;)
The Commentariat -- October 30, 2015
Internal links removed.
Afternoon Update:
If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. -- Harry Truman
-- 2016 Republican Presidential Candidate
Abby Phillip & Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "With GOP anger over CNBC's handling of Wednesday night's Republican presidential debate boiling over, the Republican National Committee announced Friday that it was suspending its partnership with NBC News for an upcoming debate in February.In a letter to NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said that their relationship for the debate, scheduled for Feb. 26 at the University of Houston, was on hold 'pending further discussion.'" Thanks to Akhilleus for the link. ...
... Ashley Parker & Emily Steel of the New York Times: "The letter [from Priebus] seemed to be an attempt at damage control by the R.N.C., which many of the candidates felt had bungled its handling of the Republican debate process, after taking a more active role and 'sanctioning' debates' this year."
Helene Cooper & Peter Baker will deploy a small number of American Special Operations forces to Kurdish-controlled territory in northern Syria, a United States official said. The White House is expected to make the announcement on Friday...."
Ryan Felton of the Guardian: "St Louis police have arrested an individual in connection with a spate of arson cases at predominantly black churches. The suspect, a 35-year-old black male, was taken into custody on Thursday, said Schron Jackson, spokesperson for the St Louis police department."
Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post: "On Thursday night, just four days before the former Austin police officer was set to stand trial, a federal judge in Texas dismissed a manslaughter charge against Charles Kleinert in the 2013 shooting death of Larry Jackson Jr., an unarmed black man. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel cites a little known 1889 case that determined federal agents can be granted immunity from state criminal charges and undoes one of a handful of indictments handed down to police officers out of the thousands of fatal police shootings that have occurred in recent years." Kleinert "was a member of an FBI task force.... Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg said Thursday night that she has yet to determine if she will appeal the ruling."
*****
In the Middle of the Night. David Herszenhorn of the New York Times: "The Senate approved a crucial bipartisan budget agreement early on Friday that would avert a government default and stands to end nearly five years of pitched battles between congressional Republicans and the Obama administration over fiscal policy. The measure, which was approved 64 to 35, now goes to the White House, where President Obama is ready to sign it.... While Congress must still adopt spending bills for the next two years, the bill would substantially reduce the risk of a government shutdown by setting spending targets for two years and allowing Congress to return to its regular appropriations process." ...
... CW: Huh, Herszenhorn doesn't mention Rand Paul's promised filibuster. ... Oh, here's why:
... Ali Weinberg & Jessica Hopper of ABC News: "Sen. Rand Paul's so-called 'filibuster' against the budget deal, a move his campaign hyped repeatedly and which the Kentucky senator used as a rallying cry at [Wednesday] night's debate, wasn't a filibuster at all. In fact, it wasn't even a long speech. The presidential hopeful took to the Senate floor at 2:46 p.m. and ended his remarks less than twenty minutes later.... 'I will stand firm. I will spend every ounce of energy to stop [the deal],' he said [at the debate]. 'I will begin tomorrow to filibuster it....." And his campaign sought to raise money off the filibuster." See also Paul Krugman's column on GOP grifters. ...
... Cheap Trick. "In one fundraising email with the subject line 'I'm going to filibuster,' Paul asked supporters to donate $20.16." CW: So in clocking less than 20 minutes, Paul gave the suckers his supporters less than a dollar a minute for their contributions.
Mike Dorning of Bloomberg: "The White House plans to aggressively deploy President Barack Obama to rally Democrats to the polls for the 2016 election, particularly minority and young voters who are his strongest supporters."
Linda Greenhouse: "... the Roberts Court, having worked assiduously over the last 10 years to elevate the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause at the expense of its First Amendment twin, the Establishment Clause, is now approaching a moment of truth.
Alexander Burns of the New York Times: New York "Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo intends to take a lead role in a broad campaign pressing for a crackdown on the improper dealing of firearms.... Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, has pledged to throw his weight behind the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence ... in an as-yet-unannounced effort demanding that the Justice Department more closely scrutinize so-called bad apple gun merchants, according to people familiar with the campaign."
Reuters: "A rapid warming of the Gulf of Maine off the eastern United States has made the water too warm for cod, pushing stocks towards collapse despite deep reductions in the number of fish caught, a US study has shown. The Gulf of Maine had warmed faster than 99% of the rest of the world's oceans in the past decade, influenced by shifts in the Atlantic Gulf Stream, changes in the Pacific Ocean and a wider trend of climate change, it said."
Petula Dvorak of the Washington Post on that dancing D.C. cop. (See also yesterday's Commentariat.) CW: Here's what struck me: Aaliyah Taylor, the cop's "dance partner," said that "all seven of her siblings have been cuffed or arrested by police for nonviolent crimes, like breaking curfew.... And her brother and six sisters all told her that the police were rough on them."
David Sanger, et al., of the New York Times: Secretary of State John Kerry's biggest challenge during talks in Vienna to end the Syrian civil war "may well be reconciling the Saudis and the Iranians, longtime rivals who have turned Syria into the main battlefield in a broadening proxy war for dominance in the Middle East."
Carol Morello of the Washington Post: "Iran has arrested another American holding dual citizenship, bringing to four the number of Iranian Americans imprisoned in Tehran after they came under suspicion by hard-line security forces. Siamak Namazi, a businessman based in Dubai who is in his early 40s, was arrested earlier this month when he was visiting a friend in Tehran...."
Charlie Savage & Steven Erlanger of the New York Times: "Shaker Aamer, whose detention at the Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba attracted the attention of human rights lawyers, political leaders and rock stars, was freed on Friday after more than 13 years in captivity, British officials announced. Mr. Aamer, a Saudi citizen and British resident, was en route to London.... His transfer came one day after the military repatriated a Mauritanian man, Ahmed Ould Abdel Aziz." According to the headline, Aamer was the last Guantanamo prisoner from Great Britain.
Presidential Race
... Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "Republican presidential front-runner Ben Carson told reporters Thursday that he was reaching out to every rival campaign to lobby for changes to future debate formats (linked fixed).'Debates are supposed to be established to help the people get to know the candidate,' Carson said at a news conference before a speech at Colorado Christian University. 'What it's turned into is "gotcha!" That's silly. That's not helpful to anybody.'" ...
... CW: Carson suggested appropriate questions should be along the lines of "How much do you love America?" "What is your favorite color?" and "Is Barack Obama more like Hitler, Stalin or Mao?" And of course, "What's your favorite Bible verse?"
** Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "Thanks in part to CNBC's clumsy handling of the event and in part to the long-term and increasing rejection of traditional media on the right, presidential candidates were able to skate past legitimate critiques by claiming bias -- with the audience enthusiastically cheering them on." ...
** Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post: "The Republican presidential candidates are right. The media does suck. But not for the reasons the candidates complained about.... We in the media suck because we have rewarded their rampant dishonesty and buffoonery with nonstop news coverage. Which, of course, has encouraged more dishonesty and buffoonery." Read the whole column. ...
... Katie Zezima of the Washington Post: "Wednesday's Republican presidential debate became as much about the journalists who moderated it as it was about the candidates who answered -- or batted away -- their questions." Zezima has a good outline of Ben Carson's whopper in which he claimed he had no involvement with a shady company called Mannatech that sells nutritional supplements & "a good way for people to 'improve their financial situation.'" ...
Erik Wemple of the Washington Post notes that Republicans didn't rise up en masse against Fox "News" when in the August 6 GOP debate its hosts asked questions similar to those the CNBC hosts asked. ...
... CW: Donald Trump of course did have his famous fits about Megyn Kelly's questions, but if you recall, other Republicans, including the presidential candidates, rose up as one to defend Kelly against Trump.
CW: What I wrote yesterday, in flow-chart form. Via Betty Cracker of Balloon Juice:
"The Moon Is Square." Kevin Drum: "I'm used to politicians fudging and tap dancing during debates. All part of the game. But the number of flat-out lies in [Wednesday]'s debate was pretty stunning. Here are the four that stood out." See also Paul Krugman's column, linked below. ...
... ** "The GOP's Grotesque Festival of Lies." Brian Beutler: Conservatives have "figured out that denying documented reality and attacking the messenger can completely snow over the truth. That creates a big problem for journalists, who should view the attacks against Harwood and the others as an affront to the profession. It creates a bigger problem as the primary gives way to the general election.... If [Hillary] Clinton becomes the Democratic nominee, and nobody figures out how to counter [these] debate tactics, the problem will grow."
Josh Barro, a conservative economics reporter for the New York Times, analyzes the GOP candidates' tax plans. Bottom line: pie-in-the-sky assumptions, big savings for the rich, huge deficits. Excellent! ...
... CW: Ted Cruz boasted Wednesday night that his tax plan has "the lowest personal rate any candidate up here has." Well, yeah, but what Tricky Teddy forgot to tell you was that on top of the 10 percent personal income tax, he would impose a 16 percent value-added tax (VAT). Barro: "Added up across the whole economy, Mr. Cruz's VAT would be equivalent to a very broadly based sales tax, applying even to services like health care that are ordinarily exempt from sales taxes. Like a sales tax, this tax would be built into prices and paid by consumers -- and for many lower-income households, it would be a far greater burden than the income tax." Rand Paul has a similar plan to add a hefty VAT tax (tho not as hefty as Ted's). what a slimy bunch of bastards. All. of. them. ...
... Dylan Matthews of Vox: Ted Cruz's tax "proposal, outlined in a Wall Street Journal op-ed..., is legitimately shocking -- it will cost trillions upon trillions of dollars and lead to an enormous tax cut for the richest Americans." ...
... Jon Cassidy of the New Yorker on GOP economic policy: "In a Republican primary, making tough policy choices and trying to be substantive doesn't necessarily pay off. Small wonder that the debates tend to be food fights, instead." ...
... "Republican Economics in 3 Words: Push Wealth Upwards." Charles Pierce: "The Republican party remains committed, root and branch, to plutocratic economics, to the fiction of the trickle-down, to the restorative powers of supply-side snake oil. On this, there is no room for debate. Which is why, among other things, it was hilarious to watch Tailgunner Ted Cruz and the rest of them try to turn CNBC (and the likes of Rick Santelli) into Pravda On Wall Street.... Right now, on my television set, the House of Representatives is wildly applauding the elevation to the Speakership of Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny-starver from the state of Wisconsin, first runner-up in our most recent vice-presidential pageant, and the longtime respectable face for the economic policies of which Marco Rubio is the logical end, and as thoroughgoing a knave as ever has held that gavel. Things are looking up." See also David Brooks's column, linked below!
** ... The Grifters. Paul Krugman: "... Mr. Carson lied. He has indeed been deeply involved with Mannatech.... PolitiFact quickly rated his claim false, without qualification. But the Republican base doesn't want to hear about it, and the candidate apparently believes, probably correctly, that he can simply brazen it out. These days, in his party, being an obvious grifter isn't a liability, and may even be an asset.... Insider politicians like Marco Rubio are simply engaged in a different, classier kind of scam -- and they are empowered in part by the way the grifters have defined respectability down.... As the historian Rick Perlstein documents, a 'strategic alliance of snake-oil vendors and conservative true believers' goes back half a century." Krugman explains of why GOP candidates get away with these lies. ...
... CW: I am happy to see someone at the New York Times using the word "lied." I'm sick of euphemistic journalism that bowdlerizes & sanitizes lies as "misstatements" or "misspeaking." One can "misspeak" -- ask Jeb! -- but denying facts known to you is lying. ...
... And now for a word from the New York Times' Designated Grifter David Brooks: "... Republicans could wind up with two new leaders going into this election, Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan. That's a pretty excellent outcome.... Of all the candidates, Rubio has done the most to harvest the work of Reform Conservatism, which has been sweeping through the think tank world. In a year in which many candidates are all marketing, Rubio is a balance of marketing and product. If Ryan and Rubio do emerge as the party's two leaders, it will be the wonkiest leadership team in our lifetime. That's a good thing." ...
... CW: In describing Marco's tax policy in glowing terms, for some reason Brooks forgets to mention (a) it will be a boon for the super-rich, shift the tax burden to the middle class & balloon the deficit, and (b) lied about it on national teevee. But, hey, the Times allows its Designated Grifter only 800 words. Maybe he'll get to that next week. ..
... ** Update: Contributor Islander points to "a remarkable blog entry" by Paul Krugman, countering Brooks' assertion that "... it's probably not sensible to get too worked up about the details of any candidate's plans. They are all wildly unaffordable. What matters is how a candidate signals priorities." Remarkable, indeed. The content of Krugman's post, titled "Policy and Character," is essential reading. Aside from that, Krugman & Brooks have a longstanding feud on account of Brooks' wilful ignorance of economics. But because they must adhere to some degree to the Gray Lady's Book of Etiquette, the two seldom name each other when they take their potshots. Today, it seems, Krugman has decided that Brooks went a bridge too far in his joyful endorsement of Marco's "wildly unaffordable" plan.
American Dreamboat. Frank Rich: Marco Rubio "is nothing if not slick and glib. His response to every tough question is always the same. He invokes his father, a bartender, and his mother, a hotel maid. He sanctifies himself as the living proof of the power of the American dream.... As the debate once again demonstrated, [Ben Carson] babbles platitudes, generalities, and utter nonsense; lies about his own history (including as a peddler of a suspect patent medicine); and seems to regard his own ascent in politics as akin to the Second Coming.... Bush is finished.... History will look back at him, if it looks at all, as a world-class fool and the last exhausted gasp of a GOP that no longer exists." ...
... Steve Benen: "There's no denying that when Rubio sticks to his memorized talking points, he knows how to deliver them well. I'm not sure what this has to do with being an effective president, but it's a skill that seems to work on television. But when the same candidate in the same debate shows that he can't think quickly on his feet, and his understanding of the issues can charitably be described as superficial, perhaps that matters, too?" ...
... Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker: "Rubio is about to go through a period of much more intensive media scrutiny [of his personal finances]. Complaining about media bias won't be enough to get him through it." See also David Catanase's story linked below; Jeb! is going to help with oppo research.
... Seung Min Kim, et al., of Politico: "Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid tore into Sen. Marco Rubio on Thursday, calling on the Florida Republican and 2016 presidential contender to resign his Senate seat as he racks up no-shows on his voting record while campaigning for the White House. 'Why shouldn't he [resign]? He hates the Senate,' Reid said in an interview with Politico on Thursday. 'Why should the taxpayers of this country and people of Florida put up with having only one senator? Doesn't seem fair to me.'"
Tim Egan: "... the fish stinks from the head down.... [Jeb] Bush owns this debacle, the third in a row. The debate broke him. And the only question remaining is whether he's deliberately managing a slow exit consisting of cringe-worthy moments, or if there's something deep in his subconscious driving him to quit." And other debate malfeasance. ...
... Janet Kasperkevic of the Guardian: "Not only did ... [Jeb Bush] have a disappointing showing in Wednesday's Republican debate, he has also managed to upset people who cannot even vote for him -- the French. While taking a jab at Florida senator Marco Rubio for missing Senate votes due to being on the campaign trail, Bush made a reference to the 'French work week'. 'You should be showing up to work. I mean, literally, the Senate, what is it, like a French work week? You get like three days where you have to show up?'... Gérard Araud, French ambassador to the US, pushed back on Twitter. 'The French work an average of 39.6 hours a week compared to 39.2 for the Germans,' he said."... A French newspaper the Local ran a piece with the headline, 'White House race stoops to French bashing, again'." ...
The Bush Family Problem. David Frum, one of Dubya's speechwriters, in the Atlantic: Jeb Bush "arrived at both the second and third debates with plans of attack against his chief rivals of the moment: Donald Trump last time, Marco Rubio this time. Both times, he failed to anticipate and prepare for the most obvious opponent reaction. What followed were humiliating climb-downs by Bush." ...
... CW: Frum's column is worth a read. He knows Jeb!, & his analysis of Jeb!'s shortcomings is right on. Of course Frum's critique is of debate performance, not of Jeb!'s ability to handle the presidency. Ay, there's the rub. The Bush boys never think past their own actions. It does not occur to them that their opponents may actually counter their attacks rather than thanking the boys for correcting them. Ergo, the debacle of the Iraq War & the "Bush Doctrine." ...
... David Catanese of US News: After meeting with top donors in Houston Monday, Jeb "Bush's team distributed a 45-page PowerPoint presentation to select reporters, summarizing an optimistic view of the race.... But in that leak to select media, the campaign purposely left out more than half of what was furnished behind closed doors. The full presentation, obtained exclusively by U.S. News, spans 112 pages and includes a trove of new details.... While the slides released to the media outlined Bush's overarching argument against Florida Sen. Marco Rubio -- that he's the GOP's Barack Obama -- the complete offering contains more biting, detailed slights, pointedly questioning the character and ethics of Bush's home state rival.... [One page is] titled 'Marco Is A Risky Bet,' and it bullet-points Rubio's 'misuse of state party credit cards, taxpayer funds and ties to scandal-tarred former Congressman David Rivera.'"
It is important to remember that amateurs built the Ark and it was the professionals that built the Titanic. -- Ben Carson, in a tweet, on why he is qualified to be president
Leaving aside the rip-tooting craziness of citing a popular Biblical myth as evidence of one's own competency, I have news for Dr. Bible Thumper. The architect of the ark in the Noah story was no amateur:
So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit high all around. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. -- God, to Noah (Genesis 6:14-16)
Ole Doc, who probably believes this Bible story was a real historical event, is either calling the Almighty an amateur (which sounds heretical to me), or -- more likely -- he is suggesting that he, Ben Carson, would make a good president because God will be his "architect." Either way, gob-smacking loony & bone-chilling scary.
Oh, & Ole Doc -- excellent historian that we know him to be -- gets the Titanic story mostly wrong, too. It is true that the ship had too few lifeboats (tho the number exceeded the legal requirement, suggesting regulatory lapse), & there is new speculation that its rivets may have been too weak. But the immediate causes of the ship's hitting an iceberg were the result of (a) unique natural phenomena (acts of, um, God!) & (b) multiple errors the captain & crew made, not mistakes in the design & build. -- Constant Weader
... digby uploads one of Ole Doc's "not-involved" videotaped endorsements of Mannatechs' snake oil. "... endorsement doesn't necessarily mean he was paid. In fact if he wasn't it raises the more important question as to whether he believes this snake oil cures diseases like Alzheimers. It sure sounds like he does.... Carson and his fellows are quick to call Obama's and Clinton's judgment into question. This seems like a good reason to call Carson's into question. Does he think this snake oil cures diseases? Or does he just not realize that when a renowned doctor endorses such a product as he does in that video that it might lead people to think so?" ...
... CW: In fact, Carson endorsed Mannatech's products during the debate. "Do I take the product? Yes. I think it's a good product." A retailer can't do much better than having a popular presidential candidate (who, because of his professional background, should also be an expert on the qualities of the product) endorse that product during a presidential debate that garnered 14 million viewers.
Beyond the Beltway
Jess Bidgood of the New York Times: "Owen Labrie, who was found guilty of having sex with an underage girl while the two were students at the elite St. Paul's School [in Concord, N.H.], was sentenced Thursday to a year in jail and five years of probation. Mr. Labrie, 20, stood straight as the sentence was read. 'You're going to do a year in the House of Corrections and probation,' the judge, Larry M. Smukler, told him.... Labrie must also register as a sex offender."
News Lede
New York Times: "A judge in Poland on Friday turned down a request by the United States for the extradition of the filmmaker Roman Polanski, who is wanted over a 1977 conviction for having sex with a 13-year-old girl. At a hearing in Krakow, Judge Dariusz Mazur ruled that turning over Mr. Polanski would be an 'obviously unlawful' deprivation of liberty, and he added that California was unlikely to be ready to humanely incarcerate the 82-year-old filmmaker, given his age."
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Reader Comments (10)
Just read the Driftglass liveblog of the, er....debate-whatchamacallit-thingy that defiled the entire ecosystem of Colorado the other night, spewing out a brown cloud of such noxious bullshit that had Lewis and Clark encountered such an ecological disaster in 1804, they would have paid Sacajawea every shekel they'd gotten from Jefferson for some halfway decent peyote.
The thing was funnier than David Brooks writing about how he prefers Motel 6 to the old school five star hotels he usually stays at. Something about an iron, like he knows how to press his monogrammed Brooks Brothers dress shirts. Probably thinks it's something one uses to brain hotel staff who don't speak fluent Wingnut.
Further on in the Bump article referenced above, his attempt at news media (and his own) mea culpa offered a pretty pathetic excuse for the pile of steaming dung that currently passes for journalism.
"Over that same time period (2000 on), the media on the whole has shifted. In a world that's centered on the Internet and its always-changing idiosyncrasies, major outlets (including The Washington Post and Fox News) now mix hard reporting with analysis and opinion more than was once the case. The Post produces a lot of articles every day, some percentage of which will anger someone, somewhere -- and perhaps prompt them to write us off as hopelessly partisan in one direction or the other. Things I have written with the goal of being amusing have probably caused readers to view the entire Post -- including our excellent reporting -- with skepticism. I'm part of this shift. "
I guess he's trying to be loyal to WPO. Hmmmm. How about newspapers engaging in zilch investigation that result in random blurts designed to gain readership at the expense of integrity and facts. "Opinion" shouldn't mean facts and reasoned argument are left under the bed competing with dust bunnies and porn mags. The "shift" sounds so much better than the wholesale decision to generate crawl lines and headlines that celebrate terminal stupid and wrong. The GOP human surveillance blimps slipped their tethers long ago and the media provide the scissors to cut the line.
Hard questions with follow-up questions and actual analysis, can only be seen in fossil displays now.
@Marie
Paul Krugman has just posted a remarkable blog entry "Policy and Character" in which he expresses his disagreement with a pro-Marco Rubio column by David Brooks. Professor Krugman wrote this morning: "... I’d argue that it’s a really bad mistake to wave away policy silliness with a boys-will-be-boys attitude. Policy proposals tell us a lot about character — and the history of the past 15 years says that journalists who imagine that they can judge character from the way people come across on TV or in personal interviews are kidding themselves, and misleading everyone else."
In more Way Beyond the Beltway news and analysis, VOX reports Obama's second thoughts on testing kids and teachers to death.
http://www.vox.com/2015/10/29/9638652/standardized-tests-obama-duncan
Flipping a flop? or actually learning something--pedagogic or political--and changing one's mind as a result?
Imagine! Despite all the alluring analogies, and the push from pervasive neo-liberal rhetoric which would reduce everything to a producer/consumer economic relationship, just maybe schools are not businesses or sports franchises, and kids are not widgets, after all...
Okay, so let's, for the sake of argument, give Dr. Ben his head and allow his cutesy little Christianist epigram (they're legion) about how the amateur expedition went off with significantly more success than that of the professionals several thousands of years later.
The not so veiled implication is that he, Dr. Ben, would, by analogy, make a much better president than, say, Hillary Clinton, who by analogy, would be a disaster of epic, if professional, proportion.
So let's do a quicky review of how it went for Noah. Putting aside the time issue (according the Bible, it took Noah 120 years to build the Ark, never mind the flood and its aftermath--is Carson suggesting we change his term of office to a century or more?), let's consider the feat of constructing this thing and then rounding up several million species of animals (likely closer to five million) then storing enough water and the correct kind of food for each animal for a year's time.
Oh, and don't forget, for young earthers (we'll assume Carson is one; it's not a huge assumption given all the other goofy crap he believes in) this also means dinosaurs (we know of 300 individual dinosaur species but paleobiologists suggest there were probably hundreds more "Add on another million square cubits, guys! Fucking brontosauruses!") in addition to the lions and tigers and bears and--oh my--a gigantic shitload of insects and birds.
So how did Noah round up all these things? How, for instance, did he get from the middle east to the South Pole? To Madagascar, Polynesia, Central America, Tierra del Fuego, Australia? Bible apologists have an answer. Goddidit. God did it all. He rounded up all the varied species and had them delivered to the Ark's doorstep. No word on whether some were delivered by biblical drones.
Also all the fish and whales and sea creatures could just swim alongside the Ark (god took care of that too) for the year the planet was submerged (another huge problem--enough water to cover the earth to a depth of over five miles? Never mind, god fixed that one as well), and oh yeah, god would probably have had the foresight to give Noah baby dinosaurs. ("Oh, how cute. Baby T-Rex just ate Baby Allosaurus.") Problem solved, right?
Oh, and what about the boat? The one described in the Bible is pretty big, but big enough for millions of species, food, water, and Noah's family too? Not to worry. Goddidit. Then there's the problem of every single blade of grass, every tree, and every grain plant dead after being under water for a year. How long before any food could be grown to feed all these animals and people. Years? Answer? God.
It's the best Get Out of Rationality card ever played. Some kind of intractable problem of time, physics, biology, and simple logistics? God fixes it.
So is that Carson's plan? An Amateurish Presidency in office for 120 years and god to fix any problems?
Ah.....lemme think about that for a minute.
No.
Next?
Left standing. Or should that be Right standing?
We're still long wearying months from a primary that means anything (Iowa is...well, Iowa) but it's never too soon for barely supported, questionable prognostication. Besides, what else you got to do? Read more lies?
After the latest round of Republican Rape and Pillage, we can make out a few shapes in the hazy distance, over there where media figures are being burned in effigy (and maybe a couple in actuality) by drooling winger slobs.
Trumpy is whining that Carson is kicking his ass in Ioway. This has prompted some pretty embarrassing shit: crying in front of onlookers, wheedling those who might be contacted in the next round of polls to please, please, please, be for him because he's a better Christian than anyone ever! PLEEEASE. Jesus, Donald, leave us have some dignity, will you? The upshot of this is that there's a chance that Trump will fold if he starts to tank in the polls. He says he's in it for the long haul but he's not one to fight from the middle of the pack. None of that for him. If he can't be presumptive victor, leading wire to wire, my feeling is that he'll take his ball and go home, whining all the way, the Trumpy brand front and center as it's never been.
Carson has nothing to lose. He'll be in it until someone beats him by 30 points in three or four consecutive primaries. He's not electable anyway and no serious money will flow to his campaign when it's really needed.
Li'l Randy is one of those jokes you try telling when you're drunk and can barely remember the set up, never mind the punch line. One you're sorry for even trying in the first place. His ship has sailed and he's stuck at the dock filibustering the stevedores who wonder who's the guy with the wig and what the fuck is he talking about anyway?
Christie, the world's first piece of toast that whines even before it's buttered. He's a bully but not even the biggest bully in this race. See ya.
Jindal, Kasich, Graham, Pataki and all those other guys at the bottom. E finito. Thanks for playing. Come back again sometime.
Fiorina may hang around for a bit but when the real money starts to come out in the primaries, she may not be able to stay in the game. Despite her claims, she drove a major company into the ground then ran away with millions in her back pocket, thousands of pink slips in her wake.
So that really leaves Cruz, Rubio, and Jeb!
Jeb! looks like he hates this thing and he's having to scale back to save money. Not what you'd expect from the guy who was the presumptive winner just a few months ago. If he hangs around for a few primaries, several low single digit results will be all she wrote. At least he can forget about that stupid Paleo Diet and go back to Oreos and nachos.
So that means Cruz and Rubio. Two 'baggers cut from similar cloth. They're both slick and able to provide non-answers or answers that attack someone or something else. I don't know who the droolers prefer, but I'm betting it will be Cruz. He may not be a party favorite, but a lot of voters don't give a rat's ass who the party wants this year.
Neither Cruz nor Rubio, nor even Jeb!, should he get some kind of brain and heart transplant, have demonstrated that they can play in the big leagues. I think Cruz's non-answers and media attacks will work in winger primaries but perhaps not so well going up against Hillary in a big debate. They can waggle their dicks at cable TV moderators, but they can't get away with that bullshit with someone like Hillary at the opposite podium.
Any way you look at it, it's a dismal outcome. I don't want to be so bold as to say none of these guys will beat Hillary because she's shown that she can beat herself with no help from anyone.
Should Trumpy defy expectations and hold on that long, there will be increased (or should be) curiosity and questions about his secret plans to fix everything and make America Great Again. He has no plans, of course. But it remains to be seen whether the ugliness and bullying that make him such a hero to wingers will succeed with a majority of voters who could be mighty tired of his Mr. Hardass song and dance by then and could not stomach the embarrassment of putting a reality show self-promoting monkey in the White House.
Cruz v. Clinton?
Could be. Cruz has been playing it pretty cagey so far; his weasel quotient is off the charts. But his own party hates him. That may recommend him to many of the 'baggers and "libertarians" who might not trust Rubio or Jeb.
Gonna be a long season.
So we're sending "50" special operations forces into Syria to supposedly "train" the local forces.....
Does anyone believe this is going to make any differences whatsoever? We've spent billions on "training" the national security forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan and both are hopelessly unfit for their responsibilities. At least these institutions have the strategic advantaged of being nationally-coordinated and state-backed networks (in theory), but now we're talking about 50 soldiers to "train" the local "moderates". And to boot, no one seems to confirm whether Syria has accepted that we send in our own soldiers into its sovereign territory. Sounds like a clusterfuck in the waiting to me.
We've got allies surrounding Syria's borders where we could easily set up shop, drive in the supposed "moderates", train them under much safer circumstances, and then send them in with their shiny new weapons (crossing our fingers they don't end up handing the weapons over to the fundamentalists, of course). Given this reality, I'm not believing this dialogue of training rebels and instead see this as a first shadowed attempt leading to what we saw just the other day with U.S. soldiers "assisting" a training missions to free ISIS hostages.
As Pierce's article from today mentions the importance of listening and paying attention to the asides and follow-ups more than the scripted discourse, this addition from the Defense Sec. Ashton Carter sounds eerily foreboding to the Syria situation:
“We'll do more raids,” Carter said at a Pentagon news briefing. “It doesn't represent us assuming a combat role. It represents a continuation of our advise-and-assist mission.”
Link: http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-us-army-identifies-soldier-20151023-story.html
Either be straight up with the American people and say we're sending boots on the ground into combat missions or do everything to avoid it. The Pentagon and the Obama administration has been extremely flaky about what our military is up to in the Middle East (and beyond) and it seems like a very scary direction to be going, regardless which party is sitting in the White House.
The Confederacy's War on Truth and the Media continues unabated.
Today, the RNC let NBC know that because of the questions their candidates were subjected to during the CNBC "debate", the wee-wee expended by said candidates was enough to float Reince Preibus's desk down the hallway and they're not going to stand for that anymore.
It's bad enough that they are asked to defend their lies, but then to have a reporter with the gall to actually tell them they're lying?
Un-fucking-acceptable.
So here's what's gonna happen now. If you've read Marie's take on this, questions like "What's your favorite color?" and "How much do you love America?" will replace things like "Why are your budget calculations so devoid of any knowledge of actual mathematics?"
The Littlest Liar, upon hearing of the RNC's hissy fit with NBC, and employing his usual royal "we" (or maybe that was royal wee-wee), whined that "We hope networks and future moderators realize that what happened in Colorado should never have occurred". Yes, what happened was that reporters asked questions of substance and that should never happen.
And as they've already discovered, such complaints are taken to heart by a supine media, owned by corporate conglomerates with more than one horse in this race, and future "debates" will be dumbed down even further than they are now.
For the next debate, all Confederates left standing will be allowed to appear onstage with flags draped around their unimpeachable persons, ivy around their temples and pictures of Jesus and George Washington behind them. They will ask and answer their own questions and each will have an uninterrupted hour during which to pontificate shamelessly.
Meanwhile, since Democrats have been treated so kindly, Confederates are also demanding that from here on out, right through the general, Democratic candidates be tied to a chair with a single light bulb over their heads and be beaten with truncheons until they admit to desiring the takeover of the United States of Confederates by agents of porno-loving Muslim commie child rapers who worship poisonous snakes and hate Jesus.
Can't wait.
Visited Driftglass and clicked on a link to 'Morning Joe' in which Joe thunders on about Rubios' LIES! LIES! LIES! and challenges Chuck Turd who weakly murmurs lies?, well, urr, ur. Well, not....
Encapsulates everything that's wrong with 'Feed The Press'.
Similarly the comment of a MSM guru who concluded that "the GOP will coalesce around the most conservative candidate who is electable." Which not only ignores that none are electable but also that none are even worthy of consideration.
Is it happenstance or cunning that the GOP is following the survival strategy of fish in schools or birds in flocks in that individually each candidate is deeply flawed but en masse in a debate format there is no time to explore the individual crimes, actual or proposed, against America?
Although JEB! continues to shoot himself in the foot, I just can't write him off yet. He's the kind of Republican, whose lying and ignorance is acceptable. He is a familiar quantity and well....he's related to 2 former presidents. Compare the Georges to the current frightening rejects. He must have gotten some of the "presidential" by osmosis right? The money interests have to be able to control a GOP president. Whether for reasons of arrogance or mental illness, Cruz, Carson and Trump would not respond to dictates. I still think it will come down to JEB! and Rubio. If Rubio can be sold as a kind of contemporary GOP Jack Kennedy, he'll be the nominee.
Hilary just needs to remain steady, continue to move forward and keep Bill firmly in hand. The more angry whining about who is allowed to host the GOP big adventure the better for Dems. The more chaos the better for Dems.