Note: Each block of text actually is a link to a story or a web page that I am commenting on. Click on that text and it will take you to the page being referred to.
It seems the usual insanity on the various news fronts today … so I hope you enjoy perusing some these articles.
Fun way to start today's Random Thoughts: Men these rules are mandatory ... like putting the toilet lid down.
Interesting point of view from a black nationalist who rejects assimilation. It is sad that she doesn't have all her facts in order, because - statistically - the largest threat to African-American males has been - for years - other black males, not police officers. Plus, she seems to be stuck on the entitlement thing for African-Americans ... to wit I say, Slavery is no more. Jim Crow is no more. Voter discrimination really is no more. Don't blame the Republicans for the state of affairs in practically every major American city ... since it is the Democrats who have been in charge for most of my lifetime and that is like six and half decades.
Al Jazeera seems to think that because Americans eat food, they are responsible for how farmers in other countries treat their workers. Gee, I seem to remember TCNs getting treated like dirt in the Gulf when I was there. I guess it is a bit like the pot calling the kettle black ... but America really is not responsible for working conditions in Mexico, or anywhere else, unless - of course - you buy into the notion that the Americans should impose their values and working conditions in every country around the world.
Where are the Gulf nations in this refugee crisis? Good question.
The problem with this Al Jazeera article is that is assumes that Western values should be imposed everywhere ... sorry, but that doesn't wash in the Gulf States region, nor a lot of other places.
This Al Jazeera commentary is so full of problems, I don't know where to start. The roots of the refugee crisis are not in the 2003 downfall of the Saddam Regime (so many holes in that argument it ain't even funny) nor in the division of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. No, the roots of the crisis are entirely in the Arabia Peninsula. It is its divisions and the choices of the people living there who are responsible for the chaos, death and destruction. Let us really lay the responsibility at the people who have made the choices.
This story illustrates part of the problem coming out of the news coverage in Washington, DC, these days. Everything is framed as a partisan fight, where actually - in this case - despite the partisan slant given it, it truly is an institutional fight, between two branches of government trying to define the outlines of their authority and governance. Unfortunately, for the rest of America, it seems that the Democrats have given up defending Congressional prerogatives in favor of giving the executive branch a blank check to do what it wants. We have seen it in the way the Obama administration has administered the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the subject of this lawsuit) and in the vote on the Iran Nuclear Deal - which should have been treated as the treaty that it is and not just some executive agreement.
One wonders what mischief Vladmir Putin's Russia is up to now in Syria. Not that the US will be able to do anything about it ... other than wag a finger and say "Bad. You are being bad."
Oh, goody, it is doom and gloom for the Republican Party ... or so this WaPo reporter seems to gloat. Maybe I am just being cynical in my old age, but I never seem to remember the WaPo gloating over such divisions when they happened to the Democrats in the past (between the moderate centrists and the liberal/progressives)
I read the headline ... and I kept waiting for the text to back it up ... it doesn't. This New York Magazine article is basically a progressive hit piece on a Jewish conservative billionaire who spends a lot of his money on political speech.
This new DOJ policy actually makes sense. Corporations really can't commit crimes ... it is the people who run the corporations and make various decisions at various levels who commit the crimes. So, it makes sense to prosecute them.
Oh sweet Lord ... another excuse for people saying they don't want her for president ... she is a woman ... get the flip over it people ... She just is not going to get any special breaks or consideration because of that fact.
Interesting profile on Donald Trump in Rolling Stone
Good questions to the President ... is he going to punish people for abiding by the law because it violates his policy?
Denmark will be tested on this shutting down ferries due to refugees trying to transit the country to get to Sweden ... it is sort of like stopping the trains from Massachusetts to Maine because the riders want to go to Canada.
The Turks fear the Kurds - who want their own autonomous state - and the attacks begin again. This could really muddle things in Iraq and Syria. You really need a score card .. or at least a flow chart to keep track of who is which side this week.
And this poll gets breathlessly reported on across the US news organizations. Damn, folks, it ain't a friggin' horse race ... and besides, the horses are barely out of the gate and going by the grandstands on their first lap ...
A rather blunt and straight-forward critique of President Obama's Syrian policy ... or lack of a real one.
Could ISIS Jihadists be infiltrating under the cover of the refugee crisis ... eh-yup. Think about it ... lets just assume that .1 percent of the 800,000 refugees Germany is letting in (a deliberately low number) that means some 800 terrorists are roaming Germany.
While I would not argue with the thesis of this article: Stop shrinking the Army ... I think a more cost effective solution would be to radically, and I mean radically, enlarge the Army Reserve components, the Army reserve and the Army National Guard, which could be done a lot cheaper with a bigger bang for the buck. Unfortunately, that ain't gonna happen.
Thank you, Mr. Hanson, for a cogent outline of why this country rapidly is going to Hades in a handbasket.
This commentary on the American Civil War illustrates the battle over controlling the language ... he who controls the language, controls the debate.
Ah, the lengths some people will go for that caffeine fix
Tyrants always seek foreign devils to unite their fractious masses ... sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't
This makes me wonder. If Israel deems itself with an existential threat from Iran, would it then use it own nuclear weapons to end the threat of nuclear weapons in Iran?
It doesn't help the President when his Border Patrol leadership speaks out of school and contradicts him.
Interesting take on the Obama Administration providing "material support to terrorism" in violation of federal law ... and like just where are we going to find a federal prosecutor willing to touch this case with a 20-foot pole?
Interesting article on the legal battle over abortion clinics ... but no where in this article is there any reference to the human life form growing inside a pregnant woman. It is merely referred to as "the pregnancy".
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