Bernie Sanders just found a way to bring hated, corrupt FIFA into the conversation about hated, murderous ISIS: https://t.co/lu2vuyXxKx
— Ian Gordon (@id_gordon) November 19, 2015
From the Mother Jones article:
… First, the Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate went off script to call out Donald Trump and other Republican candidates for “using the political process to inject racism into the debate.” Then, Sanders took a shot in his prepared remarks at Qatar’s plans to invest upwards of $220 billion to host a four-week, sure-to-be-hot-as-hell World Cup in 2022, instead of spending that money on fighting ISIS:
It has been reported that Qatar will spend $200 billion on the 2022 World Cup, including the construction of an enormous number of facilities to host that event—$200 billion on hosting a soccer event, yet very little to fight against ISIS. Worse still, it has been widely reported that the government has not been vigilant in stemming the flow of terrorist financing, and that Qatari individuals and organizations funnel money to some of the most extreme terrorist groups, including al Nusra and ISIS.
All of this has got to change. Wealthy and powerful Muslim nations in the region can no longer sit on the sidelines and expect the United States to do their work for them. As we develop a strongly coordinated effort, we need a commitment from these countries that the fight against ISIS takes precedence over the religious and ideological differences that hamper the kind of cooperation that we desperately need.…
So if Senator Sanders doesn’t win the Democratic primary, can he campaign for President of FIFA?
Amir Khalid
Bernie’s a nice guy. But does he have the savvy to survive the cut-throat politics of one of the world’s largest and most corrupt sports organisations, let alone to make a difference there?
Ultraviolet Thunder
I’ve been hearing that a significant part of ISIS’ donated private support comes from Qatar. If true, I wonder how much the Qatar government cares about that.
srv
It’s just money. Just stop being so jelly.
You need to stop being irrational first. What KSA and Qatar are doing is quite rational. They have millions of young unemployed males with nothing to do.
Burning through them somewhere other than the hood is a feature, not a bug.
Ultraviolet Thunder
I just arrived in Toronto from Detroit and I grabbed a Glob and Male at the hotel desk. Pretty much the same coverage as in the US, though a few grades more literate.
I should be in Quebec, the Frenchiest place in North America next week. Unfortunately I won’t be able to read their best newspapers.
David Koch
I don’t think $200 Billion is an accurate number.
The 2010 World cup cost $3.9 Billion
The entire 2012 Olympics cost $13.6 Billion
So that number can’t be right, especially as Qatar is using slave labor.
Mike J
Sorry, Tokyo Sexwale has the inside track.
Baud
@David Koch: Consultants.
Anoniminous
@David Koch:
That’s what the Emir claims he is going to spend.
trollhattan
@David Koch:
All the new stadia are fashioned of compressed, steam-heated immigrant laborers, and that costs a lot of moolah. FIFA is so perversely corrupt it’s hard to know where reality ends and parody begins. Over the horizon at the very least.
Gimlet
Charles Pierce
In the United States House of Representatives on Thursday, 47 Democratic politicians voted for terror. They voted for terror as a useful political emotion in their districts, and they surely voted for terror as a successful tactic abroad. There were 47 Democrats who voted for terror on Thursday. These are their names.
Steve Lynch of Massachusetts was one of them, and so was Bill Keating from down on Cape Cod. Patrick Murphy, who may be the next senator from Florida, went along with it. Among more stalwart liberals was Marcy Kaptur. And Louise Slaughter. And Ron Kind.
RaflW
Whatever else is right or wrong about the dollar amount, this is it: “Wealthy and powerful Muslim nations in the region can no longer sit on the sidelines and expect the United States to do their work for them.”
How about Bernie for SOS under Hilz?
Anoniminous
@Baud:
This kind of thing doesn’t design itself, you know. And that kind of design expertise is hard to find outside of any moderately large Corporation’s Advertising and Public Relations department.
Baud
@Anoniminous:
That’s $2 billion right there…
And worth every penny. My God, can you imagine if he had blue hair?
Anoniminous
@Baud:
Absolutely.
And to think what could have been $2 billion is cheap.
RaflW
@Gimlet: As mentioned in the dying thread below, one of the NYT’s editorial writers has decided that the Dems in the House voting that way are Obama’s fault.
I have no idea why, other than she’s trying out to be the next Ron Fournier.
Edit: link ~ takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/19/refugee-vote-a-failure-for-obama
David Koch
Qatar’s GDP is $203.2 Billion.
No way they’re spending 100% of GDP.
Gimlet
@RaflW:
I noted in particular that former Republican Patrick Murphy was mentioned. I would also note the BJ consensus that would rather have him as their Florida Sen. than Alan Grayson.
Baud
@Gimlet: Both have their issues, but this vote might change some people’s minds.
Steeplejack
@Mike J:
“Tokyo Sexwale.” If that’s your real name, I wonder what your porn name could possibly be.
Steeplejack
@Anoniminous:
I think this proposal narrowly lost out.
SRW1
@David Koch:
The 200 billion is being bandied about all the time in serious European media (Guardian, Der SPIEGEL, etc), I think it is genuine. For comparison: The last Winter Olympics in Sotchi cost Putin a cool 50 billion. FIFA and the IOC have lost their plot.
Gimlet
Pew Research Center
More Mexican immigrants have returned to Mexico from the U.S. than have migrated here since the end of the Great Recession, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of newly available government data from both countries. The same data sources also show the overall flow of Mexican immigrants between the two countries is at its smallest since the 1990s, mostly due to a drop in the number of Mexican immigrants coming to the U.S.
From 2009 to 2014, 1 million Mexicans and their families (including U.S.-born children) left the U.S. for Mexico, according to data from the 2014 Mexican National Survey of Demographic Dynamics (ENADID). U.S. census data for the same period show an estimated 870,000 Mexican nationals left Mexico to come to the U.S., a smaller number than the flow of families from the U.S. to Mexico.
Peale
Why compare individuals to families? So 1,000,000 families vs. 870,000 “Mexican Nationals” is what exactly?
sparrow
I imagine he’ll continue serving as a fine Senator to the state of Vermont. Not sure why all this vitriol from the Hillary supporters towards a rival that the mainstream press is doing a fantastic job of sidelining already.
Amir Khalid
@SRW1:
What are they going to do with all those stadiums afterwards? It’s hard to imagine there’ll be enough football matches, track meets, rock concerts, political rallies etc. going on to keep them busy.
SiubhanDuinne
@David Koch:
A lot of sources seem to be reporting around $200b, though. It boggles the mind. And kudos to Bernie for making the connection that it is all money that won’t be spent on fighting Da’esh.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
@Anoniminous:
Coulda been worse. Coulda been Izzy.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izzy_(mascot)
(Honestly, I tried, I really tried to embed the link, but for unknown reasons I am now unable to select/highlight words and phrases in my text, so will probably get moderated. Are we still blaming the site remodel for everything bad that happens, or can we go back to the default FYWP?)
redshirt
@Steeplejack:
Edo Humpseal?
David Koch
@sparrow: how is the mainstream press sidelining Sanders?
Did they question his birth certificate? Did they say he went to school at a madrassa? Did they allege he was born in Kenya? Did they use guilt by association and tie him to a domestic terrorist? Did they say he was a mooslim? Did they say he was a racist who called people “whitey”? Did they say he didn’t write his own books? Did they try to tie him do a Jewish community organizer who he never met and died when he was 11? Did they say he was unelectible because he wasn’t white and had an african name? Did they repeatedly harp on his drug use as a teen? Did they repeatedly bring up his poor poll numbers? Did they gin up hysteria over what some preacher said?
Please. Saying he’s doing poorly because of the media is ridiculous after what Obama overcame.
SiubhanDuinne
:: Waves hand at any front-pagers who are around ::
Grateful if you could let me out of moderation (unnumbered, but between 26 and 27 on my feed).
Thanks!
Bobby Thomson
@Gimlet: he can get off his high horse after his shameful “Cowards have a point” post the other day. JFC on a stick, what did you think was going to happen, Charlie?
Bobby Thomson
@Baud: Grayson can’t win. He’s a Blue State candidate in a reddish purple state that voted for Voldemort twice.
Roger Moore
@David Koch:
The limit on how much events like the World Cup or the Olympics cost is how much the hosts want to spend. Qatar wants to show the rest of the world how advanced and amazing they are, and they aren’t going to cut any corners doing so. Plus you can bet that there are a lot of sticky fingers along the way; all that graft is going to add an impressive amount to the cost.
Feudalism Now!
@Roger Moore:
Spared no expense. – John Hammond
Gin & Tonic
@Gimlet: 47 Democratic politicians voted for terror
No disrespect to Charlie, but quoting a 90-year-old person of my acquaintance who lived through 1930’s and 1940’s eastern Europe then emigrated to the US: “Americans don’t know terror.”
Anne Laurie
@David Koch: Dead thread, but back when the Qatar bid was chosen, that $200 billion included inventing an air-conditioning system to provide individual cooling to some hundred thousands of individual seats… in an open-air arena… when the average predicted temperature would be in the 100-120F range.
Outside engineers said it wouldn’t be possible to get such a system working by 2020 regardless of the money spent, but who listens to engineers when there’s so much bribe money to be had?
SRW1
@Amir Khalid:
Sorry, saw your comment only just now. I don’t think FIFA worries about that aspect at all. For a precedent, cf Arena da Amaconia in Manaus, ie in the middle of the jungle.
The more hilarious aspect: As the hosting country, Qatar, which is not exactly known for its footballing exploits, is automatically qualified for the tournament. I would not be surprised if the contract between FIFA and the host country contains a secret mercy clause that if the score approaches double digits, the opponents of the Qatari team have to ease off.
On the other hand, there is also the fascinating precedent of the 2015 WC in handball held in Qatar in January of this year. In that tournament, and coming out of nowhere, Qatar reached the final with a team they had naturalized from all over the world.
Eric
@David Koch: @David Koch:
The spending is spread over 15 years or so, that makes it well less than 10% of their GDP per year.
daveNYC
@Anne Laurie: For 200 billion, you could probably just brute force it in a single stadium. Literally build a fuck-huge AC system with vents at every seating location. Still won’t do much for the sun beating down, plus the juice required would be insane.
As miserable as the fans are probably going to be watching the games, I don’t even want to think about how hellish it is going to be for the teams. I’m looking forward to a lot of crappy soccer as players start overheating and stop moving faster than a quick walk for most of the second half.
SRW1
@daveNYC:
You can’t out-farce reality: The original Qatar proposal, the one for which they were awarded the WC2022 DOES CALL for the building of fully air conditioned stadia. This was an absolute necessity as the tournament was originally supposed to be held in the summer of 2022, when temperatures in Qatar can reach 120 degrees. There are only now discussions to shift it to January/February when temperatures are more like 80 degrees.