Cottonmouth

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  #TomCotton has betrayed the U.S. with his letter to Iran. He should resign today. #UniteBlue #47Traitors #CNN #inners: image via Leedog @Leedog33, 11 March 2015

Green-tail tip, gaping white maw. A #cottonmouth pup, as here can be seen. A fresh-born serpent, the Class of 2014!: image via Andy Wood @andy_awood, 10 October 2014

This little juvenile cottonmouth certainly made sure we knew not to step on it! #nofilter  #snake #herpetology: image via Austin Fuchs @AustinFuchs, 5 February 2015

Sid the Sloth takes Washington!! #TomCotton: image via sophie ryall @sophieeryall, 4 November 2014

 #47Traitors No doubt the leaders of #Iran are wondering where U.S.#Senators learned to write like #chickens  in poop image via Dr. David Romei @DavidRomeiPHD, 11 March 2015

Anti-gay National Organization for Marriage praises #TomCotton win for US Senate from Arkansas: image via Chicago Phoenix @an_opus, 4 November 2014

Could this really be #tomcotton at @JRSinDC (Gay Bar, Washington DC @billmaher @maddow @ThomasARoberts @4029news: image via Jay Wilks @rjaywilks, 3 November 2014

"#TomCotton (#kochbrothers kid) It costs 2.7 million per prisoner @ #Guantanamo..." #inners: image via vih @coton luver, 6 February 2015

#TomCotton: U.S. Should Be 'Proud' Of How It Treats Guantanamo Detainees... : image via Terrorism Updates vih @terrorism_info, 9 February 2015

Who is "Tom Cotton" and when do we try him for treason? via @dailykos #iran #TomCotton: image via David Day @daviday, 9 March 2015

#TomCotton wants to sabotage Iran talks. A Freshman Senator from where? Bad way to make a name.: image via Shahriar Afshar @safshar365, 11 March 2015

Traitor #TomCotton Bows Down To Weapons Lobbyists One Day After Attempt To Sabotage #IranDeal: image via Magus Prime @unervapersafshar365, 9 March 2015

Tom Cotton is everything Eisenhower warned us about in his farewell speech. #arsen #47Traitors #TomCotton #IranLetter: image via Logic Bomb @AR_Logic_Bomb, 11 March 2015

Now that #TomCotton has our attention, let's all remember him blaming women for divorce #p2: image via Casey @pari_passu, 11 March 2015

Sen Tom Cottonyahu U.S. Senator proudly serving the state of ?! #Netanyahu #Warmonger #TomCotton #47Traitors: image via bitmo protest @bitmoprotest, 11 March 2015

An #Israeliwho votes on March 17 for demagogue #Netanyahu  is an Israeli who is ignorant of #Torah and #Holocaust: image via Dr. David Romei @DavidRomeiPHD, 11 March 2015

#TomCotton has been a Senator for 2 months. He already wet the bed. Welcome to the big leagues! #47Traitors #Iran: image via Democratic Memes @DemocraticMemes, 11 March 2015

#TomCotton and The Republicans are Lobbying For War on Two Fronts  working w/defense lobbyists: image via AboveTopSecret @AboveTopSecret, 11 March 2015

Dude looks like an addict RT @Anomaly100: Rep. #TomCotton To Meet With Defense Contractors: image via David Day @daviday, 9 March 2015

I don’t blame #TomCotton I blame the people of Arkansas who sent this vicious grifter to the US Senate. @Rschooley: image via Joey Tranchina @JoeyFotoFr, 11 March 2015



How Much Were #TomCotton and The Other Traitors Paid?  #UniteBlue #47Traitors: image via McSpocky @mcspocky, 11 March 2015

The Perfect Republican

Cotton is King: photo by Danny Johnston/Corbis via New York Magazine, 28 September 2014

Tom Cotton Is Now the Perfect Republican: Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine, 28 September 2014

 

Tom Cotton is the state-of-the-art Republican candidate -- a perfect, and possibly too-perfect, blend of biography and opportunity. Cotton studied at Harvard, came by his conservatism early and fervently, served in Iraq, won the favor of Washington party elites like Bill Kristol, and can win a Senate seat by running in a midterm election in the deep red state of Arkansas. The only thing that might trip up Cotton is his principles, which he is feverishly jettisoning.

Cotton currently serves in the House as a frequent member of the “hell no” caucus, which votes against nearly everything. The trouble is that one of those things was the farm bill, which is popular in Arkansas because it lavishes subsidies upon major state industries. 

Cotton’s opponent, Mark Pryor, has assailed him for this vote. Cotton has shot back with an ad claiming that this only happened because “President Obama hijacked the farm bill, turning it into a food stamp bill.”

Cotton’s claim, as a myriad of independent fact-checkers have pointed out, is completely false. More interesting than Cotton’s transparent attempts to evade this fact is the ideological synthesis Cotton has developed in the course of making himself acceptable to the Arkansas electorate.

In his untrue ad, Cotton argues that he voted as he did because “career politicians love attaching bad ideas to good ones.” The bad idea here, in Cotton’s telling, is food stamps. The good idea is farm subsidies. This premise is worth considering.

Farm subsidies were created during the New Deal, at the height of both a catastrophic fall in farm incomes (at a time when farmers comprised a far higher share of the economy) and Democratic faith in a centrally planned economy. The planning fad manifested itself in such disasters as the National Recovery Act, a quasi-fascistic price-fixing scheme that failed, was struck down by the Supreme Court, and fortunately abandoned as a policy model in favor of more effective, market-friendly remedies for the excesses of the free market.

Yet farm subsidies have lived on. Their survival has nothing to do with any public policy merits. There is no persuasive economic rationale for why the government should write checks to people who operate farms as opposed to textile mills or construction firms or any other business. (Yes, people need to eat, but the market is capable of supplying food, just as it is capable of supplying clothing and shelter.) Farmers are also more affluent than the average American. Since they are overwhelmingly white and conveniently spread throughout nearly every state, their claim to public subsidy has gained some popular legitimacy.

Faced with his controversial vote against the farm bill, Cotton has urgently fashioned himself as an agri-supremacist. He has urged the locals to ignore the judgment of fact-checking journalists who pronounce his ad false: “I don’t think liberal reporters who call themselves fact checkers spent much time growing up on a farm in Yell County growing up with Len Cotton, so I think I know a little bill more about farming than they do.” Cotton’s identity as a onetime farmboy, by this argument, lends him a superiority in any dispute over farm policy that overrides even the facts themselves. Cotton perhaps first developed this epistemological theory while studying philosophy at Harvard.

Cotton goes further still. Molly Ball, in an engrossing profile, reports that Cotton argues against food stamps because its recipients live high on the hog: “They have steak in their basket, and they have a brand-new iPhone, and they have a brand-new SUV.” As an argument against food stamps, this is laughably false: The program offers a benefit averaging $1.50 per person per meal, and its beneficiaries are quite poor:

What’s more, the charge Cotton falsely makes against the food-stamp program is in fact completely true about the crop-subsidy program. It furnishes its recipients with lavish benefits and many of of them are millionaires. But this is the program Cotton, even while fighting to the death against the one that feeds extremely poor, hungry people, vows to protect. Hell, he is even named after a major staple crop.

The snag in Cotton’s rapid path to national power turns out to be that his ideology is just a little too consistent. But he has found the solution. He is running not quite as a principled foe of government, but instead as a committed opponent of redistribution. Government is bad insofar as it gives money to the poor and vulnerable. Tom Cotton is going places in the Republican Party.

Tree blew over and destroyed our fence #Dardanelle #arwx: image via An Arkie Photo @anarkiephoto, 20 February 2014

Hey @PGA_JohnDaly #Dardanelle: image via Taylor Smith @ctsmith4, 11 February 2015

Tom Cotton Gets Funds From Israeli Panel in Arkansas Senate Race: NewsMax, 3 October 2014

Rep. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., has gotten a huge boost in his battle against incumbent Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., in the midterm November elections -- a donation of $700,000 from the Emergency Committee for Israel (ECFI).

The cash will be used for television, radio and digital ads.

One ad, entitled “A Serious Leader,” already running, states, “Why won’t Mark Pryor debate foreign policy with Tom Cotton? Threats are growing -- ISIS, Russia, Iraq, Syria, Gaza. What’s Mark Pryor’s answer? He won’t say, but Tom Cotton will.

“He served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He fought for us on the battlefield and he’ll fight for us in the Senate. Tom Cotton, a serious leader for a serious time.”

The ad notes, “The Emergency Committee for Israel is responsible for the content of this advertising.”
 

Cotton, 37, who served as a U.S. Army captain from 2005-2009 with the 101st Airborne, is seen in the ad wearing military fatigues, toting a battle rifle, and, in civilian attire, addressing a group of supporters at a political event.  

William Kristol, head of the ECFI and founder of the political journal Weekly Standard, told the Free Beacon, “We’re for a strong Israel and a strong America. So is Tom Cotton. He’ll be a great senator.”

The group is not solely playing party favorites. For example, in April it turned against incumbent Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., 71, facing a challenge for the seat he has held since 1995 from 23-year Marine vet and aviation project manager Marshall Adame.

The ECFI produced a video slamming Jones, saying, “Cong. Walter Jones once was a conservative but he’s changed. Today, he’s the most liberal Republican in Congress. Once upon a time, Walter Jones was right for North Carolina, but he’s changed. Isn’t it time your vote changed as well?”

The ECFI and Kristol seem to be backing a likely winner in Cotton, and the new injection of ad money could put him well over the top.

The contest between Cotton and Pryor is considered one of the crucial opportunities Republicans have for taking over control of the Senate, and shows Cotton with an overall average lead of 3.6 percent, or 45.8 to 42.2, but the website concluded in late September that, burdened by President Obama’s lack of popularity, “The incumbent is in deep trouble.”

A poll of likely voters taken in late September shows Cotton with a seven-point lead over Pryor, at 40 percent to 47 percent, Cotton’s largest lead so far. 

#NW #Deliverance amazingly weird scene with the banjo kid: image via MoJack Cheese @MoJackCheese, 4 February 2015 Santa Monica, CA

Richard Christy - The Backwoods of Kansas #deliverance: image via Doctör Ivan @DocIvanSFN, 22 February 2015 Santa Monica, CA

@kings_favchild What Can The Righteous Do? PSALMS 11:3-6 Behold the POWER OF GOD #DELIVERANCE: image via BILLY4LIBERTY @CHRONICLES 714, 7 March 2015

#MakeAFirstDateWeirdIn4words You gotta pretty mouth #deliverance: image via Jon James Miller @JonJimMiller, 7 March 2015

Bill Kristol: image by Rightweb via Mondoweiss, 10 March 2011

Senator who spearheaded letter to Iran got $1 million from Kristol's 'Emergency C'tee for Israel': Philip Weiss, via Mondoweiss, 10 March 2015

The U.S. media have been sadly incurious about the origins of yesterday’s unprecedented Open Letter of 47 Republicans to the Iranian leadership seeking to block the president’s likely deal with Iran. The press has portrayed the letter as the work of Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, a 37-year-old freshman senator so new to the limelight that the New York Times got his name wrong on first impression. But as a Times commenter writes, “Does anyone really believe the ‘freshman senator from Arkansas’ wrote the letter? No.”

The media are all over the letter -- which informs Iranian hardliners that Obama’s likely deal with Iran is a “mere executive agreement.” Chris Matthews and Chris Hayes and Michael Steele on MSNBC last night all expressed outrage or surprise. Paul Waldman at the Washington Post calls the letter “stunning” and “appalling.” But apart from a passing reference to neocons from Matthews, no one is looking under the hood.

I don’t know who wrote the letter, but I can tell you whose fingerprints are on it: the only folks who are supporting it publicly, the hard-right Israel lobby. Even as Cotton himself splutters on national television, rightwing lobby groups are the main voices out there defending the letter.

Like Bill Kristol of the Emergency Committee for Israel: 

Cotton open letter: “Just so you know, we’re a constitutional democracy. Congress (or next president) has a say.” Dem response: Hysteria.

J Street’s Dylan Williams fingers Bill Kristol for writing the letter:

Who gave @SenTomCotton & others the awful idea for the Iran letter? Seems like Sarah Palin-for-VP-level bad advice doesn’t it @BillKristol ?

There’s a reason for Williams’s suspicion. Kristol’s Emergency Committee for Israel gave Tom Cotton nearly $1 million in his race for the Senate just five months ago, Eli Clifton reported. “Cotton received $960,250 in supportive campaign advertising in the last month.” (Thanks to Kay24 in comments).

Cotton also got $165,000 from Elliott Management, Paul Singer’s hedge fund. Singer is the billionaire who is trying to stop Obama's Iran talks (Clifton’s reporting again). He funds the Israel Project too -- Josh Block’s efforts.

Josh Block has been standing up for the letter on Twitter. And the rightwing Israel Project offered support for the letter in an email last night:

Many analysts believe that without congressional approval, if a final deal with Iran is reached, it will not outlast President Barack Obama’s tenure as President of the United States. Without congressional involvement, the Obama administration would strike a deal with Iran through executive action which could signal to the Iranians that the “deal would be with the President alone,” writes Harvard Law School Professor Jack Goldsmith. He continues, “The bottom line, then, is that any deal struck by President Obama with Iran will probably appear to the Iranians to be, at best, short-term and tenuous.  And so we can probably expect, at best, only a short-term and tenuous commitment from Iran in return.”

When it comes to the Iran negotiations, the Obama administration says that they only see a role for Congress when it comes to sanctions. If a final agreement is reached, they will eventually look to Congress for the lifting of sanctions. The White House said that Congress has had a role to play when it has drafted and passed the sanctions legislation that President Obama subsequently signed into law. The White House does not believe that an agreement with Iran over its nuclear program would require congressional approval.

The letter has gotten support from David Frum, the former Bush aide who wrote of taking on Saddam Hussein, “It’s victory or Holocaust.” On twitter:   

“Time after time, Obama has told Congress to go to hell. Now Congress is telling Obama to go to hell.”

The Republican Jewish Coalition, a pro-Israel group, has also supported the letter.

Josh Block used to work at AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and is sometimes thought to speak for AIPAC. AIPAC is staying silent, while pushing further sanctions on Iran.

But former AIPAC staffer MJ Rosenberg has explained why he believes AIPAC penned the letter. As he tweeted today: 

Nothing happens on Capitol Hill related to Israel unless and until Howard Kohr (AIPAC chief) wants it to happen. Nothing.

What network is behind this letter? People have a right to know. The media should be sending reporters out to dig into these connections. Imagine if the Koch Brothers were pushing some initiative on states’ rights or abortion. Would the media be so incurious? No. The scandal of the Netanyahu speech and the efforts by Israel to derail US negotiations with Iran has surely exposed the workings of the Israel lobby to the eyes of the American public to an unprecedented degree. But the media have to do more.

The man behind the letter, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas: photo by Danny Johnston/AP via The Guardian, 10 March 2015

 

Will the Republican letter to Iran torpedo the nuclear talks? Republican senators’ dramatic last-ditch intervention in the nuclear negotiations will confirm Iranian perceptions of western perfidy, and make it easier for Tehran to blame Washington if talks fail: Julian Borger, The Guardian, 10 March 2015 

The Republican letter to the Iranian leadership, claiming that any agreement it makes with the Obama administration could be disowned by its successor, raises a lot of questions.

One is how could 47 out of 54 Senate Republicans be so wrong about US constitutional and international law.

The letter is written in the patient tone of a kindly guide showing a busload of foreign visitors around the US Capitol building. “It has come to our attention that..you may not understand our constitutional system,” it says, before going to explain that President Obama’s autograph on a nuclear deal might not be worth much when he leaves office in just under two year’s time.

The style, oozing condescension, was pitched just right to cause maximum irritation to the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, with his MA in international relations from San Francisco State University and his PhD from the University of Denver. He send back a waspish response calculated to out-patronise the senators and taking care to use longer words.

He noted “it seems that the authors not only do not understand international law, but are not fully cognizant of the nuances of their own Constitution.”

Zarif enjoyed the satisfaction of having a Harvard law professor weigh in heavily on his side of the argument in nearly identical words. “It appears from the letter that the senators do not understand our constitutional system or the power to make binding agreements,” Prof Jack Goldsmith wrote on the Lawfare blog. It is not clear whether Goldsmith ever taught Tom Cotton, the newly-elected 37 year-old senator from Arkansas and Harvard Law School graduate who drafted the letter.

The more important question now is whether the letter will up the negotiations, just as they enter their most critical and precarious phase. Diplomats from the US, Iran  and five other world powers are due to fly to Switzerland on Sunday to begin the last big push to reach a framework agreement by the end of March. The UK’s foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, told MPs on Tuesday that the Republican letter could throw “a spanner in the works” at the negotiations will an “unpredictable effect” on the government in Tehran.

The ‘spanner’ effect was on display in the Iranian capital where the hardline press splashed news of the letter across its front pages. The moderate media focused instead on Zarif’s rebuke. But what really counts is the impact on one person, the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. His judgement will be critical in determining whether there is an agreement at all, and he is famously suspicious of the West’s motives towards Iran.

That does not necessarily set the Supreme Leader apart from his people. The facts of Iranian history recommend caution when dealing with Washington and London. Most famously, the Americans and the Brits helped engineer the downfall of Iran’s elected leader, Mohammad Mossadegh, in 1953, and turned a blind eye to Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons against the Iranians in the 1980’s.

Furthermore, it is a real concern for the Iranian negotiating team that the US will only be offering temporary sanctions relief, in the form of presidential waivers of congressional punitive measures, while Tehran is being asked to dismantled some of its prized nuclear infrastructure. They smell a possible trap.

So will the letter swing Khamenei away from a deal? Most Iranian analysts seem to think he will have already have factored in Republican antipathy when making his calculations. This is the take from the UK foreign office’s former Iran advisor, Hossein Rassam:

I don’t think the letter would immediately affect the negotiations, since Iranian negotiators have long been well familiar with both executive and Constitutional powers of the US president as well as his limitations, hence Iran’s persistence that the agreement shall come under the auspices of the UNSC and Chapter 7 of the UN charter.

Iranian-American journalist, Hooman Majd, author of The Ayatollah Begs to Differ and The Ministry of Guidance Invites You Not to Stay basically agrees, arguing all this last-minute sound and fury has been factored in:

While Senator Cotton’s “open letter” initiative does play into the hands of hardliners in Tehran - who’ve always maintained that the US cannot be trusted and any agreement with America is bound to be breached - the Supreme Leader, himself openly distrustful, is unlikely to allow the letter to affect the nuclear talks.

However, both Rassam and Majd agree that if the deal fails, the letter will help Tehran blame America, using that to split the six powers who have been leading the negotiations with the aim of dismantling international sanctions. So too does Ellie Geranmayeh, Iran analyst at the European Council for Foreign Relations:

The Supreme Leader most likely had predicted Congress would attempt to create crisis in the most critical stages of the talks -- he will also be aware that if Iran continues negotiating in good faith, any failure to achieve a deal will be blamed on the US creating both domestic and international sympathy towards Iran.

But if the letter reduces the cost of Iran walking away, offering an easier way to break through the sanctions wall without giving anything up, that must reduce the chances that Khamenei, arguably both the swing and the casting vote in this endgame, will ultimately get to yes.

The #47Traitors have defecated and urinated upon the American people, flag and #Constitution. #Thugs #DNC: image via Dr. David Romei @DavidRomeiPHD, 11 March 2015

All war is terror and all terror brings about death. It is time for all in the world to end the terror. #StateTerror: image via Dr. David Romei @DavidRomeiPHD, 11 March 2015



 #47Traitors  I will buy a trailer in #Arkansas for #TomCotton if someone will return him to #Walmart Land: image via Dr. David Romei @DavidRomeiPHD, 11 March 2015

one party down, on to number 2. hope this is the worst sight of the day #peckerwood #redbacon.: image via steve ci @kowboy70, 22 June 2013

taking selfies on gta #peckerwood: image via rem 47 @bluntz, 18 September 2013

This HAS to be one of the most unfortunately named businesses in America. Hehehe. #YesIm12 #Peckerwood #knob: image via Monica Rawlins @MonicaRawlins, 13 February 2014

Anyone looking for some trails? Haha #peckerwood: image via Lacie Beats @lifeoflace, 23 April 2013

Peker license plate! Haaa best one I have seen in a while! #PeckerWood: image via StillHereBizzyAxis @BizzyEliteAxis, 18 September 2014

Lunch Money

Tom Cotton -- top campaign contributors (incomplete list, career to 2014, via public record)

Club for Growth $757,007 $757,00 $0
Elliott Management $170,600 $170,600 $0
Stephens Group $152,050 $137,050 $15,000
Senate Conservatives Fund $97,427 $92,427 $5,000
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher $69,900 $59,900 $10,000
McKinsey & Co $64,700 $64,700 $0
Goldman Sachs $50,549 $40,549 $10,000
Murphy Oil $45,150 $30,150 $15,000
Arkwest Communications $40,800 $40,800 $0
Citadel LLC $40,050 $40,050 $0
Arvest Bank Group $33,400 $15,900 $17,500
Crow Holdings $31,400 $31,400 $0
Citizens for Prosperity in America Today $31,299 $21,300 $9,999
Devon Energy $31,150 $16,150 $15,000
Koch Industries $31,050 $21,050 $10,000
Kirkland & Ellis $30,800 $30,800 $0
Cooper & Kirk $30,600 $30,600 $0
Crossland Construction $30,275 $30,275 $0
Crownquest Operating $28,600 $28,600 $0
Home Depot $27,400 $15,400 $12,000
Vermont, Charles DR. $500 $250

Breakfast

#Breakfast #JohnnyBsGrill #ElDorado #Arkansas: image via Leticia Lumbreras @LeticiaLeum01, 1 March 2015

Peckerwood Snowman

Wow we sure have some #classy folks in #Arkansas. That was taken in a "nicer" neighborhood.#Goodjob #keepinitclassy: image via kaite haha hawkins @haha_hawkins, 1 March 2015

Razorback Links

#Arkanas #Razorbacks #Cufflinks $20 #MensGifts #PottiTeam #Jewelry #Football: image via Painted by Caroi @PaintedbyCarol, 1 March 2015

Legendary Whitetails Camo Captain #Collegiate Cap #Arkansas #Razorbacks: image via HOLIDAY HEADQUARTERS @sportparadise, 1 March 2015

Via TeaPartyShoppe: Arkansas Tea Party Tea Bag Button #Arkansas #TeaParty: image via PatriotPolitics @PatriotPolitics, 2 March 2015

#Arkansas' newest commit @capps_austin44 with the head hog @BretBielema Saturday. Thanks to @capps_thea for the pic: image via Danny West @FDannnyWest1, 11 March 2015

#Arkansas' newest commit @capps_austin44 with the head hog @BretBielema Saturday. Thanks to @capps_thea for the pic: image via Danny West @FDannnyWest1, 11 March 2015

Checking out @artourism's newest ad campaign.#ARGovCon #arkansas: image via North Little Rock AR @ExploreNLR, 9 March 2015

Send #TomCotton to #Arkansas and let that state's patriots tar and feather his treasonous black soul #47Traitors: image via Dr. David Romei @DavidRomeiPHD, 11 March 2015

Radiant #Arkansas home changes color with the tap of a smartphone: image via dwell @dwell, 11 March 2015

#PeckerWood #Lane: image via StillHereBizzyAxis @BizzyEliteAxis, 19 January 2015