Tag Archives: Bears!

Marcobot Has Apparently Exceeded Its Rated Mean Time to Failure

by JanelleWeldon2 Posted on February 9, 2016

Mother Jones

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Oh hell, now I’m just starting to feel sorry for Marco Rubio. The whole Marcobot thing has apparently made him so self-conscious that he can barely even recite his stump speech anymore. Here he is delivering a line about values being rammed down our throats right after he’s just said it. There’s an almost poignant moment at 0:26 when Rubio suddenly realizes what he’s just done.

This reminds me of a Star Trek episode where Kirk uses some kind of sophomoric paradox to trick a computer into self destructing. That’s about what Chris Christie seems to have done to Rubio.

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Marcobot Has Apparently Exceeded Its Rated Mean Time to Failure

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Arabic Social Media Goes Gaga Over Sisi’s Red Carpet

by Beau47Tgqggfj Posted on February 8, 2016

Mother Jones

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Nothing says “I care about poor people” like driving to a new housing project on a red carpet 2.5 miles long. Amirite? But this has a secret subtext: When Egyptian president Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi motored his way to a grand opening ceremony Saturday on a carpet this size, it was apparently a sign that the military is pleased with him. I guess the more they like you, the longer the carpet:

Brig Gen Ehab el-Ahwagy explained on several talk shows on Sunday night that the carpet was not purchased by Sisi’s administration and the same one had been used for more than three years for similar occasions.

“It gives a kind of joy and assurance to the Egyptian citizen that our people and our land and our armed forces are always capable of organising anything in a proper manner,” Ahwagy told the TV talk show host Amr Adeeb. “It is laid out in a way to beautify the general area, so it gives a good impression of the celebration that is being broadcast to the whole world.”

See? No big deal. And certainly no reason to postpone a speech warning that Egypt is in dire financial trouble and will soon have to stop subsidizing water and electricity bills for low-income families.

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Arabic Social Media Goes Gaga Over Sisi’s Red Carpet

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Raw Data: How #White Are the Oscars, Anyway?

by Aleida4328 Posted on January 24, 2016

Mother Jones

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The chart on the right shows the trend of black nominees in the four acting categories by decade. In the most recent decade—including the past two years, in which no blacks were nominated—there were 18 black nominees, which amounts to 9 percent of the total acting field. Here’s a comparison (for Americans only) with top positions in other fields:

4-star military officers: 13 percent
Members of Congress: 10 percent
University presidents: ~3 percent
Senators: 2 percent
Nobel Prize winners: 1.1 percent
Fortune 500 CEOs: 0.8 percent
Billionaires: 0.2 percent
Governors: 0

POSTSCRIPT: Most of the #OscarsSoWhite backlash has come in the acting categories, which is why I made this chart. The odd things about this is that the acting categories are a gaudy aurora borealis compared to the paleness of the rest of the awards. With the exception of songwriting, a grand total of eight black artists have been nominated in every single other category over the past decade. Here are the percentages:

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Raw Data: How #White Are the Oscars, Anyway?

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Men Have a Big Christmas Problem

by Del6306210 Posted on December 11, 2015

Mother Jones

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I’ve got a nasty cold, which is why blogging started a bit late today. It might also explain why I haven’t found anything good to blog about since I finally rolled out of bed. Alternatively, maybe I’m just suffering from Trump fatigue. (Is he a fascist? Let’s ask ten top experts!)

Instead, I present to you a Wonkblog chart that every man reading this blog will immediately appreciate. I’m pretty sure no comment is necessary. This is just my way of telling you that I’m alive and (sort of) well.

Original post – 

Men Have a Big Christmas Problem

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Republican Voters Like What Donald Trump Is Selling

by PeterWeinstein8 Posted on December 9, 2015

Mother Jones

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Why is Donald Trump not paying a price for his increasingly unhinged rhetoric? Two recent polls tell the story.

At the top is a Bloomberg poll that asks if you agree with Trump’s call for a ban on Muslims entering the country. Less than a quarter of Republicans oppose it. At the bottom is an MSNBC poll that asks what kind of person Trump is. Only a quarter of Republicans think he’s insulting and offensive. These aren’t polls of tea partiers. They aren’t polls just of conservative states. These are polls of all Republicans in the nation. By a very wide margin, ordinary Republican voters think the stuff Trump is saying sounds great. Only about a quarter don’t like what they’re hearing.

I don’t really know what to say about this. On 9/11, nineteen Muslim terrorists killed 3,000 Americans and destroyed two skyscrapers. There was an enormous thirst for revenge, and eventually George Bush used this to send us to war in Iraq. But even at the height of the fear, there was never any call to ban Muslim immigration.

This year, 14 people are killed by a couple of deranged Muslims with no real ties to international terrorism, and two-thirds of Republicans are in favor of banning all Muslims from the country. So what’s happened over the past decade? Multiple things, I suppose. This is an election year, and 2001 wasn’t. In addition to the San Bernardino shooting, there have been several overseas attacks and a huge tide of refugees coming from Syria. Republican voters have been driven crazy by Barack Obama, who they’ve been told repeatedly is all but a Muslim mole. Finally, in 2001 a Republican president spoke pretty firmly against anti-Muslim bigotry. No one on the Republican side is doing that now.

And of course, there’s Donald Trump. Is he cause or effect? A bit of both, I think. In any case, it’s increasingly clear why Trump isn’t paying a price for what he says: It’s because most Republicans like it.

UPDATE: I’m not trying to drive you all into despair for the country. Honest, I’m not. But here’s another one:

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Republican Voters Like What Donald Trump Is Selling

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Deep Cleaning: A Play in Two Acts

by ChristenZib Posted on December 9, 2015

Mother Jones

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We could all use a little entertainment today, couldn’t we? Here’s mine. A few days ago I went to Angie’s List and bought a deal for four hours of housecleaning (i.e., two people for two hours, four people for one hour, etc.). Here’s how it went down:

8:45 am, four cleaners arrive

Cleaner: Do you have any special requests?
Me: Nope. Just clean the house.

9:45 am, with about two-thirds of the house cleaned:

Cleaner: Our four hours is up! Do you want us to stay and clean the rest of the house?
Me: Um, what?
Cleaner: We charge by the hour, and you bought four hours.
Me: You couldn’t clean the whole house in four hours?
Cleaner: We clean a lot better than other people. This is a deep cleaning.
Me: A what?
Cleaner: When I came this morning, I asked if you wanted anything special.
Me: And I said I didn’t.
Cleaner: That means you wanted a deep cleaning.
Me: That’s what that meant?
Cleaner: Yep.
Me: Couldn’t you have just asked if I wanted a regular cleaning or a deep cleaning? Wouldn’t that have been a better way of making sure everything was clear?
Cleaner: The deal you bought was for a deep cleaning. If you call us back for regular service, we’ll do a normal cleaning.
Me: Oh.
Cleaner: So do you want to buy more time?

I passed on the additional time. But I admit I’m curious to get some feedback. It’s true that the listing for this service said it was a deep cleaning. Apparently I read the headline, which only said “housecleaning,” and didn’t read much further. I guess I should be more careful about reading all the fine print in the future.

And yet, surely this was an easy thing to clear up at the start. Did I want a regular cleaning of the whole house, or a deep cleaning of whatever could be done in four hours? I feel pretty annoyed by all this. Should I? Or am I the one at fault for not reading carefully enough?

UPDATE: Interestingly, opinion is split. A majority seems to be on the “you got ripped off” side, but a substantial minority says the service advertised a deep cleaning, and that’s what I got. I should have asked more questions if I wanted to make sure the whole house got cleaned.

Originally posted here: 

Deep Cleaning: A Play in Two Acts

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Republicans All Seem to Like Obama’s Strategy to Defeat ISIS

by OuidaLindstrom Posted on December 8, 2015

Mother Jones

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Do any of the Republican candidates have a plan for defeating ISIS? As near as I can tell, most of them have offered up variations on this:

Bomb ISIS, just like Obama, but better.
Use Iraqi ground troops, just like Obama, but better.
Put together a coalition of local allies, just like Obama, but better.

Am I missing anything? Aside from being more bellicose (the sand will glow, we’ll bomb the shit out of them, etc.), all of the candidates are saying that Obama’s strategy is basically sound, but they’d tweak it a bit here and there. They’d stop worrying about civilian deaths so they could drop more bombs. They’d somehow train Iraqi forces better than the Army is doing right now. And they’d put together a real coalition, though it’s never really clear what they mean by that or how they’d accomplish it.

Anything else?

Continued – 

Republicans All Seem to Like Obama’s Strategy to Defeat ISIS

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Ben Carson and the Conservative Grift Machine

by GustavoScarberry Posted on November 28, 2015

Mother Jones

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In the LA Times today Joseph Tanfani and Maloy Moore have a great piece about the American Legacy PAC and its 2014 Save Our Healthcare campaign. It was fronted by Ben Carson, who starred in a video denouncing Obamacare and told viewers, “If you want to hold Washington accountable and truly save American health care, join me and sign our petition today.” Needless to say, when you called the toll-free number, it turned out that Carson wanted more than just your John Hancock. He also wanted your Benjamins:

When Juanita McMillon saw his name, she was eager to get out her checkbook. “I think he is sincere, and I think he is honest, and I think he is exactly what we need,” said McMillon, 80, from the small town of De Kalb in northeast Texas. She gave $350….American Legacy raised close to $6 million in 2014 — and spent nearly all of it paying the consultants and firms that raised the money. Just 2% was donated to Republican candidates and committees, financial reports show.

“I’m really careful who I give money to, but I guess I did not read it close enough,” McMillon said, adding that she had never heard of American Legacy. “I prefer to give money to individuals, and I assumed, I guess, that Dr. Carson was getting my money.”

Though American Legacy didn’t raise much money for Obamacare-hating Republicans, it was a success at something else — finding people willing to give to Carson….When Carson entered the race, the campaign tapped those donors again. Donnell gave another $250 to the campaign, and McMillon another $450. Of the more than 4,000 donors to American Legacy, more than 25% also ended up giving to the Carson campaign, a Los Angeles Times analysis showed.

This is good reporting, but so far there’s nothing all that new here. Conservatives have turned grifting into a high art, and Carson is just the flavor of the month. What makes this piece great is the response from Doug Watts, Carson’s campaign spokesman:

Watts defended the American Legacy effort and offered assurance to donors. “I would say to those people, you did give to Dr. Carson,” Watts said. “They participated in the building of a list” of donors for the campaign.

Booyah! By giving money to Carson’s anti-Obamacare campaign, you identified yourself as a soft touch who would give Carson even more money later on. And that’s a big help. Of course, these elderly donors thought they were helping Carson fight Obamacare, because, you know, that’s what Carson actually said. But what’s the difference? Tomayto, tomahto.

Anyway, read the whole thing if you’ve got the stomach for it.

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Ben Carson and the Conservative Grift Machine

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Republican Candidates Are Too Busy This Morning to Denounce Attack on Planned Parenthood Clinic

by UBOSibyljlemh Posted on November 28, 2015

Mother Jones

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When I went to bed last night, none of the Republican presidential candidates had said anything about the horrific shootings at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado. But that was ten hours ago, and it’s now nearly noon on the East Coast. Anything new?

As near as I can tell, no. No tweets, no statements, nothing on Facebook. On Twitter, Donald Trump is still blathering about how much he loves the disabled. Jeb Bush is tweeting about football. Ted Cruz hasn’t put up anything new in over a week.1 Marco Rubio was “sickened” by the killing of Luís Diaz in Venezuela a couple of days ago, but is busy promoting his cold-weather bundle of Rubio gear today. Ben Carson is burnishing his foreign policy credentials by talking to refugees in Jordan. Carly Fiorina has been quiet since Thanksgiving.

But it’s a holiday weekend, so maybe they’ve turned off the news to spend more time with their families. All 14 of them. Still, I know they’re all resolutely opposed to terrorism and adamantly in favor of law and order, so I’m sure they’ll issue uncompromising condemnations sometime soon. After all, we can’t allow depraved attacks against health clinics on American soil to be met with silence that could easily be interpreted as backing down in the face of hate. Right?

1Oops. I was fooled by the fact that Cruz has his demand for President Obama to insult him to his face permanently at the top of his feed. But Cruz did indeed tweet something this morning. Here’s the full version of his statement on Facebook: “My and Heidi’s prayers are with the loved ones of those killed in Colorado Springs, with those injured, and with the first responders who bravely got the situation under control.” Not exactly a stirring condemnation of violence, but I guess it’s a start.

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Republican Candidates Are Too Busy This Morning to Denounce Attack on Planned Parenthood Clinic

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President Obama Has a Different Job Than President Hollande

by MarcyEllington Posted on November 25, 2015

Mother Jones

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Dana Milbank was unimpressed by the contrast Barack Obama made yesterday during his press conference with French president François Hollande. Hollande was animated and can-do about destroying ISIS, while Obama was….a little more realistic about things:

Tough talk won’t defeat terrorists — but it will rally a nation. It’s no mere coincidence that the unpopular Hollande’s support has increased during his forceful response to the attacks, while Obama’s poll numbers are down.

The importance of language was very clear at the White House on Tuesday, even in translation. There was little difference in their strategies for fighting the Islamic State, but Hollande was upbeat and can-do, while Obama was discouraging and lawyerly. It was as if the smoke-’em-out spirit of George W. Bush had been transplanted into the body of a short, pudgy, bespectacled French socialist with wrinkled suit-pants.

….Hollande spoke of a new era. “There is a new mind-set now,” Hollande said. “And those who believed that we could wait” now realize “the risk is everywhere . . . . We, therefore, must act.”

Then came President Oh-bummer. “Syria has broken down,” he said. “And it is going to be a difficult, long, methodical process to bring back together various factions within Syria to maintain a Syrian state.”

Maybe you can motivate people when you sound so discouraging. But it’s hard.

Aside from the fact that Milbank is cherry picking a bit here, I think he misses a few things. First is the most obvious: France is the country that was just attacked. Of course its president is the more emotional one. Hollande would seem more emotional than pretty much anyone he was paired up with. Have you ever seen Angela Merkel at a press conference?

Second, let’s face facts: over the past year France has probably conducted a few hundred airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq. It only started strikes against ISIS in Syria last month. When Hollande says “we must act,” he’s basically asking the United States to act.

Third and most important: Obama isn’t trying to rally a nation. Just the opposite, maybe. He’s been down this road before, and he’s well aware that revving up the public for a splendid little war requires no effort at all—especially during campaign season. When reporters demand to know why we can’t just “take out the bastards,” it’s obvious that Obama has a different job than Hollande. He’s not trying to rally a nation, he’s trying to keep everyone grounded about exactly what we can do. And for that I say: good for him. It’s harder and less satisfying than preaching fire and brimstone, but in the long run it’s better for the country.

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President Obama Has a Different Job Than President Hollande

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