I’m in the Taj Mahal of auto mechanic waiting rooms (where I have been for several hours) having my annual inspection, getting a tune-up, and having an axle/cv joint/I’m not sure what replaced on the Subaru, and I have to say- dropping a grand on your car is a lot easier when you can sit and surf the web and drink coffee in comfort than it is sitting in a dingy waiting room twiddling your thumbs. Every waiting room should have wireless.
John Cole started Balloon Juice early in 2002. Those who have followed along know that this has been quite the journey.
I Can’t Imagine Why There Is Unrest
You try living like this:
The neighborhood of Kufr Aqab has evolved into a kind of no man’s land — it’s technically part of Jerusalem, but it lies on the Palestinian side of the West Bank barrier the Israelis have built to try to keep out suicide bombers.
Kufr Aqab’s residents have to pay taxes to the Israeli authorities, but they get virtually nothing in return. Still, the East Jerusalem district’s population is booming as Palestinian couples like Bayan Barghouti and his wife, Roula, move there.
The two don’t look like star-crossed lovers, but like the majority of Palestinians in the neighborhood, they surmounted a great deal of opposition to be together.
I have no other place to live with my husband. He’s a West Banker and I cannot live in an area in the West Bank, nor he can live in an area in Jerusalem, so it’s the middle.
The problem? Roula is from Jerusalem; Bayan is from the West Bank.
Palestinians from Jerusalem can travel freely between the West Bank and Israel, but to maintain their residency permits they have to live within the Jerusalem municipal boundaries. Most Palestinians from the West Bank don’t have permission to cross the wall Israel has built in and around the occupied territory.
And this “only democracy in the Middle East” comes complete with taxation without representation:
To prove residency, Palestinians in Kufr Aqab have to pay arnona, the Jerusalem municipal tax. But their streets are mostly unpaved, services are minimal, there are few schools and only one recently opened clinic.
Roula and Bayan say this place is symbolic of how Palestinian residents of Jerusalem are slowly being disenfranchised. Israeli restrictions are forcing Jerusalem residents to either marry other Palestinians from Jerusalem or risk losing their residency in the city.
“If you are married to a West Banker you are punished — you have to pay more; you have to live in an area that’s not organized at all,” Roula says.
Maybe Bart Stupak will offer an amendment so my tax dollars don’t go to support this kind of mess. That would be nice.
“The Paper of Record”
Things That Should Take Less Than Five Years to Figure Out
We’ll start with this:
It was as if the five years of almost ceaseless firefights and ambushes had been a misunderstanding — a tragic, bloody misunderstanding.
More than 40 U.S. troops have been killed, and scores more wounded, in helicopter crashes, machine-gun attacks and grenade blasts in the Korengal Valley, a jagged sliver just six miles long and a half-mile wide. The Afghan death toll has been far higher, making the Korengal some of the bloodiest ground in all of Afghanistan, according to American and Afghan officials.
In the pre-dawn hours of Wednesday, the U.S. presence here came to an abrupt end.
***For U.S. commanders, the Korengal Valley offers a hard lesson in the limits of American power and goodwill in Afghanistan. The valley’s extreme isolation, its axle-breaking terrain and its inhabitants’ suspicion of outsiders made it a perfect spot to wage an insurgency against a Western army.
U.S. troops arrived here in 2005 to flush out al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. They stayed on the theory that their presence drew insurgents away from areas where the U.S. role is more tolerated and there is a greater desire for development. The troops were, in essence, bullet magnets.
In 2010, a new set of commanders concluded that the United States had blundered into a blood feud with fierce and clannish villagers who wanted, above all, to be left alone. By this logic, subduing the Korengal wasn’t worth the cost in American blood.
It took five years to figure that out? And we’re dumping more blood and treasure in Afghanistan?
Things That Should Take Less Than Five Years to Figure OutPost + Comments (55)
Ending One Myth
Great catch by Digby in the Tea Partier poll I talked about last night:
Here’s an interesting factoid that tracks with my intuition about these people: they blame George W. Bush and Wall Street far less for the economic situation than the rest of the country does. They hold Obama and congress mostly responsible. But then, if you listen to wingnut gasbags and FOX news crazies all day, that’s what you would think.
Any illusions that these people are angry at Wall Street or big business needs to be dispensed with ASAP. They don’t blame the money people at all.
88% of them think the government’s stimulus program has either had no impact on the economy or made it worse.
Of course they don’t. This is just a Republican operation, plain and simple, and you’ll watch the tea partiers go to bat for their Republican and Wall Street masters the next couple of months as we try to pass Financial reform.
For chrissakes- the tea party idea came from Rick Santelli- a broker. Anyone who thought these guys were mad at Wall Street was engaging in magical firebagger thinking, and some of us told you that from the get-go.
Wednesday Night Open Thread
Not the night for the Pens.
Just got a call from Tammy, and I will be dogsitting Sam from Friday through Monday, so I should have lots of pictures and videos of the four dogs going nuts.
Also, don’t forget Radio Kaos streamed live at 9 central/10 eastern.
And tomorrow is tax day. So get your stuff mailed in if you already have not.
Great White Dopes
No one could have predicted this:
Tea party supporters are wealthier and more well-educated than the general public, tend to be Republican, white, male, and married, and their strong opposition to the Obama administration is more rooted in political ideology than anxiety about their personal economic situation, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
The 18 percent of Americans who identify themselves as Tea Party supporters look like Republicans in many ways, but they hold more conservative views on a range of issues and tend to be older than Republicans generally. They are also more likely than Republicans as a whole to describe themselves as “very conservative” and President Obama as “very liberal.”
And while most Republicans say they are “dissatisfied” with Washington, Tea Party supporters are more likely to classify themselves as “angry.”
I’m sure you are all as surprised as I was to learn that the tea partiers were largely rich old white men who were angry. That sure is a revelation. I mean, with Dick Armey, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Laurence Istook, Mike Pence and company cheering them on, this is just a real revelation. Also kind of explains why they are so enamored with Sarah Palin.
I’m starting to think if we could just get most of the Republican party laid (and I mean sans wetsuit, diapers, and methamphetamines and with members of the opposite sex), they’d be a whole lot less crazy.