Tag Archives: europe

Ben Carson Is a Paranoid Nutcase

by JeremiaMack Posted on October 13, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

I’m hardly the first one to notice this, but lately Ben Carson has really been letting his freak flag fly—adding to a long history of this kind of thing. For example:

A few days ago Carson peddled a conspiracy theory about Vladimir Putin, Ali Khamenei, and Mahmoud Abbas all being old pals from their days together at Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow in 1968. He refused to divulge his source for this, but instead explained it this way: “That’s what I call wisdom,” Carson said. “You get these pieces of information. You talk to various people. You begin to have an overall picture. You begin to understand why people do what they do.”
He insisted that Hitler’s rise to power was accomplished “through a combination of removing guns and disseminating propaganda”—despite the plain historical fact that Hitler didn’t remove anyone’s guns during the period when he took power.
Asked if the “end of days” was near, said, “You could guess that we are getting closer to that.”
He has suggested that being gay is a conscious choice because “a lot of people who go into prison go into prison straight and when they come out they’re gay. So did something happen while they were in there? Ask yourself that question.”
Last year, before the November elections, he predicted that President Obama might declare martial law and cancel the 2016 elections. “If Republicans don’t win back the Senate in November, he says, he can’t be sure ‘there will even be an election in 2016.’ Later, his wife, Candy, tells a supporter that they are holding on to their son’s Australian passport just in case the election doesn’t go their way.”
Has repeatedly endorsed the bizarre conspiracy theories of W. Cleon Skousen’s 1958 book The Naked Communist. “You would think by reading it that it was written last year—showing what they’re trying to do to American families, what they’re trying to do to our Judeo-Christian faith, what they’re doing to morality.” As my colleague David Corn notes, even most conservatives agree that Skousen was a nutcase. “He was a complete crank. He maintained that the Founding Fathers were direct descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel and contended that a global cabal of bankers controlled the world.”

This goes well beyond merely being a very conservative guy. These are the kinds of weird beliefs and conspiracy theories that marinate in the deepest corners of right-wing websites and email lists. It’s Alex Jones territory. It’s time to stop whispering about this, and say out loud that Carson is just not a normal conservative guy. He’s a paranoid nutcase.

Original article – 

Ben Carson Is a Paranoid Nutcase

Posted in Anker, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Ben Carson Is a Paranoid Nutcase

I’d Give Obama’s Syria Policy a B+

by DebbraTiemann Posted on October 12, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

“I don’t have a lot of good things to say about the Obama administration’s Syria policy,” says Dan Drezner. He links to Adam Elkus, who calls Obama’s Syria strategy “semi-competent.” At the BBC, Tara McKelvey writes about Robert Ford, former US ambassador to Syria, who was close to the Syrian opposition and wanted to arm them when the Assad regime started to crumble. “People in the intelligence community said the time to arm the rebels was 2012,” she writes. The problem is that officials in Washington were unsure that Ford really knew the opposition well enough. “Most of the rebels, he said, weren’t ‘ideologically pure’, not in the way US officials wanted. ‘In wars like that, there is no black and white,’ he said.”

I’ll agree on a few counts of the indictment against Obama. Now that the mission to arm the rebels has failed, he says he was never really for it in the first place. That’s cringeworthy. The buck stops with him, and once he approved the plan, hesitantly or not, it was his plan. He should take responsibility for its failure. You can also probably make a case that we should have done more to arm the Kurds, who have shown considerable competence fighting both ISIS and Assad.

But those are relative nits, and I’d be curious to hear more from Drezner about this. He basically agrees that arming rebels hasn’t worked well in the Middle East, and there’s little chance it would have worked well in Syria. “There is a strong and bipartisan 21st-century record of U.S. administrations applying military force in the Middle East with the most noble of intentions,” he says, “and then making the extant situation much, much worse.” He also agrees that Obama’s big-picture view of Syria is correct. “The president has determined that Syria is not a core American interest and therefore does not warrant greater investments of American resources. It’s a cold, calculating, semi-competent strategy. But it has the virtue of being better than the suggested hawkish alternatives.” He agrees that those “hawkish alternatives” are basically nuts.

So why exactly is Obama’s record in Syria “semi-competent”? Why does Drezner not have much good to say about it? My only serious criticism is that Obama did too much: he never should have talked about red lines and he never should have agreed to arm and train the opposition at all. But given the real-world pressures on him, it’s impressive that he’s managed to restrict American intervention as much as he has. I doubt anyone else could have done better.

There is something genuinely baffling about American hawks who have presided over failure after failure but are always certain that next time will be different. But why? If anything, Syria is more tangled and chaotic than Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan, or any of the other Middle Eastern countries we’ve gotten involved in since 2001. What kind of dreamy naivete—or willful blindness—does it take to think that we could intervene successfully there?

Anyway, that’s my question. Given the real world constraints, and grading on a real-world curve, what has Obama done wrong in Syria?

Original article: 

I’d Give Obama’s Syria Policy a B+

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, PUR, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on I’d Give Obama’s Syria Policy a B+

Report: John Boehner Is the Guy Who’s Kept the Hillary Email Scandal Alive

by BeaTMWsxivmgy Posted on October 12, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Back when the Benghazi committee started up, Rep. Trey Gowdy swore that it was nothing more than an impartial search for the truth about a raid that cost four American lives. So how is that coming along? The New York Times reports:

Now, 17 months later — longer than the Watergate investigation lasted — interviews with current and former committee staff members as well as internal committee documents reviewed by The New York Times show the extent to which the focus of the committee’s work has shifted from the circumstances surrounding the Benghazi attack to the politically charged issue of Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.

….The committee has conducted only one of a dozen interviews that Mr. Gowdy said in February that he planned to hold with prominent intelligence, Defense Department and White House officials, and it has held none of the nine public hearings — with titles such as “Why Were We in Libya?” — that internal documents show have been proposed.

At the same time, the committee has added at least 18 current and former State Department officials to its roster of witnesses, including three speechwriters and an information technology specialist who maintained Mrs. Clinton’s private email server.

From the standpoint of a genuine Benghazi investigation, Hillary Clinton’s email issues wouldn’t matter. All the committee would care about is getting a look at the emails from her private server—which is now happening. For some reason, though, they care deeply about investigating that email server to death, even though it has nothing to do with the Benghazi attacks. Why is that?

A friend of mine has tried to persuade me that Gowdy is probably playing things straight. I’ve argued that I don’t believe it. He’s a true believer, and he cares a lot more about taking down Democrats than he does about Benghazi itself, which he probably knows perfectly well has already been investigated to death. So which of us is right? This tidbit sheds a bit of light on things:

Gowdy said that at one point this spring he told John A. Boehner, the House speaker, that he feared the task of investigating the email issue would distract from his committee’s work….and pressed Mr. Boehner to have another House committee examine the matter of Mrs. Clinton’s emails, but that Mr. Boehner had rejected the request.

….Senior Republican officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were discussing confidential conversations, said that Mr. Boehner had long been suspicious of the administration’s handling of the attacks and that Mrs. Clinton’s emails gave him a way to keep the issue alive and to cause political problems for her campaign. But he thought that the task was too delicate to entrust to others and that it should remain with Mr. Gowdy, the former prosecutor.

If this is true, my friend is halfway right: Gowdy never really wanted to get distracted with politically motivated attacks on Hillary Clinton. But John Boehner did, and he figured Gowdy was the best man for the job.

I’m not quite sure what this says about Gowdy, but it’s certainly clear that Boehner thought that manipulating the media into nonstop reporting on Hillary’s email server was a great idea. He also figured the media would take the bait. And they did.

So Gowdy gets, oh, let’s say a C+. He tried to do the right thing, but caved in pretty quickly. Boehner gets a D. He was all about taking down Hillary Clinton from the get-go. The media gets an F. Boehner at least has the excuse of being a senior Republican leader, and attacking Democrats comes with the territory. But the media is not supposed to be so gullible that they believe everything Republicans say about Democratic leaders. In the case of Hillary Clinton, though, that rule seems to have been suspended. Again.

Link to original: 

Report: John Boehner Is the Guy Who’s Kept the Hillary Email Scandal Alive

Posted in alo, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Oster, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Report: John Boehner Is the Guy Who’s Kept the Hillary Email Scandal Alive

Have You Ever Thought About the Republican Party? I Mean, Really Thought About It?

by LouisGoldstein Posted on October 10, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

As much as we’ve talked about it, I wonder if we’ve really gotten our heads around the fact that Paul Ryan is literally being begged to be the leader of the Republican Party. He is Literally. Being. Begged. To be the leader of one of America’s two major parties! And he doesn’t want it, no how, no way. Because he knows there’s a substantial faction of his party that’s insane. And who would know better?

I feel like this is one of those things that maybe you can only truly comprehend after a couple of blunts:

Boehner: Dude, have you ever thought about the Republican Party? I mean, really thought about it?

Ryan: I know. I know. It’s, like, insane, man. (Giggles, coughs.) This is good stuff. Medical, right?

Boehner: That’s it! Totally insane. I mean, completely batshit fucked up.

Ryan: But awesome. Insane but still awesome. I mean, seriously, it’s our only defense against, like, total socialism.

Boehner: Oh man, you been reading Atlas Shrugged again? You’re bumming me out, dude.

And while we’re on the subject, I have another idea. As thousands of people have pointed out, nothing in the Constitution says the Speaker has to be a member of Congress. This has spawned a whole cottage industry of jokes. Donald Trump! Bibi Netanyahu! Rush Limbaugh! But I have another idea: does it have to be one person? Here’s the relevant text:

The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers….

Sure, “Speaker” is singular in that sentence, but “Speaker and other Officers” suggests that maybe leadership of the House could be shared. How about a triumvirate, like Rome in its glory days? Ryan could be one, some tea party nutcase could be another, and the third could be, um, Mia Love, who’s a black woman and the daughter of immigrants. I’m not sure how they’d make decisions, but I guess they’d figure out something. Maybe rock paper scissors.

Continue reading here: 

Have You Ever Thought About the Republican Party? I Mean, Really Thought About It?

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Have You Ever Thought About the Republican Party? I Mean, Really Thought About It?

Friday Cat Blogging – 9 October 2015

by Jodi16W319322 Posted on October 9, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Hmmm. What happened here? There is no documentary record, so perhaps if Hopper hides no one will connect her with it. Worth a try! Meanwhile, Hilbert hangs around absentmindedly, not realizing that his sister is doing her best to pin the rap entirely on him. That’s family values, folks.

Continue reading:  

Friday Cat Blogging – 9 October 2015

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Friday Cat Blogging – 9 October 2015

The "Gig Economy" Is Mostly Just Silicon Valley Hype

by KrystalBertles Posted on October 9, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

How big is the “gig economy”? An Uber driver is the archetypal gig worker, but more generally it refers to anyone who works independently on a contingent basis. This means, for example, that an old school freelance writer qualifies.

Still, it’s tech that’s driving the gig hype, and if the hype is true then the number of gig workers should be going up. Lydia DePillis takes a look at this today and recommends two sources:

The Freelancers Union, which advocates for self-employed people of all kinds, recently came up with the 53 million number Warner mentioned. MBO Partners, which provides tools for businesses that use contractors, put it at 30.2 million. But for lawmaking purposes, it’s probably a good idea to get your information from a source that doesn’t have a commercial interest in the numbers it’s putting out.

True enough, but let’s start with these folks. The Freelancers Union reports that in 2015 the gig economy “held steady” at 34 percent of the workforce. MBO Partners reports that it “held firm” at 30 million. They additionally report that it’s increased 12 percent in the past five years, which is not especially impressive considering that total employment has increased 9 percent over the same period.

The government does not track this directly, and I assume that these two sources are generally motivated to be cheerleaders for the gig economy, which means their numbers are about as optimistic as possible. If that’s true, it looks as though the gig economy is almost entirely smoke and mirrors. After all, if it were a big phenomenon it would be getting bigger every year as technology became an ever more important part of our lives. And yet, both sources agree that 2015, when the economy was doing fairly well, showed no growth at all in the gig economy. What’s more, as Jordan Weissmann and others have pointed out, what little government data we have isn’t really consistent with the idea that the gig economy is growing.

So be wary of the hype. Maybe the gig economy will be a big thing in the future. Maybe the tech portion is growing, but the growth is hidden by a decline in traditional freelancing. Maybe. For now, though, it appears to be mostly just another example of the reality distortion hype that Silicon Valley is so good at.

Original source:  

The "Gig Economy" Is Mostly Just Silicon Valley Hype

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, PUR, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The "Gig Economy" Is Mostly Just Silicon Valley Hype

Oops. Putin’s Cruise Missiles Still Need a Little Work.

by JanellGlasheen Posted on October 8, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

I guess Vladimir Putin’s cruise missiles aren’t quite as awesome as he thought:

Cruise missiles fired by Russia from warships in the Caspian Sea at targets in Syria crashed in a rural area of Iran, senior United States officials said on Thursday.

Bummer, dude. Can we now have at least one day where we don’t have to hear about how Russia’s crappy military is going to upend everything in the Middle East and send the US scurrying for cover?

Read More:  

Oops. Putin’s Cruise Missiles Still Need a Little Work.

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Oops. Putin’s Cruise Missiles Still Need a Little Work.

Friday Cat Blogging – 2 October 2015

by BerenicBabb Posted on October 2, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Here’s Hopper playing hide-and-seek with the camera. In the background, Hilbert lounges about obliviously, probably waiting for dinner to be served.

Read this article: 

Friday Cat Blogging – 2 October 2015

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Friday Cat Blogging – 2 October 2015

The World Economic Forum Delivers a Report Card on the US Economy

by DeanaRqopw Posted on October 1, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

So how’s the ol’ US of A doing under the free-market-hating presidency of the socialist Barack Obama? Probably badly, I’ll bet. Let’s see what the World Economic Forum has to say. Their latest set of competitiveness rankings came out today, and among countries with populations over 10 million, the US was….

First. How about that? But it was probably even better before Obama took over, wasn’t it? Let’s see. In 2009 we ranked #1 among big countries with a score of 5.59. This year we’re #1 with a score of 5.61. That’s hard to fathom. But there you have it. Our competitiveness in the global free market seems to have improved a bit during Obama’s tenure. I wonder if Fox News will bother reporting this?

View article:  

The World Economic Forum Delivers a Report Card on the US Economy

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The World Economic Forum Delivers a Report Card on the US Economy

Bestselling Historian Explains US Foreign Policy: "Obama Is Prone to Submitting to Males Who Act Dominantly in His Presence"

by AdriannQCD Posted on October 1, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Here is Arthur Herman writing in National Review about geopolitical realities in the age of Obama:

If Vladimir Putin is the dominant alpha male in the new international pecking order, Barack Obama has emerged as his highly submissive partner.

There are various reasons why we are being subjected to the humiliating spectacle of an American president, so-called leader of the free world, rolling over on the mat at Putin’s feet.

Of course, there have been signs for years that Obama is prone to submitting to males who act dominantly in his presence. Who can forget his frozen performance with Mitt Romney in the first presidential debate in 2012….We’ve seen it in his interactions with China’s president Xi Jinping; his strange bowing and scraping with the Saudi king; and his various meetings with Putin, including the last at the United Nations on Monday where a tight-lipped Obama could barely bring himself to look at the Russian president while Putin looked cool and confident—as well as he should.

For every aggressive move Putin has made on the international stage, first in Crimea and Ukraine in Europe, and now in Syria, our president’s response has been largely verbal protestations followed by resolute inaction. Why should Putin not assume that when he orders the U.S. to stop its own air strikes against ISIS in Syria, and to leave the skies to the Russians, he won’t be obeyed?

But there’s more to Obama’s passivity than just pack behavior….

Seriously, what kind of adult talks like this? Or thinks like this? How can a historian, of all people, explain a moment in history as a serial dominance display between chimpanzees? I’m not even sure what the right word for this is. It’s not just childish or puerile, though it’s those things too. Disturbed? Compulsive? Unbalanced? I’m not sure. This is a job for William F. Buckley.

Read more:

Bestselling Historian Explains US Foreign Policy: "Obama Is Prone to Submitting to Males Who Act Dominantly in His Presence"

Posted in ALPHA, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Bestselling Historian Explains US Foreign Policy: "Obama Is Prone to Submitting to Males Who Act Dominantly in His Presence"