Day: September 13, 2016

Is The Tide Going Out On Hillary?

A few months ago Hillary was the undisputed leader of the pack when it comes to this election…..slowly but slowly her lead has been sliding down the toilet….

I would have expected her to be the frontrunner again by a wide margin after the Forum on national security aired on NBC…..not happening.

In reading through the American Conservative I read an opinion piece by Pat Buchanan….not someone that I turn to for his cutting edge opinion pieces but in this case his was a good look at what is happening to Clinton at this late date in the election cycle…..

Were the election held today, Hillary Clinton would probably win a clear majority of the Electoral College.

Her problem: the election is two months off.

Sixty days out, one senses she has lost momentum—the “Big Mo” of which George H.W. Bush boasted following his Iowa triumph in 1980—and her campaign is in a rut, furiously spinning its wheels.

The commander in chief forum Wednesday night should have been a showcase for the ex-secretary of state’s superior knowledge and experience.

Instead, Clinton looked like a witness before a grand jury, forced to explain her past mistakes and mishandling of classified emails at State.

Source: Is the Tide Going Out on Hillary? | The American Conservative

While I have NO love for the Clintons…..I have even less respect for the Trump group……this election has turned into a sloppy insult-fest….issues are NO longer important…..or needed.

This election is turning into an actual race to the finish…that is if you believe the polls….and polls are about as accurate as my predictions of food fads.

This has been fun

But now my day is done

I depart with sorrow

Only to return tomorrow

With the approach of the morning sun.

“Masterminds” Under Every Rock

Osama was a mastermind….Baghdadi is a mastermind…..yep there are more terror “masterminds” than there are hairs on your head……

We have killed Osama…..Baghdadi has been killed or wounded at least twice…..and the news has come out that some”mastermind” in Syria has been killed….but killed by whom?  Both US and Russia are claiming that this person has been killed…..

My point is that apparently every person we say we have killed has been a “mastermind”……

If you are inclined to believe much of the corporate media, the world is apparently teeming with terrorist “masterminds” – dead or alive.

I was reminded of this media concoction while digesting a spate of hyperbolic stories about the still-disputed killing of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group’s chief spokesman and the group’s alleged No 2, Abu Mohamed al-Adnani, in Syria in late August.

Before and after his reported death, Adnani was repeatedly referred to as a “terrorist mastermind” by the western press. (The White House has expressed doubts about whether Adnani was, in fact, killed in an air strike.)

Source: The world is apparently awash in terror ‘masterminds’ – Al Jazeera English

To me it is just another use of the media as a propaganda tool…..to make the reader feel as if all is well and all is successful.  If that we true then this endless war should have been over years ago…..

With the deaths of all these “masterminds” it seems that recruits are not showing up to serve……(this article is from WaPo….please take it as you will….personally I am suspicious of anything this paper has to say)

The flow of foreign fighters to the ranks of the Islamic State — once a mighty current of thousands of radicalized men and women converging on Syrian and Iraqi battlefields from nations across the globe — has been cut to a trickle this year as the group’s territory has shrunk and its ambitions have withered.

The decline, officials and experts say, has been dramatic, prolonged and geographically widespread, with the number of Europeans, Americans, North Africans and others joining up to fight and die for the idea of a revived Islamic caliphate falling as precipitously as the terrorist group’s fortunes.

From a peak of 2,000 foreign recruits crossing the Turkey-Syria border each month, the Islamic State and other extremist groups operating in Syria are down to as few as 50, according to U.S. intelligence assessments.

Source: Flow of foreign fighters plummets as Islamic State loses its edge – The Washington Post

Just how many “masterminds” are there?  Or is this just a clever ploy to get more readership?

I am trying to confirm all this but so far I am having a problem….so again take the info as you will.

Well That Is Just Sick! (In Medical Terms)

Just when I thought that these last 60 days or so was going to be pretty mundane….and then…..BAM!

This election has something for everybody…that is almost everybody….if you are a voter that wants to hear about issues and solutions then this time around you are sorely disappointed.

That aside…..for about a month Mr. Trump and his minions have been passing the story that Clinton is seriously ill and because of that she is not capable of being the president.

It seems that a couple of days ago the lackeys prophecies have been strengthened……why is that?

Over last weekend Clinton had an episode……

Hillary Clinton abruptly left a 9/11 anniversary ceremony Sunday after feeling “overheated,” according to her campaign, and hours later her doctor disclosed that the Democratic presidential nominee had pneumonia, the AP reports. A video showed Clinton slumping and being held up by three people as she was helped into a van after the event, and her doctor said in a statement that Clinton had become overheated and dehydrated. “I have just examined her and she is now rehydrated and recovering nicely,” Dr. Lisa R. Bardack said in a statement. The physician said Clinton has had an allergy-related cough, and that during a follow-up examination Friday, the candidate was diagnosed with pneumonia, put on antibiotics, advised to rest and modify her schedule.

Less than two months from Election Day, it was an unwanted visual for Clinton as she tries to project the strength and vigor needed for one of the world’s most demanding jobs. Republican rival Donald Trump has spent months questioning Clinton’s health, saying she doesn’t have the stamina to be president. Trump, who attended the same event marking the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, was noticeably restrained. Asked by a reporter about Clinton’s health incident, Trump said, “I don’t know anything.” After Clinton’s departure from the event, spokesman Nick Merrill said Clinton had gone to her daughter’s nearby apartment. Clinton exited the apartment on her own shortly before noon. She waved to reporters and said, “I’m feeling great. It’s a beautiful day in New York.”

Even though she sez she is “feeling great”…..the story is there and the questions remain…….especially from the toads lurking behind the coattails of Trump……

Concerns about Hillary Clinton’s health have gone from conspiracy theory to what analysts are calling a major campaign issue. After she abruptly left a 9/11 memorial event early Sunday, her doctor disclosed that she had been diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday and was advised to rest. The campaign now says that Clinton has canceled a Monday and Tuesday trip to California that would have involved several fundraising appearances as well as a major economic speech and an appearance on Ellen, the Washington Post reports. In other coverage:

  • Clinton’s physician, Dr. Lisa R. Bardack, said Clinton was “overheated and dehydrated” at the 9/11 event but is now “rehydrated and recovering nicely,” the New York Times reports. Bardack didn’t say what kind of pneumonia Clinton has or whether she had a fever Sunday.
  • Politico reports that political journalists strongly criticized the campaign’s handling of Clinton’s illness, while Clinton allies downplayed the issue—and even praised her stamina. “‘Powering through’ illness is what women do: Stoically, every. single. day,” tweeted former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm.
  • CNN spoke to a doctor about Clinton’s stumble and the subsequent news of pneumonia. Ford Vox says neither is at all unusual in somebody Clinton’s age, though there’s certainly a chance of other underlying health issues.
  • The Los Angeles Times reports that the incident has renewed calls for the release of detailed health records from Clinton, who is 68, and her 70-year-old rival. “This is the kind of thing that voters have a right to understand before they cast a vote,” says GOP strategist Katie Packer, who doesn’t support either candidate. “Both Trump and Hillary are elderly. They are obligated to release full medical records and full tax returns to the American people. And the media, party leaders, and American people should settle for nothing less.”
  • The Washington Post looks at the “intense privacy” that has long surrounded Clinton’s health after incidents like a 1998 blood clot in her leg that she later described as her “scariest moment.”
  • The Telegraph looks at what might happen if health issues force Clinton to quit the race.
  • Politico reports that some Trump supporters gleefully celebrated her illness on social media, though Trump himself has declined to comment. A lobbyist who raises money for Trump says he hopes the candidate will be able to remain “very careful and sensitive, and not reinforce the worse things people think about him.”

It will be interesting to see how her support staff tries to spin this….because we know that Trump and the boyz will NOT let this go, right?

Clinton is the nominee for the Dems….but let’s say that something goes horribly wrong and Clinton must drop out of the election race…..what will happen then? (This is a hypothetical thing)……. Will Trump automatically win the election?  (You just know that the Trump people, not being the sharpest pencils in the box will claim the win)……but really what would happen?

First off, please, please, please let us make abundantly clear that this article is not an endorsement of any alt-right conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton’s health, nor are we trying to implicitly state that Hillary Clinton’s recent coughing fit or her apparent stumble outside the 9/11 memorial service were anything more than what her campaign says they were—seasonal allergies and a previously diagnosed case of pneumonia aggravated by dehydration. Seriously, we’re not. We fully expect her health issues to be resolved within a week, at which point none of this will matter.

Source: If Hillary Had to Drop Out, Here’s How a New Democratic Candidate Would be Chosen :: Politics :: News :: Hillary Clinton :: Paste

Could an election get any more screwed up?

Is this a great election or what?

Green is looking better and better………

What Has Party Dysfunction Wrought?

No secret here that I think that this election has the worse choices for president…….one party has embraced a more bigotry position the other has gone from Center-Left to Right leaning…bypassed the center altogether.

We have alternatives to the two major parties but they are getting zero press so most Americans learn about them accidentally….

The parties, GOP and the Dems, have become a dysfunctional mess…….

The polls consistently show that the vast majority of voters—about 130 million in total—do not like either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, who were selected by just over 30 million people. There must be something wrong with our system of government when the people have two candidates foisted upon them by less than 25 percent of the whole.

At first blush, the answer is simple: That’s democracy, so what? But upon closer inspection, things are substantially more complicated. “Democracy” is not simply a matter of letting the people decide. There is also a process to determine how the votes are counted, as well as who will be deemed a serious candidate, and who will not. Yes, voters have the power to choose in a democracy, but before they have exercised that power, a whole host of other actors have exercised their own authority, determining how the choice itself will be structured.

Source: Party Dysfunction Gave America Trump and Clinton | The Weekly Standard

After the vote….will the parties return to their original position….whatever that was?

Or is this the face of crap to come?

The “Lone Wolf” Scenario

I have been helping a dear friend with a course he is teaching on national security and he knows of my work on terrorism so he asked if I would drop by and teach his class when the terrorism block was up….of course I told him I would be honored to help out.

In my pursuit of adequate information for the students to grasp…..I thought a good place to start would be with the most prolific attackers.

Internationally most terrorists attacks have been from a small cadre of extremists or a “lone wolf” attacker.

First, what is a “lone wolf” attacker?
A lone-wolf terrorist plans and carries out an attack without assistance or organisational support.  Most analyses of terrorism emphasize the power of group dynamics that can move normal individuals to commit horrific violence [6], but the distinctive aspect of lone-wolf terrorists is that they are moved to violent action without group or organisational support.[7]  In this section we consider two possibilities for understanding the actions of lone-wolf terrorists without invoking group dynamics: that they suffer from some form of psychopathology, and that they are moved by the same mechanisms of radicalisation that have been identified for individuals joining a terrorist group.

Source: Characteristics of Lone-Wolf Violent Offenders: a Comparison of Assassins and School Attackers | McCauley | Perspectives on Terrorism

After every attack of a lone wolf the media trots out a wealth of so-called experts to explain what type of person would do such a thing and immediately start assign blame for the attack….this group or that…..the problem is that the “lone wolf” cannot be detected from afar.

Until a genius geek invents such a sensor, detecting a lone wolf will remain almost impossible. Yet, there is a way: Change the ideas that beget terrorism. In other words, Muslim scholars should be encouraged to reveal the fallacy of the whole structure of teachings, interpretations, fatwas, and old, truly un-Islamic books that forge a whole theory justifying the murder of innocent civilians.

Source: The Terrorist Attack on Nice: Can a Radicalized Lone Wolf be detected? | Middle East Briefing

There is NO way to protect ourselves from the “lone wolf”……even if the “mother” organization is destroyed there will still be attacks in its name.

As long as I brought up the “lone wolf” attacker……and the creation of a Terrorist Diaspora….

This is an op-ed that I wrote for the site Ace News Room……..

Source: A Terrorist Diaspora | Ace News Room

The most important thing that we must realize is…..Terror is a tactic….Not an entity.