Day: February 19, 2016

Flies Under The Banner Of “American Exceptionalism”

There has been a bunch of debate about the term “American exceptionalism”…..I have argued that so much intervention by the US has it fighting battles that it should have avoided…..

I read an interesting article along those lines in the Washington Times…..(I know…go figure)…….

The modus operandi of the multi-trillion dollar military-industrial-terrorism complex (MITC) is as transparent as is Donald Trump’s narcissism.

The MITC manufactures conflicts by gratuitous interventions abroad. Then it demands trillions of dollars and limitless time to defeat the monsters it created.

The MITC bonanza never ends.

What stuns is not the modus operandi. All organizations covet expansion for the sake of expansion. What amazes is the willingness of the President, Congress, and the American people to feed a failed enterprise

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/feb/10/bruce-fein-military-industrial-terrorism-complex-t/print/

Please read and comment.  I am trying to help people see what is happening and it has little to do with some idle campaign promise or slogan……there are so many players that are playing the public like a cheap drum….and the media is a prime player in this drama…..

Take a little time and educate yourself…..it only hurts for a little while……

 Known unknowns and the fight against violent extremism

A professor friend on mine in Jordan ask me if I had seen this study…..he sent it to me in Arabic……He wanted my opinion of the conclusions that it was drawing on the fight against violent extremism….

المجاهيل المعروفة ومكافحة التطرف العنيف

Since I left the Middle East my Arabic has seen better days…..so I had to cheat and translate it so that I could get a good read and then give him my honest opinion……

Rumsfeldian logic has its uses in the field of counter-terrorism, where one of the key known unknowns remains whether violent extremism can, in fact, be prevented.

Source: ISS Africa | Known unknowns and the fight against violent extremism

The piece began with what I could only call a WTF moment……

The question took one into the realm of Rumsfeldian logic, Armitage said. He was referring, of course, to former United States secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld’s famous reply in February 2002, when asked about the lack of evidence linking the government of Iraq with the supply of weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups.

There were ‘known knowns … things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns, things we know we do not know,’ he said. ‘But there are also unknown unknowns; the ones we don’t know we don’t know,’ he added. These last were the difficult questions. Armitage suggested the ISS seminar topic ‘Can violent extremism be prevented?’ belonged to Rumsfeld’s second category, of ‘known unknowns.’ Nevertheless, Armitage then went on to suggest that there would always be some minority support for some form of violent extremism.

The article went on cover many of the events and situations that lead to extremism….I was thankful that it was more clearly articulated than what Rumsfeld had to say back in 2002…..

I sent my friend my analysis and I await his reply….

Read the article for yourself and let me know what you think…..this is not a study that one reads and then go off on some rant about people coming to get you…..it will require some thought and some analysis on the readers part……

Time awaits……..

McGovern and Mondale: Lessons for 2016

These days in the 2016 election process the media is scrambling to find ways to report on the rise of insurgent candidates like Sanders and Trump…..they try to explain it a way…….but they only have to look back at American political history…..look back to the candidacy of McGovern or Mondale for the Dems…..

As Bernie Sanders rises, many Democrats worry that he is the 2016 version of George McGovern.  For example, a February 14 NY Times story on the upcoming Nevada caucuses ended with a quote from a voter who “knocked on doors for McGovern” but who is now “scared of Bernie being the nominee.”

But while the Sanders/McGovern parallels are being debated, absent is a discussion of what happens electorally when Democrats pick the supposedly politically safe choice.  That’s what occurred in 1984, when Democrats picked Walter Mondale as their nominee over the new politics agenda of Gary Hart.

Many saw the pre-scandal Gary Hart as not only a bolder choice, but a politically stronger one. Mondale had the baggage of the Carter years (he was Vice-President), yet his long tenure in Washington DC made him the politically safe choice.

Source: McGovern and Mondale: Lessons for 2016 – LA Progressive

You are welcome for the historical perspective…….

It’s Miller Time!

2016: Time To Start To Worry?

Think back about 6 months ago and the beginning of this process…..in those days it was a given that Hillary Clinton would be the Dem nominee……and the focus was on the multitude of wannabes in the GOP……slowly but slowly Bernie has been making in-roads in the primaries and into the hearts of the voters….

Since he entered this race Bernie has gotten no breaks from the toads in the media…….now he is getting a little more attention because he is rising in the polls and in the minds of Americans…..

The time has come for the Clinton “nasty” machine to kick in….why is that?

….(sound the horns….let the peasants dance)…….

This is not the February that the Clinton campaign was expecting. After Hillary Clinton’s overwhelming loss to Bernie Sanders in the New Hampshire primary and just before the Nevada Democratic caucuses, she has fallen behind in a national poll for the first time. According to the latest Fox News poll, Sanders has gained 10% and is now leading Clinton 47% to 44% among Democratic primary voters nationwide. The poll found that while either Democrat would defeat GOP front-runner Donald Trump in a general election, Sanders would cruise to victory with 53% to Trump’s 38%, while Clinton would have a much narrower margin of victory at 47% to 42%.

“One thing that is clear from our poll—and others—is that Clinton has been losing support and Sanders has been gaining,” pollster Chris Anderson says. “And this process appears to have accelerated since the contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.” In CNN‘s “Poll of Polls,” Clinton is still ahead, with 48% to Sanders’ 42%, which is down from the 17% lead she enjoyed before the Iowa caucuses. But in South Carolina, which holds its Democratic primary on Feb. 27, Clinton is still way ahead with 56% support to 32% for Sanders, which analysts say reflects the strength of her “firewall” of minority voters. (For the first time in months, Trump has also fallen behind in a national poll.)

I realize this is only one poll….but Bernie is rising and the Clinton machine will go out of their way to push the negativity….

What price will Hillary be willing to pay to win?

Watch for attacks on Bernie as NOT being a Democrat…….if that does work then watch for the use of the “S” word……..

Hillary cannot play second fiddle…..again!

Democratic Primary Makes Clear: A Populist Revolution is Coming

This election, 2016, the newest term that the media is using ad nauseum is …..populist.

Trump has tapped in the is movement on the Right, according to the MSM and Bernie is doing so from the Left….

Again according to the media the country has found a new respect because of their anger with the way the government does business….

So is there a new “populist revolution” on the horizon?

And the answer is……..

The influential economist Thomas Piketty is the most recent trans-Atlantic observer to note that the “incredible success of the ‘socialist’ Bernie Sanders” is indicative of a deeper, populist movement that’s brewing across the United States.

Source: Democratic Primary Makes Clear: A Populist Revolution is Coming | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community