Man, the day goes by fast when you have an office Christmas party, as we did at ADCO today. But here’s some stuff for y’all to chew on. If y’all know of any better topics, please share:
- 6 U.S. Soldiers Are Killed by Taliban Attack in Afghanistan — Meanwhile, the BBC reports that the Taliban is “close to taking” the town of Sangin in Helmand province.
- WATCH: Obama Says Trump ‘Exploiting’ Anger, Fear Among ‘Blue-Collar Men’ — No wonder they cling so to God, guns and anti-immigrant sentiment. Don’t you love it when Obama explains the white working class to us? It’s like he’s looking at ants under a magnifying glass or something…
- Christian conservatives coalesce around Cruz — I think The Washington Post is just leading with this at the moment because the editors are so proud of the alliteration. The copy desk chief is probably sitting at his computer working on the next story and repeating it to himself over and over in a soft chant.
- The Risks of Long-Term Regular Drinking — Yeah, like you really wanted to know about that this particular week…
- Graham drops out — Well, y’all already knew about this. But to see something new, here’s a “heartfelt” video tribute Slate did to the senator’s failed campaign. Check it out below. Slate notes that “Graham, by the way, was one of the only Republican candidates with an actual plan to defeat ISIS that differed from what the U.S. is already doing.”
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Given the excitement Senator Graham generated, it was only a matter of time before our senior senator dropped out of the race. I’d still like to hear his comments on the WSJ report that Belgian Police had to delay a raid in search of terror suspect Salah Abdeslam because Belgian law prohibits police raids between 9:00 PM and 5:00 AM. When the cops did start the raid promptly at 5:00 AM, their quarry had already gone, likely because there are no laws against terror suspects moving about between those hours. Details here.
Okay, raids are out, but what about lookouts, observers, surly guys in trench coats hanging around street corners and the like?
So are “Belgian waffles” a breakfast item or a statement on national security?
While I’m at it I may as well ask how dare the Belgians have an Interior Minister named Jambon comment on anything Muslim?
Senator Graham, the Kingdom of Belgium needs you!
“Belgian law prohibits police raids between 9:00 PM and 5:00 AM.”
What a stupid time to be alive.
Maybe they don’t want to pay the overtime…
You know, I had a similar thought where maybe the law was passed because some policeman’s union leader thought: Look, my boys work hard all day. We need to get our eight hours of regular rest, and we can’t be woken up in the middle of the night for every ol’ raid that you citizens want. Besides, all the extra flashlights and stuff cost money. We’ll get to the bad guys when the sun comes up.
Banker’s hours for cops.
Of course, I suspect it’s really a civil-liberties thing. Someone thought it was inhumane and tyrannical for cops to be busting people’s doors down at night. You know, when they’re home.
Maybe they could come up with a Major Major compromise: You can conduct raids at night, but only when your subjects are NOT at home…
As I suspected, it’s another case of libertarianism run amok. From the WSJ:
“Don’t you love it when Obama explains the white working class to us? It’s like he’s looking at ants under a magnifying glass or something…” You left out “with the sun at his back.”
While the white working class ain’t doing so well, Obama’s enemies are faring even worse. And I don’t mean ISIS/L /Daesh.
This was a good concert, and amazing to see,again;a dream come true.merry christmas
The Afghan thing continues to baffle my aging mind. You got 10,000 soldiers there, not enough to go ahead and win but enough to get them killed trying to do . . . . what is it? I forgot, it’s been so long.
On Obama’s comment that Trump is exploiting working class fears…let’s see, Obama is always warning about fears and boogeymen that motivate his base like:
1. Muslim Backlash – which never seems to happen;
2. Police Shootings – which are really, really rare;
3. Global Warming – which hasn’t been happening for the last 17 years;
4. Mass Shootings – in a time when gun violence and murder is substantially down
But well…when when someone else on the other side of the political spectrum talks about:
1. Terrorism;
2. Iran;
3. Declining wages; or
4. Uncontrolled border crossings;
then somehow these concerns are just made-up, faked, bad-faith arguments that are being cynically “exploited” by politicians who are just riling up the dumb hicks in flyover country for political purposes. Anyone critical of POTUS is just a bad-faith exploiter.
I also really enjoyed how the sole failure that Obama acknowledges is his failure to adequately explain to us dum-dums how awesome of a job he’s doing.
Seriously, you Republicans: Stop exploiting fears, because if we don’t focus on global warming, we’re all going to die. Unless white guys with guns shoot us all up first.
Now, Bryan…
Three of the four things that you say Obama is always on about really can’t be laid at his door. They’re things that get huge play in media, and — since that is expected of presidents these days — he reacts to them. For instance, is he any more concerned about “Muslim backlash” than W. was? I don’t think so.
The global warming IS a priority to him, but the rest I don’t think is mainly him…
Ok, sure. The media does feed into it, but his reactions are what I’m talking about.
Bryan, pray tell where in this interview (and please read the transcript) does POTUS refer to dumb hicks in flyover country? And Brad, why is introspection and an attempt to understand and even empathize with those who might support Trump somehow condescending, or deigning to explain a species as if they were “ants under a magnifying glass”? Is the President disqualified from trying to go outside his own experience (no politician is blue collar anyway) to discuss, as any of us might discuss on this blog, the appeal of a Trump? What would you have him say on this, instead?
I continue to be dumbfounded at how the very reasonable-ness of this President gets him criticized. Perhaps we do deserve a Donald Trump as President, who would just simply say of anybody who criticizes him or his policies, “They’re morons, OK?” My own thought is that a lot of people are tired of the introspection, the coolness, the analytical nature of Obama, and just want a hot-tempered guy who’ll act first and think later, if at all.
Basically, I think about the president’s No-Drama Obama thing the same as I always did. I actually kind of identify with it, as I wrote in 2008 in my “Barack Like Me” column:
“Bryan, pray tell where in this interview (and please read the transcript) does POTUS refer to dumb hicks in flyover country?”
Phillip, I wasn’t quoting him. He said: “You combine those things, and it means that there is going to be potential anger, frustration, fear — some of it justified, but just misdirected,”
So he’s saying that people aren’t wrong to be upset, they’re just wrong to be upset with the current government. In his view, they’re misdirecting their anger, frustration and fear, because…why? He doesn’t say. I can only conclude that Obama thinks these people can’t figure out the right place to direct their anger, frustration, and/or fear. Isn’t it theoretically possible that these people’s anger, frustration, and fear is reasonably directed somewhere? Wouldn’t a humble, self-reflective person consider this possibility?
And I have to respectfully disagree that Obama is introspective or self-reflective. I highly doubt that he’s ever been self-reflective enough to think about the point that I made about his fears and priorities might be “exploiting” to another point of view, which he views as exploitative of irrational fears. I honestly bet you that this has never occurred to him as something that he needs to justify.
I’ll give you a specific example. In his Oval Office address after the San Bernardino terrorist attack, he said (and I quote)
(emphasis mine)
“What could possibly be the argument…?” Are you kidding me? Even first year lawyers know not to dismiss the other side’s argument out of hand, regardless of what you think of it on the merits. However, Obama is apparently so blinded by his own position that he can’t even comprehend the opposing argument. So excuse me if I don’t see Obama as the most analytical, reasonable, and introspective guy in the world. I was so boggled by that line, I stopped listening to everything he said following that.
Maybe I’m missing all his reasonable moments. Maybe you can provide me with links to all the times when he’s been self-reflective about things he could have done better, or how the other side of an argument has a legitimate point that needs to be worked with.
Out of the 8 items Bryan listed let’s rank the ones that are really a concern:
1. Global Warming – Potentially the most significant human crisis in history. Not sure where this “no warming in the past 17 years” comes from but’s it’s patently false. With glaciers melting and sea levels rising many people in low-lying areas are already being displaced. Trillions of dollars are at stake. And pleez don’t trot out the satellite data, its meaningless.
2. Mass Shootings. Sure the murder rate is down since 1993 (but not much during the early 2000s) but the murder rate in the US is still very high compared to other industrial nations. Besides, who was sworn in as president in 1993? Seems like we owe the first president Clinton a big thank you. Hopefully the next president Clinton can continue to build on her husbands record of safety.
3. Declining Wages. Actually they are going up the last few months. It’s taking a long time to climb out of the hole George W left us in. If the GOP had gone along with Obama’s stimulus plans we’d be in better shape today than we are. Still with a record 65 straight months of positive job growth further wage growth seems inevitable. Hence the Feds increase in interest rates.
4. Police shootings. Perhaps not a problem for middle-class white America but for people of color it’s a real concern.
5. Muslim Backlash. Given the Republican’s strident attempts to ban Muslim immigration, create Muslim databases and prohibit Muslim’s from becoming president this has significant potential for serious discrimination. We should be very diligent to guard against a 21st century version of Jim Crow.
6. Iran. We should engage them not vilify them. As far as I know not a single American has been killed by an Iranian soldier or terrorist. Doesn’t seem like fear mongering of the Iranians is grounded in fact.
7. Uncontrolled border crossings. No, this is not a big problem. It is a minor one at most and certainly doesn’t merit the endless, non-stop and bigoted comments coming from the GOP candidates for POTUS, especially it’s front runner.
8. Terrorism. Easily the mother of all over-rated problems to American citizens. Counting the events of 9-11 AND Americans killed overseas by Islamic terrorists there have been on average 200 terrorist killings of Americans per year this century. This drops to about 4 per year since 9-11 to Americans on American soil. So what is likely to kill more Americans in a given year? Traffic crashes (35,000), Unintentional falls (25,000), Poisonings (31,000), Drownings (3,500), Bees (53), Cows (22).
So yes, it is clear than all the loud rhetoric from the GOP about the risks of terrorism are very much overstated and do in fact constitute dangerous fear-mongering. If we start carpet-bombing or sending in huge contingents of soldiers then all we are likely to accomplish is increasing the likelihood of Americans getting killed by terrorists. The fear-mongering rhetoric by the GOP needs to stop, it’s far more dangerous than the terrorists. Conversely, the issues related to global warming are real and demand our attention.
Bud, that list of issues reminds me:
Have you updated your list handicapping the candidates lately? That’s always good for some discussion…
No. This is an extremely difficult year to handicap. It seems like a 3 man race though:
Cruz-50%
Trump-35%
Rubio-24%
Others-1%
Just can’t deny the polls any longer.
And to engage more directly:
How to explain this dichotomy in which folks on the left act like global warming is THE most important issue that threatens us all, and terrorism is an irritating distraction from what’s important, while folks on the right are precisely the opposite?
I don’t get the either-or thing. Both are important, and should be huge national and international priorities. And in the Energy Party worldview, they’re actually connected. It makes no sense to stress one or the other.
Brad – The answer’s simple: the left’s answer to global warming is to take over the economy; they happen to be big boosters of what the right derides as “one-worldism.” In contrast the right’s priorities are free markets along with national security and sovereignty.
Some on the left are usually frank about their goals. Witness Naomi Klein’s article “Serious about climate throw out the Free Market Playbook” which she explains here. You can see it in organizations like the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a pseudo-scientific body that seeks political consensus on large wealth transfers from the West to developing countries. They excel at finding ways to latch on to other people’s money and spending it as they know it ought to be spent. Over the past decade or two they’ve tried to push an international tax on stock trades to fund their dreams. They are collectivists in search of a purse and power.
The right generally centers on the individual and sees government as both a potential guardian and destroyer of those rights depending on its size and inclinations at any given instant. We right-wing nuts believe that government’s first role is to provide a framework for wherein liberty, free expression, commerce, can thrive. Thus police, a militia, or, at the national, level armed forces may be necessary protective measures to assure the safety and security of the populace. The notions of strong borders, controlled immigration, and the need to eliminate not-so-random acts of terror follow.
Both left and right support science and technology and will bend and twist research to suit their own agenda. (The canard that conservatives are anti-science has been effectively dismissed by Yuval lLevin and others.) But in the climate change tussle, righties can rightly call for researchers to provide their data and methods, arguing in effect that extraordinary claims require just simple proof. To date much of what’s called climate science is not open to scrutiny. To date, the warmists have a hypothesis – CO2 increases temperature – but little data to support that. Meantime we find that they finagle historical data, try to erase events like the Little Ice Age or Medieval Warm period.
My main point is that the differences between right and left on many topics are readily explicable.
The answer’s simple: the left’s answer to global warming is to take over the economy;
-Assistant
This fits in well with the many ongoing attempts by the right to use fear-mongering scare tactics from the right to fool people into believing their false narratives are some sort of gospel. Who exactly are the people trying to take over the economy? Be specific now and don’t just throw out some regurgitated talk radio meme. I consider myself a member of the left and I don’t have any designs on “taking over the economy”.
Fact is over the past half century or more the “right” has promulgated this same fear-mongering nonsense about destroying the economy if some action is taken to address a known and very real problem with the environment. Eventually, thanks to hard work by liberals, effective measures were taken to eliminate water pollution, air pollution, threats to the ozone and acid rain. The fear-mongering claims from the right fail to materialize as the economy hums along even better than before. We end up with rivers that don’t catch on fire, ozone that protects us, and trees in the Appalachians that aren’t scorched by acidic showers. The right is proven wrong again and again and again yet they come back with their Heritage Foundation funded studies that basically deny the evidence. (These are the same folks who funded studies suggesting cigarette smoking was harmless). Their minions go on talk radio to spin yet another false set of “statistics”.
So the fight has to be fought yet again. But this is America and if someone wants to believe the Koch Brothers or Exxon over legitimate scientists it’s their right to do so. In the end liberals will be proven right, the economy will suffer no ill effects and the world will be a cleaner and safer place to live.
bud –
Unrealistic Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards are one example of Leftists forcing regulations that have not be subjected to legally mandated cost-benefit analyses and, by the way, kill folks by forcing increased sales of smaller cars that are inherently not as safe as larger ones. But the real stinker in the regs is that the administration colluded with the auto industry to develop ways to game the system. The EPA folks involved in the conferences that formulated the regulations warned them that what transpired during the proceedings — what government officials said, the drafts that were provided — were not to be disclosed. How’s that for cronyism?
Closing down the coal industry is another. Billion$ of capital invested are being abandoned for no good reason. Clean plants whose only sin is to produce a trace gas, CO2, is bizarre! Earth’s atmosphere currently consists of 400 PPM of CO2. For the mathematically impaired, that’s 0.04%. Do you know what percentage of worldwide CO2 human activity generates? It’s somewhat hard to find on the Intertubes, but I’ll go with 4%-7% of annual CO2 emissions are human caused, although I think the real number is 3.8%. So how unnatural is that? Moreover, the crony capitalism monster rears its ugly head in subsidies of all sorts to companies promising to develop miracle solar or wind solutions, with the American public taking the risk by making crony investors whole when their favored companies fail.
BTW, take a look at the votes in Congress for the clean water and other regs you favor, as well as the party under which the regs were passed. You might also be surprised at how little Exxon has given to what you might call climate-deniers in comparison to what the corporation gives to the WWF and other environmental outfits hot on the globo-warmo trail. Hint: they give an order of magnitude more to the warmists.
Unrealistic Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards are one example of Leftists forcing regulations that have not be subjected to legally mandated cost-benefit analyses and, by the way, kill folks by forcing increased sales of smaller cars that are inherently not as safe as larger ones.
-Assistant
I’ll leave the rest for another day. Lots of Christmas stuff to do. But this is important. But not for the reason you think. I actually largely agree with your comments about the CAFE standards, although the whole leftist comment is a bit insulting. They weren’t the most efficient way to go. I’d have preferred a big gas tax hike to discourage people from buying gas guzzlers. Seems like that would have been a more effective market oriented approach.
No, what I really want to focus on is the “small cars are inherently unsafe comment”. This issue is pretty complicated and sorting through all the data gives a decidedly mixed message. It’s obviously true than when a large car collides with a small one the occupants of the small car are more likely to be injured or killed. But that is only one type of crash. Many crashes involve only a single vehicle. The data clearly shows that SUVs tend to roll over much more easily than small cars like Mazda Miatas. Rollover’s are much more dangerous than any other type of crash. And in the event the vehicle does rollover the likelihood of sustaining a fatal injury is much greater in a large SUV than in the Miata. Perhaps twice as likely. Rollover’s are much more dangerous than any other type of crash. In fact SUVs, which tend to be quite large are much more dangerous than automobiles for that reason.
Another factor involves collisions with pedestrians and bicycles which together account for nearly 1/7 of all traffic deaths. Collisions that involve SUVs are significantly more dangerous to pedestrians in slow speed crashes.
Overall I’d say the motoring public would be safest if all vehicles were smaller. That would alleviate the small vs large issue while reducing the incidence of rollovers and mitigate damage to pedestrians. So the “inherently safer” aspect of vehicle safety is not born out by facts. If you want a safe vehicle buy a medium sized sedan and always buckle up.
Wow, bud, I was going to ignore your post, but I can’t let your remark about Iran killing Americans pass without comment.
Two retired Brit Army officers recently assembled a report entitled Killing Americans and their Allies: Iran’s Continuing War against the U.S. and the West. You can read it here.
They deal with more than the blasts from the past like Iran’s October 1983 suicide bomb attacks in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. Marines and 58 French paratroopers or the June 1996 Khobar Towers bombing that killed 19 U.S. servicemen and wounded 498. Over the past 15 years the authors estimate that Iran has directly or indirectly killed over 1,000 US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran supplied Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFPs), a shaped charge designed to penetrate armor, that were disguised as rocks and used in ambushes of US forces.
Iran’s been the supplier of more conventional weapons to kill Americans, from RPGs to Austrian-made sniper rifles, to mortars and such. You might want to wander through the report and check out the sources. I think you’ll find it interesting and enlightening.
Just for the record Assistant, I try to read what you write. You write well (even though you’re usually wrong). I think it’s important to listen to everyone’s point of view. I want to be challenged. If you find that I’m wrong, as apparently you did with my Iran comments, say why. So please don’t ignore what I or anyone else has to say.
And I appreciate what you write too. I should have noted that I’ve been quite busy with work crap and therefore did not really want to find the time to respond to your post, but I reconsidered and did.
So I offer you a tip of the hat, wish you the very best in this holiday season, and promise to respond to your posts on Brad’s blog with vigor and respect.
Well said and happy holidays and/or Merry Christmas to you and yours.
I’ll just take terrorism, which you ranked least important:
First of all, you said “Counting the events of 9-11 AND Americans killed overseas by Islamic terrorists there have been on average 200 terrorist killings of Americans per year this century. This drops to about 4 per year since 9-11 to Americans on American soil“.
You missed a few.
1. Ft. Hood (Here in America)
2. Chattanooga (America…again.)
3. Boston Marathon (‘Merica)
4. Merced (back to America)
5. Paris (one American died, feel free to include or not)
6. San Bernardino (Yes, even California is, in fact, in America)
So that’s like, uh, five or six right off the top of my head.
Also, you then throw in the whole “You’re more likely to be killed by…” thing with car accidents, falling, bees, and my personal favorite: cows. (By the way, is this crashing your car into a cow, or is this like a running of the bulls thing?)
The thing is, it’s one thing to sneer at people’s fear of terrorism, (statistically your chance of being killed by a terrorist are pretty small) when you’re a blogger, or Buzzfeed, or something. But when you’re the President, x number of people a year who heard your words minimizing terrorism as overblown will in fact be killed by terrorists. As in, a non-zero number of people will be killed. So some of those people you’re sneering at will, in fact, be killed by a terrorist, and their fears will not have been misplaced at all. ‘Cause they’ll be dead.
But hey, if we’re playing “fun with statistics”, then your chances of being killed by a “gun show loophole” or an “assault weapon” are about the same as your chances of being killed by a falling vending machine. For some reason, I don’t hear you or the President say anything about liberals who worry about that stupid, irrational fear.
Cindi Scoppe had the numbers a few days back. There have been some 48 Americans killed by Islamic terrorists since 9-11 on American soil. The incidents you cited are among those deaths. Do the math. It’s been 14 years since 9-11. 48 divided by 14 equals 3.428. I rounded up to 4. Of course all these lives are important. And of course unlike George W. Bush we should remain vigilant. As you say that is the job of POTUS. But these numbers don’t equal the extreme measures promoted by the GOP POTUS candidates.
What number do you come up with if the start date is 9/10/2001 instead of 9/12/2001?
Moreover, when looking at investments, the common disclaimer the funds / brokers invoke is this: past performance is not a predictor of future results.
The mistake a lot of progressives, the mainstream media (but I repeat myself), and il Presidente and his counsellors make is that the public is fearful.
No, we’re concerned that this administration is careless, maybe even deceitful. We’re not worried, we’re concerned and a bit angry at the administration’s take on things.
This reminds me of a joke. Here’s one version as purportedly told by a cop:
We’re prepared, not afraid. It’s no fun lugging a sidearm everywhere one goes, but if we don’t, who will stand up to the next random shooter?
What number do you come up with if the start date is 9/10/2001 instead of 9/12/2001
-Assistant
About 200 using 1/1/00. I gave that figure earlier but since you make it a point not to read what I have to say I guess you missed. Had Al Gore been president the number would have likely been 4 or 5. Ok we don’t know that but there is one thing that is crystal clear, George W. Bush failed to act on numerous intelligence warnings about the dangers of Al Qaeda. So why would any reasonable thinking person vote for a party that failed so utterly to keep us safe?
Just a moment ago I had a great observation to make about #4 on your list, but I cannot for the life of me remember now what it was.
I think we’ll all drink to that.