No Shit Sunday: Obama Says U.S. Underestimated Strength of Militants in Syria

CBS/"60 Minutes"

In a 60 Minutes interview set to air on CBS tonight, President Obama admitted the U.S. was caught off guard by the situation in the Syrian civil war," which had turned the country into a "ground zero for jihadists," and the rise of groups like what became ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Via CBS News:

The president was asked by 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft about comments from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who has said the U.S. not only underestimated ISIS, it also overestimated the ability and will of the Iraqi military to fight the extremist group.

"That's true," Mr. Obama said. "That's absolutely true."

"Jim Clappper has acknowledged that I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria," he said, blaming the instability of the Syrian civil war for giving extremists space to thrive.

Iraq has been warning about Al-Qaeda militants in Syria for years, identifying as early as late 2011 that Al Qaeda militants that had flooded into Iraq from Syria during the U.S. Iraq War in the 2000s were now crossing the border the other way around. The Syrian regime has considered their civil war a counter-terrorism campaign since the first peaceful protests in January 2011.

Comments

[juris imprudent]

So he also said he accepted Clapper's resignation right?

[Aloysious]

*starts singing Aerosmith's song Dream On*

[Adans smith]

Seems to me you can;t swing a dead cat witht out hitting a terrorist in the middle east

[IceTrey]

How much a year do we pay for Intelligence?

[Rich]

"Obviously not enough!"

[Vulgar Madman]

SEQUESTER!!!

[Rich]

"The U.S. not only underestimated ISIS, it also underestimated the cost of intelligence needed to fight the extremist group."

[PapayaSF]

Oh, I'll bet the people actually gathering the intelligence knew ISIS quite well, and reported their finding up the hierarchy. But of course the White House only wants to hear certain views.

[IceTrey]

"Jim Clappper has acknowledged that I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria,"
No way. He totally throws Clapper under the bus.

[Jerry on the sea]

Will they also ask Obama how firing missiles into Syria cannot be construed as "self-defense" under international law?!

[The artist known Dunphy]

Oh, that's just a 'pre 9/11' viewpoint

Derp derp

[Cytotoxic]

Why would anyone care about 'international law'?

[Bam!]

Will they ask Obama how waging war without congressional approval is constitutional under U.S. law?

[Suthenboy]

Peace prize, dude.

Say it with me.

Peace. Prize.

[Hyperion]

Since first black president trumps peace prize by at least a trillion light years, there's not even any need to mention the prize.

[Rich]

"We just have to push them back, and shrink their space, and go after their command and control, and their capacity, and their weapons, and their fueling, and cut off their financing, and work to eliminate the flow of foreign fighters."

Emphasis added. Sheesh, Mr. President, if that's all we have to do then this war action ought to be over by the midterm elections.

[Faceless Commenter]

Some time before the midterm elections, you'll hear that we've done exactly that.

Then sometime after ISIS captures a critical dam, town, or fuel supply, you'll hear that the CIA overestimated our success (with no excuse given for trusting the CIA again).

[Vulgar Madman]

I notice that captain awesome didn't take any of the blame. Shocking.

[Homple]

From twittermeister Iowahawk:

"Obama, June: I think ISIS is a JV team.

Obama, now: They thought ISIS was a JV team.

#CaptainPronoun"

[Sevo]

Vulgar Madman|9.28.14 @ 5:36PM|#
"I notice that captain awesome didn't take any of the blame. Shocking."

"Mistakes were made".
"It broke".
"Somebody didn't see it coming".
"The clock ran out".
"The passive voice was invoked".

[John Titor (Formerly Jensen)]

You know, if only Obama really was a secret radical Muslim like those conspiracy theorists said. He'd actually come off as a fairly good sleeper agent, rather than an incompetent moron.

[Suthenboy]

^This.

[HazelMeade]

Indeed.
It's amazing what a great job he's done bringing about the worldwide Islamic Revolution. His Jihadi masters should be very pleased.

[Ken Shultz]

I think this is getting it all backwards, Ed. I certainly wouldn't believe something just because 1) Obama said it or 2) because it confirms my preexisting biases.

Didn't we do stories, here, *just last week* about how ISIS isn't really a security threat to the United States according to agency A, agency B, and agency C?

Now, all of a sudden, we UNDERestimated their strength?! How can we have simultaneously underestimated and overestimated their strength?

Obama's explanation seems to change whenever it's needed--and this latest explanation seems to be paving the way for boots on the ground.

[juris imprudent]

It appears to get even better about what are threats and what are not.

The "Khorosan Group" is al-Qaeda. It is simply a faction within the global terror network's Syrian franchise, "Jabhat al-Nusra." Its leader, Mushin al-Fadhli (believed to have been killed in this week's U.S.-led air strikes), was an intimate of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the emir of al-Qaeda who dispatched him to the jihad in Syria. Except that if you listen to administration officials long enough, you come away thinking that Zawahiri is not really al-Qaeda, either. Instead, he's something the administration is at pains to call "core al-Qaeda."

[Ken Shultz]

I'm getting concerned about what I thought were skeptical Republicans lining up to back whatever the hell Obama wants to do--just because he's talking their game, he's confirming their preexisting notions...

As pathetic as the Democrats (and the press) were at questioning the things Bush said before we invaded Iraq, the Republicans are starting to scare me--like maybe they're even worse!

As long as I live, I will never believe anything Obama says just becasue Obama said it. Get me an independent source from somewhere--and the ravings of a murderous Syrian regime, that was shooting peaceful protestors at the time, doesn't qualify...

And let's try not to get lost in Obama's diversions either. The question isn't whether this group or that group is made up of bad guys. The question is whether this group or that group is a threat to the United States and whether going after them--in Syria--is in America's best security interests.

Everything else Obama says in the media is an advertisement for himself.

[Cytotoxic]

Those Republicans were (rightly) skeptical of bombing Assad, and now they are (rightly) concerned with breaking ISIS and Khorosan. They should go after Obama on his idiot plan to arm Syrian rebels and failure to get Congressional authorization, not for the wholesome and pretty reasonable bombing campaign.

[Ken Shultz]

There's nothing reasonable about going after threats to American security--that aren't threats to American security.

If there's a threat to American security in Syria, it's Syria and, by extension, Iran--and those fighters we're bombing in Syria? They were fighting Syria, Hezbollah, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

There isn't anything reasonable about fighting Iran's battles for them--against an enemy that is not a threat to American security--certainly not just because you believe everything Barack Obama says.

[juris imprudent]

But, but cyto - this plays into Iranian interests!

[waiting for that to sink in and cyto's head to explode]

[Ken Shultz]

Iran has sent $15 billion in cash, thousands of Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and thousands more Iranian backed Hezbollah into Syria--because they think keeping Assad in power is crucial to their own security.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I....._Civil_War

Does Cyto think he knows something about Iranian security that the Iranians don't?

Iran has a nuclear program, and they've already used multistage rockets successfully to launch satellites. And they really are a state sponsor of terrorism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I.....ontroversy

ISIS, meanwhile, has the technology to cut the heads off of any journalists that get in their way...

Which one does Cyto imagine is a threat to American security?

[juris imprudent]

Apparently the U.S. is anti-Assad, if we can just find the right anti-Assad alliance that doesn't include people we are bombing. You think the Iranians aren't laughing their asses off at our stupid belief in "moderate" opposition to Assad? [At least any faction that ever had a hope of emerging in control]

Of course cyto is just too wound up about killing Muslims and letting God sort them out.

[Ken Shultz]

They are!

The Iranians are absolutely laughing their asses off about this.

Incidentally, they were laughing their asses off when we took Saddam Hussein out for them, too.

They were rolling when Iraq held their first election and the winner was *drumroll* SICRI, The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq!

SICRI, by the way was, founded in and financed by...guess who?

That's right, Iran!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I.....il_of_Iraq

Not wanting to take a balancing force off of Iran was one of the main reasons why George H.W. Bush didn't invade Iraq in 1991, and it was an excellent reason not to invade in 2003, too!

But nooooooooOOOOOOOoooooooooo.

In fact, the reason Iran went on the warpath openly for their nuclear program--and defied the U.N.--when they did? Was because they knew we couldn't do anything about it--since we were sitting on a powder keg in Iraq, and the fuse to that powder keg ran all the way to Tehran.

They could have initiated a civil war that would have made the insurgency look like child's play. It wasn't until we got out of Iraq that we could even start playing hardball with them again.

And now we're making the same stupid mistakes for the same stupid reasons--and why? What's going on in Iraq now is actually less of a threat to American security than Saddam Hussein himself was back then--and Saddam Hussein wasn't any threat to the American people at all.

[HazelMeade]

You think the Iranians aren't laughing their asses off at our stupid belief in "moderate" opposition to Assad?

We're apparently going to keep bombing both sides until the only people left are the 5% of the population that are secular moderates.

At least that's the only way I can imagine Obama's strategy being successful.

[PapayaSF]

Of course Reason is going to have a somewhat schizophrenic view of ISIS. On the one hand, they want to be non-interventionist, but on the other hand, they want to highlight government screw-ups.

[HBoA]

Bingo!

[Ken Shultz]

There's another explanation.

Sometimes Reason staff disagree with each other, and when that happens, often, one of them is wrong and one of them is right.

The ones pointing out that these fighters in Syria are not a security threat to the United States, for instance, are factually correct.

...and the ones who take Barack Obama's word for his own genius may be on much shakier ground.

[HBoA]

Sometimes Reason staff disagree with each other

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

[Ken Shultz]

An obvious explanation requires and obvious comment, dickhead.

[HBoA]

An obvious explanation requires and obvious comment, dickhead.

Do you not understand that use of the idiom "on the one hand... but on the other hand", when the subject of the sentence is a collective noun (i.e. "Reason"?drink!), means different individual people might disagree with one another when in a collective body.

(Is this some sort of revelation, you have to share with us?)

I.e. "On one hand, congress wants to go to Mars, or the other hand it wants to nuke Syria."

Is this not understood that their are 535 members of congress who disagree with one another?

This a simple matter of understanding colloquial English. What the hell is your problem?

[Ken Shultz]

On the one hand, ISIS is no threat to the American people, but on the other hand, they're a much greater threat than we ever realized?

Go ahead and square that circle for me.

The fact is that Reason is not a monolithic entity with an executive position committee that carves positions in stone and tells everyone they have to tow the line.

The fact is that various posters disagree on various things. They vote for different people. Some of them supported the Iraq War. Some of them didn't.

Some of them write stories like this:

http://reason.com/blog/2014/09.....or-group-n

[HBoA]

Ken, you're going insane. Get help.

I'm sorry I called you names.

[Ken Shultz]

Yeah, I can see how saying that libertarians sometimes disagree would make you think that.

[HBoA]

On the one hand, ISIS is no threat to the American people, but on the other hand, they're a much greater threat than we ever realized?

Go ahead and square that circle for me.

Reason staffers did that by disagreeing already.

The fact is that Reason is not a monolithic entity with an executive position committee that carves positions in stone and tells everyone they have to tow the line.

Is it because it doesn't. Wait, I haven't yet been issued a chisel? Wait what?

The fact is that various posters disagree on various things. They vote for different people. Some of them supported the Iraq War. Some of them didn't.

How was that not my point?

[PapayaSF]

The ones pointing out that these fighters in Syria are not a security threat to the United States, for instance, are factually correct.

In the same way that the Taliban was not a threat to the US as of 9/10/2001. Dude, they're theocratic totalitarians who hate the US and Western civilization in general. They've been murdering thousands of people for decades. They have the support of millions of Muslims. Of course they're a threat.

[Ken Shultz]

If you imagine ISIS is a threat to American security--you mean terrorist attacks on American soil, right?

...to what extent do you suppose bombing ISIS in Syria mitigates for that threat?

Do you see any risks associated with that at all? Isn't it possible you could provoke more local support for ISIS in Syria, Iraq, or elsewhere in the world--just like what happened in Iraq?

I remember before we invaded Iraq, when Iraq didn't represent any terrorist threat to the United States whatsoever. We bombed the hell out of them, invaded and occupied Iraq, and where there hadn't been any terrorist threat before, now we have ISIS...

...and it's a threat so large, we need to intervene in the Syrian civil war directly?!

I'd rather finance Syrians than get involved in the Syrian civil war directly.

Ronald Reagan did the cost/benefit analysis and saw that it didn't make any sense to get involved with Syria (in Lebanon) directly. Even George W. Bush, at his neocon emancipator worst, saw that it was stupid to get involved with Syria directly!

Do you realize how easily we could end up--directly--fighting both sides in the Syrian civil war? ...that we could easily end up with Hezbollah on our case, too?

And all this downside risk is worth it because ISIS is Muslim, hates us, and cut the heads off a couple of journalists?

I don't think so.

[PapayaSF]

Of course there are risks. Of course just bombing is inadequate. Of course the whole world is a fucking mess. The question is, what to do when "non-invention" fails.

The reason it fails here is that it will always fail as a response to people making war on you. Jihadis are at war with us. They prove it regularly, as they have for decades. It's not a "theoretical" threat. You can't ignore it, which merely strengthens them (though in different ways than fighting back does).

We can't undo history, and becoming the Platonic ideal libertarian non-inventionist nation tomorrow would not in the slightest change the minds of the jihadis who want to destroy us.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Yes, Papaya. Our cities are being bombed, their armies are landing on our beaches. Washington is on fire. They are sinking our carriers, our planes are being shot out of the sky. America is within a heartbeat of being conquered.

Non-intervention has failed when we are actually attacked and have a legitimate reason to respond.

They attack us because we attempt to impose our will on them. Stop poking our fingers in their chest and leave them to their own affairs. If they actually attack us after that, then you can go kill them (and claim the moral high ground).

[PapayaSF]

Yes, Papaya. Our cities are being bombed, their armies are landing on our beaches.

So until then, they can blow up as many buildings and airliners as they want, and we just ignore that, until they land an army?

They attack us because we attempt to impose our will on them.

Bull. That's just their excuse.

Stop poking our fingers in their chest and leave them to their own affairs. If they actually attack us after that, then you can go kill them (and claim the moral high ground).

OK, I'm not opposed to that, but how long do we've given them a chance to let bygones be bygones? We pretty much left them alone from the days of the Barbary pirates until WWII (for the US). Remember, these people are still pissed at Spain because of Queen Isabella.

Oh, and how many Americans have to die before you'll consider retaliation? 3000? 300? An embassy bombing?

[Ken Shultz]

"The question is, what to do when "non-invention" fails."

If we couldn't put down the insurgency with 165,000 troops in Iraq, what makes you think we're going to be any more successful now? ...and, you know, doing something ineffective and costly is worse than doing nothing.

But if you think bombing is non-intervention, I don't know what to say.

If you're saying that we're going to have to invade Syria and fight a civil war there--because ISIS hates us and is Muslim? A president who believed that would be more dangerous to American security than ISIS.

Incidentally, do you imagine that Al Qaeda has been holding back since 9/11? Do you imagine that they haven't been trying to attack us again ever since?

They haven't hit us since then--because they couldn't. ...certainly not because we bombed Iraq. I don't see why ISIS presents any more of a threat than Al Qaeda did. ...certainly not because they beheaded a couple of journalists.

And I don't understand why you believe they're a bigger danger than Iran, whom they're fighting--to our benefit--in Syria.

[HazelMeade]

Iran is a threat to us sort in the way that China is. They have opposing interests. They have regional power. But the chances of us actually going to war are close to zero, except in the minds of a few hawks. And a war between us and Iran would be limited to the area around Iran. Mostly Iran. They can't really do anything to us, and the Muslim world isn't going to unit behind a Shiite country. All they can do is impact some of our interests in the region.

ISIS, on the other hand, is the latest (and most powerful) manifestation of a globe-spanning fanatical religious movement that if left unchecked could become an existential threat to Western Civilization itself.

[Ken Shultz]

Iran is a state sponsor of terror, of Hezbollah, specifically, and Hezbollah has frequently engaged in suicidal terrorist attacks over the years.

I think the reason Iran/Hezbollah hasn't treated us like they do Israel is in part because they can't. If they could have fired a missile at us in the wake of air flight 655, I suspect they would have.

If they could have attacked us during the Iran-Iraq War, I suspect they might have.

Regardless, if Iran gets nuclear weapons, they won't be the only ones in the region. Their enemies (especially Saudi Arabia and Egypt) will want them, too. And there is no reason to believe a nuclear standoff in the Middle East will end the way the Cold War did.

If Iran can hit the U.S. with nuclear weapons, and we end up in a Cold War standoff again, it will be a terrible thing. The only way we'll ever be able to resolve that situation is with internal dissent--and if that happens in the future, there's no reason to think it will look any better than the dissent we're seeing in Syria right now.

[Ken Shultz]

"Iran is a threat to us sort in the way that China is."

We don't have a trade relationship with Iran.

Talk about mutually assured destruction!

If China attacked us tomorrow, their economy would go down the toilet, and the communist government probably wouldn't survive the turmoil.

If Iran attacked us tomorrow, their economy wouldn't be much different than it is now.

We need a trade agreement with Iran, but there's no way Obama has that kind of imagination. He's ideologically rigid and blind.

[PapayaSF]

We did put down the insurgency in Iraq, until Obama withdrew the troops.

[Ken Shultz]

"Jihadis are at war with us. They prove it regularly, as they have for decades. It's not a "theoretical" threat. You can't ignore it, which merely strengthens them (though in different ways than fighting back does)."

There are lots of ways to not ignore the problem--that don't involve engaging in the Syrian civil war directly.

And, again, it seems to me that you're the one ignoring the real problem--which is Iran. We thought the Cold War was over! How can you sit there and ignore Iran on the cusp of ICBM and nuclear capabilities?

Again, Iran thinks that the biggest threat to their security is the Arab Spring in Syria turning into the Persian Summer in Iran--and who are we to argue with them? If we absolutely need to thwart potential threats, why are we ignoring the Syrian rebels sitting there with a knife against Iran's throat?

[Ken Shultz]

We won the Cold War, in part, by making nice with some nasty bastards that were willing to do our dirty work for us--and that strategy worked out great! For reals.

Anybody who thought we shouldn't arm the mujaheddin in the '80s because elements of that struggle might attack us some 20 years later after we won the Cold War--would have been an idiot. It's not just that such things are unforeseeable; it's that winning the Cold War in exchange for that risk was an excellent bargain!

I'd much rather face Al Qaeda and terrorism than the USSR and their nukes.

Don't you see anything on the cost/risk side in taking out Iran's enemies--while Iran goes intercontinental and nuclear?

And on the benefit side, at best, aren't you you taking out ISIS--which isn't really a security threat, anyway?

[HazelMeade]

If you imagine ISIS is a threat to American security--you mean terrorist attacks on American soil, right?

...to what extent do you suppose bombing ISIS in Syria mitigates for that threat?

It doesn't help at all. What might help would be cutting a deal with Assad.

At this point, I don't give a fuck if Assad violently crushes ISIS with an Iron fist and turns their capital into a parking log.

[HazelMeade]

er parking lot.

[Ken Shultz]

Why?

You got a fetish about journalists?

Because you believe everything Barack Obama says?

Why do want to see the extremely large, long term threat that Assad (and Iran) represents triumph over a relatively minor threat like ISIS?

Holy smoke, Obama's over there bombing rebels that aren't affiliated with ISIS because he says they're more dangerous than ISIS--how could ISIS be more of a danger than Iran?

Iran really is all the things Bush lied about and told us that Iraq was--and it's a state sponsor of terrorism.

[HazelMeade]

We lived with the Assad regime for 40 years (father and son) with no ill effects.

Hafez Assad was responsible for a peace deal with Israel over the Golan heights. We haven't seen any attacks on Israel coming from Syria proper for a very long time.

I don't know where you get the idea that Syria is some sort of Iranian proxy. They are allies sometimes, and sometimes not. If Assad is dependent on Iran right now, it is only because we've weakened him to the point that he needs them that bad.

The Assad regime was always more of a Russian proxy than an Iranian one.
And bad as Putin is, Syria is only one of his few, weak allies. In this area, Russia is fighting a rearguard action. No harm will come from allowing Russia to retain a weak satellite.

[Ken Shultz]

"The Syrian regime has considered their civil war a counter-terrorism campaign since the first peaceful protests in January 2011."

Because the Syrian regime said it isn't a good reason to think...anything.

[Aloysious]

Jim Clappper has acknowledged...

+1 adding extra p's to that crappy Clappper's name. I wish I had thought of it.

[Cytotoxic]

Well it is clear that the Iraqi army was not and is not ready for...anything, and this makes ISIS stronger simply because they can roam free in Iraq. So prior to Iraq's army collapsing it is reasonable to think that ISIS was not as scary as it is clear they are now.

[PapayaSF]

Another Oklahoma Muslim threatens to behead coworker. This one isn't homegrown, but a native of Kenya. Ah, the joys of diversity and Third World immigration.

[Cytotoxic]

Well if one of them is evil damning them all is surely reasonable.

[PapayaSF]

Not everything you pick up off the sidewalk and eat will make you sick, but you can greatly decrease your chances of getting sick by not eating things off of the sidewalk.

[Homple]

Works for SOCONS, why not Muslims?

[Kreel Sarloo]

Uh, mentally ill nutjob copycats actions of psychopathic true believers that belong to a terrorist group.

A problem, yes. not something that has anything to do with immigration policy since it seems that in both the OK cases the nutjob in question is a native born black American.

None seems to have any connection to any terrorist group or to the Middle East in any way at all.

It is likely that like most Americans these two nutjobs could not find Iraq or Syria on a map of the world if their lives depended on it.

[PapayaSF]

None seems to have any connection to any terrorist group or to the Middle East in any way at all.

Except their religion. And their association with a mosque connected to terrorists. But other than those things, no connection at all.

[Vulgar Madman]

They're pretty damn rapey as well.

[Suthenboy]

"...Obama admitted the U.S. was caught off guard by the situation in the Syrian civil war," which had turned the country into a "ground zero for jihadists," and the rise of groups like what became ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria."

I can't decide if this is total horseshit from a compulsive liar, or if a truthful admission from a complete incompetent. I guess it could be all of the above.

[Jerryskids]

Jim Clappper has acknowledged that I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria

Jim Clapper (a bona fide psychopathic moron, so who cares what he thinks?)

has acknowledged that I (Obama)

think they(who is "they"?)

underestimated what had been (past tense)

taking place (how do you "underestimate" "what had been taking place"? You can underestimate the size or extent or some other quality of something but you can't "underestimate" the thing itself, can you?)

in Syria. (And what would that be exactly that was taking place in Syria, and was it taking place anywhere else? And does Obama agree with Clapper's assessment that Obama thinks "they" misunderestimated their enemy? And what does it all mean?)

Parse what he actually said and it's not even an intelligible English sentence. Is he stupid or deliberately forming words that he can later argue (truthfully) didn't mean what normal people might think they mean?

[Almanian!]

Dude, he never said what he said. Ever.

Normal people just aren't smart enough to understand, cause he SO on another level. Especially from Rethuglihadistards.

Duh.

[juris imprudent]

Republican conundrum - obstructing Obama's insanity or stroking the war boner.

[Ted S.]

Unfortunately, the "bona fide psychopathic moron" has a position of power.

[Almanian!]

As of today, the US government still scares me a helluva lot more - personally - than Syria, ISIS, Iraq, al Queda, Omar Sharif, Ali Baba....pretty much anyone/thing in the middle east.

I kind of wish that weren't the case.

[Res Publica Americana]

More importantly, the evisceration of the federal government is our responsibility and our concern, whereas I don't see why we should give a single fuck about the Middle East.

[Almanian!]

This also

[Bo Cara Esq.]

If I were Obama's adviser I would have told him to spin the situation by saying 'well, we knew the region was headed for trouble if this strife, which, if you remember, involved Syrian President Assad using weapons of mass destruction on not only his enemies but also civilians, continued on, that's why we wanted to intervene earlier. Unfortunately we were blocked in that, and the more moderate elements of the Syrian rebels did not receive the support they needed from the international community and too many of the Syrian people embraced the more militant aspects of the rebellion.'

Of course, I'm also shortly going to be a part of a profession that would defend a convicted murderer if called upon, so there's that.

[Hyperion]

If I were Obama's adviser I would have told him to spin the situation by saying 'well, we knew the region was headed for trouble if this strife

What about telling him to stop lying all the fucking time and start being honest with the American people and also start taking responsibility for things instead of blaming someone, anyone else for everything.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

I think my job would be to help him with his popularity and such, and if that guy was totally upfront with the American people he would be even more unpopular than he is now.

[Hyperion]

Well if you can make a living being a dishonest scumbag, then that's your problem.

[Suthenboy]

He has done nothing but offer up lie after lie after lie since 2008. He has fucked up everything he has touched and never takes responsibility for anything.

Does it really matter what he says anymore? Is anyone listening to this guy? I know the obamabots listen to his speeches but don't actually hear any of it or understand it, they know when to clap and cheer by following the cadence of his speech. Aside from them, no one actually listens to him, do they?

[HazelMeade]

Precisely.

Obama, the wonder child, got elected to get us OUT of middle-eastern cluster-fuck wars.
Six years on, the middle-east is a bigger clusterfuck than ever, and Obama's fingerprints are all over it.

Oh, I guess fomenting violent uprisings all over the region DOESN'T result in a sudden outbreak of Western Liberal Democracy.

I mean, who would have thought (other than the governments of Syria, Egypt and Lybia), that without them the region would be overrun by psychotic Islamic radicals?

Don't you know that people power is the cure for all evils (which are mainly caused by America), and if only we can get the People to overthrow their American-supported dictators (i'm sure Ghaddaffi was supported by us somehow), that the populations will realize their dreams of becoming European secular social-democracies?

I don't know ANYONE from the middle-east that isn't an atheist secular democrat.

[Ted S.]

If I were Obama's advisor I'd resign.

[Faceless Commenter]

The tell-all books coming out of this administration are going to be epic and horrifying.

It's going to be like the time your two-year-old wandered to the edge of the bridge and you snatched her away just as she was teetering on one foot, with raging waters 100 yards below.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Please. In 2017, the few literate people left will be spending most of their time huddling in the darkness as they attempt in vain to evade detection by the roving pedophile cannibal rape gangs that will dominate the barren, radioactive wasteland that was once these United States. They won't have time to spare by reading Hagel's Obama: I Is ISIS.

[Faceless Commenter]

But cockroaches and reporters will be thriving.

[Res Publica Americana]

I'm so sick and tired of this half-assed bullshit. Either employ the tactics of total war and wipe the Middle East from the face of the Earth with thermonuclear fire, or do nothing.

ISIS ain't shit. We could drop in and erase them by lunch. But what the fuck's the point? Leave, and a week later, some other acronym pops up in the news slaughtering thousands and waging jihad.

Fuck that entire part of the world. Fuck it straight to hell.

[Hyperion]

I'm so sick and tired of this half-assed bullshit. Either employ the tactics of total war and wipe the Middle East from the face of the Earth with thermonuclear fire, or do nothing.

I'm not seeing the crony bucks in that.

[Res Publica Americana]

This game is so fucking ineffective, infuriating, unjust, and pointless, the longer it keeps going, the less faith I have it'll wind down at any time soon.

We're supposedly aiming to destroy ISIS, but history's hyperpower can't accomplish it because Obama's regime limited our involvement to a supremely narrow, 0.0001-percent-assed tactic, but we're STILL supposed to believe Obama's regime is aiming to destroy the jihadists.

How people don't see through the bullshit is beyond me.

[Hyperion]

We don't want it to wind down, ever. There's too much money in it.

[Hyperion]

And if we have to create 100 more mujahadeen, taliban, alqueda, ISIL, ISIS, or whatever the fuck next terrorists group, then we will.

[Res Publica Americana]

The glee I'd experience watching Obama's entire cabinet hang from a tree is beyond description.

[Suthenboy]

Surpassed only by my own.

[Hyperion]

And then by my own.

[Suthenboy]

Add to them anyone who supported or voted for the Enabling....I mean Patriot act.

[Res Publica Americana]

With absolute joy. Slavemaking motherfuckers.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Obama cabinet should be hanging from a tree.

Actual slaveholder and supporter of actual human slavery Jefferson, hero of liberty.

Sheesh.

[Res Publica Americana]

This is strangely reminiscent of Tulpa. Is that you, Tulpa?

[Wicked Skin]

You know that TJ has been dead for 192 years right? Obama's cabinet on the other hand is sadly still very much alive. Which one presents a current threat to liberty: a long dead evil slave owner or the living fucking scumbags?

[Ted S.]

You know that TJ has been dead for 192 years right?

[more pedantic than Bo Cara, Esq.]

188 years.

[/more pedantic than Bo Cara, Esq.]

But yes, you'd think we could move on from Jefferson.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

That's silly.

Stalin is long dead but if I saw someone excusing him but focusing on Tim Geithners sins as capital offenses I'd say sheesh, too.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Actual slaveholder and supporter of actual human slavery Jefferson, hero of liberty.

Yeah, next we should stop admiring Cato because he existed in and supported a society that forced slaves to fight to the death for entertainment and subjugated other nations.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

I don't admire Cato, in part for those reasons.

If we're going to excuse people based on 'hey, they were just going along with the culture and time they grew up in' then Woodrow Wilson, FDR or, heck, Stalin should be excused.

Jefferson knew many abolitionists and people who freed their slaves in his day. His neighbor was one such person as was his law teacher. And yet he chose to own slaves, including children, his entire life and to support policy favorable to the institution.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

then Woodrow Wilson, FDR or, heck, Stalin should be excused.

None of those people contributed anything positive to their countries, at least not in any quantity that comes close to making up for the irreparable harm they caused.

Jefferson wrote our Declaration of Independence and contributed long-lasting, positive ideals to our Republic that form a bulwark of liberty that has managed to hold up remarkably well despite two of the dickheads' you mentioned best efforts to destroy it.

So no, no apologies for admiring him for being one of the most influential men in US history.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Christ, Bo, you are an insufferable dickhead.

I suppose you will discredit anyone who ever opposed homosexuality too. Which is almost everyone who ever lived in the US under the age of 40. You don't judge historical figures based on current societal norms.

[Ted S.]

I think you mean over 40, not under. But I agree with your sentiment.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Yes, over. Thanks, Ted.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

You should mention his blog as thanks.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Oh, and visit Ted's blog.

😉

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Wilson's racism---which lead him to personally segregate the Federal civil service as well as renege on every promise he made to civil rights activists--is much less excusable since it harmed blacks directly.

Jefferson manumitted his slaves in his will and argued for the abolition of the slave trade, which was an improvement even if it didn't abolish the institution all together.

[John Titor (Formerly Jensen)]

Do you own/have owned any electronic devices made from 2000 to 2012? If so they are likely manufactured with rare earth metals mined by Congolese slaves. You are, as of right now, an active user of devices developed by slave labour.

[John Titor (Formerly Jensen)]

Electronic devices with hard drives, fluorescent lamps, flat panel display screens, neodymium magnets in portable devices like iPods, cellphones, etc. If you have used any of these within the last ten years Bo you are very likely to be a beneficiary of slave labour. So what's your excuse?

[Red Rocks Rockin]

So what's your excuse?

Maybe he thinks his good intentions will exonerate him.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

I don't admire Cato, in part for those reasons

If you're looking for Pure Humans to look up to, you're going to find yourself coming up remarkably short.

Maybe you should start taking a more nuanced perspective on humanity than the puritanistic outlook you accuse SOCONNNNZZ of exhibiting.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

What good would 'total war' do? We'd slaughter so many more Muslim civilians than we do now it would make us virtually at war with the entire Muslim world. We'd lose allies. If we then wanted to be the same force in the world we'd have to really be a full blown empire.

[Res Publica Americana]

1) I was conveying that I was tired of the half-assed bullshit, and that a definitive stance is what's necessary. I don't actually think we should do anything, because I don't give a fuck about the Middle East, and I believe we should mind our own business and allow the barbarian shitholes of the Muslim world to rape each other into extinction.

2) We've never been an empire, and we never will be. I'm sick and tired of that fucktarded canard -- conflating adventurism and interventionism with imperialism -- as I am of Obama's government.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

I agree, we should do nothing (or perhaps not nothing, we could ease asylum and immigration for some of the persecuted minorities there, for example).

I disagree about the empire, Manifest Destiny + the Spanish American War + Hawaii strike me as crossing the threshold (interestingly the latter two fell under the watch of noted conservative President McKinley).

[juris imprudent]

We've never been an empire, and we never will be.

Chalmers Johnson would like to have a word with you.

[GamerFromJump]

I believe we should mind our own business and allow the barbarian shitholes of the Muslim world to rape each other into extinction.

Only if it comes with a total ban on immigration or travel from the region. Providing an escape route ensures that it will be used.

[GamerFromJump]

We'd slaughter so many more Muslim civilians

That would be the ones that aid, shelter and provide cover to the active fighters, right?

virtually at war with the entire Muslim world

As opposed to already being so, only some of them are lying about it?

We'd lose allies

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! That's a hot one. "Allies" that last exactly until they see another "strong horse".

Learn from history. You can't get rid of an ideological contagion unless and until you eliminate or cure all carriers. That's a big project.

[Hyperion]

Really, you underestimated something? I'm totally fucking shocked. I would expect that when we put the the most inbred brain dead trash in society who know not even the least thing about foreign cultures, diplomacy or other things that you think would qualify one for a position like Secretary of State, that things would be just stellar. Hillary and John Kerry, really? And you thought everything would go well? I think that type of thinking qualifies one not for a peace prize, but for a retard of the century award.

[Suthenboy]

We are talking about a guy who sought out marxist professors at university, so not exactly a brain trust.

[Res Publica Americana]

That this sack of unholy shit is able to garner enough support for election to the post of President of the United States literally breaks my heart for my country.

[Agammamon]

I don't know why you would have to *seek out* Marxist professors, its the non-Marxists who seem to be in the minority.

[Faceless Commenter]

Hillary and John Kerry, really? And you thought everything would go well?

Do you think he thought things would go well, or do you think he was so clueless and indifferent that he just did the minimum and X'd off another day until his retirement officially begins?

I think it's all duct tape and bailing wire with him at this point. Just keep the place together until the day he leaves, with smoke and rubble in his wake.

[Irish]

Oh what the fucking shit, Salon.

My boyfriend lives in a dumpster

Coming from my hand, the phrase "my boyfriend lives in a dumpster" still seems unlikely, though it's simple enough to explain why it's true: Jeff, a science professor and university dean, is leading a yearlong social experiment in which a team of students, designers and engineers are converting a used dumpster into a high-tech, sustainable home in order to test the extreme limits of what one needs for a good life. Jeff, the intrepid guinea pig, is living inside it, on campus, during each renovation phase ? from rusty bin to solar-powered ?ber dumpster.

Jeff doesn't expect anyone else to live in a dumpster and he's the first to admit there's a clear element of spectacle that comes with converting a trash can into a mini domicile. But spectacle is kind of the point. After years of teaching undergraduate science courses, Jeff realized he was bored stiff with rote curriculum ? and if he was bored, what were the students? Enter professor-in-a-box: a science experiment so extreme ? so far-fetched ? that curiosity and engagement would be inevitable.

Of course this happened in Austin.

[Res Publica Americana]

I hope this becomes popular with progressives. That way, people like me get more land to set up huge, extravagant, truck- and gun range-filled ranch properties.

[Suthenboy]

Don't we already know what this moron is trying to discover via his 'experiment'? It has been done millions of times already as part of the war on drugs.

[Agammamon]

Or for several decades near any Japanese airport.

[Swiss Servator, Grundgesetz!]

+1 subway tube "hotel"

[Irish]

I don't mind. The narrow territory is a fair exchange for the bizarre magic of our dumpster sleepovers. Before we climb into our sleeping bags, Jeff lights a candle lantern and flips open the roof so I can watch the stars and cloud drifts. I run my fingers through his hair for a while and then he's out, leaving me to lie awake, cataloging the sounds of the city. Bats flicker overhead. If the breeze is blowing north, it relays eerie guitar solos from the hipster dive bars two blocks away. Sometimes there's the rattle of a stolen shopping cart. Later, after midnight, the sirens and throbbing car stereos die down and I can make out Jeff's breathing and the rush of wind-through-trees in the Texas State Cemetery across the street.

In the dumpster, there's only an eighth inch of steel separating us from the motion of the outside world. That's part of the magic. Camping is the only thing I can compare it to, though even that doesn't quite capture the experience ? it's the difference between pitching a tent in the middle of Union Square and unrolling a sleeping bag in the Rockies.

[Irish]

Still, the experience shouldn't be over-glamorized. A few months ago, when the dumpster was moved to a public plaza for a festival, we woke to zippers sliding and the unmistakable sound of piss trickling down the outer wall, just above our pillows ("Dude, I can't hold it. Is anyone around?"). Jeff laughed from inside his sleeping bag while I fired off obscenities and barreled my fist against the metal. To no avail ? the bar-hoppers were either too hammered to register the noise or too sober to accept the possibility that a human might be inside.

Fooling around is also more complicated than it used to be. When it comes to privacy, our choices are often limited to the occasional house visit and the dumpster, which is usually parked a few feet behind the women's residence hall. We regularly get asked if we've done the deed in the dumpster. For the sake of Jeff's position, all I'm at liberty to say is discreet passion is (almost) impossible in a thin metal box where one careless sigh can inform the entire neighborhood on the finer points of our recreational activity.

[Suthenboy]

"Still, the experience shouldn't be over-glamorized. "

She got that right.

This clueless girl has lived such a sheltered life that she has no idea that what she describes is no different from the life of a person living on the street. She has a metal box instead of a cardboard one.

Are they going to try sell us now on this sustainable lifestyle?

[Irish]

Are they going to try sell us now on this sustainable lifestyle?

Yes.

Not long ago, Wilson was nesting in a 2,500 square foot house. After going through a divorce ("nothing related to the dumpster," he told me, unsolicited), he spun into the archetypal downsizing of a newly minted bachelor. He moved into a 500-square-foot apartment. Then he began selling clothes and furniture on Facebook for almost nothing. Now he says almost everything he owns is in his 36-square-foot dumpster, which is sanctioned and supported by the university as part of an ongoing sustainability-focused experiment called The Dumpster Project. "We could end up with a house under $10,000 that could be placed anywhere in the world," Wilson said at the launch, "[fueled by] sunlight and surface water, and people could have a pretty good life."

Why would anyone divorce this guy.

[Suthenboy]

I do not understand the urge to be a malthusian or a benthamite. Not long ago I saw one of these, on paper only, where some proggie had designed a housing complex that at first glance was indistinguishable from the panopticon. Their goal was to make the suburbs disappear and shrink cities down to a fraction of their current size. For sustainability.

People should live miserably in cages so that butterflies can roam free in a natural paradise.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

He could move to Hong Kong or Japan and get that experience. Plenty of people live in homes that are literally the size of a closet. Never mind the socially dysfunctional deterioration this causes, because SUSTAINABILITY and DAT BIG CITY LIVIN'!

[HBoA]

Jeff doesn't expect anyone else to live in a dumpster and he's the first to admit there's a clear element of spectacle that comes with converting a trash can into a mini domicile. But spectacle is kind of the point. After years of teaching undergraduate science courses, Jeff realized he was bored stiff with rote curriculum ? and if he was bored, what were the students?

So why not just blow up more stuff up in physics class ("spectacle!") to keep the kids' interest. Making a point of living in a dumpster ("spectacle!") is a blatant attempt to shame affluent kids for the fact that they don't know what it's like to be homeless or whatever, making the lecturer feel good about himself in the process. This stunt isn't the only way to teach kids how to wire a solar panel, but its the only way to make a smug arrogant asshole feel good about himself. Because teaching kids physics is beneath him, apperently.

[Agammamon]

After years of teaching undergraduate science courses, Jeff realized he was bored stiff with rote curriculum ? and if he was bored, what were the students?

Probably pissed off - because after all the work and money they paid to get there, their first introduction to this stuff is through some prick of an adjunct professor who's *bored* because he's given the lecture so many times and answered the same questions over and over, over the years.

Fuck you Jeff, that's what a fucking teacher *does*.

[Heroic Mulatto]

The dude's a dean, actually.

[HBoA]

So doesn't he have even better thing to do than cosplay Dr. Zoidberg for a month, week or whatever?

[Heroic Mulatto]

Again, he's a dean. They're lucky he hasn't started to wander around campus in a loincloth.

[HBoA]

Gotcha. My college experience makes sense now.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

That passage is really telling. In Calhoun's rat experiments, he noticed that groups of them wouldn't seek out mates and spent inordinate amounts of time in "behavioral sinks" and exhibited extreme examples of social dysfunction.

Urban society appears to be reaching the limits of scale and its residents are exhibiting these autistic-type behaviors of constantly seeking out sensation to keep themselves mentally stimulated.

[juris imprudent]

Stop posting Irish, you're drunk. At least I hope that's your excuse for trolling Salon.

[Irish]

In fairness, I haven't been sober since 1997.

[Ted S.]

Who's drunker: Irish, or Sweating Gin?

[Suthenboy]

Me. More vodka please.

I am suspicious of Sweating Gin. Some time ago I noticed that my brother drinks gin straight on a regular basis and can put away a frighteningly large amount of the stuff.

That would be funny if someone here discovered that they had been posting here for years unknowingly with friend or family.

[Ted S.]

I only drink wine, and stop at two glasses precisely so I don't start posting drunk.

[Faceless Commenter]

Holy fuuuu, WHAT? It's real?

(goes off to another tab)

WHAT. No. No. I thought Irish was the best satirist on the internet and should have been paid for this superb, dead-on parody. I am effing . . . there are no words . . .

[Suthenboy]

Huh. This is only a middling pile of horse shit excreted by the jug eared fuckwit, yet it seems to have inspired an unusual amount of anger. Are we reaching the limit of our tolerance of him? We still have two years to go, and I suspect they will be real doozies.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

I'm trying to imagine how he'll be when Democrats get clobbered next month, his party loses the Senate, and he becomes just as toxic as Bush was in his lame duck phase.

Bush had a personal quality of humility to him that allowed him to basically keep his head down and avoid dragging down more Republicans with him. His name was pretty much poison at the 2008 RNC, which he did not attend.

But I think Obama, having ceased to give a fuck about the Democratic Party, will probably try to insert himself into the 2016 DNC and presidential campaign by harping on climate change and other progressive rallying points. He just can't help it.

[HBoA]

"Bombing oil refineries in Syria and Iraq count as CO2 abatement! We should issue Assad carbon credits!"? Obama staffer

[Ted S.]

Bush didn't have the media propping him up.

[Suthenboy]

You are correct. This whole climate change canard is wearing thin. More and more people see through it and are starting to get the idea that it only means prices on all the things they need to live will skyrocket. Yet he is trying harder than ever to ram it down our throats. I hope it causes the dems to become an endangered species.

Legacy indeed.

[Agile Cyborg]

This whole climate change canard is wearing thin.

Wearing thin? It was thin from the goddamn start because it was designed to flagellate the free market which can only benefit the underdog. And I'm a guy who sorely critiques Capitalism because I love it and I desire it to achieve far more than the corporate giant slurping of cum from the government cock.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Hey, speaking of you and prices skyrocketing, I remember you saying that milk was approaching 6 bucks a gallon in your neck of the woods. How is that possible? Is there some weird dairy tax down there or something?

And speaking of milk, you motivated me to go down to the local dairy and try raw milk again. I stand by my earlier comments; I really didn't notice much of a difference. Perhaps their milk is just good to begin with so pasteurization doesn't lower the quality as much...I don't know. But I really didn't notice any difference between the two.

[Faceless Commenter]

Grand Molf,

I stumbled across a review I wrote on IMDb of Dinesh D'Souza's "2016" the other day. Totally stumbled, and I had forgotten the whole argument, which runs as follows:

This piddly Democrat-Republican-liberal-conservative squabble is none of Obama's concern. He disappointed huge numbers of his constituents (gay, green, pacifist, Peggy Joseph, what have you) because leftism is not what drives him. It serves his core concern occasionally, but it is not his core concern.

Obama is essentially a (confused) anti-colonialist. Like many educated Third World dimwitted grudge-carriers including his father, he conflates America with the British Empire (failing to see the irony that America itself is a rebel colony). What he really wants is revenge against some ancient white English-speaking regime that America has in some manner fallen heir to.

The American Democrat party means nothing to him. It's American (snort).

[PapayaSF]

There's a lot to that. And one way to hobble the US and teach it a lesson is to import as many poor Third World peasants as possible. It's reparations for our colonialist sins, costs billions in welfare spending, and makes America less white and conservative (and Christian). Any problems or pushback can be blamed on capitalism or right-wingers or racists. It's a sort of zombie leftist strategy: the Third World is more open to socialism, so make the US more like the Third World to advance socialism.

[Suthenboy]

On a happier note, it is starting to look like Mary Landrieu is going to get her sorry ass fired. I am crossing all of my fingers and toes.

Obumbles said that if the repubs take the senate and keep the house that it will make the last two years of his presidency "unbearable". That alone is good enough reason to see it happen. He won't have Reid gumming up the gears and running interference for him anymore. If the R's had any balls, which they don't, they would impeach him, try him and throw his ass out. At least Biden would be entertaining.

Wow, rambling thoughts....I really do need more vodka.

[Faceless Commenter]

EVERY TIME I see Mary Landrieu's fat yellow marshmallow mug she's got that mopey, self-pitying, slightly startled, woebegone, little mouth opened in protest look that drives me insane. JUST to get that off the internet will be a tremendous relief. The idea of her pouting and weeping around her plantation in idleness and dejection fills me with joy.

[PapayaSF]

Here's hoping.

[AlmightyJB]

I'd consider Ebola a greater threat than ISIS. I feel much better knowing we'll have US soldiers from everywhere in the country traveling back and forth to Liberia though. Did someone mention something earlier about Obama being a sleeper agent cause...?

[Francisco d'Anconia]

In North Carolina Senate race, Libertarian could be spoiler

But the poll indicates that Thom Tillis, the GOP nominee, may be falling behind Hagan because a Libertarian candidate could be siphoning off Republican votes.

Hagan edges Tillis, 46%-43%, while Libertarian Sean Haugh has support from 7% likely voters, according to the poll.

[Heroic Mulatto]

If that ends up being true, these boards are going to filled with the stentorian jeremiads of our resident Hit 'n Runpublicans.

I'm not looking forward to it.

[Irish]

Well, Tulpa's gone, so we won't have to deal with his bullshit on the subject.

[Knarf Yenrab!]

Tulpa is never gone, only misidentified.

[F. Stupidity, Jr.]

If the Democrats retain the Senate, I'm not looking forward to that.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

The only good outcome for the Senate would be a 51R-49D split. Making Rand Paul the most powerful person in Washington.

[Winston]

Electing more Democrats is an odd way to show discontent with the status quo.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Why, would electing more republicans be any better?

If republicans want the libertarian votes? They need to run libertarian candidates.

[Winston]

Why, would electing more republicans be any better?

If you think they are the lesser of two evils.

If republicans want the libertarian votes? They need to run libertarian candidates.

Problem is I'm not sure more libertarians Republicans will do much better?

[Francisco d'Anconia]

The republicans cannot get elected without the libertarian vote, so they have two choices.

1. They can appease libertarians.
or
2. They can disappear from the face of the earth.

If I vote republican, simply because they are the lesser of two evils, they never have to appease me. Fuck that. My vote must be earned. Their choice.

[Winston]

2. They can disappear from the face of the earth

I would like that more if I could see some evidence that the LP can take advantage of that. Like say winning election in Detroit, SF, New York and Los Angeles.

[PapayaSF]

Why, would electing more republicans be any better?

Yes, yes it would, because, on average, they are somewhat less fucked than the Democrats. A big clue: where are the "Democratic/libertarian" candidates or office holders? They are none, but we have Paul, Amash, and a number of others.

So yes, as flawed as Tillis is, he'd be better than Hagan.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

they are somewhat less fucked than the Democrats.

No, they aren't. See GWB.

If I vote for the lesser of two evils, I gain nothing. Republicans don't need to adopt libertarian principles. If I force them to appease me to earn my vote, I do.

[Faceless Commenter]

You gain nothing, but you lose less.

[PapayaSF]

No, they aren't. See GWB.

So you don't think Al Gore or John Kerry wouldn't have been worse? I do. Would you trade Alito and Roberts for two Gore picks? Not me.

[Homple]

Harry Reid will be thanking the libertarian from the bottom of his formaldehyde-pickled, prune sized wrinkled heart.

[Winston]

So libertarians are useful idiots of the Democrats?

[Francisco d'Anconia]

As opposed to useful idiots for the republicans?

[Winston]

Problem is the Democrats have the advantage. If Libertarians run as third party candidates then they elect more Dems. Get more libertarians running as Republicans they the Dems can run against the crazy libertarians and win. And libertarians will have to moderate themselves to win elections so the Democrats win again.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Two words:

Rand Paul

[Winston]

Last polls I read showed that Hillary will crush him Goldwater style. Chris Christie could put up a better fight but still lose. Have there been any recent polls?

[Homple]

They must have asked the millennials by now.

[Winston]

I imagine that results showing that millenials prefer Hillary to Rand Paul would contradict their whole millennial obsession?

[Faceless Commenter]

+1 bitchy Bret Easton Ellis tweet

[Winston]

And how is the LP doing in the Blue States? Unless they do that then the only thing they are doing is electing more Democrats.

[Sevo]

In which case the GOP ought to offer better candidates.
It's not my job to save a party who thinks which potty little Johnny pees in is an important issue.
Want my vote? Offer a candidate who represents my views. If you don't, why should I care if a D or a D-lite wins?

[Winston]

In which case the GOP ought to offer better candidates.

Do you mean more "electable" candidates or more libertarian ones? These are not necessarily the same. Apparently Chris Christie is "better" than Rand Paul judging by the polls, though I'm not sure what more recent ones have said?

I was actually referring to the fact that if the LP wants to replace the GOP then they are going to have get the support of some Democrats. If the GOP vanishes then not all of the former Republicans are going to vote LP.

After all the Republicans won because they got some alienated Democrats in the North in places like Maine, Illinois, New Hampshire, New York and Pennsylvania and California.

[Sevo]

Real simple and I'll avoid all the bullshit:
Want my vote? Earn it.
I really don't care about all the political triangulation; I tend toward libertarian views.

[Homple]

Unfortunately, the government ends up belonging to the voters who are easier to please than you are.

[Sevo]

Homple|9.28.14 @ 11:56PM|#
"Unfortunately, the government ends up belonging to the voters who are easier to please than you are."

The "free shit" party will win until someone finally understands it ain't free.
And I can't do anything about that.

[Homple]

"The 'free shit' party will win until someone finally understands it ain't free."

Replace "someone" with "a permanent majority of voters" and you'd be more correct. And since you can't do anything about it, why bother thinking about it?

[Sevo]

Homple|9.29.14 @ 12:29AM|#
..."And since you can't do anything about it, why bother thinking about it?"

I'm hoping it doesn't take gov't thugs to 'do something about it'.
Call me an optimist!

[Sevo]

Homple|9.29.14 @ 12:29AM|#
..."And since you can't do anything about it, why bother thinking about it?"

Correction: As an optimist, I can only hope to convince people otherwise.
Sorry for the blanket "can't do anything".

[Homple]

I'd agree, trying to convince people of the finitude of free shit and the consequences of expecting it until there is no more is worth the effort.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

I don't want to replace the GOP. I want to take it over from within.

[Winston]

I don't want to replace the GOP. I want to take it over from within.

Then you have to be a somewhat of a Team Player and make alliances with fellow travelers in the Party.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

No. I don't.

They need me. I don't need them.

He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing.- PA

[Homple]

If you can show up with a couple of million like-minded activists, yes they need you. Otherwise, pound sand.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

No. You pound sand.

Fewer People Identify As Republicans Now Than At Any Point In The Past 25 Years

In 2013, 42% of Americans identified as political independents, up a few percentage points from 2012. Democrats hold a six-point lead in party identification, 31-25%. That's the lowest percent Republicans have seen in 25 years.

Want to be irrelevant? Keep doing what you're doing.

[Homple]

So the identifying as Republican is shrinking. That means the Democrats are taking over, perhaps for a very long time.

A few more Obamas, Reids, and Hillary Clintons plus a couple of Eric Holders and we'll be living large and free in Libertopia.

[Faceless Commenter]

He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing.- PA
--------------
I don't feel that I have a bit of control over the Republican party. I can step aside and watch it collapse, but I'm not sure that's the same as having the power to destroy it.

[Winston]

If you want to "take over" the GOP then you do need them.

And a libertarian GOP is going to have to make inroads in Blue States if they wish to control Congress and win the White House since not all the Republicans will like the new libertarian direction.

[Winston]

After all the Republicans won because they got some alienated Democrats in the North in places like Maine, Illinois, New Hampshire, New York and Pennsylvania and California.

Dang it, I was referring to Lincoln here and how the Republicans replaced the Whigs and Free Soilers and built 70 years of political dominance.

[Homple]

If you like your Harry Reid you can keep your Harry Reid.

[PapayaSF]

why should I care if a D or a D-lite wins?

It's the difference between having to eat a shit sandwich and having to eat the "lite" version of the shit sandwich, which is smaller.

So I would care.

[The artist known Dunphy]

No, it's giant douche or turd sandwich

[MJGreen]

Libertarians are useless losers, except when a Republican candidacy is at stake.

[HazelMeade]

Oh, gee, I wonder if destabilizing the governments of Iraq and Syria might have has something to do with the chaotic environment that allowed ISIS to thrive?

I mean, maybe fomenting violent uprisings isn't a great way to turn countries into Western Liberal Democracies. Maybe it's a great way to turn them into 1990s Afghanistan with oil.

[HBoA]

We were hoping for 1950s Afghanistan

[Winston]

I mean, maybe fomenting violent uprisings isn't a great way to turn countries into Western Liberal Democracies.

Well to be nitpicky violent uprisings did help create those Western Liberal Democracies.

[Sevo]

Winston|9.29.14 @ 12:16AM|#
"Well to be nitpicky violent uprisings did help create those Western Liberal Democracies."

Maybe necessary, not sufficient.

[Winston]

Maybe necessary, not sufficient.

This is true.

[HazelMeade]

Some of them. Some of them technically still have monarchs.

But my point is that neither method of forcing Arabs to become liberal democrats appears to have worked. We tried the brute force approach in Iraq, and we tried the foment-a-revolution approach in Syria. In neither case did Arabs suddenly morph into secular democrats.

[HazelMeade]

Remember the whole "drain the swamp" analogy?
Looks like we created at least three fresh new swamps in the last 6 years. How's that working out?

[Bam!]

The water has to go somewhere.

[Winston]

So I've read a bit of Portuguese History. Seems in the early 20th Century there was quite a bit of discontent over their corrupt Two-Party system. Alas when the Republican revolution occurred they replaced this with an unstable one-party system that was then replaced by a one-party fascist dictatorship. And then that was replaced with the current Two-major party system.

[Irish]

So you're saying there's hope.

[Winston]

Perhaps in a 150 years from now the CPUSA will be implement Free-Marketish reforms after decades of starvation and mass murder.

[Homple]

+3 Portuguese Springs

[Sevo]

Winston|9.29.14 @ 12:03AM|#
"So I've read a bit of Portuguese History."

There was this guy Cowperthwaite (had to look it up for the spelling) who was charged with returning Hong Kong to its 'former glory' after the Japanese WWII occupation through whatever regulations he chose to impose.
Seems he showed up, looked around and decided the best he could do was get out of the way, which was true. Hong Kong is the shining example of what prosperity can be found by a population un-impeded by a regulatory government, but one available to enforce contracts.
We now have the Hong Kong population protesting a lack of democracy (and I'm not sure that (qua)democracy would help, but they are more than willing to stand up to the ChiCom puppets:
"Pro-democracy protests expand in Hong Kong"
http://www.sfgate.com/news/cri.....786035.php
Can we open the gates for them? Portugal doesn't seem to have done real well.

[Agammamon]

Well, they can *apply*, then wait for an answer. I'm sure the 150 or so Visas we have reserved for Hong Kong will be enough for those who desire to immigrate.

[PapayaSF]

OT: Andy Kaufman's writing partner Bob Zmuda says his death was a prank, and that he will reappear soon.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Yeah, he's been serving as President of the United States for the past 6 years.

[Homple]

You cannot imagine how much I wish this were so.

[PapayaSF]

Wouldn't it be great? I was often rather mixed on Kaufman's humor, but if he pulled this off, I'd be impressed.

[Winston]

Maybe Bob claiming that Andy is still alive is the prank?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

You know what would be really interesting is if died for real just as he was about to go 'ta-da'!

[ant1sthenes]

Zmuda believes that, given Kaufman's self-declared 30-year timeline, his return is imminent. Kaufman died in May 1984. If Zmuda is correct, then Kaufman is already late.

Well, I agree with the latter.

[userve32]

Why cant America mind its own business and deal with its own problems.

http://www.Ano-Web.tk

[sylviagraydoc]

my best friend's sister-in-law makes $72 an hour on the computer . She has been unemployed for seven months but last month her check was $15830 just working on the computer for a few hours. try this out ....

???????? http://www.netjob70.com