Eli Lake at the Daily Beast reports:
the selection of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney’s choice for vice president tilts the ticket closer to the neoconservatives on key questions about America’s role in the world and the size of the military.
In recent months, Ryan has been receiving briefings from Elliott Abrams, George W. Bush’s former Middle East director at the National Security Council, and Fred Kagan, one of the architects of the military surges in Iraq and Afghanistan, as first reported by Weekly Standard reporter Stephen Hayes on Twitter. Another conservative foreign-policy specialist who has briefed Ryan said the Romney campaign in Boston has arranged for briefings with a parade of former government experts on foreign policy in recent weeks.
Abrams told The Daily Beast on Saturday that he found Ryan’s views in line with the mainstream of the Republican Party today, saying Ryan was ”relaxed, serious, funny, very smart, and knows more about foreign policy than people may think, in view of his concentration on the economy.”
Stephen Hayes on Twitter:
Over past few months, Ryan has quietly been receiving foreign policy/national sec briefings from Elliott Abrams, Kim & Fred Kagan & others
Kimberly Kagan is Fred Kagan’s wife, Victoria Nuland’s sister-in-law and president of the Institute for the Study of War.
You mean convicted criminal Elliott Abrams?
Amazing how long this traitor to the U.S.’s national security has been pulling strings
Being a traitor to the US is less important to both Ryan and Abrams than being what Israel expects of its American born patriots.
David Stockman had a glorious piece up at the NYT recently where he dressed off Ryan completely. He did mention the neocons a little, as ‘ex-Trotskyites’(which is what they are, on things like abortion, gay marriage, immigration etc etc they are liberals).
It’s just like that quote that Phil wrote about some time ago of Irving Kristol when he admitted in the mid-70s that ‘Jews must support a bigger military for Israel’.
Of course, the rise of the seperate military-industrial complex helped that concern.
Nonetheless, Stockman goes on in length at how Ryan is supporting a budget that, adjusted for inflation, is 50 % larger than what Eisenhower felt was needed to fight the war in Korea and contain the Soviet union.
And then he goes on a great deal more about Wall St etc.
People forget that the people funding these neocons are Wall St oligarchs like Julian Singer, Dan Loeb and many others. They have two main concerns. On Foreign Policy, maximize aggression in the middle east to protect Israel whatever America’s actual interests.
On domestic policy; just cut tax rates for the uber wealthy.
Stockman understands that what is happening now to the Republican party isn’t conservatism. It’s a lethal mix of crony capitalism and neoconservative aggression.
I lean heavily to the left on matters economic as well as foreign policy, but there are areas where the left has been blinded and where there is a need for an intelligent opposition. Crime is one such area, one of many. The underestimation of the importance of the family structure is another(most men who sexually abuse children in their own family are stepfathers, and the more boyfriends mom has, the higher chance her children will be sexually abused).
Nonetheless, there are other areas as well but what we’re now seeing is the total implosion of the Republican party in favor of Wall St and the neocon agenda, both tightly linked.
That’s why Obama’s in the lead and he will increase that lead.
The Republican party needs a cleansing process. It needs to return to it’s modest roots and learn from genuine mistakes of the past(i.e. excessive isolationism from WWII, the freezing out of the moderate Rockefeller Republicans).
And so on.
On domestic policy; just cut tax rates for the uber wealthy.
it’s a bit more complicated than that. the real tax bill for many is already effectively zero. they also do have an incentive to support the federal government to the extent that it is the underwriter for the ‘insurance policy’ which protects them from themselves. as chomsky puts it, privitizing profits, socializing risk. or something like that. they really are pathological. what psychic mechanism works to convince them of their particular genius when there is literally no risk of failure?
Abrams told The Daily Beast on Saturday that he found Ryan’s views in line with the mainstream of the Republican Party today, saying Ryan was “relaxed, serious, funny, very smart, and knows more about foreign policy than people may think, in view of his concentration on the economy.”
hah. except he’s a mental defective when it comes to matters ‘economic’. here is paul krugman beautifully cribbing others’ analysis on ryan ‘the economist’.
Mark Kleiman points us to a lamentable but revealing column by William Saletan, which illustrates perfectly how the essentially ludicrous Paul Ryan has gotten so far – namely, by playing to the gullibility of self-proclaimed centrists, who want to show their “balance” by finding a conservative to praise.
Saletan writes:
Ryan is a real fiscal conservative. He isn’t just another Tea-Party ideologue spouting dogma about less government and the magic of free enterprise. He has actually crunched the numbers and laid out long-term budget proposals.
OK, what? Where is that coming from? Did Saletan miss the whole discussion when the Ryan plan came out? Did he miss the point where even Jacob Weisberg apologized for his initial praise, admitting that
I reacted too quickly and didn’t sort out just how laughable Ryan’s long-term spending projections were. His plan projects an absurd future, according to the Congressional Budget Office, in which all discretionary spending, now around 12 percent of GDP, shrinks to 3 percent of GDP by 2050. Defense spending alone was 4.7 percent of GDP in 2009. With numbers like that, Ryan is more an anarchist-libertarian than honest conservative.
Look, Ryan hasn’t “crunched the numbers”; he has just scribbled some stuff down, without checking at all to see if it makes sense. He asserts that he can cut taxes without net loss of revenue by closing unspecified loopholes; he asserts that he can cut discretionary spending to levels not seen since Calvin Coolidge, without saying how; he asserts that he can convert Medicare to a voucher system, with much lower spending than now projected, without even a hint of how this is supposed to work. This is just a fantasy, not a serious policy proposal.
marc, here’s the link to krugman in case readers would like to distinguish who’s saying what
link to krugman.blogs.nytimes.com
in case readers would like to distinguish who’s saying what
thanks, annie, that’s probably helpful for ‘readers’. i, on the other hand, want my posts to be a bit confusing so i can later cover my ass if needed.
# Elliott Abrams; categories
1. AJC member (American Jewish Committee)
2. Bush 43 administration member
3. CFR senior fellow (Council on Foreign Relations)
4. CFW member (Committee for the Free World)
5. Christian Zionism supporter
6. Clash of Civilizations ringleader
7. Commentary writer
8. CSP member (Center for Security Policy)
9. Dick Cheney adviser
10. EPPC president (Ethics and Public Policy Center)
11. Global War on Terror ringleader
12. Greater Israel supporter
13. Harvard Law School graduate
14. Harvard University graduate
15. Henry Jackson staff member
16. Heritage Foundation member
17. Hudson Institute member
18. Iran War ringleader
19. Iran-Contra conspirator
20. Iraq War ringleader
21. Islamophobe
22. Israel lobby leader
23. Israeli op
24. Jew
25. Jewish activist
26. Jewish intermarriage opponent
27. Jewish Islamophobe
28. Jewish lobby leader
29. Jewish nationalist
30. Jewish neoconservative
31. Jewish pro-Israel activist
32. Jewish separatist
33. John Podhoretz brother-in-law
34. Likud Zionist
35. MEMRI board member (Middle East Media Research Institute)
36. Middle East Forum member
37. Mideast peace process opponent
38. Midge Dector son-in-law
39. National Review writer
40. neoconservative
41. NGO Monitor board member
42. Norman Podhoretz son-in-law
43. NSC member (National Security Council)
44. Paul Ryan adviser
45. PNAC member (Project for the New American Century)
46. pro-Israel activist
47. pro-Israel militant
48. Rachel Decter husband
49. Reagan administration member
50. religious Jew
51. religious Zionist
52. Republican
53. Richard Perle mentee
54. Richard Perle subordinate
55. Stephen Hadley adviser
56. U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council member
57. uses antisemitism charge
58. Weekly Standard writer
(Note: please take no offense to the blunt designation “Jew” — if Abrams were a Roman Catholic, Mormon or Lutheran, the appropriate category would be “Roman Catholic,” “Mormon” or “Lutheran.” I am not sure if he is an Orthodox Jew or Conservative Jew — perhaps someone here knows. He is definitely a Jewish religious Zionist.)
Regarding Elliott Abrams’ religious Jewish nationalism:
link to rightweb.irc-online.org
“In his book Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America, Abrams takes care to insist that his positions imply no “disloyalty” to the United States, but at the same times insists that Jews must be loyal to Israel because they “are in a permanent covenant with God and with the land of Israel and its people. Their commitment will not weaken if the Israeli government pursues unpopular policies.”"
Elliott Abrams has dual-loyalty, his protestations notwithstanding. In fact, he’s tilted against the US when push comes to shove. Iran Contra, for which he was convicted, being a classic example.
“Outside the land of Israel, there can be no doubt that Jews, faithful to the covenant between God and Abraham, are to stand apart from the nation in which they live.”
Abrams wrote it. Not me.
If he is to stand apart, then he shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near US foreign policy.
If Adelson if footing the bill for Romney and Ryan, it’s guaranteed that criminal Abrams is one of the many, in the line of Neoconservatives, that will aim to coach and influence Ryan to be pliant when it comes to Mid East Policy. They whisper it in private meetings, and he in turn will have to stump for it on the campaign trail through his own voice of course. This is pay to play political sphere and Neocons and their Pro Israel funders always know when to provide a treat to their candidates.
Gingrich was the top dog, until his shit started to stink. But Romney is happy to play the second fiddle. We’ll begin to see how principled conservative values Paul Ryan will slowly start to bark about Israel’s accomplishments and how it is an ally where there can be no daylight between us. But Ryan will have to come up with his own creative catch phrase, since that was the Obama line which got standing ovations at AIPAC.
RE: “In recent months, Ryan has been receiving briefings from Elliott Abrams, George W. Bush’s former Middle East director* at the National Security Council” ~ Eli Lake
MY COMMENT: So the Council on Foriegn Relations is backing Romney/Ryan?
ALSO SEE: “Passive-aggressive George Bush namechecks neocons for getting us into that mess”, by Philip Weiss, Mondoweiss, 5/22/12
SOURCE – link to mondoweiss.net
* P.S. And Why, Oh Why (VIDEO, 03:35) did Bush have a “senior NSC staffer” / “Middle East director” who had been convicted of lying to Congress during Iran-Contra?
P.P.S. ALSO SEE: “Was Elliott Abrams Hitler’s Senior
Advisor?” ~ by Ran HaCohen, Antiwar.com, 9/16/11
ENTIRE COMMENTARY – link to original.antiwar.com
P.P.P.S. MY SNARK:
RE: “In recent months, Ryan has been receiving briefings from Elliott Abrams, George W. Bush’s former Middle East director* at the National Security Council” ~ Eli Lake
MY SNARK: What a great guy Abrams is!
FROM RIGHT WEB [Elliott Abrams]:
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to rightweb.irc-online.org
RE: “In recent months, Ryan has been receiving briefings from Elliott Abrams, George W. Bush’s former Middle East director at the National Security Council. . .” ~ Eli Lake
MY SNARK: He is such a math whiz!
FROM ELLIOTT ABRAMS, The Washington Post, 04/08/09:
SOURCE – link to washingtonpost.com
P.S. Elliott Abrams has totally convinced me by the sheer power of his “logic” (and his excellent math skills)!
Ergo, the ‘Abrams Principle’ stands for the proposition that more Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank will result in a larger area for the Palestinian state. That’s why I say, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” with the settlement actvity; so as to result in the largest Palestinian state possible (from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River)! “Let Right Be Done.”
RE: “In recent months, Ryan has been receiving briefings from Elliott Abrams, George W. Bush’s former Middle East director at the National Security Council. . .” ~ Eli Lake
MY COMMENT: Down here in these here parts we call someone like Elliott Abrams a “snake in the grass”! ! !
SEE – “Inside Narh al-Bared and Bedawi Refugee Camps: Who’s Behind the Fighting in North Lebanon?”, by Franklin Lamb, Counterpunch, 5/24/07
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to counterpunch.org
RE: “In recent months, Ryan has been receiving briefings from Elliott Abrams, George W. Bush’s former Middle East director at the National Security Council. . .” ~ Eli Lake
SEE: “The Gaza Bombshell”, by David Rose, Vanity Fair, April 2008
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to vanityfair.com
* P.S. Down here “in these here parts” we call someone like Elliott Abrams a “snake in the grass”! ! !
RE: “In recent months, Ryan has been receiving briefings from Elliott Abrams, George W. Bush’s former Middle East director at the National Security Council. . .” ~ Eli Lake
FROM HistoryCommons.org [Elliott Abrams]:
SOURCE – link to historycommons.org