What Kind Of Day Has It Been

International

• Despite the House vote on Libya today--and in spite of GOP declarations of a stalemate in Libya last night--Libyan rebels made more advances today, taking another town in western Libya and threatening to finally wrest control of Brega. Meanwhile, Speaker Boehner threatened to take on a War Powers fight he will likely (doubtlessly?) lose.

Domestic

• Jon Huntsman announced today that he will announce his 2012 run for the presidency next week.  


• An effort to cut the Ethanol subsidy failed to earn enough votes to actually come to the floor.


• A federal district court judge in California ruled that against Proposition 8 proponents today, holding that Judge Vaughn Walker's ruling would stand, despite his long-term same-sex relationship.


• The Washington Post fact-checks last night's GOP debate. It's well worth the read.


• The wildfire in Arizona, burning since Memorial day, is now the largest in Arizona's history.

The Short List - June 14, 2011

International

• The Syrian armed forces continue to advance northward in that country, as the government continues to crush anti-government protesters.  Over 8,000 Syrians have crossed into Turkey, and over 10,000 are waiting at the border.


• Two gunmen attacked a provincial government building in Iraq today, killing at least eight.  You can add this to the evidence Ben laid out last night in dismissing T-Paw's "shining example" comment during last night's Republican debate


• The CIA will begin flying armed drones over Yemen targeting members of AQAP.


• Social media erodes risk taking and fills up time for protesters in Iran.

Domestic

• The House voted yesterday to block the use of U.S. funds to pay for our military involvement in Libya.  While the move is seen as more pageantry then policy it is clearly a rebuke for the president.


• The Republican Presidential debate came and went last night.  Romney did well.  Bachmann exceeded this writers expectations.  Pawlenty remains the other guy.  Gingrich is an American Idol fan.  Chris Cillizza breaks down his winners and losers from the debate.

“Iraq is the shining example of success in the Middle East”

Tim Pawlenty capped his incredibly underwhelming performance in tonight’s GOP debate with: “Iraq is the shining example of success in the Middle East.” The quote is bizarre for a number of reasons—not the least of which is the quote’s temporal proximity to the anti-Libya-intervention spasm that occupied the stage for the ten minutes preceding the quote. More importantly, however, is that Pawlenty seems totally unaware that:

• Iraq shattered a worldrecord for length of time needed to form a government after an election in 2010.
• A Shia militant group shelled a U.S. military base in Baghdad last week, killing five soldiers—the largestsingle loss of U.S. life in Iraq in two years.
• Also last week, Leon Panetta suggested that he believes Iraq will request U.S. troops to remain inIraq.
• Attacks in Iraq seem to be spreading once again with oil tanks in southern Iraq being bombed lastweek, as well as suicide car bombs in Tikrit, and IEDs in Baghdad.

These are hardly the hallmarks of a shining example of success in the Middle East. In fact, while Sadr’s militia emerges fromhiding and rallies against an American presence in Iraq—Pawlenty’s paragon of virtue—civilians in liberated Libya rallied in support and appreciation of theUnited States, despite the fact that the U.S. has taken a limited role in that intervention, and belying the nonsensical rants of every single Republican candidate in tonight’s debate. That, dear readers, tells you everything you need to know about Tim Pawlenty and the disastrous Republican field.

What Kind Of Day Has It Been

International

• A good day for Libyan rebels. A longtime adviser--and the very first supporter--of Qaddafi defected. Rebels took several towns in Libya's western mountains. They also broke out west from Misurata, moving towards Tripoli and within 10 km of Zlitan. Rebels report other forces already in Zlitan, and are attempting to encircle Qaddafi's forces there. At the same time, Germany--a NATO-member not participating in the mission over Libya--established ties with rebel government but stopped short of officially recognizing it.


• Oil trading on NYMEX dropped $2.37 to its lowest level in a month today. 


• A friend and former classmate of your editor was detained on bogus espionage charges in Egypt. DCExile hopes for his quick release and applauds the rapid intervention of the U.S. State Department on his behalf.


• And Benjamin Wittes does a pretty good job of discussing the problems with the D.C. Circuit's jurisprudence addressing GTMO detainees and membership in al-Qaeda (or associated forces).

Domestic

• There's a lot of buzz surrounding tonight's GOP debate in New Hampshire, most of it suggesting that the debate is Romney's to lose--a classic example of a candidate losing control of the expectations game. Meanwhile, Dole has embraced the quixotic challenge of pushing Petraeus 2012.


• New York is moving closer to legalizing same-sex marriage.

The Short List

International

• Turkey's ruling AKP party won yesterday's election to earn a third term, surprising no one but flummoxing The Economist. Meanwhile, Syria's crackdown on dissidents is pushing more refugees into Turkey.


• Yesterday's morning shows featured a fair amount of inexplicable (and unchallenged) talk about stalemate in Libya and the U.S. burden. Importantly, there is no stalemate--Libyan rebels are making steady advances. Also, the U.S. is only providing logistical and intelligence support--the actual, you know, combat is being carried by our European allies.


• It took Lebanon five months to form a new cabinet.


• The Arab Spring moves to Morocco.

Domestic

• Saint Anselm College hosts tonight's GOP debate in Manchester (Manchvegas), NH. The debate begins at 8 pm Eastern and it will feature Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum. Notably, Sarah Palin was invited to participate but will not. As the presumptive frontrunner, Romney can expect to be beset upon by the other 6 debate participants who will make an issue of former governor's policy inconsistencies and insufficient conservatism.


• The first, clear post-shooting pictures of Rep. Giffords were released onto her Facebook page over the weekend.


• North Carolina is set to be a 2012 battleground state.

Re: “We’re doing airstrikes in Yemen?”

Over at Best Defense, Thomas Ricks asks, “We’re doing airstrikes in Yemen?” Inexplicably, Ricks missed out on 2009-2010 and the Wikileaks scandal. Yet, in the sea of overheated commentary since the United States launched an airstrike in Yemen last Friday, Ricks is perhaps the least objectionable. Since then, the majority of comment has fallen along the lines of “the U.S. is ramping up operations in Yemen.” The commentators rely on two data points for this assessment: Friday’s airstrike and the May 5 drone strike that targeted Anwar al-Aulaqi.

By in large ignored, however, is that the drone strike came nearly a year since the last U.S. airstrike in Yemen. Moreover, that previous strike—and the two U.S. airstrikes that occurred six months earlier—were launched by regular U.S. military assets. The May 5 drone strike was likely the work of the Central Intelligence Agency—as was the drone strike Ricks references; one that occurred in November 2002 and was the first ever use of an armed predator drone outside of Afghanistan. Even taken together, the U.S. operations are too infrequent, too sporadic to qualify as armed conflict.

So, despite the recent breathless rhetoric, U.S. operations in Yemen do not (yet) seem to be ramping up. And to answer Ricks, no, the United States is not engaged in a war in Yemen—at least, not its own war there. Of course, this may all well change the further into chaos Yemen descends.

The Short List - June 10, 2011

International

• The Syrian Army has been sent to the north of the country to crackdown on dissent.


• Salafists are on the rise in Egypt, as reports from the country demonstrate the comparative ease of revolution to reconciliation.


• A suicide bomber detonated himself outside a mosque, where mourners gathered to remember a slain police commander in Afghanistan.  The blast killed four people.


• Tension is building in Sudan(NYT) as South Sudan prepares to secede.  There are daily recriminations of violence perpetrated by the government in Khartoum.


• Libyan TV is reporting a NATO helicopter has been shot down just off the coast of Ziltan.  The reports have not been confirmed.

Domestic

• Leon Panetta seems set to cruise to confirmation as the next SecDef (that happens when you head the CIA and kill the most wanted man in the world), but one revelation from his confirmation hearings was his suggestion that Iraq would formally request a continued U.S. military presence in the country.


• Robert Gates, the outgoing SecDef, feeling the freedom to speak his mind in a way a man only weeks from retirement does said in his final policy speech that the U.S. may soon decide that NATO isn't worth the aggravation.  A direct quote: "The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the U.S. Congress — and in the American body politic writ large — to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense."  **Editorial Note: Can I get an Amen?**


• From the Defense Department to the State Department, Secretary Clinton was dogged by rumors yesterday that she is throwing her hat in the ring to lead the World Bank, after Reuters reported comments from unnamed sources.  Clinton's aides quickly refuted the rumors.


• The Washington Post considers the Senate quorum call in all its time-wasting, sleep-inducing glory.

What Kind Of Day Has It Been

International

• More high-ranking Libyan officials have reportedly fled to Tunisia. And Sec. Clinton says that Qaddafi aides are ready to negotiate. 


• PRI has an excellent analysis of U.S. interests in Yemen and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. It's well worth a listen.


• The IAEA has referred Syria to the United Nations. Bad news for Syria, which is already facing a tough Security Council Resolution proposed by Britain and France.
  

Domestic

• Newt Gingrich's senior staff resigned en masse today. About a month ago, following his campaign roll out, I declared Newt the first official legitimate GOP contender. Clearly, I was mistaken. 


• Leon Panetta endured the first day of confirmation hearings for his new post as Secretary of Defense.


• Farmers in Georgia are complaining of a labor shortage due to the state's new immigration law. Migrant workers are believed to be skipping the state. One farmer reported that Georgians hired to do the work quit after only a few hours picking berries in the hot Georgia sun. At the same time, Alabama embraces a strict and (potentially) unconstitutional immigration law.

No Offense to Josh Keating, but He’s Confusing “Recognition” with “Recognition”

Keating begins a post on Monday with “[n]o offense to Vanuatu or Abkhazia, but there's a slightly more high-profile international-recognition dispute taking place right now.” Keating is of course referring to the ongoing international debate as to whether to recognize the Transitional National Council as the government of Libya.

Keating’s introductory sentence is misleading because he’s confusing recognition of a government with recognition of a state. Though the distinction may seem esoteric, the two varieties have radically different policy and legal effects, as well as radically different restraints. Indeed, whether a putative state is in fact a state will govern whether it has international obligations; yet, whether a particular government is recognized (or not) does not impact the existing international obligations of the state that government represents, so long as there is no question of state succession.

Recognition of a state will, depending on the school of thought to which you belong, either announce or confer statehood on some swath of territory struggling to become one. Recognition of a government, on the other hand, merely alters what government the recognizer believes to be the legitimate government of an extant state whose existence is not in question. For example, as I have argued previously, I believe the United States should extend recognition to Somaliland. This would be an example of recognizing a new state—and, depending on your point of view, either finally renders Somaliland a state or merely announces that it is in fact one.

In the case of Libya, no one contests that it is a state--it satisfies the Montevideo criteria, is recognized by most if not all other states, and is a member of the United Nations. The only question, currently, is whether the Qaddafi government is still the legitimate government of the state of Libya or whether the Transitional National Council has replaced Qaddafi’s regime as that state’s legitimate government. 

Importantly, whether a government is recognized by the United States has important legal ramifications for that putative government's ability to access U.S. courts and the presumed validity of the actions taken by the would-be government. For example, an unrecognized government (that has not achieved de facto status) does not benefit from the Act of State doctrine or foreign sovereign immunity in U.S. courts.

The Short List - June 9, 2011

International

• The U.S. is stepping up covert (well, not anymore) airstrikes(NYT) in Yemen as the country is increasingly adrift and fractured.  Even prior to the killing of Osama bin Laden, many analysts believed Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen, was a much larger threat to U.S. security.


• Syrians have been outraged by a video, recently obtained but not independent verified by Al-Jazeera, that shows the tortured body of a 15-year old boy believe to have been brutalized by the government after demonstrations several weeks ago.  As the unrest continues, almost 1,000 Syrians have fled as refugees to Turkey.


• The Libya Contact Group, the group charged with creating order in a post-Qaddafi Libya, met for the third time in Abu Dhabi yesterday.


• Militants struck back in Pakistan, attacking a security checkpoint in the northwestern part of the country.  Eight Pakistani soldiers were killed, along with ten militants.


• In Saudi Arabia $130 billion buys you peace(NYT), but not much progress.

Domestic

• The case against an ex-NSA manager just got weaker as the government will withhold documents for fear of revealing covert technology.  Thomas Drake is accused of retaining classified documents while also communicating with a reporter at The Baltimore Sun.  He has been charged under the 1917 Espionage Act, but has not been charged with spying.


• A new report from The Brookings Institution, based on recent census data, indicates the immigrant workforce in the United States is comprised of more high-skill then low-skill workers.  The report and the census data did not consider immigration status.


• The FCC will release a report today indicating a crisis in journalism at the state and local level.  With newspaper circulation on the decline, the FCC is concerned there are not good watchdogs at lower levels of governance.

What Kind Of Day Has It Been

International

• OPEC's meeting ended in a angry confrontation with the "cartel" opting not to increase production. Predictably, oil prices rose on the news. Oil is now trading about $30 per barrel above what the Saudis believe the commodity should be priced at. 


• Zawahiri released a vow that the jihad begun by bin Laden will continue.


• Forthcoming scholarship in the Fordham International Law Journal addresses whether an armed conflict is ongoing in Mexico.

Domestic

• Rep. Allyson Schwartz adds her voice to the chorus calling for Rep. Weiner to resign grows. Schwartz--like Weiner and his wife, Huma Abedin--is a member of Hillaryland.


• Palin and Bachmann advisers engage in a delicious internecine fight.


• The Economist assesses the faltering U.S. economy.
  

Healthcare and David Brooks

David Brooks had his usual column in The New York Times yesterday, where he believes the great philosophical debate between Democrats and Republicans will be defined by the Medicare debate.  Namely, should there be a centralized panel of experts/technocrats that decide optimum courses of care that would be funded (which is what Democrats have argued for and has worked in other countries) or do we give individual patients the power of choice and let the markets drive down costs (which is what Republicans have argued for and what Rep. Ryan's voucher program would equate to).

In the column he notes, rather well, a typical Democrats argument for a centralized panel:

Democrats tend to be skeptical that dispersed consumers can get enough information to make smart decisions. Health care is phenomenally complicated. Providers have much more information than consumers. Insurance companies are rapacious and are not in the business of optimizing care.

The trouble is he never addresses these objections.  Instead he cites how various studies have been off on the cost or enrollments, and ignored the data in the previous link I added above.  That's a pity.  My largest complaint about healthcare solutions in the vein of Rep. Ryan's and other Republicans is the failure to address information asymmetries in healthcare.  As Matt Yglesias reminds us, buying healthcare is not like buying shoes.  

And before someone jumps all over me for failing to think my fellow citizens have the capacity to make good healthcare choices, let me add I don't trust myself to make the right healthcare choices.  That's why I go to the doctor.  If chicken soup and Advil (or is it Tylenol, I don't know) don't work I go to a doctor and do what he or she says. Would it be better doctors, not insurance companies, were the decision makers in healthcare?  Absolutely, but that's not the case in our current system, and that still doesn't put the power with the consumer, because doctors are simply going to know better.

I get so frustrated with the illusion of the discerning senior with the time, energy, and intellect to competently choose the right medical care for themselves and that such a discerning senior can, through aggregate market forces, drive down costs without driving down quality.  At the very least a centralized government panel won't be driven to decide a course a treatment by considering profit margins.  The same can't be said for private insurance adjusters.

The Short List - June 8, 2011

International

• A Congressional report set to be released today will detail how U.S. nation-building efforts in Afghanistan have failed to gain traction, and likely won't be sustainable once U.S. troops withdraw.  This is a "duh" moment for people who have spent any time learning about Afghanistan's history, and will likely keep the planned troop withdrawal on schedule, if not speed it up.


• Protests broke out again in Yemen as government officials rebuffed a call by the opposition party for negotiations.  A government official went so far as to say that no negotiations will take place until President Saleh return from Saudi Arabia, sparking thousands of protesters to take to the streets.


• Iran's nuclear head has said that his country will use new centrifuges to triple the production of highly enriched uranium.


• The NATO-secretary general as reiterated that no ground troops will be placed into Libya after Qaddafi stepped down.  The comments come as the bombardment of Tripoli has been stepped up and he believes "it is no longer a question of if he goes but when he goes."


• Pakistani intelligence is reporting that U.S. missile strikes killed 23 suspected militants today.  The separate strikes were the fourth and fifth strikes this week, and we've only just reached Wednesday.


• The EU is asking the UN Security Council to pass a resolution condemning the state violence against protesters in Syria.

Domestic

• The Washington Post's Fact Checker takes aim at Pawlenty's ludicrous economic assertions.


• Unionized Wal-Mart employees abroad are appealing to Wal-Mart executives to give U.S. store workers the same rights as their abroad colleagues enjoy.

What Kind Of Day Has It Been

International

• Yemen's embattled--and absent--president has reportedly suffered much graver injuries than first reported, casting further doubt on his return. Another Yemeni city has fallen beyond the Saleh government's control, though this time not to AQAP. That said, AQAP is apparently on the verge of capturing a second city.


• Unbeknownst to most, the violence in Mexico is an armed conflict--a rather serious one, in fact. The gangs are now employing armored vehicles.


• And NATO ramped up its bombing of Tripoli--launching daytime raids for at least the third time in the last week.
  

Domestic

• Weinergate continues. Democrats on the Hill deserve more credit than they are getting for their quick response to Weiner's admission, including the calls for an ethics investigation. And, as Wonkette noted, "[Weiner has] now guaranteed that greasy pustule Andrew Breitbart will never go away, ever." Breitbart, of course, is taking a victory lap--and I guess well he should, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.


• Dan Boren is out.