A Reagan Library Forum with Greg Gutfeld
Greg Gutfeld addresses the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on March 26, 2014.
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A Reagan Library Forum with Greg Gutfeld
Showing posts with label Reagan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reagan. Show all posts
Thursday, April 3, 2014
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Is Putin The New Reagan?
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Is Putin The New Reagan?
Friday, March 14, 2014
A CRITICAL WEEKEND FOR CRIMEA – McCain to GOP: Don’t call yourselves ‘Reagan Republicans’ – ST. PADDY’S DAY LUNCH -- Senate strikes deal on jobless aid – HOUSE FIGHTS OVER ISSA AND iPADS
A CRITICAL WEEKEND FOR CRIMEA: RUSSIA MASSES TROOPS ON BORDER – In Moscow, Steven Lee Myers and Alison Smale report on A1 of the New York Times: “With a referendum on secession looming in Crimea, Russia massed troops and armored vehicles in at least three regions along Ukraine’s eastern border on Thursday, alarming the interim Ukraine government about a possible invasion and significantly escalating tensions in the crisis between the Kremlin and the West. The announcement of the troop buildup by Russia’s Defense Ministry was met with an unusually sharp rebuke from Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who warned that the Russian government must abandon what she called the politics of the 19th and 20th centuries or face diplomatic and economic retaliation from a united Europe.” http://nyti.ms/1lC5b2G
– SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY is meeting today in London with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in an attempt to ease tensions before Sunday’s vote. While testifying on Capitol Hill Thursday, Kerry warned that Russia will face an immediate, “very serious series” of responses from the U.S. and Europe if it annexes Ukraine’s Crimea region. AP: http://bit.ly/1ikGNlZ
– U.S.: NO ARMS FOR UKRAINE … YET – “Ukraine’s interim government has appealed for U.S. military aid, including arms, ammunition and intelligence support, according to senior U.S. officials. But the Obama administration has agreed to send only military rations for now, wary of inflaming tensions with Russia. …” Adam Entous reports on A1 of the Wall Street Journal. The U.S. “wants to show support for Ukraine’s interim leaders without further antagonizing an unpredictable Moscow or inadvertently emboldening the Ukrainian military to take steps that could spark violence. ‘It’s not a forever ‘no,’ it’s a ‘no for now,’’ a senior U.S. official said of Ukraine’s request for lethal military support.” http://on.wsj.com/Nd0kIY
– McCAIN TO GOP: DON’T CALL YOURSELVES ‘REAGAN REPUBLICANS’— Seung Min Kim writes for POLITICO: “Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) ripped fellow Republicans on Thursday for objecting to a package of aid and sanctions to respond to the Ukrainian crisis, calling himself ‘embarrassed’ and telling his GOP colleagues: ‘Don’t call yourself Reagan Republicans.’ The Senate has erupted in a dispute over provisions related to the International Monetary Fund in the Ukraine bill, as conservative Republicans protest that it is an unnecessary component of the package that passed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on a bipartisan vote this week.” http://politi.co/Ob2o5j
– U.S. markets tumbled Thursday over worries about the Ukraine crisis and a slowdown in China. The Dow fell 231.19 points or 1.4 percent. Reuters: http://reut.rs/Ob7r5R
** Presented by RepealSGR.org: Congress has bipartisan/bicameral legislation to repeal the SGR and reform the Medicare physician payment system. This new system will be sustainable, fair and efficient, secure patient access, and encourage quality, affordable care. Republican and Democratic Leadership in Congress need to continue working together to develop bipartisan pay-fors. www.repealsgr.org
SENATORS REACH DEAL TO EXTEND JOBLESS BENEFITS – Burgess Everett writes for the hometown paper: “Senators struck a bipartisan deal on Thursday to revive expired long-term jobless benefits following months of dramatic stops and starts on the issue. After an afternoon of frantic negotiations, five senators from each party announced a deal that should finally deliver 60 votes necessary for the aid package to pass the Senate, barring procedural snags. … The negotiations were led by Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Dean Heller (R-Nev.), each hailing from states with high unemployment. …
– “It will be awhile before the package sees a vote. The jobless aid package will be considered in late March after the Senate returns from its St. Patrick’s Day recess — though Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said aid to Ukraine will be the first order of business on March 24. And the legislation still must go through a conservative House, where aides to Speaker John Boehner declined to offer an assessment of the Senate deal on Thursday.” http://politi.co/1qC74ju
– Keeping with the spirit of bipartisanship, senators also passed two measures dealing with flood insurance and federally subsidized child care, writes the Washington Post’s Wesley Lowery and Ed O’Keefe: “The Senate voted 72 to 22 Thursday to pass a flood insurance bill that will roll back sharp premium increases to homeowners that were implemented as part of a federal overhaul of the flood insurance program. … Earlier Thursday, senators voted 96 to 2 to reauthorize a child-care development block-grant program and make several changes to improve the quality of federally subsidized child care.” http://wapo.st/1gw9CHW
OBAMA CALLS FOR DEPORTATIONS REVIEW – Seung Min Kim and Reid J. Epstein report for POLITICO: “President Barack Obama finally bowed to pressure from immigration rights activists and signaled on Thursday that he may change his deportation policy. The president changed course after months of claiming there was nothing his White House could do to stem the flow of deportations of undocumented immigrants. Obama announced in a meeting readout that he has requested a review of his administration’s enforcement policies for immigration laws to see if that enforcement can be done ‘more humanely within the confines of the law,’ the White House said Thursday. To immigrant rights activists, however, that is something of a victory. It means Obama is taking steps toward changing the administration’s deportation policies — though the groups won’t be satisfied until the policies are in force.” http://politi.co/1cXSgsl
‘OPEN MIKE’ LAUNCHES WITH MACON PHILLIPS – Check out the debut video of POLITICO’s new weekly series, “Open Mike,” featuring a conversation between Mike Allen and the digital diplomacy lead at the State Department, Macon Phillips. Watch Phillips’ take on how social media and digital strategies are helping shape diplomacy in Ukraine, and hear his thoughts on the popular Deathstar petition: www.politico.com/open-mike/
WHO WANTS PI? – The only two physicists in Congress, Reps. Bill Foster (D-Ill.) and Rush Holt (D-N.J.) will be celebrating Pi Day today with … pie. “On 3.14, take a break from the irrational Congress and celebrate an irrational number with the only two physicists in Congress,” Foster’s office said in an email. There will be a variety of pies and the event, at noon in Foster’s office in Longworth 1224, is open to the public.
COLIN POWELL’S #tbt pic was pretty sweet. But here’s Rep. Nita Lowey and her husband on their wedding day more than 50 years ago: pic.twitter.com/B4v9chykmK
FLORIDA REPUBLICAN DAVID JOLLY was sworn in Thursday as the newest member of the House. He won a special election Tuesday and fills the vacancy left by the death of Rep. Bill Young.
BOEHNER, PELOSI INVITE POPE TO ADDRESS CONGRESS – Our own Jake Sherman writes: “Speaker John Boehner has invited Pope Francis to address a joint session of Congress. It is an open invitation, the speaker’s office said, and it’s not yet clear when he’ll give the speech on Capitol Hill. … ‘His address as a visiting head of state before a joint meeting of the House and Senate would honor our nation in keeping with the best traditions of our democratic institutions’ [Boehner said in a statement]. ‘It would also offer an excellent opportunity for the American people as well as the nations of the world to hear his message in full.’ Boehner and the previous speaker, Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, are Catholics.” http://politi.co/1gwfMYy
GOOD FRIDAY MORNING, MARCH 14, 2014, and welcome to The Huddle, your play-by-play preview of all the action on Capitol Hill. Send tips, suggestions, comments, complaints and corrections to swong@politico.com. If you don’t already, please follow me on Twitter @scottwongDC.
My new followers include @BenSchorr and @KatiepLong.
TODAY IN CONGRESS – The Senate is out today. The House is in at 9 a.m. with first and last votes expected between 10:30 and 11:30 a.m. on the SGR Repeal and Medicare Provider Payment Modernization Act. Both chambers are out on recess all of next week.
AROUND THE HILL – Democratic Caucus Chairman Xavier Becerra and Reps. Lucille Roybal-Allard and Michelle Lujan Grisham speak on the ACA and Latino Americans, at 9 a.m. in HVC 215. Speaker John Boehner hosts President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Irish Prime Minister (Taoiseach) Enda Kenny at the annual St. Patrick’s Day luncheon at 11:30 in Statuary Hall. A departure ceremony takes place at 1:25 p.m. on the East House Steps.
SCOTT BROWN BEGINS SEEKING STAFF FOR SENATE RUN – Steve Peoples writes for the AP: “Former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown has begun seeking campaign staff while aggressively courting New Hampshire’s political elite, marking what local Republicans consider serious steps toward launching a Senate campaign against Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. The stakes are high for the GOP’s national push for the Senate majority this fall as well as for Brown’s own political ambitions. The longtime Massachusetts resident, having recently relocated to his seacoast New Hampshire vacation home, is expected to launch an exploratory committee to enter the race as soon as Friday, according to several New Hampshire Republican officials who spoke directly to Brown about his plans. The move officially allows him to begin raising money and hiring staff. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly disclose his plans before an official announcement.” http://huff.to/1gnHsme
THE ANTI- HARRY REID – “Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval is nearly impossible not to like,” Jon Ralston writes in POLITICO Magazine. “He has a sunny disposition and seems ever eager to work with Democrats, who have nary a bad word to say about him. He’s highly popular in Nevada, with approval numbers in the mid-60s, and he stays on message as well as anyone in politics. He is, in a phrase, the anti-Harry Reid. Which is why the prospect of Sandoval facing off against the occasionally dyspeptic, sharply partisan and manifestly unpopular Senate majority leader in the 2016 U.S. Senate race has some Republicans writing Reid’s political eulogy. ‘It would be a wipeout,’ said one Nevada insider. ‘He is 100 percent the perfect candidate against Harry Reid.’
– “Reid knows this, of course. No one plays the political chessboard like the majority leader; following his moves sometimes feels like watching a real life House of Cards, without the murders. He saw the Sandoval threat coming nearly a decade ago. Back then, Reid managed to sideline the up-and-coming Sandoval with a federal judgeship … But … Sandoval left the bench in 2009 and defeated Reid’s son, Rory, in a race for governor. Now it may be Reid the Elder’s turn as Sandoval could defeat two members of the same family for the two highest offices in the state. There’s just one question: Does Sandoval even want to run for the U.S. Senate?” http://politi.co/1npfFqI
A FIGHT OVER ISSA AND IPADS – Matt Fuller, Emma Dumain and Steve Dennis report for Roll Call: “Republicans once again blocked a Democratic resolution demanding a House floor apology from Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa for silencing Rep. Elijah E. Cummings last week during an IRS hearing. The nearly party line vote to table the privileged resolution came after a theatrical display of protest on the floor, with Democrats refusing to give up on the issue. As [Rep. Dan] Kildee and his Democratic colleagues offered the resolution, they defiantly held pictures of Issa making the throat-cutting motion, displaying the image on iPads, iPhones and paper. A floor procedure kerfuffle, in which a new House precedent may have been established, ensued.
– “Presiding officer Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, insisted that that ‘House will not proceed’ as long as Democrats continued to hold up their iPads displaying the image. ‘Regular order would be putting the iPads down,’ Simpson said.” http://bit.ly/1kQIfiS
POT LOBBY’S PITCH: IT’S GOOD BUSINESSES – Holly Yeager reports for the Washington Post: “The delegation from the National Cannabis Industry Association made a point of dressing well for its day on Capitol Hill, sporting mostly dark suits, lots of ties and plenty of the group’s signature lapel pins, which feature a sun rising over vibrant fields of marijuana. Marijuana advocates have come to lobby Washington before, often to argue for more lenient treatment under federal law. But on Thursday, buoyed by a flurry of state decisions that have expanded the legal use of marijuana, the cannabis crowd came less as social activists than as entrepreneurs, asking Congress to remove some of the obstacles that stand in the way of their fledgling businesses.” http://wapo.st/1iHCv6x
– How many members of Congress use pot? Jared Polis has a guess. Elahe Izadi in National Journal: http://bit.ly/1dWhFAC
THURSDAY’S TRIVIA WINNER – Paul Hays was first to correctly answer that Wilmer “Vinegar Bend” Mizell, a former North Carolina congressman, was raised in Mississippi but nicknamed after a town in Alabama where he was born.
TODAY’S TRIVIA – Brad Grantz has today’s question: This former Pennsylvania Democratic congressman had a grandson who went onto fame as a baseball announcer for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Name the congressman and his grandson. The first person to correctly answer gets a mention in the next day’s Huddle. Email me at swong@politico.com.
GET HUDDLE emailed to your Blackberry, iPhone or other mobile device each morning. Just enter your email address where it says “Sign Up.” http://www.politico.com/huddle/
** Presented by RepealSGR.org: Bipartisan/bicameral legislation to repeal the failed Medicare cost control formula called the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR), and reform the Medicare physician payment system, has been introduced. The bill would create a system that is sustainable, fair and efficient, secure patient access and encourage quality, affordable care. SGR threatens patient access with drastic Medicare provider cuts. Physicians face constant instability, demonstrated by the 23.7 percent cut to physician payments scheduled for April 1. Congress has spent over $ 154 billion – more than the cost of the legislation – on 16 short term patches in the last decade. These patches are the equivalent of paying the minimum on a credit card – it delays the inevitable, increases the total bill and is bad for the budget. Republican and Democratic Leadership need to continue working together to develop bipartisan pay-fors so the House and Senate can pass S.2000/H.R. 4015, by March 31. www.repealsgr.org
A CRITICAL WEEKEND FOR CRIMEA – McCain to GOP: Don’t call yourselves ‘Reagan Republicans’ – ST. PADDY’S DAY LUNCH -- Senate strikes deal on jobless aid – HOUSE FIGHTS OVER ISSA AND iPADS
Friday, December 6, 2013
NBC and ABC Bash Reagan as Pro-Apartheid During Mandela Coverage
Amid the tributes looking back at the life of former South African President Nelson Mandela following his death on Thursday, Friday’s NBC Today and ABC’s Good Morning America both managed to take shots at Ronald Reagan for not being supportive of Mandela during Apartheid. [Listen to the audio]
On Today, chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell proclaimed: “The U.S. wasn’t always on Mandela’s side. In the 1980s, President Reagan supported the Apartheid regime, a cold war ally, even as protests broke out on college campuses across America demanding that the U.S. punish the regime….Finally, Congress, including key Republicans, overrode Reagan’s veto, imposing the economic sanctions that helped break the Apartheid regime.”
Mitchell and McDougall both failed to describe the full context of Reagan not backing Mandela. In a Thursday article examining the complexity of Mandela’s legacy, Brietbart’s Joel Pollak, originally from South Africa, explained:
The ANC [African National Congress] remained banned in the country [South Africa], but its military wing continued to operate within Southern Africa, with assistance from the Soviet Union. The decision to align with the Soviet Union would later haunt the ANC, as it alienated the United States and Great Britain, which were otherwise inclined to support the anti-apartheid movement (and did so, albeit in limited fashion). While Mandela was in prison, the Soviet-trained leaders of the ANC’s army committed human rights abuses in military camps outside the country, and used terror attacks on civilians inside South Africa.
Pollak elaborated during an appearance on Mark Levin’s radio show that evening.
Prior to reciting the anti-Reagan talking points, Mitchell’s Today report began with her gushing over how Mandela influenced President Obama:
MITCHELL: Nelson Mandela transformed his nation and the world. A freedom fighter with the grace and courage to forgive his oppressors, inspiring generations of civil rights leaders and a young Barack Obama, who recalled a rally on his own college campus.
BARACK OBAMA: My very first political action. The first thing I ever did that involved an issue or a policy or politics was a protest against Apartheid.
MITCHELL: As a senator, Obama had visited Mandela. And the President and Mrs. Obama brought their daughters to Robin Island Prison so they could better understand what Mandela had suffered. After he died, Michelle Obama tweeted, “We will forever draw strength and inspiration from Nelson Mandela’s extraordinary example of moral courage, kindness, and humility.”
Here is a full transcript of Mitchell’s December 6 report:
8:03AM ET
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: Let’s go to NBC’s Andrea Mitchell. She’s been following the outpouring of tributes pouring in all around the world. Andrea, good morning to you.
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Remembering Nelson Mandela; World Leaders Pay Tribute to Fmr. Leader]
ANDREA MITCHELL: Good morning, Savannah. Nelson Mandela is indeed being mourned around the world and here at home by the Americans whose lives he influenced, starting with the President of the United States.
Nelson Mandela transformed his nation and the world. A freedom fighter with the grace and courage to forgive his oppressors, inspiring generations of civil rights leaders and a young Barack Obama, who recalled a rally on his own college campus.
BARACK OBAMA: My very first political action. The first thing I ever did that involved an issue or a policy or politics was a protest against Apartheid.
MITCHELL: As a senator, Obama had visited Mandela. And the President and Mrs. Obama brought their daughters to Robin Island Prison so they could better understand what Mandela had suffered. After he died, Michelle Obama tweeted, “We will forever draw strength and inspiration from Nelson Mandela’s extraordinary example of moral courage, kindness, and humility.”Bill Clinton tweeted a picture and wrote, “I will never forget my friend Madiba,” using the affectionate name by which Mandela was known to his followers.
But the U.S. wasn’t always on Mandela’s side. In the 1980s, President Reagan supported the Apartheid regime, a cold war ally, even as protests broke out on college campuses across America demanding that the U.S. punish the regime.
[SONG PLAYING: "Free Nelson Mandela"]
“Free Nelson Mandela” became a popular anthem for black and white Americans. Finally, Congress, including key Republicans, overrode Reagan’s veto, imposing the economic sanctions that helped break the Apartheid regime. That set the stage for Mandela’s triumphant visit to Washington as his country’s president.
NELSON MANDELA: We are to one another brother and sister. A united rainbow nation that derives its strength from the bonding of its many races and colors.
MITCHELL: Bono, Mandela’s great friend, wrote, “In the end, Nelson Mandela showed us how to love rather than hate. Not because he had never surrendered to rage or violence, but because he learned that love would do a better job.” Savannah.
GUTHRIE: Well chosen words. Andrea, thank you so much.
NBC and ABC Bash Reagan as Pro-Apartheid During Mandela Coverage
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Friday, August 2, 2013
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Monday, May 27, 2013
Friday, May 17, 2013
Reagan and Argentina’s Dirty War
Exclusive: The 87-year-old ex-Argentine dictator Jorge Videla died Friday in prison where he was serving sentences for grotesque human rights crimes in the 1970s and 1980s. But one of Videla’s key backers, the late President Ronald Reagan, continues to be honored by Americans, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
The death of ex-Argentine dictator Jorge Rafael Videla, a mastermind of the right-wing state terrorism that swept Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s, means that one more of Ronald Reagan’s old allies is gone from the scene.
Videla, who fancied himself a theoretician of anti-leftist repression, died in prison at age 87 after being convicted of a central role in the Dirty War that killed some 30,000 people and involved kidnapping the babies of “disappeared” women so they could be raised by military officers who were often implicated in the murders of the mothers.
Ronald Reagan photographed in a cowboy hat at Rancho Del Cielo in 1976.
The leaders of the Argentine junta also saw themselves as pioneers in the techniques of torture and psychological operations, sharing their lessons with other regional dictatorships. Indeed, the chilling word “disappeared” was coined in recognition of their novel tactic of abducting dissidents off the streets, torturing them and then murdering them in secret – sometimes accomplishing the task by chaining naked detainees together and pushing them from planes over the Atlantic Ocean.
With such clandestine methods, the dictatorship could leave the families in doubt while deflecting international criticism by suggesting that the “disappeared” might have traveled to faraway lands to live in luxury, thus combining abject terror with clever propaganda and disinformation.
To pull off the trick, however, required collaborators in the U.S. news media who would defend the junta and heap ridicule on anyone who alleged that the thousands upon thousands of “disappeared” were actually being systematically murdered. One such ally was Ronald Reagan, who used his platform as a newspaper and radio commentator in the late 1970s to minimize the human rights crimes underway in Argentina – and to counter the Carter administration’s human rights protests.
For instance, in a newspaper column on Aug. 17, 1978, some 2½ years into Argentina’s Dirty War, Reagan portrayed Videla’s junta as the real victims here, the good guys who were getting a bad rap for their reasonable efforts to protect the public from terrorism. Reagan wrote:
“The new government set out to restore order at the same time it started to rebuild the nation’s ruined economy. It is very close to succeeding at the former, and well on its way to the latter. Inevitably in the process of rounding up hundreds of suspected terrorists, the Argentine authorities have no doubt locked up a few innocent people, too. This problem they should correct without delay.
“The incarceration of a few innocents, however, is no reason to open the jails and let the terrorists run free so they can begin a new reign of terror. Yet, the Carter administration, so long on self-righteousness and frequently so short on common sense, appears determined to force the Argentine government to do just that.”
Rather than challenge the Argentine junta over the thousands of “disappearances,” Reagan expressed concern that the United States was making a grave mistake by alienating Argentina, “a country important to our future security.”
He mocked U.S. Ambassador Raul Castro who “mingles in Buenos Aires plazas with relatives of the locked-up suspected terrorists, thus seeming to legitimize all their claims to martyrdom. It went unreported in this country, but not a single major Argentine official showed up at this year’s Fourth of July celebration at the U.S. Embassy – an unprecedented snub but hardly surprising under the circumstances.”
The Cocaine Connection
Reagan’s Argentine friends also took the lead in devising ways to fund the anti-communist crusade through the drug trade. In 1980, the Argentine intelligence services helped organize the so-called Cocaine Coup in Bolivia, deploying neo-Nazi thugs to violently oust the left-of-center government and replace it with generals closely tied to the early cocaine trafficking networks.
Bolivia’s coup regime ensured a reliable flow of coca to Colombia’s Medellin cartel, which quickly grew into a sophisticated conglomerate for smuggling cocaine into the United States. Some of those drug profits then went to finance right-wing paramilitary operations across the region, according to U.S. government investigations.
For instance, Bolivian cocaine kingpin Roberto Suarez invested more than $ 30 million in various right-wing paramilitary operations, according to U.S. Senate testimony in 1987 by an Argentine intelligence officer, Leonardo Sanchez-Reisse. He testified that the Suarez drug money was laundered through front companies in Miami before going to Central America, where Argentine intelligence helped organize a paramilitary force, called the Contras, to attack leftist-ruled Nicaragua.
After defeating President Carter in Election 1980 and becoming President in January 1981, Reagan entered into a covert alliance with the Argentine junta. He ordered the CIA to collaborate with Argentina’s Dirty War experts in training the Contras, who were soon rampaging through towns in northern Nicaragua, raping women and dragging local officials into public squares for executions. Some Contras also went to work in the cocaine-smuggling business. [See Robert Parry’s Lost History.]
Much as he served as a pitch man for the Argentine junta, Reagan also deflected allegations of human rights violations by the Contras and various right-wing regimes in Central America, including Guatemala where another military junta was engaging in genocide against Mayan villages.
The behind-the-scenes intelligence relationship between the Argentine generals and Reagan’s CIA puffed up Argentina’s self-confidence so much that the generals felt they could not only continue repressing their own citizens but could settle an old score with Great Britain over control of the Falkland Islands, what the Argentines call the Malvinas.
Even as Argentina moved to invade the islands in 1982, the Reagan administration was divided between America’s traditional alliance with Great Britain and its more recent collaboration with the Argentines. Reagan’s U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick joined the Argentine generals for an elegant state dinner in Washington.
Finally, however, Reagan sided with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher whose counterattack drove the Argentines from the islands and led to the eventual collapse of the dictatorship in Buenos Aires. However, Argentina only slowly began to address the shocking crimes of the Dirty War.
Baby Snatching
The trial of Videla and co-defendant Reynaldo Bignone for the baby snatching did not end until 2012 when an Argentine court convicted the pair in the scheme to murder leftist mothers and farm their infants out to military personnel, a shocking process that was known to the Reagan administration even as it worked closely with the bloody regime in the 1980s.
Testimony at the trial included a videoconference from Washington with Elliott Abrams, Reagan’s Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs who said he urged Bignone to reveal the babies’ identities as Argentina began a transition to democracy in 1983. Abrams said the Reagan administration “knew that it wasn’t just one or two children,” indicating that U.S. officials believed there was a high-level “plan because there were many people who were being murdered or jailed.”
A human rights group, Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, says as many as 500 babies were stolen by the military during the repression from 1976 to 1983.
General Videla was accused of permitting – and concealing – the scheme to harvest infants from pregnant women who were kept alive in military prisons only long enough to give birth. According to the charges, the babies were taken from the new mothers, sometimes after late-night Caesarean sections, and then distributed to military families or sent to orphanages.
After the babies were pulled away, the mothers were removed to another site for their executions. Some were put aboard death flights and pushed out of military planes over open water.
One of the most notorious cases involved Silvia Quintela, a leftist doctor who attended to the sick in shanty towns around Buenos Aires. On Jan. 17, 1977, Quintela was abducted off a Buenos Aires street by military authorities because of her political leanings. At the time, Quintela and her agronomist husband Abel Madariaga were expecting their first child.
According to witnesses who later testified before a government truth commission, Quintela was held at a military base called Campo de Mayo, where she gave birth to a baby boy. As in similar cases, the infant then was separated from the mother.
What happened to the boy is still not clear, but Quintela reportedly was transferred to a nearby airfield. There, victims were stripped naked, shackled in groups and dragged aboard military planes. The planes then flew out over the Rio de la Plata or the Atlantic Ocean, where soldiers pushed the victims out of the planes and into the water to drown.
According to a report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the Argentine military viewed the kidnappings as part of the larger counterinsurgency strategy.
“The anguish generated in the rest of the surviving family because of the absence of the disappeared would develop, after a few years, into a new generation of subversive or potentially subversive elements, thereby not permitting an effective end to the Dirty War,” the commission said in describing the army’s reasoning for kidnapping the infants of murdered women. The kidnapping strategy conformed with the “science” of the Argentine counterinsurgency operations.
According to government investigations, the military’s intelligence officers also advanced Nazi-like methods of torture by testing the limits of how much pain a human being could endure before dying. The torture methods included experiments with electric shocks, drowning, asphyxiation and sexual perversions, such as forcing mice into a woman’s vagina. Some of the implicated military officers had trained at the U.S.-run School of the Americas.
The Argentine tactics were emulated throughout Latin America. According to a Guatemalan truth commission, the right-wing military there also adopted the practice of taking suspected subversives on death flights, although over the Pacific Ocean.
Spinning Terror
Gen. Videla, in particular, took pride in his counterinsurgency theories, including clever use of words to confuse and deflect. Known for his dapper style and his English-tailored suits, Videla rose to power amid Argentina’s political and economic unrest in the early-to-mid 1970s.
“As many people as necessary must die in Argentina so that the country will again be secure,” he declared in 1975 in support of a “death squad” known as the Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance. [See A Lexicon of Terror by Marguerite Feitlowitz.]
On March 24, 1976, Videla led the military coup which ousted the ineffective president, Isabel Peron. Though armed leftist groups had been shattered by the time of the coup, the generals still organized a counterinsurgency campaign to wipe out any remnants of what they judged political subversion.
Videla called this “the process of national reorganization,” intended to reestablish order while inculcating a permanent animosity toward leftist thought. “The aim of the Process is the profound transformation of consciousness,” Videla announced.
Along with selective terror, Videla employed sophisticated public relations methods. He was fascinated with techniques for using language to manage popular perceptions of reality. The general hosted international conferences on P.R. and awarded a $ 1 million contract to the giant U.S. firm of Burson Marsteller. Following the Burson Marsteller blueprint, the Videla government put special emphasis on cultivating American reporters from elite publications.
“Terrorism is not the only news from Argentina, nor is it the major news,” went the optimistic P.R. message. Since the jailings and executions of dissidents were rarely acknowledged, Videla felt he could count on friendly U.S. media personalities to defend his regime, people like former California Gov. Ronald Reagan.
In a grander context, Videla and the other generals saw their mission as a crusade to defend Western Civilization against international communism. They worked closely with the Asian-based World Anti-Communist League and its Latin American affiliate, the Confederacion Anticomunista Latinoamericana [CAL].
Latin American militaries collaborated on projects such as the cross-border assassinations of political dissidents. Under one project, called Operation Condor, political leaders — centrist and leftist alike — were shot or bombed in Buenos Aires, Rome, Madrid, Santiago and Washington. Operation Condor sometimes employed CIA-trained Cuban exiles as assassins. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Hitler’s Shadow Reaches toward Today,” or Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege.]
For their roles in the baby kidnappings, Videla, who was already in prison for other crimes against humanity, was sentenced to 50 years; Bignone received 15 years.
Earlier in May 2103, Guatemala’s ex-dictator Efrain Rios Montt, another close ally of Ronald Reagan, was convicted of genocide against Mayan Indians in 1982-83 and was sentenced to 80 years in prison. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ronald Reagan: Accessory to Genocide.”]
Yet, while fragile democracies in places like Argentina and Guatemala have sought some level of accountability for these crimes against humanity, the United States continues to honor the principal political leader who aided, abetted and rationalized these atrocities across the entire Western Hemisphere, the 40th President of the United States, Ronald Reagan.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).
Reagan and Argentina’s Dirty War
Saturday, March 30, 2013
The sequester: 1 month in, New group pulls Reagan into gun debate, NYT: GOP"s "malicious obstruction," Young apologizes for using slur, Graham pitches immigration in S.C.
(swong@politico.com or @scottwongDC)
THE SEQUESTER: ONE MONTH IN – In a pair of stories, our own Darren Samuelsohn looks at how the Democratic and Republican arguments are playing in the fight over sequestration.
DEMOCRATS are turning to a “law and order” argument: “The public has largely tuned out the Democrats’ repeated warnings about mid-air plane crashes, troop deaths and mass illness from tainted meat if the sequester cuts stay in place. But Democrats aren’t dropping the threat of disaster, seizing now on the line they think can beat the Republicans: law and order. Prison riots, cocaine flooding the streets, terrorists on board airplanes — even hurricanes and tornadoes left undetected by budget-slashed agencies — have moved front and center as Democrats try to get the public behind blaming the Republicans. …
– “The whole thing leaves Democrats looking a little like they’re rooting for bad news— though they insist that they’re only saying what is likely to happen if the money isn’t replenished. ‘A significant event would certainly alter the mindset,’ said Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), of the public attitude toward sequester. So to make their case, many of the warnings have taken on the air of emergency, particularly when it comes to public safety. Politically, it could be just as tough a sell as the tainted meat: There have been no reports of anyone purchasing bad products, so it’s hard to convince voters that that’s an immediate and dangerous threat.” http://politi.co/XgmDBW
REPUBLICANS are taking the political high ground: “To figure out why Republicans are winning the sequester wars, look at two numbers. Federal employees have so far taken no furlough days. And the stock market hit an all-time record earlier this month, with the Dow closing Thursday at 14,578. Amid all that, it’s pretty hard for most of the public to understand what the Democrats were talking about, with all their gloom-and-doom chatter earlier this year. But so far, even the White House admits there’s little chance of reversing all the cuts. There’s been no sudden shock to the system. In fact, the economy seems on the mend, with housing starts higher than before the Great Recession.
– “And if this drip-by-drip rollout continues, GOP activists say they’ll keep the political high ground as the cuts slowly sink into the public consciousness — much in the same way people forget that before Sept. 11, they could make a dash for the airport gate without taking off their shoes. ‘For most Americans, they’re not going to notice much of a difference,’ said former House Republican leadership aide John Feehery.” http://politi.co/XgmIFQ
S&P 500 HITS ALL-TIME HIGH: 1,569.19 http://reut.rs/YMlPps
Washington Post, A1, “For federal workforce, furlough terrain is uneven,” By Lisa Rein: “Every U.S. Park Police officer will be off the job for 14 days — but the national parks they patrol will be staffed. The Department of Housing and Urban Development will shut down for seven days starting in May, after concluding that staggering furloughs for 9,000 employees would create too much paperwork. Customs and Border Protection agents are waiting to hear whether the 14 unpaid days they were told to expect will disappear as they did for meat inspectors and federal prison staff. And the Pentagon announced Thursday that it would cut its planned furlough days from 22 to 14. This is the uncertain and uneven landscape of the furloughs that in less than three weeks will begin to affect more than half of the nation’s 2 million federal employees. The budget ax was supposed to fall across the board but hardly does so, federal workers are learning. And the situation is quickly splitting the workforce into haves and have-nots, inflaming labor-management tensions and straining agency resources as everyone struggles through the details. …
–“[L]ate Thursday, as if to underscore the uncertainty, more than 100,000 Justice Department employees learned that they will have to wait until mid-April to find out whether they will be furloughed. They had been told in February to expect 14 unpaid days. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., noting that workers “may be anxious” about lost pay, said Thursday that he needed time to assess the stopgap budget. The Justice Department last Friday eliminated furloughs for more than 3,500 prison staffers.” http://wapo.st/10YyBiO
POLITICO FOR YOUR EARS: The Scrum podcast. David Chalian, Josh Gerstein and Reid Epstein join host Alexander Trowbridge for a discussion on gay marriage at the Supreme Court, Washington’s less-than-breakneck pace on guns, and Ashley Judd’s pass on the Kentucky Senate race. On POLITICO: http://politi.co/11T4ThF On iTunes: http://bit.ly/ZEA1xo
Obama: ‘SHAME ON US’ IF WE’VE FORGOTTEN NEWTOWN – Kathleen Hennessey writes for the L.A. Times: “Three months after the Newtown, Conn., shooting, President Obama said Americans and lawmakers should be ashamed if they’ve forgotten the calls for tighter gun laws that followed the elementary school massacre. ‘The entire country was shocked, and the entire country pledged we would do something about it and that this time would be different,’ Obama said Thursday at the White House. ‘Shame on us if we’ve forgotten. I haven’t forgotten those kids. Shame on us if we’ve forgotten.’ Obama’s remarks were aimed at reviving the stalled momentum for new gun-control laws, an effort that has been crowded out by other issues and stalled in Congress. Although the Senate is expected to begin voting on a bill when it returns from a recess the week of April 8, a bipartisan group of lawmakers has not yet struck a deal on key details and lawmakers have said that major provisions backed by the president – bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines – will not be included in the package, although it will be proposed as an amendment. … Obama’s remarks, his first extended comments on the subject in more than a month, came on a “day of action” coordinated by gun-control advocates trying to keep the pressure on lawmakers.” http://lat.ms/163itfk
FIRST LOOK: NEW GROUP BRINGS REAGAN INTO GUN DEBATE – United Network of Rational Americans, or “The UNRA” (pronounced UN-R.A.) — a new online advocacy group for gun owners who back the 2nd Amendment as well as universal background checks, is out today with a YouTube video marking the 32ND anniversary (Saturday) of the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. UNRA suggests Reagan would have supported universal background checks, citing an op-ed he wrote in 1991 in favor of the Brady law, which required limited background checks for firearm purchases. Watch the video here: http://youtu.be/l5ZULLbEwMY Read the 1991 NYT op-ed here: http://nyti.ms/YjG0ZF
VOTEVETS.ORG IS SPENDING $ 150,000 on a new TV ad, pressuring lawmakers in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and North Dakota to support background checks. The ad features Iraq War Veteran and Purple Heart recipient, Glenn Kunkel, who fires an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle at a mannequin, displaying the power of the weapon. “I had to pass a background check to join the Marine Corps, before I could carry a weapon similar to this one in Iraq. Here at home, anyone can purchase this weapon, no questions asked,” Kunkel says. He then fires off a number of rounds into a water-filled mannequin, which explodes with each hit. “I support the Second Amendment, but we’ve seen what can happen when these fall into the wrong hands,” he continues with images of the Sandy Hook Elementary memorial. “I needed a background check to carry similar weapons in combat. We should require the same here at home.” Watch here: http://youtu.be/l5ZULLbEwMY
NYT LEAD EDITORIAL: ‘MALICIOUS OBSTRUCTION IN THE SENATE’ – “Earlier this month, during one of his new across-the-aisle good-will tours, President Obama pleaded with Senate Republicans to ease up on their record number of filibusters of his nominees. He might as well have been talking to one of the statues in the Capitol. Republicans have made it clear that erecting hurdles for Mr. Obama is, if anything, their overriding legislative goal. There is no historical precedent for the number of cabinet-level nominees that Republicans have blocked or delayed in the Obama administration. Chuck Hagel became the first defense secretary nominee ever filibustered. John Brennan, the C.I.A. director, was the subject of an epic filibuster by Senator Rand Paul. … Jacob Lew, the Treasury secretary, was barraged with 444 written questions, mostly from Republicans … Gina McCarthy, the nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, is being blocked by Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri until he gets the answers he wants on a local levee project. And Thomas Perez, nominated to be labor secretary, is being held up by Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, who is angry about the Justice Department’s enforcement of voting rights laws. By comparison, there were four filibusters of cabinet-level positions during George W. Bush’s two terms, and one under President Ronald Reagan. …
– “Last week, Caitlin Halligan, another appeals court nominee, had to withdraw from consideration after Republicans filibustered her for the second time, on the flimsy pretext that she was a legal activist. Republicans clearly don’t want any of Mr. Obama’s judges on the important United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to which she was nominated, and the president needs to be more aggressive about filling the four vacancies on the court. Republicans clearly have no interest in dropping their favorite pastime, but Democrats could put a stop to this malicious behavior by changing the Senate rules and prohibiting, at long last, all filibusters on nominations.” http://nyti.ms/ZGZOFl
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IT’S GOOD FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013. Welcome to The Huddle, your play-by-play preview of the day’s congressional news. Send tips, suggestions, comments, complaints and corrections to swong@politico.com. If you don’t already, please follow me on Twitter @scottwongDC.
My new followers include @gClayatMCT and @DeDufresne.
TODAY IN CONGRESS – The House and Senate are in recess this week and next week.
AROUND THE HILL – Join POLITICO at 8 a.m. on April 9 as our Chief Economic Correspondent Ben White takes his daily newsletter live for the first-ever Morning Money Breakfast Briefing featuring Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio). RSVP here: http://bit.ly/Zr2aEJ
GUEST-WORKER DISPUTE COULD DELAY IMMIGRATION BILL – David Nakamura writes on A1 of the Washington Post: “A worsening dispute over a new guest-worker program has emerged as the most serious obstacle to a bipartisan deal on immigration, threatening to delay the unveiling of a Senate bill early next month. The impasse has prompted a bitter round of name-calling between labor and business groups, which accuse each other of imperiling comprehensive immigration reform. The Obama administration has remained on the sidelines as the standoff has worsened, calculating that the president would risk alienating Republican senators crucial to the process. … The guest-worker issue helped derail the last serious attempt at reform in 2007 with assistance from Obama, then a U.S. senator from Illinois. The current attempt at reform is being led by a bipartisan group of eight senators, who are attempting to fashion model legislation for a broad immigration overhaul.” http://wapo.st/YjCwWQ
YOUNG: ‘I MEANT NO DISRESPECT’ FOR USING TERM ‘WETBACKS’ – Katie Glueck writes for POLITICO: “‘My father had a ranch; we used to have 50-60 wetbacks to pick tomatoes,’ [Rep. Don] Young, an Alaska Republican, told a local radio station in a story posted Thursday. ‘It takes two people to pick the same tomatoes now. It’s all done by machine.’ Young’s comments came as part of a wide-ranging interview in which he slammed regulations and offered his own prescriptions for the economy. The word ‘wetback’ is a slur often used to refer to undocumented immigrants, especially those from Mexico. ‘During a sit-down interview with Ketchikan Public Radio this week, I used a term that was commonly used during my days growing up on a farm in Central California,’ he said later Thursday, according to reports. ‘I know that this term is not used in the same way nowadays, and I meant no disrespect.’” http://politi.co/YXu8YP His full interview with KRBD is here: http://bit.ly/XgxKef
CRAIG LOSES MAJOR BATTLE AGAINST FEC – Steven Dennis in Roll Call: “A federal judge has refused to dismiss a suit in which former Sen. Larry E. Craig is accused of improperly using campaign funds in a quest to vacate his guilty plea in a Minnesota airport bathroom sting. The Federal Election Commission contends the Idaho Republican violated federal law by using $ 200,000 in campaign funds for his legal defense. After CQ Roll Call revealed in 2007 that he had been arrested and pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, Craig attempted to change his plea. He also ended up retiring from Congress as a result of the scandal. The judge didn’t buy Craig’s contention that his travel to the airport restroom was a part of his official duties because he was en route to his state, and therefore he was entitled to use his campaign account.” http://bit.ly/14sZoXy
BOSTIC HITS SANFORD ON PERSONAL LIFE – Alex Isenstadt reports from Charleston, S.C.: “Underdog South Carolina Republican congressional hopeful Curtis Bostic mounted a last-ditch bid on Thursday night to halt former Republican Gov. Mark Sanford’s momentum, calling him politically damaged and saying he would risk losing the seat to a Democrat in the general election. Appearing in a debate at the Porter-Gaud School here ahead of Tuesday’s special runoff election, Bostic launched his most aggressive assault on Sanford’s personal life yet, telling the Republican crowd, ‘A compromised candidate is not what we need.’ ‘Democrats,’ he said, ‘are excited at the possibility of taking this seat back.’
– “Bostic, a former Charleston County councilman who has long been active in the South Carolina evangelical community and the homeschooling movement, had avoided discussing Sanford’s home life until now. The exchange came up about an hour into the nearly 90-minute debate, the first of three faceoffs before Tuesday. Voters, Bostic had said in recent weeks, were already well aware of the events of June 2009, when Sanford lied about and then admitted to having an affair with an Argentine woman — an episode that splintered the former governor’s family life and dashed his presidential ambitions. But with polls showing Bostic heading into the final days as the decided underdog against the better-known and better-funded Sanford, the former councilman turned up the heat. ‘Trust is a central issue,’ he said. ‘In fact, it’s become a central issue in this race.’” http://politi.co/14zTa8F
GRAHAM TRIES TO SELL IMMIGRATION REFORM … IN S.C. – Julie Hirschfeld Davis writes for Bloomberg: “It’s just after lunchtime at the Lexington, South Carolina Chick-Fil-A, and Stephen Lewis is giving U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham a piece of his mind about undocumented immigrants. ‘Why can’t they understand the word ‘illegal?’’ Lewis, a 72-year-old retired Marine, asks Graham on March 26 as the senator swings by his table to shake hands. ‘They’re not undocumented workers, they’re illegal folks in this country, and if you’re illegal doing anything, then you should be punished and made to pay for it.’ It’s a familiar gripe to Graham. A second-term Republican, he has long led the effort in Washington to allow undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., currently estimated to number about 11 million, a chance to become citizens as part of a broad immigration rewrite.
– “Now as Graham, 57, teams with three other Republicans and four Democrats to finalize such a bill, he is working to answer the complaints of South Carolina voters while keeping an eye on any potential Republican primary challenge to his re-election next year. ‘There’s a sea change happening in the Republican Party on this, and I see it here,’ Graham says in an interview as sips Coke Zero while riding from his Columbia office to Mrs. B’s Southern Kitchen to greet voters. ‘If I can sell it in South Carolina, don’t come to me and say it’s hard. This is a conservative state, and the way we’re selling it is to fix it.’ With Congress on a two-week vacation, Graham is traveling his skeptical state as aides to the so-called “Gang of Eight” senators haggle over the specifics in Washington. The Senate group is pushing to unveil its measure the week of April 8.” http://bloom.bg/XnwmFT
–Meanwhile, anti-illegal immigrant group NumbersUSA blasted an “urgent action alert” to its 31,000 South Carolina members asking them to “turn up the temperature on Graham,” Roll Call’s Humberto Sanchez reports. http://bit.ly/XgDtkl
SCHWARTZ PLANS RUN FOR PA. GOVERNOR – POLITICO’s Jonathan Allen has the story: “Rep. Allyson Schwartz has decided to run for governor of Pennsylvania, joining a developing field of Democratic candidates who believe they can beat Gov. Tom Corbett in 2014. Emboldened by a private primary poll commissioned by EMILY’s List, Schwartz has hired Obama campaign veteran Reesa Kossoff as communications director for her political operation and plans to open a state-level campaign account early next month, a source close to the five-term congresswoman said.” http://politi.co/14z0Sjl
JOBS ACT FALLS SHORT OF PROMISES – Dina ElBoghdady writes for WaPo: “When lawmakers unveiled the carefully named Jobs Act a year ago, backers expected it to get caught up in the typical grind of Capitol Hill: vigorous debate followed by a long wait for a vote that might never happen. Instead, the legislation sailed through — perhaps too fast. Even supporters say they expected more time to work out the kinks in the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, which aimed to help small, private firms raise money and grow so they could hire more workers. Now, nearly a year after its enactment, major portions of the act are in limbo, and other parts have failed to measure up to the grandiose job-creation promises. The act underscores how difficult it can be for Washington to spur job creation, even when there’s strong bipartisan consensus on a plan. President Obama hailed it in a Rose Garden ceremony as ‘exactly the kind of bipartisan action needed’ to help the economy. Republicans claimed it as their own. The measure came together months before last year’s election, making it politically difficult to resist a proposal that promised to yield jobs.” http://wapo.st/XgDftj
BOEHNER MEMO: GOP’S HAD A FEW GOOD MONTHS – Jake Sherman writes for POLITICO: “House Speaker John Boehner congratulated himself, and fellow Republicans, on a few good months in a memo sent to his conference on Thursday. But the speaker didn’t outline a roadmap for what could be a rocky few months ahead. Looking back, Boehner (R-Ohio) complimented Republicans for successfully handling certain potentially explosive issues: passing a budget that balances in 10 years; avoided raising taxes to blunt sharp government spending cuts; and a Senate-passed nonbinding measure to build the Keystone XL pipeline. But the memo didn’t mention anything about upcoming fights that might hike the nation’s debt limit, a topic of slight obsession among most GOP lawmakers. Not a word on immigration reform, overhauling gun laws or same-sex marriage — issues splashed across the front pages of most newspapers across America.” http://politi.co/ZCC6dk
THURSDAY’S TRIVIA – Tom Saleeby was first to correctly answer that the late Rep. Mo Udall of Arizona also played professional basketball and ran for president, only to drop out during the Democratic primary. He played with the Denver Nuggets.
Huddle also gives a shout out to Sandy Maisel, a professor of government at Maine’s Colby Colllege who also got the right answer – just 12 hours late. We think she had a pretty good excuse: She was “under for back surgery.”
TODAY’S TRIVIA – Tom Saleeby has today’s question: Steve Kornacki replaces Chris Hayes as host of MSNBC’s “Up” this weekend. In his first political performance as an 11-year-old, what gubernatorial candidate did Kornacki portray in his elementary school’s mock debate? First to correctly answer gets a mention in the next day’s Huddle. Email me at swong@politico.com.
GET HUDDLE emailed to your Blackberry, iPhone or other mobile device each morning. Just enter your email address where it says “Sign Up.” http://www.politico.com/huddle/
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POLITICO – Top 10 – The Huddle
The sequester: 1 month in, New group pulls Reagan into gun debate, NYT: GOP"s "malicious obstruction," Young apologizes for using slur, Graham pitches immigration in S.C.
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