Prairie Weather

Choosing the right words for His Mittness

Daily Intel is calling Romney's brush with London "His British Gaffe Jaunt."  David Axelrod sees the candidate's decision to keep the media at arms' length while in Israel as the Romney campaign's "Mittness Protection Program."

While pool reporters are usually allowed at finance events, Mitt Romney's Monday morning donor breakfast at Israel's King David Hotel will not include any members of the media, the campaign has announced. A spokesman declined to explain the reasoning behind what David Axelrod punnily called the Mittness Protection Program, but observers have some ideas about what's going on.

Romney has promised not to criticize the president on foreign soil, but whatever he says to the fund-raiser's attendees — most of whom will be American Jews, including billionaire supporter Sheldon Adelson — will almost definitely feature some allusions to (if not full-on attacks on) Obama's Israel policy. ...Daily Intel

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Romney, who is flying with a group of reporters on his international trip, had agreed in April to allow limited media coverage of all finance events held in public spaces. But on Saturday, the campaign suddenly reneged on that deal and announced that a fundraiser with big-money American donors — including controversial casino magnet Sheldon Adelson — in Jerusalem’s King David Hotel would be "closed press." ...Think Progress

I think many Americans would agree that our relationship with Israel has become an embarassment (and worse).  Little wonder, then, that Romney and others like him don't want full exposure.

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Early Sunday morning, our time, the news out of Israel is that Romney will back an attack on Iraq by Israel.

“Make no mistake: the ayatollahs in Tehran are testing our moral defenses. They want to know who will object, and who will look the other way,” says Romney in an excerpt. “My message to the people of Israel and the leaders of Iran is one and the same: I will not look away; and neither will my country.” ...The Hill

And Netanyahu smiles a knowing little smile and agrees.

During a brief photo opportunity with Netanyahu earlier Sunday, the Israeli prime minister praised Romney’s tough stance. ...The Hill

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Heard the story about Mitt Romney and the hot chocolate?

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Maureen Dowd recognizes Mitt as a man so self-involved he doesn't even fake attention to the people around him, for crying out loud!

The alarming thing about Romney is that he has been running for president for years, but he still doesn’t know how to read a room. He doesn’t take anything in, he just puts it out. He doesn’t hear himself the way the rest of us hear him.

In the Mitt-sphere, populated by his shiny white family, the Mormon Church and a narrow, homogenous inner circle, Romney’s image of himself as wise, caring, smart and capable is relentlessly reinforced. That leaves him constantly surprised that other people don’t love what he is saying. ...Maureen Dowd, NYT

Oh, and Obama is a Muslim but that's okay

The new survey on religion and politics finds that nearly four years into his presidency the view that Barack Obama is Muslim persists. Currently, 17% of registered voters say that Obama is Muslim; 49% say he is Christian, while 31% say they do not know Obama’s religion.

The percentage of voters identifying Obama’s religion as Christian has increased since August 2010, from 38% to 49%, while there has been little change in the percentage saying he is Muslim (19% then, 17% today). Still, fewer say Obama is Christian – and more say he is Muslim – than did so in October 2008, near the end of the last presidential campaign. The increase since 2008 is particularly concentrated among conservative Republicans, about a third of whom (34%) describe the president as a Muslim.

Overall, 45% of voters say they are comfortable with Obama’s religion, while 19% are uncomfortable. Among those who say Obama is Christian, 82% are comfortable with Obama’s religious beliefs. Among those who describe him as a Muslim, just 26% are comfortable with his beliefs. ...Pew Research

And by the way, religion is no longer all that important to Americans.  Over the past couple of decades, the numbers of atheists, agnostics, and unaffiliated have doubled.

Though more Americans go to church or believe in God than their counterparts in virtually every other Western country, fewer Americans now trust religious institutions. A recent Gallup poll showed that just 44 percent of Americans have a great deal of confidence in "the church or organized religion." ...NPR

What we think we know about tragedies like Aurora

Well, for a start, we assume the people (often young people) are suffering some mental illness.  Not always true, writes Jeff Kass in the Washington Post.

The 2002 Safe School Initiative report, by the Secret Service and the Department of Education, looked at 41 attackers across 37 incidents from 1974 to 2000. It concluded that only 17 percent “had been diagnosed with mental health or behavior disorder prior to the attack.” Most had never had a mental health evaluation. However, 78 percent “exhibited a history of suicide attempts or suicidal thoughts.”

Adult and teen shooters do not suddenly snap. Their anger and planning often develop over time. And the more they plan, the more an argument can be made, in the eyes of the law, that they are sane.

Indeed, mental illness is not automatically an excuse, legally speaking. ...WaPo

Parents may have no idea that their child are capable of committing an atrocity.  But friends and others probably know.

The Safe School Initiative found that in 81 percent of the cases studied, “at least one person had information that the attacker was thinking about or planning the school attack.”Almost always — 93 percent of the time — that person was “a peer, a friend, schoolmate or sibling.” ...WaPo

Why I no longer support the Democratic party

This isn't a new story, just another person reacting to inaction on the part of the party's leadership. No, I don't mean Barack Obama.  I'm guessing that the residue of Bill Clinton's hotshot political machine is still running things.  As a result, I'm much less likely to think of Obama's loss in November -- if he does lose -- as Obama's loss.  More likely, it's the party's loss and it seems uncannily deliberate. 

I was reminded of this when I read this comment at a New York Times column in which Charles Blow asks:  "Are too many Democratic voters sleepwalking away from our democracy this election cycle, not nearly outraged enough about Big Money’s undue influence and Republican state legislatures changing the voting rules?"

Denise Heap writes from Camarillo, CA:

I worked my local precinct's primary election in June. It wasn't just that Republican voters believe that voter ID should be required. It was a matter that they clearly were following a script.

Some were loud and overbearing. They appeared to be trying to intimidate voters in the room with their pointed comments.

Please note: Not all Republican voters acted this way. The majority were respectful of the process and proud to be Americans. But: *All* voters who acted this way were Republican.

I wrote my local Democratic leaders about the experience, and the state DNC, and the national DNC. To date, I have not heard back from anyone (almost two months later!).

While grass roots action is very, very important, it is also even more critical that the DNC and others who actually have the power to make things happen TAKE ACTION. And that includes following up when voters like me who are in fact trying to be involved contact them.

Exactly the opposite of Bain Capital

Can you build a technology entrepreneur from scratch in four months flat?

Yes, contends a global training program called the Founder Institute, which was started in 2009. For tuition of less than $1,000, students attend classes with one goal in mind: to create a fully operational company. In fact, they are required to incorporate before they can graduate.

To be accepted, students don’t need to have a fully baked idea, but they must take a test that the institute says can predict their entrepreneurial success. They can keep their day jobs while attending class, but that does not mean the program is easy. The workload is grueling, and 60 percent of the students fail to graduate.

But this for-profit institute, based in Mountain View, Calif., says it has helped start more than 500 companies. It has done so by going global, with chapters in 14 countries, in a total of 27 cities. It aims to make money partly through its equity stakes in the companies created by its graduates.

Boaz Fletcher, 44, a consultant to new companies in Israel, started the Tel Aviv branch this year. “As a country, Israel is amazing at technology, but not great at building sustainable businesses, and that is one of the things the Founder Institute teaches: how to build an enduring, stable company,” he said. The branch’s first class of nine students will graduate in September.

The institute is the brainchild of Adeo Ressi, 40, who has started eight companies of his own. Back in the mid-1990s, he was a co-founder of Total New York, an online regional city guide that was acquired by AOL.

Mr. Ressi saw a need for nurturing entrepreneurs even before the idea stage. ...

...The institute aims to democratize the access that up-and-coming entrepreneurs need, partly by opening up networks and opportunities to those on the outside of the tight-knit start-up world. It “helped me build my network — when I came from Turkey to the U.S. in 2008 to start my company, I didn’t know anyone,” said Eren Bali, 28, co-founder of Udemy, an online learning company that has raised $4 million from investors. ...NYT

Okay.  I'll be honest.  If we had a Republican candidate who had done something like what Ressi has pulled off, I'd have a heap of respect for her or him.  Maybe even vote... But no.  In the Republican party, the people who rise to top appear to be the worst of the worst and they reflect the values of people like Mitt Romney rather than Adeo Ressi's.

America needs to listen. But won't.

America should listen to this advice but, of course, we won't.  When we talk about national security, we should be talking about freedom from the anger and conflict we stir up -- and the messes we have to deal with later.  We put ourselves at risk and then blame others.

The American diplomat most associated with the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan says that American policy makers need to learn the lessons of the recent past as they weigh military options for the future, including for Syria and Iran:

¶ Remember the law of unintended consequences.

¶ Recognize the limits of the United States’ actual capabilities.

¶ Understand that getting out of a conflict once you are in can often be dangerous and as destructive for the country as the original conflict.

“You better do some cold calculating, you know, about how do you really think you are going to influence things for the better,” said Ryan C. Crocker, 63, the departing ambassador to Afghanistan and one of the pre-eminent American diplomats of the past 40 years. ...NYT

Here's another gift from George W. Bush that just keeps on giving.

In Iraq, the dream of a peaceful and democratic ally in the Arab world is giving way to a renewal of violence and an authoritarian government that lists toward Iran. In Afghanistan, the future is uncertain and hangs on dozens of “ifs” — if the elections are fair enough, if the Afghan security forces can fight off insurgents, if the government can become self-sufficient. ...NYT

What about Syria?

“I worry greatly that the minorities, the Alawis and the Christians, are going to be in for a very awful time,” he said, adding that he fears as well that if Muslim hard-liners take over, “the repercussions for Syria, for Lebanon and Iraq, I think, can be pretty serious.”

As for the United States’ ability to sway the situation, he was again reflective. “We’ve been writing memos to policy makers with the subject line ‘Levers on Syria’ for decades,” he said. “Well, you know, the reality was those levers didn’t exist.”

Now, he added: “I’m not sure we can do much to influence it.” ...NYT