Nuclear talks with Iran produce a preliminary agreement.
Obama to speak on the accord at 2:15
In the meantime, here’s the debate prompt:
Worst deal since Munich or worst deal ever?
Discuss.
Image: Jan Fyt, Mushrooms, first half of the 17th century.
schrodinger's cat
Rending of garments by GOP/Likud and their media hacks to follow. Stay tuned
Cervantes
Tom, did you see the NYT article the other day about how Ernie Moniz and Ali Akbar Salehi were getting along in Lausanne?
CONGRATULATIONS!
Obama = Chamberlain.
Except when he’s Hitler.
I don’t quite understand how the change happens or works.
fuckwit
@CONGRATULATIONS!: You forgot Stalin!
Hungry Joe
Third worst deal ever. Second worst was Munich. Worst was the Cubs’ trading Lou Brock to the Cardinals in 1964.
Roger Moore
Worst deal ever. There’s no point in holding back one’s condemnation; worst deal ever or bust.
raven
@Hungry Joe: Ernie Broglio!
El Caganer
More craven appeasement from the Kenyan Usurper. Just wait; the final deal will be signed in…..BENGHAZI!!!!!!!!!!
Sloegin
So remind me again what Middle East’s version of Czechoslovakia was invaded by Iran’s Wehrmacht?
Iowa Old Lady
@El Caganer: Oh god. Make it so!
Betty Cracker
PBO is doing a great job of putting the deal in context. Naturally, the media will edit all that out.
Another Holocene Human
Thanks, Obama!
Paul in KY
@Hungry Joe: Reds trading away an ‘old’ Frank Robinson is in there somewhere.
Mathguy
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
I was perusing comments on some wing nut post on FB and saw this identical comment.
rikyrah
Go Mr. President and Secretary Kerry!
rlrr
@Sloegin:
Iran meddles with the internal affairs of other countries, kind of like a certain North American super power…
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Sloegin: AMERICA!!! you fool. Why do you think all the street food carts in New York are Muslamic?
JPL
Where is. this is a big fucking deal ,Biden? I need to buy another t-shirt.
Another Holocene Human
That “Great Satan” stuff started when I was a baby and in all these years I’ve never understood how grown behind adults could get offended and enraged by that.
Roger Moore
@Hungry Joe:
I think some Red Sox fans would say that selling Babe Ruth for $125,000- and a mortgage on Fenway that wound up being paid back with every other player of value on the team- was worse. Hell, Frank Robinson for Milt Papas was worse.
Another Holocene Human
@rlrr: Kind of like our two “friends” in the region, surprise, surprise.
rlrr
I wonder if the increase of Iranian oil on the world market and the potential downward pressure on oil prices is fueling some of the objections to this dealll
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Mathguy: I’m not surprised. I just think to myself “self, what would be the most fucktarded thing I could possibly post in reply to this event of the day?” and wingnut magic sprays forth from my fingers.
fubar
Another catastrophe I blame on Obamacare
Another Holocene Human
@schrodinger’s cat: The threats to invade by GOP leadership will be cute. Just yesterday they were talking about trashing CAFE standards and polluting all the air before they croak because reasons.
JPL
Bibi will be interviewed by Fox news within the hour, I presume. Right now he is on the fainting couch, because the President pointed out that bombing would not stop their program.
Betty Cracker
Now he’s addressing the “bomb Iran” and “moar sanctions” options directly. Well done, sir.
rlrr
@JPL:
“Iran is one year way from having the BOMB!”
(repeat every year, forever)
Another Holocene Human
@Betty Cracker: Wish I could see John Bolton sputtering in real time.
What a loathsome creature.
Another Holocene Human
@rlrr: Ahem, those are “Netanyahu units”.
jl
We should pronounce ourselves irrevocably doomed.
Far better to talk tough, yell and shout, stand firm, lay down lines in the sand, and go it alone because we are exceptional and all that is good and noble, like we did during Bush II years. That accomplished a whole lot, didn;’t it?
Next time Bolton opens his yap, think about how well the Bush II plan worked in stopping Iran’s nuclear program.
Funny no reporters ever ask Bolton about that when he spouts his crap.
Now, of course, if we do go Bolton’s and neocon route, and not have Iran go ahead and do as it pleases, that would mean years of bombing campaigns. Which would not stop Iran’s program completely unless we leveled the place, since Iran’s program is not the dinky BS Syria or Iraq was putting on.
Let’s see how long that policy would last in a democracy in the face of the costs and world outrage.
Oh, wait, democracy!? ha ha. We know what Bolton and his crowd really think about that BS.
Another Holocene Human
McCain will say something stupid. If not today, just give it time.
Adam
@rlrr:
Would explain why the Saudis would not like it.
rlrr
@Another Holocene Human:
“How dare Obama make it more difficult for a future Republican President to rationalize a war with Iran!”
Hungry Joe
@Roger Moore: Good points; I yield. But the Robinson deal wasn’t a complete fiasco — Pappas was a pretty good pitcher and had some fine years after the trade.
japa21
Hate these comparisons to Munich. That “appeasement” meant that Germany lost WWII. Without it, the war would have started earlier, been over quicker andGermany would have easily been the winner.
Another Holocene Human
@jl: I liked how the neocons said that if you CAN invade, you MUST invade, or America is weak.
That turned out SO WELL.
Gravenstone
@schrodinger’s cat: Serious question (open to anyone), is this enough for Israel to lose their collective minds and attempt that military strike that they keep proclaiming is within their right and capability?
rlrr
@Another Holocene Human:
But that is always true…
Roger Moore
@Another Holocene Human:
This is like predicting that the sun will rise in the morning and set in the evening.
schrodinger's cat
@japa21: After WW I most all of Europe was war weary. It is understandable why that accord was signed.
MattF
@Another Holocene Human: It’s all about perceptions. The blood and guts are ancillary considerations.
Gravenstone
@Another Holocene Human: Likely he already is, privately. He just needs to find the nearest camera before he fires for effect.
schrodinger's cat
@Gravenstone: Who knows? But what will bombing one or the other nuclear facility achieve? Unless Israel is able to kill all those who have the knowledge to build the bomb, the threat continues to exist.
Gravenstone
@Gravenstone: And I answer my own question. What good is a saber if you’re not going to rattle it?.
Rss
YEAH BUT! Dam it, we already know that a bombing campaign will solve any problem, that’s why it is what we always have done, you’ll see that leading from behind will never work and Iran is minutes away from having newkular weponns.
A Ghost To Most
Man was Obama trolling Congress with that speech.
I will truly miss him when he is gone. He has really validated my decision to back him from the start.
kc
Iran hates gays, libtards!
Anybodybuther2016
Congrats PBO & Secretary Kerry. This could not have been possible with a SOS that threatened to annihilate the Iranians like our last one did ;)
Roger Moore
@japa21:
That doesn’t seem to be the historical consensus. Germany was still in the process of rearming in 1938, and the Czechoslovakian arms industry- and troops- were very helpful in that rearmament. Also, the Czechoslovakian border was better fortified and much less suited for massive armored attacks than Poland, so it would have been a much harder target for the German Army. If the Germans had been slowed down in the invasion, France and the UK would have had a chance to invade Western Germany while it was still an easy target.
raven
@kc: So do all the other Muslim nations. You’re point (besides the one on your head)?
rlrr
@kc:
Just like American Christian conservatives.
kc
@raven:
LOL.
Another Holocene Human
@rlrr: Well played.
PaulW
the Big Gay mafia strikes again! Will the Far Right ever be free of their pernicious marrying and peace-making?!
Zam
@Sloegin:
I understand they have taken control of Tehran.
Amir Khalid
@Gravenstone:
Such a strike is probably not within Israel’s capability. If it were, they’d a done it by now, America’s displeasure be damned.
mdblanche
This is as the Vice President would say a big fucking deal.
Villago Delenda Est
Any deal that does not include the territory of Iran in a “Greater Greater Greater” Israel is the equivalent of loading the population of Israel on cattle cars to be resettled in the east.
dmsilev
@Another Holocene Human:
That’s got to be the safest prediction ever, right up there with “Sarah Palin will say something incomprehensible”.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore: Let’s hear it for the Jay Buhner trade!
Bubblegum Tate
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
So perfect.
fuckwit
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Handiwipes are good for when that happens. Just clean it up quickly before it crusts over.
Villago Delenda Est
@Betty Cracker: Does not fit the narrative. The narrative is everything.
Calouste
@schrodinger’s cat: WWI had a devastating impact. France had about 5.5 million dead and wounded soldiers out of a population of 39 million, which works out to somewhere around half of the men of military age.
schrodinger's cat
@Bubblegum Tate: Its like wave-particle duality, he is both. What he is at a particular instance depends on the state of the observer.
Another Holocene Human
@kc: Israel handed over family law to rabbis on their founding, who of course have gotten increasingly reactionary, power hungry, weird, and vindictive. (Sometimes they can be removed, and are, but unlike with other branches of government there’s little check on what they do.)
The secular courts recognize SSM but you can’t get married in Israel. You have to go to another country for that. It’s gets better, as many heterosexual couples must also go overseas to get married because their local rabbi refuses to recognize that they’re Jews, because they don’t belong to a conservative enough sect, or it’s a mixed marriage, or in some cases because the rabbi is a racist and they’re brown or black.
Plus once you DO get married you have to deal with the rabbinate any time you are dealing with family law and family courts, even though secular courts will eventually intervene if they are violating your human rights. (Ask how that worked out for the woman who was chained to a hospital bed when pregnant over a religious divorce dispute.)
It’s no wonder a lot of secular, educated Israeli youth are leaving Israel for lives in London, Berlin, and the United States.
BTW, Persia had one of the best human rights track records of any country in the ME in the period of classical antiquity and prior (recall that the Persian king was a “friend of the Jews” who let them live in his kingdom unmolested and even had Jewish scholars at his court, where many historians believe the Torah was composed in the form we recognize today). For their trouble they got invaded by Greeks (slavery, women had no rights), Mongols (illiterate), and in the most recent unpleasantness, British intelligence with an assist by their US cousins — the thieves.
schrodinger's cat
@Calouste: Its was pretty bad for Britain too, wasn’t it?
catclub
@rlrr:
and puts Texas oilmen on the side of OPEC in wanting to restrict supply. As usual. No wonder they get along with Saudi so well.
Peale
@Rss: If bombing doesn’t work, Seal Team Six will always save us from every jam.
NCSteve
I have@Another Holocene Human:
I have an excellent idea for a compromise to bring together those who think this is a good deal and those who believe the only good deal is the one that involves carpet bombing Iran into a smoking, cratered ruin where feral dogs fight for tiny bits each and every Iranian has been blown into. My compromise is that we sign the treaty, and then we load John Bolton and the rest of the neocons into the bomb bays of our entire fleet of strategic bombers and drop them on Iran from 50,000 feet.
MomSense
@fuckwit:
And Mao!
Patrick
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Early on in his Presidency, people on the right criticized him because the gas prices went up. Now they are criticizing him for the gas prices going down. Go figure!
Tree With Water
Blessed be the peacemakers.
mai naem
Lindsay Graham had to be helped up from the fainting couch with his staff waving 5, count ’em, five handkerchiefs dipped in 25% ammonia. “Oh.Mah.Waht deed that negro boy do now?”
dmsilev
Meanwhile, our home-grown religious fanatics are still mad about The Gay. I give you Conservative Zampolit Erick Erickovich:
There’s obviously a limit to how quickly they can pivot, and apparently foaming about The Big Gay Conspiracy takes priority over foaming about the Big Islamofascist Conspiracy.
Another Holocene Human
@Calouste: Don’t forget the Spanish flu epidemic to cap it all off.
rlrr
@Tree With Water:
What kind of hippy propaganda is that?
Villago Delenda Est
@Calouste: The GERMANS (the populace, not Hitler and his gang of murderous asswipes) were very wary of another war. They suffered greatly during and after WWI as well. For the Germans, the first two years of WWII were like the US invading Iraq…it was all taking place “over there” and the headlines were positive and they were reaping the loot of the occupied countries. This went a long way in tamping down that wariness about war, period.
Then the USSR was invaded, the western Allies got some bombers in the air in large numbers, and things started to change.
Another Holocene Human
@dmsilev: His interpretation of free exercise is about as demented as his notion of freeze peach.
If your religion requires that you shun, shame, threaten, refuse to serve “sinners”, I got news for you, buddy, you can’t do that in the US and run a business. Take that infantile nonsense back to church.
Petorado
@rlrr: Allowing Iranian oil and gas to come to market in areas that have become dependent on Russian imports will reduce Putin’s ability to use energy as a weapon. Google “pipelineistan.” This deal has many geopolitical impacts that go beyond nukes and Israel’s desire to bomb Iran.
mdblanche
@Sloegin: According to the Saudis, Yemen.
@Gravenstone: Without US refueling support, any Israeli airstrikes would have to pass through a third country’s airspace. Either Israel would have to find a local partner suicidal enough to support them or they’d have to say “fuck it, let’s really start World War III.” I doubt even Netanyahu is that reckless, but if he was it wouldn’t surprise me if his generals refused to obey orders.
kc
@Another Holocene Human:
Thank you. I was being facetious, fyi; some cons are accusing the left of hypocrisy re Indiana, because Iran.
Another Holocene Human
@NCSteve: That sounds oddly like the plot to “Star Trek: Into Darkness”.
mai naem
I’ve been watching Squawk Box on CNBC instead of Mornin’ Ho and Joe Kernen’s real hung up on John Kerry doing this deal because he wants to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Jeezus, seriously. Yeah, he’s going to sign a shitty deal which will make him look bad down the road so that he might win the Nobel Prize. Ohhhkay. Dumbass wingnut logic. Also too, y’all are forgetting Obama being Mussolini when they’ve talked about him being reelected in 2016 or not having an election in 2012.
Another Holocene Human
@kc: This big old queer has known a number of Iranians and not one of them ever spoke a homophobic word in my presence, but plenty of American born Christians have said shitty stuff to me about my “lifestyle”.
It’s not a lifestyle, it’s my life.
Belafon
@japa21: We had a great debate about that over at LGF one day. People who know far more than I do say that one of the reasons that Germany wanted Czechoslovakia was for a major tank factory. Without it, they wouldn’t have been nearly as strong.
catclub
@Patrick:
pretty consistent, it looks to me.
reminds me of: The common element in all your unsatisfactory relationships is … you.
fuckwit
@catclub: Does this explain why Tom Cotton of Arkansas seems to posess such a huge throbbing hard-on for Iran? I don’t see a motive… maybe he’s oil money and I didn’t know that.
kc
@Another Holocene Human:
Oh, I believe it.
It’s just an exceptionally dopey stance by conservatives. “You can’t criticize Indiana because your hero Obama is negotiating with Iran.” Dumb.
myiq2xu
On the bright side, I won’t have to worry about learning Farsi because we’re all gonna die in a nuclear fire.
Another Holocene Human
@Belafon: Let me just say this: the Czechs are still holding a grudge against Britain and France for selling them out to Hitler. They HATED the Nazis, and it’s not really hard to understand why once you start to understand how Slavs were treated under the Austro-Hungarian empire during WWI. It’s like they were already pre-programmed and conditioned to mistrust German speakers with expansionist visions and a militaristic outlook. The anti-Semitism and Gestapo were just icing on the cake. (Prague has so many beautiful synagogues you’ll plotz.)
Paul in KY
@mai naem: I could actually see that happening!
Another Holocene Human
Love the Brecht movie “Hangmen Also Die” set in Czechoslovakia during the war (but I think produced in the US because BB was in exile). It’s a bit of a rare film and a while since I saw it so I fucking can’t remember what language it’s in, but true to form there is some fourth wall shattering near the end.
mdblanche
@Calouste: France suffered more casualties at Verdun than the United States has suffered in every war since 1775 combined. I think the Germans did too. When I learned that the differences in American and European attitudes towards war started making a lot more sense to me.
Paul in KY
@Belafon: Also all the Sudeten Germans & their factories, etc.
mai naem
I hear Obama is going to go home to Kenya and celebrate at the Mosque in Mombasa, near where he was born,after he signs it in Benghazi.
Maybe Chris Matthews can ask whichever wingnut he has on today who Neville Chamberlain was. They’ll probably say the liberal English Secretary of State.
dmsilev
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
This is the foundational experiment of the field of quantum wingnut dynamics (QWD). Unlike normal quantum mechanics, in QWD, the final state depends on what the observer wants it to be at any given moment.
The Dangerman
I see references to sports deals above (Lou Brock, Frank Robinson, and the Babe)…
…but all those deals pale in comparison to the Cowboys pantsing the Vikings in the Herschel Walker deal.
Another Holocene Human
@kc: Dawkins did that with that “Dear Muslima” letter when some of his buddies came under fire for, idk, being sexually harassy, sexist, and, oh, RAPIST jerks. “But but but Islam! Look, a squirrel!” STFU, we’re talking about our problems right now. Damn.
jl
@Another Holocene Human:
” His interpretation of free exercise is about as demented as his notion of freeze peach. ”
Freeze Peach? Is that some kind of peach slurpy, or is it a smoothie? Sounds good. Where can I get some?
Paul in KY
@fuckwit: Wants that sweet, sweet Sheldon Adelson money.
gene108
@jl:
North Korea was a real time example of a country Clinton engaged with, got them to halt their nuclear program, only to have Bush & Co. fuck it up and by 2006 North Korea became a nuclear weapons state.
There’s an honest to god nuclear non-proliferation failure staring the media in the face, when a guy like Bolton opens his yap and it’s not even 10 years old, so it’s not like the guys covering it were in diapers or something when it happened (unlike say the 1968 Nixon rat-fucking of the Vietnam peace talks).
dmsilev
@myiq2xu: Even by your standards, that’s a remarkably stupid statement.
Iowa Old Lady
@Another Holocene Human: Yeah, with my mom hat on, I say we’re not talking about that bad kid up the street. We’re talking about you.
Paul in KY
@jl: You wouldn’t want his version of freeze peach ;-)
It’s demented. He freezes his pears (canned!) in antifreeze & then calls it ‘freeze peach’.
Sherparick
@Roger Moore: No, Brock for Broglio was worse. Broglio had actually been a pretty good pitcher for the Cardinals from 1960-63, but Cardinals perceived that Broglio’s elbow was a Tommy John problem, but before there was such thing as Tommy John surgery and he was done for goood eight weeks after the trade . Pappas actually had pretty good career after the trade with Cincinnati and Chicago, but still a terrible trade.
Reference the treaty at hand, since I am sure Dick Cheney, Bill Kristol, Bibi Netanyahu, Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio and all the usual suspects are against it, so am for it. Looks at this way, Israel doesn’t have to worry about an Iranian bomb for at least 11 years.
Villago Delenda Est
@dmsilev: Whatever the word count in that rant is, that’s the number of lies in it.
Villago Delenda Est
@rlrr: 2000 year old hippie propaganda. From the hippie from Galilee.
jl
@gene108: Thanks for reminding me of the North Korean fiasco.
Our worthless corporate press is worse than worthless, it is so corrupt and inept that it is dangerous.
Tiger Beat journalism has consequences, and hard to think of situations where it should be more clear than topics over which war and peace hang in the balance.
But, what does an ignorant, sniveling corporate hack care, if confronting vicious warmongers may lead to uncomfortable, untelegenic moments?
raven
@Another Holocene Human: I have a great Iranian friend who is decidedly gay. Great guy!
jl
@Paul in KY:
” It’s demented. He freezes his pears (canned!) in antifreeze & then calls it ‘freeze peach’. ”
OK. I guess if you slurp that down, you can think real good like EE too!
It’s dessert topping and a floor wax!
Amir Khalid
Per the Guardian’s liveblog, Bibi is NOT HAPPY. Meanwhile that liveblog is also showing a .GIF of Obama’s speech live on Iranian state TV. The distortion on the CRT TV’s screen makes Obama look a bit like Herman Munster.
fuckwit
@gene108: Or the 1980 rat-fucking of Carter’s Iran hostage return negotiations by Reagan/Bush.
boatboy_srq
@rlrr: Netanyahu Unit, defined.
Sherparick
@kc: I did not know that Mike Pence was trying to build a nuclear bomb. That puts a whole new light on things, but will Mike and the Tea Party allow IAEA inspections in return for being allowed to shun gays?
shell
Can’t wait for the latest brain droppings from Michelle Bachmann. The other day on her FB page, she equated Obama’s diplomacy with that suicidal pilot crashing the plane. Comments were not kind to her.
Calouste
@schrodinger’s cat: Britain was pretty bad, but their losses were about half that of France, on a slightly smaller population. Of course the Brits lost about 60,000 men, about a third of whom were killed, on a single day, the first day of the battle of the Somme.
dedc79
@Calouste: Of course the serbs lost the most (by percentage) in WW1 and then got hit pretty hard again in WW2 but it didn’t stop them from going back at it a few decades later.
Patrick
@Sherparick:
But then how is Nethanyahu expected to win future elections, if he can’t scare people to vote for him?
Another Holocene Human
@Sherparick: That’s a common misunderstanding, but let me assure you that the self-administered atomic wedgie does not, in fact, involve any substances that would trip a geiger counter.
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
Boo hoo for him. If he cared as much about the future of Israel as he does about the future of his career, he’d be happy.
NCSteve
@Another Holocene Human: If history teaches nothing, it teaches us that Obama’s perfidy is exceeded only by that of a Starfleet admiral.
I mean, seriously, whatever the timeline, Starfleet seems to use the same criteria for promoting captains to admirals that universities use to elevate professors to be deans. Only the visionless, small-minded, byzantine and incompetent need apply. Whenever a decent one slips through the filter, then end getting sent back down or axed.
jl
My God, what has the Hitler/Chamberlain evil genius/inadequate blah man wrought?
Our resolute America First(!) Founders would be outraged! As for example:
” War contains so much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason; and if anything is to be hoped, every thing ought to be tried. ”
James Madison: Universal Peace, National Gazette, February 2, 1792
Of course, Madison later went along with the War of 1812, which came within a few inches of wrecking the US. But, God looks after drunks, fools and the United States. I forget who said that.
SRW1
@Gravenstone:
Israel is not going to conduct an air strike in reponse to this. Iran does not have the bomb and the leading countries in the world have just stated that they think they have achieved an agreement including an inspection regime that will keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon without a break out time of at least one year.
Apart from the question of whether Israel could pull it off technically, a military strike by Israel now would be a slap in the face of these leading countries and Israel is already shedding support and sympathy among their populations without such a stupid action.
Bibi’s best chance to still sabotage an agreement is via his allies in the congressional GOP.
Gravenstone
@NCSteve: I actually thought about the merits of dropping Bolton on Iran after his “bomb them all” editorial. Sadly, I concluded his head was hard enough he might actually function as a bunker buster. Granted, he would be lacking the required explosives package, and he wouldn’t have enough entry speed to function solely as a kinetic kill weapon. Hate to have the Iranian government accuse us of an unprovoked attack and undo all the hard work behind the proposed agreement.
Villago Delenda Est
@jl: The important thing is it leads to higher ratings.
NCSteve
@Gravenstone: Well I certainly wasn’t advocating dropping them all into an inhabited part of Iran. That would be wrong.
D58826
Well according to the 101st chair borne any deal that does not include a pathway to WWIII is obviously a bad deal. And Nutty-yahoo is more than willing to fight to the last American
Another Holocene Human
@NCSteve: So very, very true.
rikyrah
ABC News ✔ @ABC
JUST IN: Kenyan government confirms 147 killed in Al-Shabab attack at university earlier today
Retweeted by PragmaticObotsUnite
mdblanche
@NCSteve: Well, that explains why Janeway was promoted over Picard.
I’m sure it’s a complete coincidence that Gene Roddenberry had served as a junior Army Air Force officer.
JPL
@rikyrah: ABC news also said they separated christians from muslims except when they didn’t. Unfortunately, terrorists discovered using the Christian terminology gives them more news coverage.
Patricia Kayden
@El Caganer: Now that would be awesome! Would be the end of Fox News as their collective heads explode all at once.
Patricia Kayden
@rikyrah: Wow. Just awful.
Villago Delenda Est
@JPL: Their media adviser seems to be Tony Perkins.
Chyron HR
@Amir Khalid:
And so it was that Bibi came before the Congress and said, “Sirs, the deceiver claims to have reached an accord with Iran. We must go and bomb them forthwith, else the last error shall be worse than the first!”
Couldn't Stand the Weather
@NCSteve:
Why would you do that to the Iranian ground/plants/bodies of water? What did they ever do to you?
fuckwit
@NCSteve: Change “dean” to “executive” and you have a perfect model of how corporations work. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle And government agencies too, I bet. This is just a fact of human condition and organizations: the turds float to the top.
JPL
What surprises me more than the deal that Kerry achieved, is the fact that the Swiss view him as a sexy rock star.
WaterGirl
@Another Holocene Human: McCain will sing something stupid: Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran!
I think it may be the only song he knows.
Redshift
According to the BBC headline I saw this afternoon before the deal was announced, Bibi said that unless the deal eliminated all of Iran’s nuclear capability and addressed their support for terrorism (which wasn’t even the subject of the negotiations), it would be a failure.
Fortunately, the announcement seems to have been big enough news that his little exercise in goalpost-moving went straight down the memory hole.
Elie
Of course we can expect plenty of breast beating by the usual suspects but I can see that all that fire and squid ink from Netan yahoo did nothing to the process — even with the help of Peter Cotton-tail and the 47 morons. The train has done left the station as far as the old paradigm and this agreement, though not final, represents 6 effing countries — not just the US.
A toast to our wonderful President and his ability to overcome serious attempts to sabotage what is truly in our and the world’s best interests. All this from a President that to hear the MSM tell it, has no strong relationships with any other world leaders and is lame in foreign policy. Kiss it, mothaf—kas!
Redshift
My favorite thing about the news (not the content of the deal itself) is that, according to the BBC, the first announcement that a deal had been reached was from the Iranian foreign minister on Twitter.
I just love the fact that at least some parts of the Internet have become truly worldwide forums.
Bokonon
OMG!!! Freak out time! DIPLOMACY HAS HAPPENED!!
This deal proves that Obama is half Hitler, half Chamberlain … as well as being half Mao, half Che Guevara, and half Malcolm X.
Obama clearly is a beast of many halves, each worse than the next.
And what’s more, you know that Satan l has to be involved to defy the laws of math and come up with 250% of anything.
Hal
Look how deftly Tom Cotton-tail can hop from one issue to the other.
Why?
Ah yes. Gays aren’t hung in America (tee hee) so why not focus on important things, like…
Irish made Indiana Pizza or cakes for sodomites won’t matter once the US is a smoldering crater; just the way Obama planned all those years ago in Kenya.
http://wonkette.com/581627/sen-tom-cotton-says-gays-should-be-glad-theyre-not-hung
Also, 100 points to Wonkette for the title of the article: Sen. Tom Cotton Says Gays Should Be Glad They’re Not Hung
David Koch
Worse than Bush!
Bush’s 3rd term!
He SOLD US OUT!
tELE pHONE mETA dATA!
DROOOOOZNEZ!111!
ATTICA! ATTICA! ATTICA!
Redshift
@Hal: “There are more important things to focus on” always means “I don’t have a good argument but I don’t want to admit that I’ve lost.”
(Also, he mysteriously doesn’t use the same logic to argue that Christians being persecuted worse in Iran means we shouldn’t be passing “religious liberty” laws here. I wonder why.)
jl
@Hal: Well, Cotton is ether lying or ignorant about what Clinton signed: it did not allow business to deny public accommodation because owners of the business disapproved of the customer.
But what the hell, who cares about the truth? Can’t tell for sure from the clip, but looks like Blitzer let Cotton sail by with that whopper.
Edit: Dammit, I am steaming about the worthlessness of our press. I have not heard one supposed hard news report that can correctly report out this basic, not hard, simple fact in the story. I heard the commenter David Ross explain clearly with several examples in one of his radio spots, which are just as short as the typical news spot. Pathetic.
Peale
@Redshift: That deal was offered apparently in good faith way back in 2001 and wasn’t accepted. Instead, we threatened them with regime change and no matter what they offered, the neo-con response has always been to threaten them with regime change. And that got us what?
catclub
@Elie:
The reason the sanctions work is they are NOT just the US applying them. And keeping them forever is hard — because businesses want to get back in and trade. Finding a way to lift them keeps a win.
gene108
@Roger Moore:
Germany invaded Poland Sept 1, 1939. Germany invaded France May 1940.
jl
@Peale:
” And that got us what? ”
it got us an Iran a lot closer to some real live ‘splody nukes if they decide they want some. it got Iran a ton load of much more secure, hard to destroy nuclear R&D sites.
Success! We can have a riskier, much more costly, very prolonged and damaging war for US if we have to use violence to stop them. But, maybe in the neocon world, that is a success? Who knows? I’ve given up trying to figure out what goes on in the heads of those murderous idiots.
gene108
@gene108:
Some reason my post posted before I finished.
Anyway as the dates above indicate France and Britain had a cool 7-8 months to launch an attack on Germany for the invasion of Poland.
They did nothing.
If the Munich treaty had not happened and the Czechoslovakia dug in to defend itself, there’s no reason to think Britain and especially France had any appetite for renewed hostilities.
Ken
The CNN report leads with the “a top Israeli official cautioned against celebrating.” But not a word about the reaction of Mozambique, Ecuador, Papua New Guinea, or any of the other 180-odd countries which, like Israel, are not part of this deal.
Patrick
@Redshift:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but hasn’t the Israeli PM been wrong about just everything ever since Bush’s idiotic attack on Iraq in 2003? IOW – Why should anybody care about Nethanyahu’s predictions with his terrible track record of predicting things?
Roger Moore
@gene108:
Sure. But a big reason the French and British didn’t invade in 1939 was that the war in Poland was over so quickly the Germans were able to shift their forces back to the French border before the Allies managed to get started. If they had gotten bogged down in Czechoslovakia, the French and British would have had a good chance to attack their weakly defended border.
SenyorDave
@jl: But what the hell, who cares about the truth? Can’t tell for sure from the clip, but looks like Blitzer let Cotton sail by with that whopper.
Have to excuse Wolf, he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed. Here’s Wolf getting destroyed in Celebrity Jeopardy by comedian Andy Richter (who is a very smart guy).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD5lbUwpbC8
Must have been pretty embarrassing, losing that badly.
burnspbesq
@Paul in KY:
As is Portland drafting Sam Bowie ahead of Michael Jordan.
jl
@SenyorDave:
Thanks. I have wanted to see that Jeopardy episode.
I am not the sharpest tool in the she either. What I meant to say was
it did not allow business to systematically deny public accommodation to a certain type of customer because owners of the business disapproved of something about customer’s religious beliefs, race, ethnicity, political or public policy views, or behavior, that in addition had nothing at all to do with the individual transaction or customer’s behavior in relation to the individual transaction. In other words, what Clinton signed did not allow businesses to engage in arbitrary discrimination and oppression against unremarkable and perfectly ordinary people under the cover of religious belief.
Tax all them damn churches. I am getting to that point, I am so fed up with this BS.
Gin & Tonic
@The Dangerman: Sorry, they all pale in comparison to the Knicks getting Dave DeBusschere from the Pistons.
PIGL
@japa21: hush, child. Don’t go spoiling the Hollywood romancing with any actual military history.
LanceThruster
https://latuffcartoons.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/netanyahu-iran-p51-nuclear-deal.gif?w=590
Amanda in the South Bay
@mdblanche: I don’t believe your numbers are accurate. Or if they are, the numbers are awfully close, comparing to the US Civil War.
Jay C
@Anybodybuther2016:
RLY? When did Hillary say that???
A Ghost To Most
@Patrick:
So you’re saying he’s the Bloody Bill Kristol of Israel?
David Koch
@Jay C:
In response to such hysterics Worst than Bush said:
Patrick
@A Ghost To Most:
Or Dick Cheney. Or John McCain. Or just about any Republican. They all have been about as wrong as can be.
mdblanche
@Amanda in the South Bay: I checked my source and I think I must have misread the numbers for the whole war as just the one battle.
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq: My late father never stopped bitching about that one.
tybee
@jl:
lane peach company. 10 miles east of ft. valley on state road 96. they got peach everything.
http://www.lanesouthernorchards.com/