Dostam is a bad man. These executions of Taliban are small potatoes by comparison with the laundry list of war crimes he is responsible for; amongst other things indiscriminate shelling of Kabul during the Afghan civil war that slaughtered thousands (over 65K civilians were killed in Kabul, mostly in this fashion subsequent to the Soviet withdrawal).

Dostam is also a US client, in particular of the CIA- or at least was from his days of merrily committing war crimes for the Mujahideen, to the US war against the Taliban. The point here is that maybe the Obama administration's distancing themselves from him represents an end to sponsorship of his activities. That policy should commended, not scorned. This is not to say Glenn's point about hypocrisy is inaccurate. This is merely to point out that there are many opportunities to point out that hypocrisy where doing so does not obscure something laudable, that it seems a shame to do so regarding this news item.

PS Did anyone else see that Glenn is the 10 most influential columnist in the country? http://www.mediaite.com/power-grid/category/?c=Print+%2F+Online+Columnists

Steinem has as much a chance persuading anyone of anything as I have at being invited to one of her cocktail parties. I mean, what an epic fail.

This is the problem with certain rights advocates. They are not humanists. They are bone crushing partisan nativists; 'human rights advocates' by accident of birth. Witness Steinem's notorious blacks-have-it-easy-relative-to-women (how bad can slavery and lynching be after all?) NY Times op-ed fail during last year's primaries.

Given that, something in me doubts that the empathy of this particularly partisan high society New York Jewish woman for another, notwithstanding the latter's grievous sins, is news worthy. Whatever.

Employer's decisions are exogenous to health care reform unless we're talking single payer. Which we're not.

If an employer decides to change plans for whatever reason to a plan of lesser value to an employee, that decision relates to the wages you receive from your employer and from a free enterprise system, would've happened irrespective of whether that public plan existed or not, in one form or another. If an employer changes plans to one of equal value to the employee than the employee won't mind, even if it's cheaper to the employer. That's as basic as it gets.

Jake's question then is analagous to asking, 'if healthcare passes and my employer cuts my wages, doesn't that mean you've broken you're promise', i.e. effing bunk. Typical of his work more broadly then. Shame you fell for it Alex.

This on a day when four Supreme Court justices work out that no amount of bribery, however grotesque, can disqualify elected judges from ruling on behalf of the moneyed interests that bought them their seat: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/us/politics/09scotus.html?hp

Talk about the inmates taking over the asylum. We really are being held from the edge of the abyss by the precarious power of the judiciary and its remaining sane exponents. If that institution ever gives over to the Alito, Scalia, Thomas Roberts dream team or even goes the way of the executive, let alone the Congress, we're truly done for.

does anyone actually doubt that few things would advance Israeli interests more than a cessation of settlement activity and a peace agreement with the Palestinians?

And how. The entire right wing, and many notionally not (e.g. Marty P @ TNR) for starters. They think that cessation of settlement activity much less peace would 'reward The Terrorists'. They think that the Arab Israeli conflict can be best surmised as Arabs dirty bad backward cockroaches, Zionists democratic freedom loving desert bloomers.

Of course, what's really wrong with that characterization is not its incongruence with reality, but its logical conclusion. If the Arabs are backward and prone to violence, if any concession 'rewards their use of Terror', then there can be but one solution. And that is more or less the solution being tended toward: Make life so terribly unbearable for the Palestinians that they leave. If by chance they stay (and they largely have) box them into unlivable balkanized enclaves dominated by settlements and settlement roads (i.e. the ones that stay are terrorists, the ones that leave are smart terrorists). Allow them to work for peanuts in Israel in order so that they don't all starve. That way food can be cut off when the Terrorists need to be taught a lesson.

The results of course are shockingly reprehensible, hence why Israel is so sensitive to recording equipment in the occupied territories. No one I have read has come back from there not appalled by the injustice perpetrated against the occupied population, and the behavior of the occupiers (the IDF but especially the settlers who essentially view every Palestinian man woman and child as a mortal enemy, and their mission as ordained by God himself). Jimmy Carter is but one example of course. I also read a New Yorker piece, some stuff in the international press, etc. etc.

Bottom line, AIPAC hasn't the first freaking clue what's good for Israel, or even what's good for itself, certainly as regards the very real threats it faces, (nor are their actions in the long term interests of American Jews for that matter, which in the collective I would put down to not ending up on the losing end of a pogrom). They lobby for these ridiculous resolutions when all those do is make people resent their influence, make the outside world see America as hopelessly partisan and beyond reason, and lend credence to the worst type of anti-Semitic narratives. And for what? What does all this stupidity achieve?

Squat, although it is yet another brick in the wall confirming that our political class have achieved latter-day Roman empire levels of corruption. Note what befell that city-state.