for a full nine hours while denying him a lawyer, and then seize large amounts of his possessions, is clearly intended to send a message of intimidation to those of us who have been reporting on the NSA and GCHQ. The actions of the UK pose a serious threat to journalists everywhere.

"But the last thing it will do is intimidate or deter us in any way from doing our job as journalists. Quite the contrary: it will only embolden us more to continue to report aggressively."

It is indeed such a profound attack, and I hope that Greenwald and others, undeterred and indeed strengthened by this appalling incident, continue to expose the illegal and/or at the very least deeply troubling activities that in the U.S., the U.K., and elsewhere are corroding the core elements of a free society, undermining the democratic principles that are the essence of enlightened self-governance, and eating away in very real terms at the basic rights that we all supposedly hold so dear and for which, over the centuries, so much blood was spilled.

The mystery of the lead coffin

By Mustang Bobby 

From the annals of archaeology...

Archaeologists were surprised when they opened an excavated stone coffin only to find another coffin made of lead inside. The team said they've never seen anything like it.

The remains of King Richard III were lost for centuries beneath a parking lot in Leicester, England, until archeologists discovered the site in Sept. 2012 and later confirmed the match. But other mysteries have been found, including a double coffin thought to have been sealed more than 100 years before Richard was buried.

Archaeologists returned to the Grey Friars monastery site in early July for more study. After several weeks of excavation, eight people lifted the lid off of a heavy coffin made of stone on July 23. They discovered that an inner coffin made of lead was sealed within the outer stone coffin.

The 7-foot-long stone coffin was thought to have been sealed in the 13th or 14th century. After its opening, the lead inner coffin was moved to the University of Leicester for researchers to analyze how to access it without damaging the remains inside.

This is how every scary movie about demons from the past being disturbed from their slumber starts. All we need is Brendan Fraser* as the dashing archaeologist and a score by Jerry Goldsmith.

*Or Harrison Ford or Stewart Granger, depending on your generation.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

U.K. to impose restrictions on Internet pornography

By Michael J.W. Stickings

You'll excuse the crassness of the tweet I wrote yesterday, posted below. But how is one to respond to Prime Minister Cameron's announcement that the British government intends to impose restrictions on Internet pornography?

Look, I'm not defending (all) Internet porn, and I'm not saying that there's nothing wrong with porn. But the point should be to crack down on illegal porn -- depicting children, criminal violence, etc. -- not to demand that there be filters that customers must turn off if they want to see any adult content. First, this isn't going to stop anything that ought to be stopped. And second, it's about freedom, and the right of people to consume information/entertainment as they please.

Even if you argue that the purpose here is to go after criminal activity, it's clearly the thin end of a dangerous wedge that could see the government and its corporate partners intrude ever deeper into people's private lives -- a slippery slope, if you will.

Consider the problems: Who decides what is and is not appropriate content, or what in this case will only be able to be accessed by turning off the filter (thereby announcing one's intent to anyone paying attention)? It's one thing to try to block obviously horrific content. But that's just at the extreme. The massive gray area is another matter entirely. Furthermore, who decides what "horrific" search terms to blacklist, as Cameron put it? And what are those search terms? Again, there may be a number of obvious candidates, but there's a massive gray area otherwise.

The government, obviously. But do you really want the government telling you what you can and can't see on the Internet, or on television, or wherever? And do you really want the government telling you what search terms you can't use? This is the sort of thing authoritarian states do to restrict access to information. Coming from a supposed liberal democracy like the United Kingdom, it's just as appalling. Those who have fought for freedom and won should know better than to turn the clocks back.

Cameron is concerned that pornography is "corroding childhood." Look, I don't want my children seeing it either, in any form, but censorship is hardly the answer. Criminal activity should obviously be dealt with under the law. But free people should be able to be free, genuinely free, without the government legislating its own narrow idea of morality. Because there's no telling where it might stop.

Looking forward to XXX porn video featuring character named "David Cameron" into spanking and pegging. Called "Cum Through the Tory Hole."
— Michael Stickings (@mjwstickings) July 23, 2013

So Peter King is sure the Tsarnaevs didn't act alone...

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Republican blowhard Peter King is convinced the Boston Marathon bombers didn't bomb alone:

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), the former chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said Sunday that he did not believe the suspects in last month's Boston Marathon bombings acted alone.

"It's very difficult to believe these two could have carried out this level of attack with this level of sophistication and precision acting by themselves, without training overseas or having at least facilitators at home," King said.

King, who sits on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said it appeared from the effectiveness of the dual bombings that Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother, Dzhokhar, had some help.

"To me, there had to be assistance and that's why the FBI, I think, is going after this so vigorously," King said.

Maybe, maybe not, but King is one to know.

I mean, he was an enthusiastic supporter of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), and where would that terrorist organization that left so many civilians dead (in the United Kingdom, a close U.S. friend and ally) have been without so much enthusiastic (and political/financial) support from across the ocean, from King and his terrorism-enabling ilk?

He was, and remains, a shameless hypocrite.

(And really, the Tsarnaev brothers acted with "sophistication and precision"? I would say the opposite is true, which is why there wasn't more damage and why they were identified and caught so quickly. Indeed, as former CIA Deputy Director Philip Mudd put it, the attack was more Columbine than al Qaeda. Yes, King is apparently that stupid as well.)

Margaret Thatcher @ The Fletcher Memorial Home

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Margaret Thatcher – "free" market extremist, neo-imperial authoritarian jingoist, and BFF to any number of right-wing military dictators – is dead.

I once admired her a great deal, back in the stupid haze of my youth, and, yes, I still think there are a few things to recommend her (e.g., her Euro-skepticism, even if it was overly cynical; her unabashed love of country, particularly early on in her premiership, at a time when the present was hopeless and the future looked bleak; her personal political determination as a woman struggling to succeed in what was (and in many ways remains) a male-dominated world), but for the most part I now consider her to have been, in politics at least, a vile and grotesque figure who did far more harm than good.

Oh, is it not polite to speak so ill of the dead? I suggest that you read Glenn Greenwald's piece at The Guardian on "misapplied death etiquete," which includes this:

This demand for respectful silence in the wake of a public figure's death is not just misguided but dangerous. That one should not speak ill of the dead is arguably appropriate when a private person dies, but it is wildly inappropriate for the death of a controversial public figure, particularly one who wielded significant influence and political power. "Respecting the grief" of Thatcher's family members is appropriate if one is friends with them or attends a wake they organize, but the protocols are fundamentally different when it comes to public discourse about the person's life and political acts.

And of course Glenn is right that her many admirers aren't keeping quiet but are rather bombarding us with their hyper-partisan praise. So why can't we push back a bit? Thatcher was a towering political figure. She is not above criticism, including today.

This doesn't mean celebrating her death, which is certainly inappropriate -- it's one thing to celebrate the death of a tyrant, quite another to celebrate the death of a democratically elected leader who had been out of politics, and very much out of the public eye, for nearly two decades. What it means is being honest about who she was and what she did -- and that requires acknowledging the bad along with whatever good there was.

Yes, there is impassioned disagreement with respect to how much good and bad, of course, but the point is that her critics must be as vocal as her admirers.

I will leave it at that for now. Suffice it to say that I agree for the most part with Glenn's comments about her record, as well as Charlie Pierce's brief remarks at Equire.

Thatcher was a right-wing ideologue. She did things that right-wing ideologues do, or want to do. The world of 1979, particularly in Britain, was ugly in many ways, but the world she left behind when she left Number 10 in 1990, while much nicer for the oligarchs who were her main beneficiaries, was even nastier and even more brutal, in large part because of what she did while in office.

Such is her legacy.

**********

And here she is – where she always belonged, with her own kind, among the "overgrown infants," "incurable tyrants," and "wasters of life and limb" who bloodied the 20th century, including her pal Ronald Reagan – at "The Fletcher Memorial Home" (from Pink Floyd's very much anti-Thatcher final album with Roger Waters, The Final Cut):

Tramp the dirt down

By Frank Moraes

Margaret Thatcher was an evil woman. Now she's dead. At the end of her term in office, Elvis Costello released a song about her, "Tramp the Dirt Down." In it he sang, "And when they finally put you in the ground; I'll stand there laughing; And tramp the dirt down." I agree completely about that sentiment. It would be one thing if Thatcher had only ruined the United Kingdom, but she had a pernicious effect all over the globe. Nowhere was the effect greater than in the good ol' United States of America under Ronald Reagan. Thatcher's England led the western world into the abyss of free market authoritarianism (fascism without the explicit racism). It hardly matters that she's dead now.

It would have helped so much if she had died at 50, say. Of course, I tend to think that the world was destined to go through this proto-fascist phase that (on good days) I think we are slowly clawing our way out of.

I'm glad she's dead, but I do not look forward to all the hagiographic obituaries. Because you know how it goes in American papers. The obituaries of leftists have to be evenhanded and talk about the good and the bad. The obituaries of rightists only talk about what good men/women/gargoyles they were.

I love the anger in this song; it is Costello at his best:


(Cross-posted at Frankly Curious.)

Progressive Music Classics: The Unacceptable Face of Freedom by Test Dept.

By Marc McDonald

(Ed. note: Here's another installment of Marc's ongoing series. For the full series, check out his site. Our last one was a couple of weeks ago, "Everything That Rises Must Converge" by Shriekback. -- MJWS)


Margaret Thatcher's declaration of war against labor unions in the 1980s kicked off a vicious attack on working-class people that ripped the nation's social fabric. British society never really recovered from the ravages of Thatcherism.

Like Ronald Reagan, Thatcher used the power of the state to force a radical, extreme form of bare-knuckled "Chicago School" economics on the nation. In both countries, the Top One Percent made out like bandits, but the middle class was ravaged.

Since the 1980s, Britain has come to resemble the U.S. in many ways. Like the U.S., Britain has seen the decline of its middle class. Britain has also experienced increasingly mediocre, under-funded social services and declining standards in public schools. Like the U.S. since 1980, Britain has become more and more a deeply undemocratic society that is increasingly ruled by an oligarchy and by multi-national corporations.

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Thought crime in London

By Frank Moraes

Ah, justice! The London bomb plotters are in jail, but the English court system isn't done yet; they have thought crimes to punish! Ruksana Begum is the sister of one of the plotters. She downloaded a copy of Inspire, al-Qaida magazine in order to understand what was going on with her angry brother. I'm not just saying this. This is what the judge in this case says. Unfortunately, like all the Nazis at Nuremberg, he must "follow orders" and so was left with no choice but to put her in a cage for a year.

In one way, this makes me feel good. It isn't just the United States that is a horror show of injustice and cruelty. But in a more fundamental sense, it makes me despair: humans are just a horrible species. It reminds me of the cannibalistic chimpanzees from Planet Earth.[1] The truth is, I don't really understand the justice system. We should perhaps rename it the "law system," because it is about enforcing laws not meting out justice. If we cannot have justice, at least we can stop claiming that we do.

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In reacting to the violence in Egypt and Libya, Mitt Romney proves he's unfit for the presidency

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Unqualified, unprepared, unfit.

Even by the embarrassingly low standards (and utter disregard for the truth) he has brought to the 2012 presidential campaign, Mitt Romney's self-serving politicization of the events in Egypt and Libya, including the killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, and three of his aides, marked a new low:

It's disgraceful that the Obama administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.

Actually, there was no sympathizing at all -- and certainly not from the White House. The U.S. embassy in Cairo, confronted with possibly violent protests, issued an entirely sensible statement criticizing "the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims." Both the White House and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton immediately distanced themselves from the embassy's comments, with an Obama administration official saying, "[t]he statement by Embassy Cairo was not cleared by Washington and does not reflect the views of the United States government."

Reaction has been swift -- and overwhelming negative for Romney. (Notably, RNC Chair Reince Priebus, who rivals Romney on the dishonesty front, was even more blatant, tweeting: "Obama sympathizes with attackers in Egypt. Sad and pathetic.") He has a few supporters, usual suspects like Bill Kristol (more on him in a moment) and others on the knee-jerk jingoist right, but otherwise he is being criticized from all sides:

Mitt Romney's sharply-worded attack on President Obama over a pair of deadly riots in Muslim countries last night has backfired badly among foreign policy hands of both parties, who cast it as hasty and off-key, released before the facts were clear at what has become a moment of tragedy.

Romney keyed his statement to the American Embassy in Cairo's condemnation of an anti-Muslim video that served as the trigger for the latest in a series of regional riots over obscure perceived slights to the faith. But his statement — initially embargoed to avoid release on September 11, then released yesterday evening anyway — came just before news that the American Ambassador to Libya had been killed and broke with a tradition of unity around national tragedies, and of avoiding hasty statements on foreign policy. It was the second time Romney has been burned by an early statement on a complex crisis: Romney denounced the Obama Administration's handling of a Chinese dissident's escape just as the Administration negotiated behind the scenes for his departure from the country.

"They were just trying to score a cheap news cycle hit based on the embassy statement and now it's just completely blown up," said a very senior Republican foreign policy hand, who called the statement an "utter disaster" and a "Lehman moment" — a parallel to the moment when John McCain, amid the 2008 financial crisis, failed to come across as a steady leader.

Furthermore:

The pundits' judgment was harsh. Time's Mark Halperin said Romney's "doubling down on criticism of the President for the statement coming out of Cairo is likely to be seen as one of the most craven and ill-advised tactical moves in this entire campaign." A senior Republican told BuzzFeed's Ben Smith it was Romney's "Lehman moment," a reference to John McCain's hasty reaction to the 2008 financial crisis -- a turning point in the last presidential campaign. Conservative pundit Matt Lewis wrote in the Daily Caller, "The problem with Mitt Romney continues to be Mitt Romney," comparing his reaction to the way Michael Dukakis was parodied as "weak and passionless" on Saturday Night Live. On Fox News, conservative commentator and Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan said, "In times of great drama and heightened crisis ... I always think discretion is the better way to go," saying Romney was leaving himself open to accusations of politicizing a tragedy. "I don't feel that Mr. Romney has been doing himself any favors in the past few hours," she said. Though Romney had his defenders as well, the gelling consensus was clearly against him.

Kristol seems to think there's some hope: "If Romney can prove both strong and thoughtful on foreign policy over the next few days, it could be an inflection point in the presidential campaign."

How utterly ridiculous. This could very well turn out to be an inflection point in the campaign, but if so it won't be in Romney's favor. And that's because, among other things, Romney isn't, and won't be in the immediate future (if ever), "strong and thoughtful on foreign policy." It is simply delusional to think that he'll be able to turn this massive blunder into a positive, let alone into something that could shape the rest of the campaign, possibly propelling him to victory. If you think that, you apparently know nothing of Mitt Romney.

He's embarrassed himself before, of course, notably when he went to London for the Olympics and managed to turn Prime Minister Cameron, Mayor Boris Johnson, and pretty much the entirety of the British people against him. And he's proven himself before to be grossly ignorant on matters of foreign policy and international affairs, such as when he called Russia America's #1 enemy, as if somehow we're back in the coldest days of the Cold War.

But this was different -- and for Romney, a different sort of test as he seeks the presidency. It was one of those "3 am" moments: what do you do when faced with a sudden crisis in the middle of the night? There are some who prove to be leaders and other who prove to be anything but. As has been the case throughout his presidency, Obama responded with dignity and gravity -- with leadership. (Including by not overreacting to the Cairo embassy's comments and understanding that the intention was to try to prevent violence: "It came from people on the ground, who are potentially in danger. You know, my tendency is to cut folks a little bit of slack when they're in that circumstance, rather than try to question their judgment from the comfort of a campaign office.") In contrast, Romney used the occasion to politicize a tragedy and smear the president, responding with knee-jerk jingoism and a reckless temperament well before the facts were known. That's not what a president does, and it proves once more that he's not even close to being ready for the job.

But, really, what else should we have expected? Nothing. This is a guy who thinks that America is still embroiled in the Cold War and that the best way to deal with China is to try to bully it into submission, and who otherwise has spent the past several years accusing President Obama, without any basis at all and one of the clearest examples of his utter disregard for the truth and willingness to say anything for votes, of apologizing for America abroad. Indeed, as Jon Chait writes, "Romney's strategy here was a perfectly straightforward application of the foreign-policy principles that have guided his campaign from the outset":

And so, when militant Islamists attacked an American embassy, Romney automatically reverted to this line, releasing a statement charging "that the Obama administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks." This was triply false: (1) The statement in question was not made by the Obama administration but by the embassy staff, (2) it was not a response to the attacks but a (justifiably panicked) attempt to preempt them, in keeping with a long-standing bipartisan practice of distancing the U.S. from inflammatory religious provocation, and (3) it was not an expression of sympathy with attackers or other militants.

*****

The miscalculation at work here is that Romney believed his "Apology Tour" method would neatly fit the events at hand — take an event that sort of vaguely resembled an Obama apology to Muslims who don't like us, twist it around, and call it a day. But Romney had grown accustomed to spinning fantasies cobbled together from months-old Obama speeches and nurtured into legend by extensive repetition and exaggeration in the conservative subculture. What he failed to realize from the outset was that the embassy attack was an immediate, high-profile event that he could not hope to rewrite so brazenly. Forced to confront the yawning chasm between reality and the fantasy he had wallowed in so long, Romney was exposed and, justifiably, discredited.

As I said, even by Romney's already pathetically low standards, this was truly abysmal. And if there's anyone who's weaking and disrespecting America, it's not Obama, it's Romney, who in criticizing the president like this weakened America's standing and credibility (proving once more that Republicans on the whole are indeed the disloyal opposition out for themselves) at a time when everyone should have rallied behind the president following a tragedy, waited for the facts to come in, and recognized that the issue of U.S.-Muslim relations isn't black-and-white (as even George W. Bush recognized) but filled with the sort of complexity and nuance that makes foreign policy and international affairs so challenging.

Indeed, instead of walking back his initial statement somewhat, Romney doubled down: "I think it's a terrible course for America to stand in apology for our values." Again, no one is doing this, President Obama included. It's like Romney just can't get past this little lie of a smear-laden narrative that seems to be the very core of his thinking about foreign policy.

It remains to be seen how much this thorough discrediting will hurt Romney. Maybe he'll be able to pick himself back up by turning the campaign back to the economy. Or maybe this story will simply fade over the coming days, the short-attention-span media turning to other matters.

But one thing's for sure: Once more, Mitt Romney has proven that he's unfit for the presidency. He may still win a tight race at a time of economic difficulty, but it's hard to see how he overcomes his massive ignorance, appalling recklessness, and self-serving opportunism between now and election day.

Thankfully, he keeps reminding us just how unfit he really is.

Ecuador grants asylum to Assange

By Michael J.W. Stickings

You may have heard the news already, but let's recap:

Ecuador has granted asylum to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange two months after he took refuge in its London embassy while fighting extradition from the UK.

It said his human rights might be violated if he is sent to Sweden to be questioned over sex assault claims.

Foreign Secretary William Hague said the UK would not allow Mr Assange safe passage out of the country and the move was also criticised by Stockholm.

Ecuador said it would seek to negotiate arrangements for Mr Assange to leave.

"We don't think it is reasonable that, after a sovereign government has made the decision of granting political asylum, a citizen is forced to live in an embassy for a long period," Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said.

Let me just say that I'm completely behind Ecuador on this. There's no way Assange would ever get a fair trail in any country that he has exposed, and embarrassed, with his truth-telling, including the U.S., and it's good to see that at least one country deemed it important enough to protect him.

It should come as no surprise to you that for the most part I support Assange and Wikileaks and their efforts to enlighten us about the illiberal, undemocratic actions of our Machiavellian, Kafkaesque, and in many ways Orwellian states and corporations.

Assange does far more good than harm, and it should similarly come as no surprise that those states and their corporate cronies are trying to shut him up for good. If the future is anything other than the sort of totalitarian dystopia these states and corporations embody, history will ultimately vindicate him as one of the greatest freedom fighters of our time.

Let's hope Ecuador finds a way to get him out safely -- and to safety.

A look back at Romney's disastrous foreign tour

By Michael J.W. Stickings

What did I do? I was just being myself. I'm Mitt Romney, by golly!

So. He's back. In full-on denial mode and, predictably, blaming the media for his own self-inflicted embarrassment. (Oh, and with a silly veep app. Clearly, his campaign is desperate to turn the page.) Let's recap:

POLAND

CNN: Romney aide loses cool, curses at press in Poland
Los Angeles Times: Romney's travels take another detour into controversy

Politico: Romney aide to reporters: 'Shove it!'
National Journal: Romney Spokesman to Reporters: 'Shove It'
Talking Points Memo: Romney Aide Curses At Press in Poland

Boston Globe: Mitt Romney aide reprimands reporters for asking questions in Warsaw
ABC: Mitt Romney Spokesman Tells Reporters 'Kiss My...' at Polish Holy Site

Washington Post: Romney aide berates reporters as GOP hopeful wraps up overseas trip

Washington Post: Mitt Romney's overseas jaunt v. Obama’s 2008 voyage: What a difference staffing makes

Reuters: Romney chides Russia on last leg of bumpy foreign tour

 

ISRAEL

Bloomberg: Palestinian Outcry Overshadows Polish Praise for Romney
Associated Press: China says Romney's comments on Jerusalem wrong
CNN: Palestinians protest Romney statements as 'racist'
New York Times: Romney Comments on Palestinians Draw Criticism
Los Angeles Times: Romney remark draws anger from Palestinians
Los Angeles Times: Fallout from Romney's 'culture' remarks in Israel continues
ABC: Romney’s Israel Comments Anger Palestinian Leader
ABC: Romney's Overseas Trip Continues With Another Fumble
Boston Globe: Romney remarks on Palestinians prompt outrage
National Journal: Palestinian Official Criticizes Romney's Comments as 'Racist'
New York Magazine: Mitt Romney Insults Whole New International Populace
Talking Points Memo: Romney: Socialized Health Care Good For Israel, Not For U.S.
Real Clear Politics: Romney's Foreign Trip Takes Another Contentious Turn
Haaretz: In Jerusalem, Romney's remarks against Palestinian culture seen as racist

CNN: Romney campaign changes mind, allows press into fund-raiser

Bloomberg: Romney Opens Fundraiser in Israel to Media After Outcry

National Journal: Report: Media Barred from Romney Fundraiser in Violation of Agreement

Washington Post: Romney bans media from Jerusalem fundraiser, violating pre-established protocol

CNN: Romney cancels meeting with party leaders in Israel

BuzzFeed: Romney Campaign Muddles Iran Stand

New York Daily News: In a speech outside of Jerusalem's Old City, Romney talked tough about responding to the Iranian nuke threat, and clarified confusion created by his aide 

NPR: Romney Camp Comments On Possible Israeli Action In Iran, Then Clarifies

ABC: Romney Heads to Israel After Rocky London Trip

Washington Post: Romney looks for a breakout moment in Israel to salvage foreign trip

NBC: Romney looks for political lift in Israel after London miscues

Jerusalem Post: Romney arrives in Israel after rough start to foreign tour

 

LONDON

New York Times: Romney’s Remarks Cause Stir in London

AP: Romney goes to Europe, causes international stir

ABC/Yahoo: Romney under fire for comments about London Olympics

Los Angeles Times: Romney's remarks on London Olympics distract from visit
Bloomberg: Romney Riles Londoners With Comments on Olympic Games
Boston Globe: Mitt Romney, lost in translation
Washington Post:  Mitt Romney tries to steer around Olympics controversy in London meetings
Wall Street Journal: U.K. Leaders Defend Games After Romney Comments

AP: Romney struggles to stem his own Olympics fallout

CNN: Romney trip begins in shambles

Washington Post: Mitt Romney: Showing gold medal tone deafness in London

ABC/Yahoo: London mayor mocks Romney at Olympic rally

Washington Post: London mayor Boris Johnson ribs ‘a guy called Mitt Romney’ at rally

The Hill: British PM slams Romney suggestion London not ready for Olympics

Boston Globe: Mitt Romney’s Olympics comments trigger response from Cameron, British press

CBS: Did Romney break cone of silence?

Wall Street Journal: Romney’s Not-So-Secret Meeting With MI6

Huffington Post: Chuck Todd Calls Mitt Romney Out Over Press Access

Politico: NBC's First Read rants on Romney

All of which is to say, it didn't go well. Not well at all.

So what music should we play for Romney's return?

By Carl 

Sad Trombone or Yakkity Sax? 

From the WaPo:

Even before he was wheels-up for London, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's overseas trip was drawing comparisons to then-presidential candidate Barack Obama's 2008 overseas trip.

Both were candidates looking to appear presidential and polish up their foreign-policy credentials.

But where Obama's trip was smooth sailing (save a kerfuffle about a cancelled visit with wounded troops), Romney's voyage has been laden with cringe-inducing gaffes. 

From claiming London was not ready to host an Olympics (note to Mitt: they were two up on you when you decided to "abandon" Bain for Salt Lake City) to commenting on the disparity between Israeli wealth and Palestinian poverty -- created in large part by official Israeli policy favoring investment in Jewish areas and ignoring Palestinian ones, where Mitt decided it was "cultural," which itself seems to paint Israelis as wealth-obsessed -- it seems Mitt could not open his mouth without putting his shoe in it.

Then he made sure he swallowed his socks, too, by pointing out that health care in Israel costs 8% of GDP, whereas in the U.S. it's 18%.

Errrm, Israel has nationalized healthcare, Mittens. You know, sort of like Obamacare? Perhaps you know it better as Romneycare.

About the only thing Romney could have done worse was to walk into a kosher restaurant in Jerusalem and order the lobster.

He was probably glad to get to Poland, where he could review Rafalca's performance in the Olympic equestrian events. Rafalca is probably lucky Paris didn't get the Olympics, or she'd be outsourced to a dinner plate by now.

I mean, at least Poland went smoothly.

Oh. Wait...

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Busted in a nutshell

By Mustang Bobby

There's been a development in the long-running kerfuffle over the bust of Winston Churchill and the horrendous slight that Barack Obama made by taking it out of the Oval Office and sending it back to the British postage due. Well, guess what:

Like a plot twist in a sitcom, IT TURNS OUT THERE ARE TWO CHURCHILL BUSTS!!!!!

The one in the White House residence was a gift to the White House from the British Embassy during the Johnson administration.

The other one was loaned to President George W. Bush by British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

And the one in the residence is still there.

Wingnuts find the silliest things to get upset about. That is why they are wingnuts. 

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Olympic tribute to Britain's National Heath System

By Richard K. Barry

I will admit that I watched some, though not all, of the London Olympics opening ceremonies. I completely missed the tribute to Britain's National Health Service (NHS), the country's publicly-funded system that offers care to all Britons. Pity.

As the Mail Online reported: 

[The] spectacular $42million [show], the brainchild of Oscar-winning British director Danny Boyle, included a segment where dozens of skipping nurses and children in pajamas leaping acrobatically on massive hospital beds, with a large 'NHS' displayed. 

It was a celebration of Britain's national health service, which has provided free taxpayer-funded health care to everyone in the country since its foundation after the Second World War.

The Mail also noted that some commentators, including Mark Sappenfield of The Christian Science Monitor, have suggested this was a shot at the U.S. Although Dany Boyle called the NHS an "amazing thing to celebrate," I'm not sure how that would be a shot at the U.S.

As an American who has lived in Canada for years, it never ceases to amaze me how self-absorbed some Americans can be. Yes, we have universal health care in Canada and we like it quite a bit, thank you very much, but our pride in it has nothing to do with sending a message to America. No, it's not always all about you.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Mitt Romney vs. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Such a small place, this Number 10. And not even a car elevator!

Mitt Romney has made news the past couple of days badmouthing the London Olympics even before they start -- bad news for himself as he starts a mini foreign tour to try to persuade voters back home that he actually has some foreign policy bona fides and can handle himself on the international stage -- but his anti-England/Britain views are hardly new, even if he's been pumping up the so-called "special relationship" between the two countries (promoting Anglo-Saxonism or not) and suggesting, stupidly, that somehow President Obama is insufficiently pro-British.

(Perhaps remembering the name of the leader of Her Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition would help his credibility a bit. Though of course Romney's party has been the most disloyal opposition back home.)

Indeed, as Foreign Policy's Joshua Keating reminds us, Romney wrote the following in his book No Apology:

England [sic] is just a small island. Its roads and houses are small. With few exceptions, it doesn't make things that people in the rest of the world want to buy. And if it hadn't been separated from the continent by water, it almost certainly would have been lost to Hitler's ambitions. Yet only two lifetimes ago, Britain ruled the largest and wealthiest empire in the history of humankind. Britain controlled a quarter of the earth's land and a quarter of the earth's population. 

(The [sic] is there because, as Romney should have known, the island isn't called England. England is just a part of the island, along with Scotland and Wales.)

This is an incredibly ignorant view of Britain, but, just to confirm that, I asked my father, who lives in England and, well, let's just say, knows a thing or two (and a hell of a lot more than Mitt) about British history, British politics, and the British economy, what he thought. Here's his response:

Not sure what point Romney was trying to make but the comments area demonstrates how little many (most?) Americans understand about anything outside their own very limited experience. Romney is of course quite correct about the size of our roads (and more importantly parking places); not sure about average house size – maybe he meant houses he's been in! We have indeed lost much of our heavy industry but have thriving "new industry" sectors in pharma, software, design, computer chips, etc. His comments about WW2 are not worthy of comment. I presume he believes that the US actually won the War of 1812!

Which is to say, Romney's an idiot. A super-rich idiot, to be sure, but an idiot regardless. And when it comes to Britain, a country of which I am a citizen, he should really just shut the hell up -- unless, of course, he wishes to expose even more of his abject ignorance of the world.

Mitt Romney's very bad day

By Richard K. Barry 

May want to reconsider that title, Mitt.

You may have heard that Mitt Romney has gone off to England to prove what a gosh darn terrific president he would make, and how good he would be on the international stage, but things haven't actually gone that well. You may have seen a few stories. Just because I try to be a helpful person, here are a few of the things people have been writing, in addition to all that we've done here, about the presumptive GOP presidential nominee:

• The Guardian: Oh, Mitt: those Romney gaffes in full
• The Washington Post: Romney: Foreign trip not the time to detail foreign policy
• Talking Points Memo: Mitt's British Blunders: How It Played In The UK Press
• The Washington Post: Come home, Romney
• The Guardian: Mitt Romney's Olympics blunder stuns No 10 and hands gift to Obama
• Haaretz: Romney bombs in London, and can't wait to get to Jerusalem
• Think Progress: Watch How British Television Covered Romney's Visit
• The Atlantic: Romney's 'No Apologies' Diplomacy in Action as U.K. Trip Turns to Public Spat
• Mother Jones: Mitt Romney Needs to Start an Apology Tour, Pronto
• Salon: The gaffe-tastic Mr. Romney
• Daily Intel: Mitt Romney's Overseas Trip Begins With Brutal Sassing by British Prime Minister
• The Maddow Blog: A Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time Player
• The Atlantic Wire: Romney Plays Loud American Tourist in London
• Political Wire: Romney Ignores Questions from American Press

That should provide some weekend reading. Could be a pop quiz on Monday.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)