The Common Ills: Rosa Brooks and Trevor Timm are keeping it surreal

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Rosa Brooks and Trevor Timm are keeping it surreal

Last week, Rosa Brooks prepared for a bloody Valentine's Day by penning a worthless column (Foreign Policy) on the Authorization of the Use of Military Force that US President Barack Obama has sent to the Congress for legal cover as he continues to bomb Iraq. Rosa noted:

Not that President Obama likes those existing statutes that give him all the authority he needs! On the contrary, he has repeatedly declared his dismay over the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs. His new draft anti-IS AUMF would, if passed into law, repeal the 2002 AUMF. He says he wants the 2001 AUMF to go away, too. Indeed, he is “committed to working with the Congress and the American people to refine, and ultimately repeal, the 2001 AUMF,” he wrote in his Feb. 11 letter to Congress.
Let’s take stock of the varying White House claims about the use of force:

No congressional authorization is required for the use of force against IS, since the president already has
the inherent constitutional power to use force whenever he darn well pleases;
And/but, the 2001 AUMF and 2002 AUMF already give him any needed anti-IS authorities anyway;
And/but, the 2001 AUMF is flawed since it risks “keeping America on a perpetual wartime footing,” as Obama explained in 2013. “Unless we discipline our thinking, our definitions, our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don’t need to fight, or continue to grant Presidents unbound powers…. So I look forward to engaging Congress and the American people in efforts to refine, and ultimately repeal, the AUMF’s mandate. And I will not sign laws designed to expand this mandate further…”
…unless those laws expand this mandate further by adding express authorization to use force against IS! Which is why the president just sent an IS-specific draft AUMF to Congress…
…even though he doesn’t need a new IS-specific congressional AUMF, because — see numbers 2 and 3 above — he already has the authority to use force under the overly broad 2001 AUMF he wants to repeal;
And because — see number 1, above — he already has the inherent power to use force whenever he darn well pleases.

If all this leaves you confused, you’re in good company. Intense but largely meaningless debate is already swirling around the new draft AUMF’s provisions and omissions.

Rosa failed to note her or her trashy mother's own part in all of this. Whores rarely tell the truth, even when paid.

Rosa's time at the White House in Barack's first term is most notorious for her backing the idea that all journalist should be registered with (and approved by) the government. Some advocate gun control, Rosa went with journalist control.

So it's really no surprise that the control freak showed up to insist that everyone needed to calm down.

Well not everyone. Despite being the daughter of Socialist Babsie, Rosa chose to speak only of Democrats and Republicans. Rosa's deep inside her own political closet.

But Rosa, still the foot soldier for Barack, wanted everyone to know, the AUMF doesn't matter. So just ignore it.

She felt it was great that it had spawned a 'discussion.'

If you're wondering what discussion, you're not alone.

She doesn't mean Congressional discussion because she slaps down Republicans and chides Democrats.

So what discussion?

There's been no discussion.

Fellow whore Amy Goodman may still call her trashy program "the war and peace report" but there's been no time devoted to the AUMF.

Last week, Pacifica finally found a very brief moment to note counter-insurgency efforts in Iraq -- during an hour long discussion of the film Battle of Algiers.

What discussion of the AUMF?

I'd ignored Rosa last week because there are enough whores to take on without making time for the trashy one who proves the rotten fruit doesn't fall far from the poison tree.

But then that crappy Guardian 'newspaper' . . .

Is it just me, or is it even worse as it attempts to merge with the New York Times?

At any rate, a 'journalist' who won an award named after Hugh Hefner -- what a point of pride -- feels the need -- like Rosa -- to write of "us" and "our" at the website and to cite Rosa without reservation.

Rosa is a liar just like her mother.

Her mother was part of the group pretending publicly to be Democrats in 2008 to try to subvert and control the process by which the Democratic Party elects their candidate.

You may remember the charges that Republicans -- such as Rush Limbaugh -- were trying to fix the outcome. Those repeating those charges were usually Socialists who were in the political closets and are so very good at projection but so very poor at confession.

The former Los Angeles Times columnist Rosa (who did not live in Los Angeles) was supposed to be the left's big hope in the White House. But in her time in the administration, she had no impact at all -- not by any standards those of us on the left would see as positive.

She provided cover for so many policies Barack continued from Bully Boy Bush -- policies she's yet to repudiate such as The Drone War, illegal spying and of course the never-ending wars.

Trevor Timm didn't just win a Hugh Hefner award, he actually claimed it.

As a result, no one should confuse him with an actual journalist.

Trevor thinks he's offered an examination when all he's expressed is indignation -- and done so in such a way that not only has he failed to persuade those who might disagree with him but he's also probably sent a number on the fence running to the side of 'war! war! give us war!'

Often when I critique a journalist here, over the years they show up with an e-mail saying, to the effect, you certainly pointed out my flaws but you failed to tell me what I should have done instead.

With that in mind, let me offer a tip.

If you want to be a journalist, try looking the part. Trevor, your first move should be to use far less hairspray -- in fact, none at all. Those years of confusing Hugh Hefner with journalism have clearly effected you and let's try to correct that course before you end up squatting nude over a hay barrel in a 'fun in the south' Playboy pictorial, okay?

The following community sites -- plus Antiwar.com -- updated: