...Given such a disastrous Democratic landscape, it may be penny-wise for Republicans to eek out a midterm victory to win back the Senate by being against anything Obama is for. But it is a pound-foolish strategy that won't do anything to stop Hillary Clinton or a Democratic resurgence in 2016.
In a word, the Republicans have several issues that resonate with the middle class, and yet they either cannot or will not cast them in a populist vein.
#1
Let's be honest (from an outsiders point of view). The GOP are just as "elitist" (I prefer the term rent-seeking narcissists) as the Dems, and have a basic problem, they're selling their own sort of marxism except with clueless PR.
I'm surprised their vote has held up at all.
#3
All the GOP elite are concerned about is having a good seat at the feed trough.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
10/21/2014 7:19 Comments ||
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#4
If the tea partiers are doing a long march through the Republican Party, as they are trying to do -- the Democrats not being susceptible to such as they nowadays -- it sure would help the cause if more Republicans were actually elected. I'd much rather have two years of President Obama having to veto everything that comes to his desk than having him happily sign off on more Progressive dream bills written in the spirit of the Stimulus and Obqmacare. Politics is the art of the possible.
#5
I agree with trailing wife. At some point there will be a tipping point and the more accomidating Republicans will realize the Dems no longer own the feeding trough. That point comes quicker the more Republicans are in office.
#6
I agree with TW as well. I also agree with Dr. Ben Carson when he says [paraphrasing here] "the kak will hit the fan when the free stuff stops." Multiple generations of IQ67 entitlement recipients are not simply going to fade away quietly to take up gardening and woodcutting. There could be some difficult days ahead.
There are now nearly 18 million refugees and internally displaced persons in seven Muslim countries (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen), up from slightly over 7 million in 2011, according to the UN. That doesn't count more than 2.5 million Afghani refugees from the continuing war in their country. Much of the population of Syria has left their homes, including 3 million who have left the country due to the civil war and an additional 8 million internally displaced.
That is cause for desperation: unprecedented numbers of people have been torn from traditional society and driven from their homes, many with little but the clothes on their backs. There are millions of young men in the Muslim world sitting in refugee camps with nothing to do, nowhere to go back to, and nothing to look forward to. And there are tens of millions more watching their misery with outrage. Never has an extremist movement had so many frustrated and footloose young men in its prospective recruitment pool.
Israel has nothing whatever to do with any of this suffering. It is all the result of social and political disintegration in the Muslim world itself. To blame ISIS' recruitment of young Muslims on the refugee problem of 1948, as Secretary of State John Kerry did last week, boggles the imagination. It is one thing to ignore the elephant in the parlor, and another to pretend it is not there when it is standing on one's toe.
To be fair, the secretary of State did not assert as a matter of fact or analysis that the Israeli-Palestinian issue was the cause of rising extremism. What he said was this: "As I went around and met with people in the course of our discussions about the [anti-Islamic State] coalition … there wasn't a leader I met with in the region who didn't raise with me spontaneously the need to try to get peace between Israel and the Palestinians, because it was a cause of recruitment and of street anger and agitation that they felt they had to respond to."
It is quite possible to imagine that some leaders in the region cited the Israel-Palestine issue. They face social unraveling on a scale not seen in the region since the Mongol invasion. They are submerged by a human tsunami, and might as well blame the Jews. Or the bicycle riders.
#4
Mystic, I've never used pot, but maybe a JF'nKerry press conference would make sense if you were high.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
10/21/2014 16:03 Comments ||
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#5
you could put a failed culture like the palestains anywhere on the planet and they'd be moaning about poverty and it being someone elses fault in a year.
[DAWN] OUTRAGE, disbelief and despondency are some of the emotions triggered by news of the armed robbery targeting the Edhi Foundationâs headquarters on Sunday morning. While hold-ups and robberies in the chaotic environs of Karachi are very common, as armed thugs loot citizens on a daily basis in this unfortunate city, it is the audacity of the criminals to target the countryâs most outstanding social workers that is particularly unnerving. As per reports, a number of armed men barged into the Edhi Foundationâs premises in the old city area and fled with gold and cash worth around Rs30m. The marauders held the staff at gunpoint and also threatened Mr Edhi, who was asleep when the criminals struck. Clearly not in a hurry, the armed robbers spent around 30 minutes in the office. There are indications that they may have had inside information as they knew the location of the cash and valuables. Speaking after the incident, Mr Edhi told a foreign media organisation that he felt âheartbrokenâ and âviolatedâ.
Most people in Pakistan have a good idea of the role Abdul Sattar Edhi and his foundation play in this country. The iconic social worker cares for those whom state and society have forgotten or choose not to remember. For decades, his organisation has been a shelter for the dispossessed, the abandoned and the weak. His fleet of ambulances and other social services are literally life-saving endeavours filling in the vast space the state â due to its negligence and disinterest â has left vacant. That is why the shock over this crime is so great. It seems that in Pakistan, crime and militancy have devolved to such unenviable depths that even a saviour like Mr Edhi is not safe from the depredations of marauders. The incident shows that everything is fair game in this country, that all targets are kosher. Indeed, the question swirling in many minds is that if a personality such as Abdul Sattar Edhi can be robbed, what else is left?
But then, we as a nation have been falling through a bottomless pit for some time now. Criminals and terrorists have no qualms about attacking funerals and hospitals, even killing women and children if they happen to get in the way. In this country, flawed ideologies have led to the murder of doctors, teachers and polio vaccinators, all doing the work of messiahs. But where is societyâs condemnation? Or have we become numb? The robbery has been condemned by the high and mighty of this land, including the prime minister. However, while we are hopeful that Mr Edhi will recover and continue his mission to serve humanity, we are not so sure if the authorities will be moved by this latest outrage to act decisively and crack down on urban crime so that citizensâ lives and properties are made safe.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/21/2014 00:00 ||
Comments ||
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[DAWN] As firing across the Line of Control (LoC) continues, tensions at Pakistanâs other border are gradually boiling over.
Recent violations on the part of Iranian border guards have undermined relations between Pakistan and Iran with each side blaming the other for the flare up.
Iranian claims of the existence of militants in Pakistan's territory and the latterâs growing concern over repeated incursions by Revolutionary Guards into its side of the border have even raised the risk of a military standoff between the two countries at the Balochistan border.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
10/21/2014 00:00 ||
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Link ||
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#3
This would suggest that Kirby is sugarcoating the situation in Iraq with the political goal of reassuring the public that Barack Obama’s severely limited war in the Middle East is succeeding on all fronts.
I was going to add some snappy snark, but I am afraid words fail me. But I am confident that 30% of the citizenry will believe it.
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/21/2014 13:09 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
There are now nearly 18 million refugees and internally displaced persons in seven Muslim countries (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen), up from slightly over 7 million in 2011, according to the UN. That doesn't count more than 2.5 million Afghani refugees from the continuing war in their country. Much of the population of Syria has left their homes, including 3 million who have left the country due to the civil war and an additional 8 million internally displaced.
