Tag Archives: record

The Uninsured Rate Just Keeps Going Down, Down, Down

by AlexandraNewberr Posted on November 6, 2015

Mother Jones

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I’m back. I’ve now done my civic duty yet again, so I’m safe until the next time the Orange County justice system wants me to sit around all day and curse at unreliable Wi-Fi coverage. Oddly, their Wi-Fi is worse than it was the last time I was there, three or four years ago. I think they’ve outsourced it since then. On the bright side, this time around I could provide my own internet connection, so I don’t care that much. Plus, since I never get actually called for a jury these days, I’ve once again preserved my record of being foreman on 100 percent of the juries I’ve ever sat on.

As your reward for waiting around all day for me, here’s the latest CDC data on the uninsured rate. Being the big government agency they are, they’re just getting around to crunching the numbers for the second quarter, and they report that Obamacare has driven the uninsured rate down yet again, to 10.3 percent.1 Not bad for a program that, I’m told, is in a death spiral and will implode any second now.

1Gallup says the uninsured rate in the second quarter was 11.4 percent. The difference comes from who they count. Gallup counts everyone over 18. CDC counts everyone under age 65.

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The Uninsured Rate Just Keeps Going Down, Down, Down

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Can These Sensors Scientifically Prove UFOs Exist?

by JanisEasley Posted on October 19, 2015

Mother Jones

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A group of scientists and academics from around the world has launched a new effort called UFODATA, which stands for UFO Detection and Tracking, to apply some rigorous scientific research to the study of UFOs. This all-volunteer, nonprofit project that includes scientists from the United States, Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Chile intends to use scientific data and research methods to advance an issue that has largely been confined to the margins (at best) of the traditional scientific community.

“It’s abundantly clear that we’re not going to make progress in understanding whatever is causing the unknown UFO reports and sightings without getting the type of data we want to collect,” says Mark Rodeghier, scientific director and president of the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies in Chicago, and now a UFODATA board member. “More witness testimony, where they fill out a form and tell you what they saw, is not going to help us solve the problem,” he says. The problem that Rodeghier is referring to is the frequent, inexplicable sightings of aerial phenomena.

The group of about 15 scientists, engineers, astronomers, professors, and a journalist intend to install a series of automated surveillance stations loaded with scientific research tools at various locations in known UFO hotspots such as those in the western United States and in Hessdalen, Norway. The stations will be used to photograph unidentified objects and analyze the light coming from them in order to learn more about the sources of energy powering them. People have done this sort of thing in the past, but never before in such a coordinated and scientifically rigorous way.

The sensors that the group hopes to build will include several high-resolution cameras fitted with spectrographic grating, which is a method for analyzing the type of light the camera is seeing, and the ways that energy might be affecting the atmosphere around the light source. Here is a video explaining the process. Other equipment includes a magnetometer, used to measure electromagnetic radiation, as well as a Geiger counter and a weather station.

“In this area of science (physics, astronomy, etc.) the best way to learn about something is to get its spectra,” Rodeghier says. He compares it to a rainbow, which is a “spectra” of the sun’s light. “You can see the elements it’s composed of, you can also tell things about its temperature and pressure. There are many, many things that you can learn from a spectra and associated data.”

These sensors aren’t cheap. Each one will cost between $10,000 and $20,000, the group says, which they’re hoping to raise through crowdfunding and other donations.

“UFODATA will rely on crowd funding to finance the stations, allowing the millions of people who take UFOs seriously to be involved in the effort, independent of the scientific establishment,” wrote Leslie Kean, an American journalist and the author of UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record. After covering the issue for years, she’s also now a board member for UFODATA. Kean announced the project on her Huffington Post blog earlier this week.

The all-volunteer group hopes to raise enough money to build one prototype station, test it, and prove the concept. Next year they plan to raise additional funds, Rodeghier says, after the project is better known and a more robust volunteer staff is in place.

Rodeghier says more reliable and scientific data will not only advance understanding of UFOs, but might also serve to persuade the public at large that this issue merits more serious examination. Nonetheless, the organizers appreciate that “the UFO community and the UFO problem is something that is pretty much looked down upon by what I call the establishment,” Rodeghier says. “That includes scientists, big media, and politicians, Washington. All those people—and I’m speaking broadly because there’s always exceptions—think the UFO problem, they laugh at it, it’s to be ridiculed, and certainly shouldn’t be supported and funded. And so yes, this is part of an effort, is to say, ‘This problem is serious. It’s like any other scientific problem.'”

But even the new organization has had to grapple internally with the taboo of scientific discussion of UFOs. The initial UFODATA team includes four “silent advisors“—two full professors, an attorney, and an astronomer—who “are prepared to lend a hand, but because of the cultural stigma attached to UFOs—or because of a personal preference for anonymity—have chosen to keep their involvement private” according to the group’s website.

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Can These Sensors Scientifically Prove UFOs Exist?

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House Benghazi Committee Breaks Record — Sort Of

by TaniaRizzo Posted on September 28, 2015

Mother Jones

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Today’s news:

The House committee investigating the Benghazi attacks is now the longest congressional investigation in history, committee Democrats announced today. As of Monday, the House Select Committee on Benghazi, has been active for 72 weeks — surpassing the record previously held by the Watergate Committee in the 1970’s.

I suppose this is technically correct. But let’s gaze through a broader lens and take a look at the Whitewater investigation:

The House Banking Committee began hearings in March 1994, and they petered out in early 1995. Call it 50 weeks or so.
The Senate Whitewater Committee began in May 1995 and issued its final report in June 1996. That’s 57 weeks.
But wait! The Senate investigation was a continuation of the Senate Banking Committee investigation, which began in July 1994. If you count this as one big Senate investigation, as you really should, it lasted 98 weeks.
But wait again! The Whitewater investigation really started on January 20, 1994, when special counsel Robert Fiske was appointed. It ended on September 20, 2000, when Fiske’s successor, Robert Ray, announced there was “insufficient evidence” to show that the Clintons had done anything wrong. That’s 348 weeks.

So sure: in terms of a single congressional committee in continuous existence, Benghazi is now the all-time record holder. But in terms of how long a political investigation has lasted through all its permutations, I’d guess that 348 weeks is unlikely to be beaten anytime soon. When it comes to political witch hunts, Whitewater was—and remains—the king of fruitless idiocy.

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House Benghazi Committee Breaks Record — Sort Of

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Musk’s new Tesla gets extra credit in respected auto test

by StevenKRGV Posted on August 27, 2015

Musk’s new Tesla gets extra credit in respected auto test

By on 27 Aug 2015commentsShare

Today in break the internet news, the new Tesla P85D — an all-wheel drive version of the Model S — scored a 103 out of 100 in a Consumer Reports evaluation. For those of you keeping track, that’s an improper fraction. (And for those of you who really don’t have anything to do, it’s an improper fraction with a prime number in the numerator, so you can’t even reduce it to something more palatable.) Which is to say the new Model S is so good that Consumer Reports doesn’t even have the numbers to describe it.

What do you do when you’ve shown your metric to be incapable of capturing what you’re trying to measure? If you were Consumer Reports, perhaps you’d change the scale so the P85D scored a perfect 100. Which is what they did. Turns out these kinds of procedural tweaks can be pretty straightforward when we admit that everything is arbitrary and original intent can be outdated. (If only it was so easy to apply this logic to, say, the Second Amendment.) Bloomberg Business has the story:

“This is a glimpse into what we can expect down the line, where we have cars with the performance of supercars and the comfort, convenience and safety features of a luxury car while still being extremely energy efficient,” Jake Fisher, the magazine’s head of automotive testing, said in an interview. “We haven’t seen all those things before.”

Based on the P85D’s scores, Consumer Reports had to reassess how much to weigh things like acceleration, where the Tesla is as much as twice as quick as other vehicles, Fisher said.

“Once you start getting so ridiculously fast, so ridiculously energy efficient, it didn’t make sense to go linear on those terms anymore,” he said.

The P85D — which has a starting price of $105,000 — is capable of hitting 60 mph in 3.5 seconds from stop. Which is pretty impressive for something with zero emissions. Or, you know, emissions that aren’t immediately obvious. All that electricity has to come from somewhere.

Three cheers for Tesla and its electrifying CEO Mr. Musk, though. Record breaking is often cause for celebration. Just wait ’til that Jetsons car hits the market.

Source:

Tesla’s New Car Is So Good, It Literally Broke the Consumer Reports Scale

, Bloomberg Business.

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A Grist Special Series

Oceans 15


These first-time fishermen know all the best (and worst) parts of fishingAndrew and Sophie never planned to be commercial fishermen — but they tried it for a summer. Here’s what they learned.


How to feed the world, with a little kelp from our friends (the oceans)Paul Dobbins’ farm needs no pesticides, fertilizer, land, or water — we just have to learn to love seaweed.


This surfer is committed to saving sharks — even though he lost his leg to one of themMike Coots lost his leg in a shark attack. Then he joined the group Shark Attack Survivors for Shark Conservation, and started fighting to save SHARKS from US.


This scuba diver wants everyone — black, white, or brown — to feel at home in the oceanKramer Wimberley knows what it’s like to feel unwelcome in the water. As a dive instructor and ocean-lover, he tries to make sure no one else does.


Oceans 15We’re tired of talking about oceans like they’re just a big, wet thing somewhere out there. Let’s make it personal.

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Musk’s new Tesla gets extra credit in respected auto test

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The Clinton Rules, Tax Record Edition

by LanoraMeeson Posted on July 31, 2015

Mother Jones

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I was sitting in the living room this afternoon and Hopper jumped into my lap. So I told Marian to turn the TV to CNN and I’d watch the news until Hopper released me. The first thing I saw was John Berman teasing a segment about Hillary Clinton releasing a health statement plus eight years of tax records. In other words, pretty routine stuff for any serious presidential candidate. But when Berman tossed to Brianna Keilar, here’s what she said:

KEILAR: When you think of a document dump like this, you normally think of, uh, in a way, sort of having something to hide. But the Clinton campaign trying to make the point that they’re putting out this information and they’re trying to be very transparent.

Talk about the Clinton rules! Hillary Clinton releases nearly a decade’s worth of tax records, and the first thing that pops into Keilar’s mind is that this is probably an effort to hide something. But hey! Let’s be fair. The Clinton campaign says it’s actually so that people can see her tax records. But they would say that, wouldn’t they?

Unbelievable. If any other candidate released eight years of tax records, it would be reported as the candidate releasing eight years of tax records. But when Hillary does it, there’s very likely something nefarious going on. God help us.

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The Clinton Rules, Tax Record Edition

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Educated Liberal Journalist With Friends Pays Money to Join Bike Cult

by vserko45 Posted on June 9, 2015

Mother Jones

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Last year, a SoulCycle opened up in our office building. There were dozens upon dozens of bright young things lined up around the block for days. I don’t mind admitting that I thought they were lunatics. They looked like lunatics—albeit attractive lunatics. In the months since, the lines have faded away, but every day I have walked past a robust collection of SoulCyclists constantly milling about on our sidewalk.

I have had a gym membership in one form or another since I was a #teen. For most of that time I was paying $120 a month to “go to” Equinox. Occasionally when I’d be overcome with guilt about wasting money on a membership that I always found an excuse to avoid, I would go to the website, hover my cursor over the CANCEL MEMBERSHIP button…but then stop. This will be the month I get serious about going. That was a fantasy. (Let the record show that I have finally let it expire. This is progress.) Anyway, gyms and personal fitness are a constant thing in my mind if only because I am acutely aware how ridiculous it is that I spent many thousands of dollars to go to a gym all together like 50 times. This guilt and shame keeps me up at night.

Last week, Alex Abad-Santos published a post at Vox called “I used to make fun of SoulCycle. Now I’m an addict.” I immediately mocked it.

Then something terrible and predictable happened.

Then came the inevitable.

A friend agreed to go with me at 7:30 pm last Monday. This is perhaps a good time to point out that SoulCycle is ridiculously expensive. Your first class is $20. After that it goes up to $30+. Twenty dollars poorer, I prepared to feel like an idiot and huff and puff and hate it, but I figured I would then write about how dumb it was. “Local Man Proclaims Vox Wrong” would be the headline.

So Monday comes and my friend flakes because friendship is just a construct. Going alone seemed far more daunting than going with her, and by 5 pm I was convinced I’m not going to go. My ankle hurts! I’m tired. Work work work. But I had paid that $20! I wasn’t going to let this be like Equinox. Not again. So I drag my lazy, crazy ass down to the first floor of our building.

I walk in and am immediately embarrassed. There are lots of women there waiting for the class to begin, and at first I see not a single other man. I approach the lady at the counter.

“Hi, I’m here for my first class and I’m very embarrassed and scared and please don’t laugh at me but if that’s a part of the ritual of the first time I understand.”

“OK, don’t worry. You’ll be fine.”

She directs me into a unisex locker room which immediately makes me wonder if I am the first straight man ever to do SoulCycle. (I am not.) I get into gym attire and put on cycle shoes. Cycle shoes are weird. There are like stupid clips on the bottom and you can’t walk properly with them. You walk like an idiot. I walked like an idiot, is what I’m trying to say.

We—maybe six men and 60 women—wait to go into the spin room. I do not make eye contact with anyone. The doors open and out comes the previous class. They are drenched in sweat. We enter—I apprehensive, they eager—and find our preassigned bikes. A second nice lady comes and asks if it’s my first time and helps me click my dumb shoes into the dumb bike. The room is very dark. She tells me that there are hand-weights under my seat. I do not know why I will need hand-weights. I babble on about how a friend was supposed to come with me but bailed. She does not believe my friend exists.

The music starts and the instructor, Kelly, arrives.

“Is it anyone’s first time?” Kelly shouts. I am too shy to acknowledge that it is my first time. “Great! So we all know what we’re doing.” I’m going to die. For the next 45 minutes we pedal to EDM while Kelly shouted inspiring buzzwords at us.

Some inspiring new age bullshit. Soulcycle

But it isn’t just pedaling. Remember the hand-weights? You do moves with them. You also do moves without hand-weights. A lot of it has a rhythmical dancing quality.

Here’s how the more seasoned Abad-Santos describes the experience:

The moves vary from crunches (while riding, you drop your elbows and support yourself through your abs) to tap-backs (you thrust your hips backward while riding out of the saddle), and many of them hit weird muscles you didn’t know existed. You’re also told to position yourself in a certain way (hips back, arms tucked close to your body, shoulders locked down, etc.) that ensures you’re getting a good workout.

There are “hills” — intervals where you crank up the resistance and pedal against it — where it feels like you’re moving your legs through thick mud. There are fast sprints that will make you gulp oxygen and feel like your lungs are leaking. There’s even an arms section where you curl and press your biceps and triceps until they fail, all while pedaling. You never stop pedaling; if you stop pedaling, a cannon sounds and you’re airlifted out of the arena. By the end of every class, I’ve left a small puddle of glistening sweat beneath my bike and my shirt is soaked through.

For some reason, I find all of this thrilling.

Here is the thing about SoulCycle: It totally is new age weirdness. It totally is a therapy session. It totally is a cult. It totally is really hard. But I get it! I get the allure! It’s fun. It’s releasing. It’s cathartic. It pushes you more than I’ve ever been able to push myself. Even those dumb cycle shoes shoes proved pretty cool! (They make it really hard to fall off the seat!)

Ivylise Simones

SoulCycle is like working out in a nightclub while someone tells you “it’s not your fault.”

And after you feel pretty great!

It’s probably not for everybody. But I like it. I’m going back. I bought the five class pack. I’m a cultist.

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Educated Liberal Journalist With Friends Pays Money to Join Bike Cult

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Scientists will never build a perfect climate model, but that’s OK

by CasimiraShephar Posted on May 14, 2015

model problems

Scientists will never build a perfect climate model, but that’s OK

By on 14 May 2015commentsShare

When we talk about climate models, it’s all all “uncertainty” this and “insufficiency” that — as though there’s some perfect, comprehenisve model of planet earth to compare them to. But no one criticizes NASA for building spacecrafts that aren’t the Starship Enterprise, because they know that the Starship Enterprise is fictional. The same is true for climate models — that perfect simulation doesn’t exist.

This video from Motherboard helps explain why that is (while also informing us that NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies happens to be right behind the Seinfeld diner — a great factoid to tuck away for later!).

Here’s the bottom line: Climate models translate the natural world into math. As anyone who’s ever taken a physics class can tell you, translating even the simplest things into math is hard. I mean, do you guys remember having to calculate how fast that bowling ball was going when it reached the bottom of that hill? Or how high that baseball went when Bob threw it up in the air? Or what happened when those two blocks crashed into each other?

Well, climate models have to do that kind of thing but for pretty much all water and air, everywhere around the globe, all at once. Not only is that hard, it’s literally impossible to do with perfect accuracy. Uncertainties are — and always will be — part of the deal.

We applaud NASA just for building spacecrafts in the first place, because holy shit, space flight is real! The same should be true for climate models. That perfect simulation is a fantasy, so let’s be realistic and appreciate what we have, because holy shit, we can simulate the world!

Oh, and for the record: Climate models are not responsible for forecasting local weather, so give it a rest, Glenn Beck:

Source:
The Most Important Models in the World

, Motherboard.

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Scientists will never build a perfect climate model, but that’s OK

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Today Is the 151st Birthday of All-Around Feminist Badass Nellie Bly

by JaniBesskhuhnk Posted on May 5, 2015

Mother Jones

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Today would be the 151st birthday of Elizabeth Cochran—the groundbreaking journalist better known as Nellie Bly. In 1885, Bly wrote a furious letter to a Pittsburgh newspaper denouncing a column titled “What Girls Are Good For” that described the working woman as a “monstrosity” and said that women were best suited for domestic chores.

Impressed by Bly’s letter, Pittsburgh Dispatch editor George Madden hired her as a full-time reporter under the pen name Nellie Bly. She was a trailblazing journalist, an unwavering champion for women and the working poor, and a brilliant muckracker. One of her most famous assignments was for the the New York World where she posed as a mentally ill woman and exposed the horrors of a women’s asylum on Blackwell’s Island.

Bly also achieved worldwide fame with her 1889 trip around the world, which was inspired by Jules Verne’s novel “Around the World in Eighty Days.” She completed her journey in seventy-two days. Below is the front page of the New York World from January 26, 1890 and the lead article was about her record-setting trip:

AP

To celebrate Bly’s birthday today, Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s has written a song in her honor, which is featured in a lovely Google Doodle created by artist Katy Wu.

Google

“We gotta speak up for the ones who’ve been told to shut up,” the lyrics go. “Oh Nellie, take us all around the world and break those rules cause you’re our girl.”

To check out the song and animation, skip to Google’s homepage here.

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Today Is the 151st Birthday of All-Around Feminist Badass Nellie Bly

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Cruz Campaign Accuses Paul and Rubio of Wimping Out on Gun Rights After Newtown

by ClarissSiggers Posted on April 21, 2015

Mother Jones

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With the gaggle of GOP 2016 presidential contenders growing, the Republican wannabes have largely refrained from assailing one another and have instead focused their wrath on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. But now Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has launched one of the first R-on-R attacks, and he has done so regarding an issue of primal importance to the Republican voting base: guns.

A few days ago, Cruz’s presidential campaign zapped out an email hitting up conservatives for donations. The solicitation showed Cruz, the tea party favorite, wearing a bright orange hunting vest, with a shotgun on his shoulder, and its message was stark: Send me money so I can support your Second Amendment rights, which “serve as the ultimate check against government tyranny.” Cruz warned that he was “under attack from the left-wing media and even Republicans who want to label me as an extremist—all for supporting a fundamental right.” And then he took a shot at the other GOP 2016 contestants: “I’m the only candidate running for President who not only believes in the Constitutional right to keep and bear arms—but has the record of fighting for it, tooth and nail.”

The only Republican 2016er who’s a proven crusader for gun rights? That was quite the claim—and a dig at everyone else in the crowded field, particularly the other GOPers who are competing for tea party and conservative voters. After all, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has declared himself a champion of gun rights. He has long supported the National Association for Gun Rights—a group that hypes itself as the conservative alternative to the NRA. Rand Paul often signs email solicitations for this outfit, such as one that asserted that President Barack Obama and the United Nations were plotting to “CONFISCATE and DESTROY ALL ‘unauthorized’ civilian firearms.'” (Paul was not invited to the NRA’s recent convention—because, NGAR president Dudley Brown claimed, “Paul is more pro-gun that the NRA.”) Paul has repeatedly moved to eviscerate the gun laws of Washington, DC. And prior to becoming a senator, he campaigned at a gun rights rally with armed militia members who noted that guns could be used to prevent “progressive socialists” from thwarting Second Amendment and other rights. That is, Paul has established a rather die-hard stance on guns.

Yet that did not stop Cruz from depicting himself as the only true and tested advocate for gun rights in the Republican’s 2016 gang. So what does the Paul campaign think of this Cruz attack? Paul campaign officials would not comment on the record. “We’ll pass for now,” spokesman Sergio Gor said—a suggestion that the Paul did not want to mix it up with Cruz at this point.

The same sentiment was not evident when I asked the Cruz campaign how Cruz could justify this implied assault on Rand Paul. Rick Tyler, a well-known conservative consultant working for Cruz, responded with a detailed email that essentially accused Paul and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), another GOP 2016 candidate, of wimping out at a key moment for the gun rights crowd:

From April 11-18, 2013 in the shadow of Newtown, CT, when the Democrats were lined up to hammer Republicans, Paul and Rubio never came to the floor to stand up for the Second Amendment when the Toomey-Manchin gun bill which would have required background checks on all commercial gun sales was being considered. On April 17, Cruz came to the floor promoting a bill (Grassley-Cruz) he co-authored which was the conservative alternative to Toomey-Manchin and which did not expand background checks and made it easier to purchase and transport guns against state lines. It got 52 votes including 9 from Democrats but failed the cloture vote. During that time Cruz and Lee were very aggressive in defending the Second Amendment including gathering stories for the Congressional Record of Americans who used a firearm in self-defense.

With this note, the Cruz campaign, rather than retreat from a political fight over who’s best on gun rights, made its assault on Paul and Rubio explicit, asserting that both Paul and Rubio failed the gun rights movement in its hour of need.

And once again, Paul’s campaign did not engage, declining to answer questions about Tyler’s amplification of the original criticism. Rubio’s campaign also did not respond to a request for comment.

Paul has insisted in the past that after the Newtown gun massacre, he quickly took steps to prevent any gun safety bills from advancing in the wake of that tragedy. On April 10, 2013, he wrote on CNN’s website, “Along with Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Ted Cruz of Texas, I circulated a letter promising to ‘oppose any legislation that would infringe on the American people’s constitutional right to bear arms, or on their ability to exercise this right without being subjected to government surveillance.'”

Following the Newtown tragedy, Paul considered Cruz an ally in the battle to beat back gun safety legislation. These days, Cruz is not returning the favor and looking to turn Paul and Rubio into targets in order to best them among a critical GOP constituency. The question is, how long will this remain a one-way fight?

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Cruz Campaign Accuses Paul and Rubio of Wimping Out on Gun Rights After Newtown

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Obama’s Foreign Policy: Frustrating, Perhaps, But Better Than Most of the Alternatives

by LeiaDeloach Posted on December 30, 2014

Mother Jones

I guess I missed this in the coverage yesterday about the official end of the war in Afghanistan:

The ceremony in Kabul honoring 13 years of mostly-American and British troops fighting and dying in Afghanistan had to be held in a secret location because the war has gone so badly that even the capital city is no longer safe from the Taliban.

That’s from Max Fisher, who also provides us today with a “highly subjective and unscientific report card for US foreign policy.” As top ten lists go, this one is worth reading as a set of interesting provocations, though I think Fisher errs by focusing too heavily on military conflicts. There’s more to foreign policy than war. Beyond that, I think he often ends up grading President Obama too harshly by judging him against ideal outcomes rather than the best plausible outcomes. Giving him a C+ regarding ISIS might be fair, for example, since it’s quite possible that quicker action could have produced a better result1. But a D- on Israel-Palestine? Certainly the situation itself deserves at least that low a grade, but is there really anything Obama could have done to make better progress there? I frankly doubt it. I’d also give him a higher grade than Fisher does on Ukraine and Syria (I think that staying out of the Syrian civil war was the right policy even though the results are obviously horrific), but a lower grade on China (A+? Nothing could have gone better?).

Overall, I continue to think that Obama’s foreign policy has been better than he gets credit for. He’s made plenty of mistakes, but that’s par for the course in international affairs. There are too many moving parts involved, and the US has too little leverage over most of them, to expect great outcomes routinely. When I look at some of the worst situations in the world (Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Israel-Palestine) I mostly see places that the US simply has little control over once you set aside straight-up military interventions. Unfortunately, that’s a big problem: the mere perception that an intervention is conceivable colors how we view these situations.

Take the long, deadly war in the Congo, for example. Nobody blames Obama for this because nobody wants us to send troops to the Congo—and everyone understands that once a military response is off the table, there’s very little we can do there. Conversely, we do blame Obama for deadly civil wars in places like Iraq and Syria. Why? Not really for any good reason. It’s simply because there’s a hawkish domestic faction in US politics that thinks we should intervene in those places. This, however, doesn’t change the facts on the ground—namely that intervention would almost certainly be disastrous. It just changes the perception of whether the US has options, and thus responsibility.

But that’s a lousy way of looking at things. US military intervention in the broad Middle East, from Lebanon to Somalia to Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya, has been uniformly calamitous. In most cases it’s not only not helped, but made things actively worse. No matter what Bill Kristol and John McCain say, the plain fact is that there’s very little the US can do militarily to influence the brutal wars roiling the Middle East and Central Asia. Once you accept that, Obama’s recognition of reality looks pretty good.

For the record, I’d give Obama an A or a B for his responses to Syria and Ukraine. Is that crazy? Perhaps. But the hard truth is that these are just flatly horrible situations that the US has limited control over. When I consider all the possible responses in these regions, and how badly they could have turned out, Obama’s light hand looks pretty good.

1Or maybe not. But it’s plausible that it might have.

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Obama’s Foreign Policy: Frustrating, Perhaps, But Better Than Most of the Alternatives

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