COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

The Right Guy

After northeastern drubbing, Ted Cruz says more favourable terrain coming

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas tried to put his bravest face on his failure to win or even manage a respectable showing in primaries in five northeastern states on Tuesday reassuring supporters that the election now moves to “more favorable” terrain for his sputtering campaign.

The hard numbers were hard to ignore - Mr Trump achieved the clean sweep of all five states that many had predicted - but the Cruz campaign reached into cinematic sentimentality placing its candidate in an Indiana gym once used as the set of the 1986 basketball film “Hoosiers” about a plucky underdog team rising to win the state championship.

“There is nothing Hoosiers cannot do,” Mr Cruz declared, making reference to the common nickname to residents of Indiana.  The state votes next Tuesday and represents Mr Cruz’s possibly last best chance to slow Mr Trump’s march towards the nomination.  

With large numbers of conservative, evangelical Republican voters, Indiana should be fairly fertile ground for Mr Cruz. He and the other rival still in the field, Ohio Governor John Katich, have announced a strategic partnership whereby the latter would eschew campaigning in Indiana while Mr Cuz would leave Oregon, which votes a week later, to Mr Kasich.

“Tonight this campaign moves back to more favorable terrain,” Mr Cruz said during his rally in Knightstown, Indiana, the town famous for accommodating the cast of the cast of the 30-year-old film that starred Gene Hackman as the coach of the team. 

Mr Cruz acknowledged Mr Trump’s strong showing on Tuesday even though he was speaking before all the results from the northeastern states were in.  “The media is going to say Donald trump is the republican nominee,” he said. However, he issued a warning about what that would mean of the party.  “Donald Trump is the one man on Earth Hillary Clinton can beat,” he offered.
While it is true that Mr Cruz remains his nearest rival, Mr Trump is not evincing much fear about him, not least because the firebrand Texan no longer has a realistic chance of winning enough delegates to claim the nomination before the party convention in July.   Although narrow, that path remains at least navigable for Mr Trump.  

The rejection of Mr Cruz along the eastern seaboard was emphatic with early returns suggesting that he had placed third in four of the five states, possibly managing second place only in Pennsylvania.  He was similarly wiped out in New York a week ago. 
_____________________________


A symbol of our steep decline: Donald Trump has unwittingly exposed America for what it’s become

A symbol of our steep decline: Donald Trump has unwittingly exposed America for what it's become
This piece originally appeared on TomDispatch

Low-energy Jeb.” “Little Marco.” “Lyin’ Ted.” “Crooked Hillary.” Give Donald Trump credit. He has a memorable way with insults. His have a way of etching themselves on the brain. And they’ve garnered media coverage, analysis, and commentary almost beyond imagining.  Memorable as they might be, however, they won’t be what last of Trump’s 2016 election run.  That’s surely reserved for a single slogan that will sum up his candidacy when it’s all over (no matter how it ends). He arrived with it on that Trump Tower escalator in the first moments of his campaign and it now headlines his website, where it’s also emblazoned on an array of products from hats to t-shirts.

You already know which line I mean: “Make America Great Again!” With that exclamation point ensuring that you won’t miss the hyperbolic, Trumpian nature of its promise to return the country to its former glory days. In it lies the essence of his campaign, of what he’s promising his followers and Americans generally — and yet, strangely enough, of all his lines, it’s the one most taken for granted, the one that’s been given the least thought and analysis. And that’s a shame, because it represents something new in our American age. The problem, I suspect, is that what first catches the eye is the phrase “Make America Great” and then, of course, the exclamation point, while the single most important word in the slogan, historically speaking, is barely noted: “again.”

With that “again,” Donald Trump crossed a line in American politics that, until his escalator moment, represented a kind of psychological taboo for politicians of any stripe, of either party, including presidents and potential candidates for that position. He is the first American leader or potential leader of recent times not to feel the need or obligation to insist that the United States, the “sole” superpower of Planet Earth, is an “exceptional” nation, an “indispensable” country, or even in an unqualified sense a “great” one. His claim is the opposite. That, at present, America is anything but exceptional, indispensable, or great, though he alone could make it “great again.” In that claim lies a curiosity that, in a court of law, might be considered an admission of guilt.  Yes, it says, if one man is allowed to enter the White House in January 2017, this could be a different country, but — and in this lies the originality of the slogan — it is not great now, and in that admission-that-hasn’t-been-seen-as-an-admission lies something new on the American landscape.

Donald Trump, in other words, is the first person to run openly and without apology on a platform of American decline. Think about that for a moment. “Make America Great Again!” is indeed an admission in the form of a boast. As he tells his audiences repeatedly, America, the formerly great, is today a punching bag for China, Mexico… well, you know the pitch. You don’t have to agree with him on the specifics. What’s interesting is the overall vision of a country lacking in its former greatness.

Perhaps a little history of American greatness and presidents (as well as presidential candidates) is in order here.

“City Upon a Hill”

Once upon a time, in a distant America, the words “greatest,” “exceptional,” and “indispensable” weren’t even part of the political vocabulary.  American presidents didn’t bother to claim any of them for this country, largely because American wealth and global preeminence were so indisputable.  We’re talking about the 1950s and early 1960s, the post-World War II and pre-Vietnam “golden” years of American power.  Despite a certain hysteria about the supposed dangers of domestic communists, few Americans then doubted the singularly unchallengeable power and greatness of the country.  It was such a given, in fact, that it was simply too self-evident for presidents to cite, hail, or praise.
So if you look, for instance, at the speeches of John F. Kennedy, you won’t find them littered with exceptionals, indispensables, or their equivalents.  In a pre-inaugural speechhe gave in January 1961 on the kind of government he planned to bring to Washington, for instance, he did cite the birth of a “great republic,” the United States, and quoted Puritan John Winthrop on the desirability of creating a country that would be “a city upon a hill” to the rest of the world, with all of humanity’s eyes upon us.  In his inaugural address (“Ask not what your country can do for you…”), he invoked a kind of unspoken greatness, saying, “We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”  It was then common to speak of the U.S. with pride as a “free nation” (as opposed to the “enslaved” ones of the communist bloc) rather than an exceptional one.  His only use of “great” was to invoke the U.S.-led and Soviet Union-led blocs as “two great and powerful groups of nations.”

Kennedy could even fall back on a certain modesty in describing the U.S. role in the world (that, in those years, from Guatemala to Iran to Cuba, all too often did not carry over into actual policy), saying in one speech, “we must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent or omniscient — that we are only six percent of the world’s population — that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94 percent of mankind — that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity — and that therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem.”  In that same speech, he typically spoke of America as “a great power” — but not “the greatest power.”

If you didn’t grow up in that era, you may not grasp that none of this in any way implied a lack of national self-esteem.  Quite the opposite, it implied a deep and abiding confidence in the overwhelming power and presence of this country, a confidence so unshakeable that there was no need to speak of it.

If you want a pop cultural equivalent for this, consider America’s movie heroes of that time, actors like John Wayne and Gary Cooper, whose Westerns and in the case of Wayne, war movies, were iconic.  What’s striking when you look back at them from the present moment is this: while neither of those actors was anything but an imposing figure, they were also remarkably ordinary looking.  They were in no way over-muscled nor in their films were they over-armed in the modern fashion.  It was only in the years after the Vietnam War, when the country had absorbed what felt like a grim defeat, been wracked by oppositional movements, riots, and assassinations, when a general sense of loss had swept over the polity, that the over-muscled hero, the exceptional killing machine, made the scene.  (Think:Rambo.)

Consider this, then, if you want a definition of decline: when you have to state openly (and repeatedly) what previously had been too obvious to say, you’re heading, as the opinion polls always like to phrase it, in the wrong direction; in other words, once you have to say it, especially in an overemphatic way, you no longer have it.

The Reagan Reboot

That note of defensiveness first crept into the American political lexicon with the unlikeliest of politicians: Ronald Reagan, the man who seemed like the least defensive, most genial guy on the planet.  On this subject at least, think of him as Trumpian before the advent of The Donald, or at least as the man who (thanks to his ad writers) invented the political use of the word “again.”  It was, after all, employed in 1984 in the seminal ad of his political run for a second term in office.  While that bucolic-looking TV commercial was entitled “Prouder, Stronger, Better,” its first line ever so memorably went, “It’s morning again in America.” (“Why would we ever want to return to where we were less than four short years ago?”)

Think of this as part of a post-Vietnam Reagan reboot, a time when the U.S. in Rambo-esque fashion was quite literally muscling up and over-arming in a major way.  Reagan presided over “the biggest peacetime defense build-up in history” against what, referencing Star Wars, he called an “evil empire” — the Soviet Union.  In those years, he also worked to rid the country of what was then termed “the Vietnam Syndrome” in part by rebranding that war a “noble cause.”  In a time when loss and decline were much on the American brain, he dismissed them both, even as he set the country on a path toward the present moment of 1% dysfunction in a country that no longer invests fully in its own infrastructure, whose wages are stagnant, whose poor are a growth industry, whose wealth now flows eternally upward in a political environment awash in the money of the ultra-wealthy, and whose over-armed military continues to pursue a path of endless failure in the Greater Middle East.

Reagan, who spoke directly about American declinist thinking in his time — “Let’s reject the nonsense that America is doomed to decline” — was hardly shy about his superlatives when it came to this country.  He didn’t hesitate to re-channel classic American rhetoric ranging from Winthrop’s “shining city upon a hill” (perhaps cribbed from Kennedy) in his farewell address to Lincoln-esque (“the last best hope of man on Earth”) invocations like “here in the heartland of America lives the hope of the world” or “in a world wracked by hatred, economic crisis, and political tension, America remains mankind’s best hope.”

And yet, in the 1980s, there were still limits to what needed to be said about America.  Surveying the planet, you didn’t yet have to refer to us as the “greatest” country of all or as the planet’s sole truly “exceptional” country.  Think of such repeated superlatives of our own moment as defensive markers on the declinist slope.  The now commonplace adjective “indispensable” as a stand-in for American greatness globally, for instance, didn’t even arrive until Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeleine Albright began using it in 1996.  It only became an indispensable part of the rhetorical arsenal of American politicians, from President Obama on down, a decade-plus into the twenty-first century when the country’s eerie dispensability (unless you were a junkie for failed states and regional chaos) became ever more apparent.

As for the U.S. being the planet’s “exceptional” nation, a phrase that now seems indelibly in the American grain and that no president or presidential candidate has avoided, it’s surprising how late that entered the presidential lexicon.  As John Gans Jr. wrote in the Atlantic in 2011, “Obama has talked more about American exceptionalism than Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush combined: a search on UC Santa Barbara’s exhaustive presidential records library finds that no president from 1981 to today uttered the phrase ‘American exceptionalism’ except Obama. As U.S. News‘ Robert Schlesinger wrote, ‘American exceptionalism’ is not a traditional part of presidential vocabulary. According to Schlesinger’s search of public records, Obama is the only president in 82 years to use the term.”

And yet in recent years it has become a commonplace of Republicans and Democrats alike.  In other words, as the country has become politically shakier, the rhetoric about its greatness has only escalated in an American version of “the lady doth protest too much.”  Such descriptors have become the political equivalent of litmus tests: you couldn’t be president or much of anything else without eternally testifying to your unwavering belief in American greatness.
This, of course, is the line that Trump crossed in a curiously unnoticed fashion in this election campaign.  He did so by initially upping the rhetorical ante, adding that exclamation point (which even Reagan avoided). Yet in the process of being more patriotically correct than thou, he somehow also waded straight into American decline so bluntly that his own audience could hardly miss it (even if his critics did).

Think of it as an irony, if you wish, but the ultimate American narcissist, in promoting his own rise, has also openly promoted a version of decline and fall to striking numbers of Americans.  For his followers, a major political figure has quit with the defensive BS and started saying it the way it is.

Of course, don’t furl the flag or shut down those offshore accounts or start writing the complete history of American decline quite yet.  After all, the United States still looms “lone” on an ever more chaotic planet.  Its wealth remains stunning, its economic clout something to behold, its tycoons the envy of the Earth, and its military beyond compare when it comes to how much and how destructively, even if not how successfully.  Still, make no mistake about it, Donald Trump is a harbinger, however bizarre, of a new American century in which this country will indeed no longer be (with a bow to Muhammad Ali) “the Greatest” or, for all but a shrinking crew, exceptional.

So mark your calendars: 2016 is the official year the U.S. first went public as a declinist power and for that you can thank Donald — or rather Donald! — Trump.

To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com here.

34 comments:

  1. ...“Obama has talked more about American exceptionalism than Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush combined: a search on UC Santa Barbara’s exhaustive presidential records library finds that no president from 1981 to today uttered the phrase ‘American exceptionalism’ except Obama. As U.S. News‘ Robert Schlesinger wrote, ‘American exceptionalism’ is not a traditional part of presidential vocabulary. According to Schlesinger’s search of public records, Obama is the only president in 82 years to use the term.”

    And yet in recent years it has become a commonplace of Republicans and Democrats alike. In other words, as the country has become politically shakier, the rhetoric about its greatness has only escalated in an American version of “the lady doth protest too much.” Such descriptors have become the political equivalent of litmus tests: you couldn’t be president or much of anything else without eternally testifying to your unwavering belief in American greatness.
    ...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Pathetic, is the word that comes to mind.

    I am glad to have supported Bernie Sanders. I think he should take Trump’s advice and run as an Independent.

    Anyone, but Hillary Clinton.

    Anyone.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ted Cruz called a basketball hoop a ‘basketball ring’ while recreating a scene from ‘Hoosiers’

    "No one has ever called it a "basketball ring" before Cruz just now in the history of basketball, politics, or words."

    http://ftw.usatoday.com/2016/04/ted-cruz-basketball-ring-hoosiers-indiana-gop-primary

    ReplyDelete
  4. QuirkTue Apr 26, 09:19:00 PM EDT
    .

    Think about it.

    You've seen Ramada, Kobane, Gaza... You've seen the neighborhoods and how close the houses are together.

    So these guys are sitting in their house. They hear a knock on the rook. You've been told the average time before the jdam hits is 10 minutes. What do you do?

    You know if they take your house out most of the stuff around it will be taken out too. If you decide to run how far do you have to run? In what direction? Is it likely they have just picked your house to bomb? If, in fact, they think there are actually militants in the house, do they have a drone outside ready to pick off anyone who comes out and is running? Are they waiting for a double tab, the same game they played in Afghanistan.

    Do you take you chances, try and get the kids and the baby and grandma and grandpa and try to start running or do you simply bend over, spread your legs, and kiss your ass goodbye?

    This is a cynical PR move and nothing more.


    You don't KNOW shit.

    really.

    In Gaza, specific buildings were KNOCKED... If you are sitting in your apartment and there is a loud explosion on your roof?

    You leave.

    Quirk admit it, you cannot admit you are wrong.

    You are turning into a narcissist. No ability to admit you are wrong.

    Israel, in the past, has used robocalls to cell phones, dropped millions of leaflets all telling the civilians of the war zone WHERE to go.

    No matter, NOTHING Israel does is GOOD enough for you.

    Do the Palestinians, Hezbollah, ISIS or Hamas give ANY warning where they attack?

    Hmm....

    NO.

    Case Closed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      No matter, NOTHING Israel does is GOOD enough for you.

      You're paranoia betrays you. This is not about Israel. It's not about dropping leaflets or using robocalls. It's about the US and a specific technique, roof-knocking.



      From today's Times of Israel...

      US tries, fails to mimic Israeli ‘roof-knock’ bomb warning in Iraq

      American pilot first fires non-lethal device as a heads-up to an impending attack; woman still dies as she runs back inside after initial blast


      Take a look at the picture in the story and see the size of the blast.

      Read how they actually do the 'roof knock' and follow-up blasts.

      The United Nation’s report on the 2014 Gaza conflict said the practice does not deliver a clear enough warning to civilians of what’s to come.

      “In an area with buildings all around, how can the recipient of such a ‘roof-knock’ know which building he or she should avoid if this is not specified in the message?” the report asked.


      You hear what you want to hear. Your credulity matches Rufus' apparent belief in the objectivity of those DOD reports he posts.

      Case closed?

      Hilarious.

      .



      Delete
    2. I love it, you cite a UN report?

      Is this the SAME UN that actually employees Hamas members as teachers in the UNWRA? Is this the SAME UN that allows weapons to be stored inside it's buildings? (or near by?)

      Sorry quirk, you are trolling.

      If you are in a building and a bomb hits the top of it and you are too stupid to flee? It serves you right to sit on your ignorant fat ass and wait for the next bomb.

      You are losing credibility by the hour.

      Delete
    3. BTW I noticed you ignored the IDF's efforts using cell phones and millions of leaflets dropped used to communicate the impending bombings

      agree or not? no matter

      Israel does MORE than any other nation on the planet, in the history of armed conflict, to avoid civilian causalities.

      It's enemies, hamas, ISIS, Iran, Hezbollah, Fatah, the PA, Islamic Jihad give no warnings ever.

      Delete
    4. .

      You dumb shit.

      You are so pumped up with vitriol you can't even read what's written.

      How many times do you need to be told this before it gets through?

      You're paranoia betrays you. This is not about Israel. It's not about dropping leaflets or using robocalls. It's about the US and a specific technique, roof-knocking.

      Come back when you've calmed down and can have a rational conversation.

      Or better yet, don't.

      .

      Delete
  5. America will be fine. A bunch of the non-college educated white guys are throwing a hissy fit, due to a perceived loss of "white privilege," but they'll get over it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Exactly,
      IT workers at Disney that have to train immigrants so they can take their jobs are hallucinating that there is a problem.
      That was then.
      Now INTEL has offloaded 20,000 American workers so they can replace them with immigrants, thereby avoiding the Obamacare overhead, in addition to paying them less.

      Those laid off "white boys" deserved it.

      ...in ObamaWorld.

      Delete
    2. .

      Love the term 'white privilege'. An invented phrase similar to the words homophobia or Islamophobia. It reflects the hypocrisy of the left. In fact, it reflects the progressive's impulse to class people by race, class, and nationality into victims and oppressors. The most consistent thing about the thinking is its inconsistency. Why should a black or hispanic be considered more of a victim than a white family living in the same urban slum. Why isn't Al Sharpton called a racist but Donald Trump is? It's reported that US Asians as a class have now have overtaken whites as the wealthiest in the country. Will we soon have the term 'Asian privilege' popping up in the Nation or Salon? Why do 'Black lives matter' instead of 'all lives matter'? Certain minorities can get a pretty much free ride to schools like Harvard while the chances of poor white kids are definitely limited. We recognize the Jewish holocaust, why don't we recognize the Armenian genocide.

      Progressives throw around these terms like the government throws around the term 'terrorist'. You are called a 'victim' or an 'oppressor' simply based on the ruminations of the elitist progressive mind.

      .

      Delete
    3. We recognize the Jewish holocaust, why don't we recognize the Armenian genocide.


      Jews do.

      Delete
    4. But some would argue that Germany was at the height of "civil advancement" when Hitler and the German people did what they did.

      Turkey? On the other hand had lower expectations being a Islamic, ruthless people.

      You are guilty of it yourself Quirk.

      You ignore the 450,000 dead in syria by Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, argue with me that the Iranian supported Shiites in Iraq have also butchered 100's of thousands but get your panties in a wad about Israel and it's killing of 2200 (mostly hamas terrorists) in Gaza.

      Delete
    5. .

      You ignore the 450,000 dead in syria by Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, argue with me that the Iranian supported Shiites in Iraq have also butchered 100's of thousands but get your panties in a wad about Israel and it's killing of 2200 (mostly hamas terrorists) in Gaza.

      Again, you're shooting from the lip.

      If you can't recognize that long ago the civil war in Iraq changed from a local to a regional war and that all sides are guilty of the killing there whether it's 450,000 as you insist or 250,000 as the UN states, then you are nutz. If you want to blame it all on Iran and look like fool go for it.

      I write about the US role in Syria all the time and the civilians they are taking out with their bombing. I write about it because I have said we shouldn't be there not because I am naive about collateral damage in war. It can't be avoided. It is inevitable no matter how hard you try. The word 'precise' when dropping a 500 lb bomb or a hellfire missile on a target is an oxymoron. It's Orwellian like the euphemisms used in 1984.

      As for Gaza, I never blamed Israel for the collateral damage specifically. In fact, I specifically mention that it was inevitable given the how densely packed the populated areas are. What I did blame Bibi was for the lies and actions that brought about that war.

      The fact that you keep bringing the conversation of the US using the 'roof knocking' technique back to the Jews and Israel (though I've pointed out more than once that they aren't related) points out the fixation and paranoia you have on the subject of the Jews. It reminds of what I have seen in all the Jewish papers I've read. They talk about every aspect of life in the world, politics, war, entertainment, social issues, religion, etc. but only from a Jewish or Israeli perspective. They It go out of their way to point out the Jews, whether its about a Jewish NBA coach who got fired or a Jew that is on the German soccer team. They are like small town newspapers talking about the local high school star.

      Get over it. Everything isn't about Jews and Israel.

      .

      Delete
    6. What brought about the war was Hamas and it's rockets and kidnapping and murder.

      Then the tunnels.

      and yes Iran is responsible, as is Syria and Hezbollah for the 450,000 dead in Syria and Iran is directly responsible for the hundreds of thousands of dead in Iraq.

      Delete
    7. " whether its about a Jewish NBA coach who got fired or a Jew that is on the German soccer team. They are like small town newspapers talking about the local high school star."

      Never mentioned either.

      But the fact that Deuce and his blog focus on Jews and Israel all the time?

      GET OVER IT.

      Delete
    8. The blog focus on indignities, occupation, threats to peace, human rights violations and the sordid world of politics. It does not single out Israel and it does not ignore Israel especially the sordid part about Israeli influence on the US government.

      Delete
    9. Deuce you are OBSESSED with Israel.

      Be honest.

      Oh that's right.

      You can't.

      Delete
  6. Number of foreign fighters flowing to join ISIS declines by 90%, says Pentagon

    (IraqiNews.com) The number of foreign fighters flowing to join the so-called ISIS in Iraq and Syria has dropped from roughly 2,000 a month down to 200, according to a report by the Pentagon, which indicates that the current numbers are further proof of the ISIS’s declining stature.

    Maj Gen. Peter Gersten, a senior U.S. army officer within the U.S.-led campaign against ISIS, said in a press statement followed by IraqiNews.com, “The declining number of fighters is a direct result of [air] strikes that have targeted the terror group’s infrastructure.”

    Noteworthy the number of foreign fighters among the ISIS was estimated by U.S. intelligence reports to be more than 30,000 foreign fighters from roughly 100 different countries around the world.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. LOL

      A stupid checkers analysis of ISIS

      http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/26/us/politics/isis-spreading-in-europe-clapper-warns.html?_r=0

      ISIS Spreading in Europe, U.S. Intelligence Chief Warns

      The Islamic State is operating clandestine terrorist cells in Britain, Germany and Italy, similar to the groups that carried out the attacks in Paris and Brussels, the top-ranking American intelligence official said on Monday.

      When asked if the Islamic State was engaging in secret activities in those nations, the official, James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, said: “Yes, they do. That is a concern, obviously, of ours and our European allies.” He then added, “We continue to see evidence of plotting on the part of ISIL in the countries you named.” ISIL is another name for the Islamic State.

      No need to TRAVEL to do the deed....

      Checkers....

      ISIS IS GROWING and moving into a dozen nations....

      But you keep walking off with the bullshit...

      Delete
  7. I've been feeling lots, and growing, agriphobia lately, especially from those living in some heavily populated areas like around Detroit.

    So I too know what it's like being a victim of the phobias....mocked, called names, degraded in all ways...

    I extend my hands in friend ship and all I get is slapped. Even offering refuge to the urban helpless....to no avail....

    WiO has it right about ISIS. What I pointed out was that the numbers of ISIS in Iraq and Syria have grown....the figure 75,000 was found twice in my reading, a surprise....lost some ground in some areas, gaining some back in other areas...growing in Libya, and around the world.....

    Basically Zero is going to happen until a new President takes charge....

    I'm with the 'Anyone but Hillary' sentiment expressed at the top of this thread...

    Also I am not awake yet if you can't tell and going to take a shower and go spray the weeds I have been ordered to spray by the boss of this home....

    Cheers !

    (just heard on Fox another desperation move by Cruz, announcing Carly Fiorina his VP if he gets the nomination)

    Later, gentlemen...



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Quirk admit it, you cannot admit you are wrong.

      You are turning into a narcissist. No ability to admit you are wrong.


      Hmmm......food for thought


      Am I imaging things, or has the old dog started to click his fingers in your face as he types ?....

      Delete
    2. .

      Hmmm......food for thought

      Well, admittedly you can use any help you can get.


      Am I imaging things, or has the old dog started to click his fingers in your face as he types ?....

      With the clicking fingers again? I haven't a clue as to what that means. I've heard of people snapping their fingers. Or, cracking their knuckles.

      Clicking their fingers? Old dog?

      I haven't the faintest idea what you are talking about. Forget the weeds. Go back to bed. Sounds like you've got a case of the vapors. Or, the DTs. Perhaps, it's the drugs. Or, the lack of them.

      Seek help.

      .

      Delete
    3. Denmark ethics council calls for tax on red meat to fight 'ethical problem' of climate change
      With cattle contributing a tenth of global emissions, people are 'ethically obliged' to change their eating habits, an influential government think tank says

      http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/denmark-ethics-council-calls-for-tax-on-red-meat-to-fight-ethical-problem-of-climate-change-a7003061.html

      Delete
    4. .

      I've been feeling lots, and growing, agriphobia lately, especially from those living in some heavily populated areas like around Detroit.

      Agriphobia?


      What is that? Fear of real farmers?


      .

      Delete
  8. Strikes in Iraq

    Bomber, fighter, ground attack and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 23 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq’s government:

    -- Near Baghdadi, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed two ISIL tunnel systems, an ISIL tunnel entrance, an ISIL heavy machine gun, an ISIL recoilless rifle and an ISIL fighting position.

    -- Near Beiji, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed three ISIL fighting positions.

    --- Near Fallujah, three strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit, destroyed two ISIL mortar systems and suppressed an ISIL tactical unit.

    -- Near Hit, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL machine gun and an ISIL anti-air artillery piece.

    -- Near Kirkuk, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL assembly area.

    -- Near Kisik, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and an ISIL mortar system.

    -- Near Mosul, five strikes struck three separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed two ISIL rocket rails, an ISIL vehicle and an ISIL fighting position and suppressed an ISIL heavy machine gun.

    -- Near Qayyarah, four strikes struck three separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL mortar system.

    -- Near Sinjar, a strike suppressed an ISIL mortar position.

    -- Near Sultan Abdallah, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL assembly area and an ISIL supply cache.

    -- Near Tal Afar, three strikes destroyed two ISIL tunnel systems and an ISIL front-end loader and denied ISIL access to terrain.

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  9. I just read the transcript of Trumps foreign policy speech he made from the Mayflower Hotel in DC today. VERY interesting reading. I cannot wait to hear how the liberal media and HRC and Obama react. He threw them both completely under the bus.

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  10. I poked around the intertubes looking for a transcript but failed to find it. Got a handy link?

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  11. I'm remote, Ash. I think it was on Time's website. It's also on Drudge (but of course). Hope you find it.

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  12. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/world/middleeast/death-toll-from-war-in-syria-now-470000-group-finds.html?_r=0

    Death Toll From War in Syria Now 470,000, Group Finds
    By ANNE BARNARDFEB. 11, 2016

    The report from the Syrian Center for Policy Research said that at least 470,000 Syrians had died as a result of the war, almost twice the 250,000 counted a year and a half ago by the United Nations until it stopped counting because of a lack of confidence in the data.



    Get up to SPEED Quirk and this is SYRIA ONLY...

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    Replies
    1. CHRISTIANS FACE TOTAL PURGE FROM SYRIA

      http://www.newsweek.com/christians-face-purge-syria-413463

      Delete
  13. I see Rufus has gone undercover, gone anonymous...

    Won't matter. We've all read each other for so long.....

    Rufus is beyond disguise....

    Reading, say, WiO is like reading Shakespeare....

    Reading Quirk is like reading, o I don't know, Mickey Spillane maybe....

    I'm comin' for ya Quirk, when the time is right, your recent craparoo is outrageous.

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