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You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2016 / Open Thread: Missing the Trend for the Stats

Open Thread: Missing the Trend for the Stats

by Anne Laurie|  December 6, 20154:44 pm| 80 Comments

This post is in: Election 2016, Hail to the Hairpiece, Open Threads, The Math Demands It

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I thought Mr. Trump's memory was perfect, @MichaelCohen212. https://t.co/wxzxHWLLVA

— Josh Greenman (@joshgreenman) December 6, 2015

Is it necessary for Trump to win the GOP nomination for him to “win” the longer argument? Dave Weigel, at the Washington Post, asks “Why do data journalists keep missing the political story of the year?”:

… The story of an election is far, far bigger than the story of who won it. The Trump drama, and the movement that has discovered and elevated him as its candidate, is obviously the political news story of 2015.

Actually, it’s the latest in a long, semi-tragic history of primary campaigns that revealed plenty without producing a nominee. You can start the clock in 1964, when then-Alabama Gov. George Wallace ran for president for the first (of four) times. He had no chance of defeating President Lyndon B. Johnson in the primaries, but where he competed, he scored margins that baffled the political establishment… You could have looked at that result and chided the media for making “news” out of what was, obviously, not a victory. You would have missed a historic moment in the politics of backlash.

Losing campaigns have played that role again and again. Ronald Reagan didn’t win in 1976; you know how that turned out. Pat Robertson’s 1988 primary campaign cemented the influence of the religious right in Republican electoral politics. Howard Dean’s 2004 primary campaign collapsed memorably in Iowa, but accelerated the Democratic Party’s evolution from a party that could put Joe Lieberman on a national ticket to one that was skeptical or apologetic about foreign military intervention. Indeed, by the autumn of 2006, Dean was chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and Lieberman had lost his Senate primary…

… [F]or five months, Trump has been able to swing into states and draw the biggest crowds of any Republican candidate. It’s been two and a half months since a thinly-attended South Carolina event, organized by a third party group, that was supposed to mark the end of Trumpmania. It’s been a month since a rambling Trump speech in Iowa, where even the people standing behind him grew bored with his rants about Ben Carson. The crowds kept coming. And they keep coming.

Few, if any, reporters will tell you that they expected this to happen. Some may fantasize about another universe, where the field is Trump-less, and candidates like Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) are dominating the news with substantive fights about privacy rights and terrorism. Even this summer, the rise of Trump was seen by the Republican establishment as a way to freeze the field, while the grown-ups could hibernate and take over when it counted.

We do not live in that universe. We live in the one where, as The Fix’s Philip Bump points out, 53 percent of Republicans want all illegal immigrants to be deported and many are finding a champion in Donald Trump…

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Reader Interactions

80Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    December 6, 2015 at 4:51 pm

    They miss the big story because they don’t want to admit the truth about what the GOP is.

  2. 2.

    Corner Stone

    December 6, 2015 at 4:51 pm

    the political story of the year

    Missing the political story of the last 15+ years. That the GOP will flat out lie their balls off and no one in the “media” will call them on it. The “media” refuse to just simply acknowledge the big lies being told are the exact ones the GOP voters want to hear.

  3. 3.

    Corner Stone

    December 6, 2015 at 4:54 pm

    The lies the ones on the D side tell are ones we (mostly) hope will never be true. The GOP voter is desperately hoping what they hear will come true while D’s are cringing sometimes and hopeful it’s just politics.

  4. 4.

    Emerald

    December 6, 2015 at 4:55 pm

    Another big story today: in France, Marie Le Pen’s National Front is leading in six regions. Sarkozy also doing well.
    The socialists are getting crushed.
    In France.

  5. 5.

    Chris

    December 6, 2015 at 4:55 pm

    @Baud:
    They miss the big story because they don’t want to admit the truth about what the GOP is.

    This.

  6. 6.

    Debbie

    December 6, 2015 at 4:56 pm

    Paul and Christie having substantive fights? Definitely an alternative universe.

  7. 7.

    Chris

    December 6, 2015 at 4:59 pm

    @Emerald:

    Oh, don’t get me started on that story. It’s not really a surprise; their steadily increasing electoral gains are something I’ve been following for years and years and years. But it still pisses me off every time something like this happens.

  8. 8.

    Anoniminous

    December 6, 2015 at 5:01 pm

    Shorter WaPo: ignore journalists, they don’t know what they are talking about.

  9. 9.

    Calouste

    December 6, 2015 at 5:08 pm

    @Emerald: France isn’t really a socialist country. Hollande is only the second socialist president since WWII. In 2001 the socialist candidate didn’t even make it to the presidential run-off, that was between Chirac and Le Pen.

  10. 10.

    Calouste

    December 6, 2015 at 5:14 pm

    Note that that whole quote seems to assume that Trump will do well, but not win. Trump doing well is something Weigel is willing to contemplate, Trump actually winning, despite him leading in about 95% of the polls in the last 5 months, seems still to be outside Weigel’s universe.

  11. 11.

    D58826

    December 6, 2015 at 5:16 pm

    Obama’s speech tonight will probably be full of bad news. There is an article on the dail beast that the latest intelligence estimate is that Daesh isn’t contained and is on the march. Now I’m not sure if those are the exact words in the intell.. but it is the way that the Daily Beast phrased it. I guess my problem is ‘Daesh on the march’ brings up images of the German advance across Russia or the Japanese sweep in the south Pacific in the early days of 1942. Well anyone who is actually watching can see that Daesh is not marching all over the middle east. In fact they have lost some significant pieces of territory recently. The only way that we can continue to shrink the area held by Daesh is to achieve some political settlements in the region. If the Shia government in Iraq could reconcile with its Sunni citizens then a major source of support for Daesh would be eliminated. The same is true in Syria. A political settlement that removes Assad will go a long way toward reducing the influence of Daesh. These goals are not easily achieved and the ability the the US to force a settlement is limited.

    The part that isn’t contained is the ideology that Daesh is pushing. That is still expanding around the world but carpet bombing isn’t going to stop that. If anything it will create more recruits. Even Rumsfeld in 2004 wondered if we were creating terrorist recruits faster than we can kill them. Western/Christian intervention isn’t going to stop the spread of the Daesh ideology. Even if Daesh disappeared tomorrow most the the radical groups that are now swearing allegiance to Daesh would still exist. They would either free-lance of swear allegiance to AQ central.

    There are no quick fixes and the fixes that do that do exist will provability take years to work. In the meantime this becomes the new normal.

  12. 12.

    MattF

    December 6, 2015 at 5:19 pm

    I mentioned in an earlier thread that an old friend of my sister’s has gone over to the Dark Side– she’s now a Trumpite. I consoled my sister; told her that throttling her old friend would not have been a good idea. And, FWIW, the new Trump fan is practically a caricature of a Park Avenue matron. So, the oligarchy is not ‘better’ than the lowlifes, reporters just don’t get into Palm Springs to interview the natives.

  13. 13.

    MattF

    December 6, 2015 at 5:23 pm

    @efgoldman: We need a better word for it. Besides ‘idiot’.

  14. 14.

    Iowa Old Lady

    December 6, 2015 at 5:24 pm

    @MattF: I might put this in the category of someone showing you what they are and needing to believe them.

  15. 15.

    Baud

    December 6, 2015 at 5:25 pm

    @efgoldman: I like sTrumpet.

  16. 16.

    Teddy's Person

    December 6, 2015 at 5:26 pm

    @MattF: How about a Trumplodyte?

  17. 17.

    rk

    December 6, 2015 at 5:30 pm

    substantive fights about privacy rights and terrorism

    In the last 10 years, when have republicans ever had substantive fights about anything. Did I miss something?

  18. 18.

    Mike in NC

    December 6, 2015 at 5:30 pm

    @D58826: GOP presidential candidates specialize in easy solutions to complicated problems. They’re all going to claim they’ll wipe out ISIL in six months, if not six weeks, ignoring the unpleasant facts on the ground.

  19. 19.

    Iowa Old Lady

    December 6, 2015 at 5:34 pm

    @Mike in NC: Will they be greeted as liberators?

  20. 20.

    Baud

    December 6, 2015 at 5:34 pm

    @rk:

    They sometimes disagree on how best to cut taxes that wealthy people pay.

  21. 21.

    Schlemazel

    December 6, 2015 at 5:37 pm

    @Mike in NC:
    Any Republican:
    Destroy Daesh in 6 months
    Tame China (whatever the hell that means)
    Restore American greatness (whatever the hell that means)
    Cut taxes
    balance the budget
    Increase military spending
    end ACA
    kill, DoE, DoL and . . . that other one
    restore Social Security (by ending it)

    Did I miss anything? I mean other than the reality that all of those things are stupid & most impossible.

    EDIT: @efgoldman: , yeah, 2 great minds

  22. 22.

    HumboldtBlue

    December 6, 2015 at 5:38 pm

    I read “data journalists” as those like 538 and the poll watchers and number-crunchers. And the reason they don’t follow the narrative Weigel thinks they should is because they recognize that outside of a minority on the right wing Trump stands little chance of winning in a general election based on the numerical info they gather and study.

    Nate Silver uses data to show trends and for forecasting, he doesn’t do analysis based on political philosophy and voter anger.

  23. 23.

    MattF

    December 6, 2015 at 5:41 pm

    @Schlemazel: Bring back the gold standard. Repeal all those bad Constitutional amendments. Prevent the colored from voting.

  24. 24.

    HumboldtBlue

    December 6, 2015 at 5:43 pm

    @efgoldman: Worked with the Japs.

  25. 25.

    goblue72

    December 6, 2015 at 5:47 pm

    @D58826: Not bombing foreign countries once every year or two might be a good place to start. Good little liberals foolishly find common cause with neo-cons in entertaining fantasies about the need to topple “dictators” and “strongmen” abroad.

    I’d much prefer a semi-isolationist realpolitik where we continue to prop up strongmen and military dictators. The general public in those counties isn’t any worse off (and quite possibly is better off given that order is generally preferably to chaos), and we suffer a lot less blowback & mayhem as our client state dictators abroad keep the nutbars better in check.

    But yes, lets please continue to toss the chessboard into the air at random intervals. That really works out swell.

  26. 26.

    schrodinger's cat

    December 6, 2015 at 5:48 pm

    Missing the trend for the stats

    What is this supposed to mean? Does not make sense, isn’t a trend a statistic too?

  27. 27.

    James E Powell

    December 6, 2015 at 5:50 pm

    @Baud:

    I feel like it’s a bit more: They all know they can never tell the truth about the Republicans, or about America. Reporters learn early on that their editors & news directors won’t run the stories. Editors & news directors know they will be fired if they do.

  28. 28.

    goblue72

    December 6, 2015 at 5:50 pm

    @Emerald: Gets more complicated over there. The National Front doesn’t have a problem with the social welfare state. They just want to restrict it only to the natives (i.e. white French nationals)

  29. 29.

    schrodinger's cat

    December 6, 2015 at 5:50 pm

    I can’t stand pimply Weigel, wonder why AL is such a fan.

  30. 30.

    Peale

    December 6, 2015 at 5:51 pm

    @efgoldman: any time there is a police shooting, arrest the victims families.

    Shoot children crossing the border. Or drop them off in Mexico regardless of where their families are.

    Marriage licenses for gays optional until we can ban them altogether.

  31. 31.

    Felanius Kootea

    December 6, 2015 at 5:52 pm

    @D58826: I think it is precisely because Daesh is losing territory in the Middle East that it is priming its followers to strike fear in people’s hearts in Europe, the US and Africa (Boko Haram, Islamic State in Libya, etc.). They have a long-term losing strategy but the freakout caused around the world by the terrorist acts their supporters sow could keep them on life support a lot longer. Terrorism works so well because it is extreme, unexpected and it is hard not to give in to fear in its aftermath. It doesn’t matter whether the New York times points out that, in the US, there have been 45 deaths from jihadist terror since 9/11, 48 deaths from white supremacist terror and 200,000 deaths from what they term “conventional murders.” Nobody I know is talking about 200,000 “conventional murders.” Almost everyone’s imagination is taken with what the San Bernardino couple managed to do. But apparently, not enough US lawmakers are interested in doing anything about tracking the stockpiling of assault rifles (notice I didn’t even say limiting the sale, since that is unfathomably a non-starter these days) or material for making explosives. There’s a cynical part of me that thinks that Republicans in particular have realized they can achieve a two-fer: hold the threat of Daesh over US voters’ heads to whip up fear and help the gun manufacturers who partially fund their campaigns make profits (what better way to drive up gun sales than to keep you thinking that there’s another potential San Bernardino couple living down the street from you and you could probably protect your family from them by getting your very own AR-15?).

  32. 32.

    mb

    December 6, 2015 at 5:52 pm

    I don’t understand why everybody seems to be so shocked that a celebrity can draw a crowd in the United States. Trump is a celebrity. He will always draw a crowd. Always has. Will those crowds line up and vote or caucus? Color me doubtful. You come to a Trump rally, you get a t-shirt and a trucker cap and bask in his glory. Queuing up to vote or gathering to caucus is not so much fun. There is no celebrity to gawk at. Sometimes the weather is bad. No trucker cap. Last time, I didn’t even get a sticker that said “I voted”.

    Wake me up when Trump wins Iowa or NH. Then I’ll believe in the Trump Phenomenon. Meanwhile, he’s doing a great job of crashing the GOP against the rocks and that’s OK with me.

  33. 33.

    redshirt

    December 6, 2015 at 5:53 pm

    @efgoldman: Drunk posting in the wrong thread?

  34. 34.

    Schlemazel

    December 6, 2015 at 5:53 pm

    @MattF: I’d say about 1/2 on the gold standard, Agree on repealing constitutional amendments although they don’t repeat it often and they would never ever ever admit they want the coloreds disenfranchised. They DO of course, they just won’t say it out loud.

    @efgoldman:
    Oh no, you can’t kid about this BS. They have to be careful how they state it but yes, that is something that would fly ob the GOP platform.

    You 2 guys have added to the list, I think the Paultards also want a “no government snooping” clause & many goppers would sort of agree as long as it was limited to the whites. So thats a maybe also

  35. 35.

    Schlemazel

    December 6, 2015 at 5:55 pm

    @efgoldman:
    That would make me wish for another attack. Given how it worked out last time I don’t suppose we could ask the Tokyo government to try again.

  36. 36.

    schrodinger's cat

    December 6, 2015 at 5:56 pm

    @Schlemazel: No teaching science or math.
    Establish a State religion : Christianity
    Flat tax for income

  37. 37.

    Germy

    December 6, 2015 at 5:57 pm

    @goblue72:

    I’d much prefer a semi-isolationist realpolitik where we continue to prop up strongmen and military dictators.

    That creates as many enemies for us as bombing does. (see: Shah, Iran)

  38. 38.

    Randy P

    December 6, 2015 at 5:59 pm

    @srv: You didn’t use the word “cuckservative” in there. You’re the only person in the world still using that word, how is it going to stay alive if you don’t make the effort?

  39. 39.

    goblue72

    December 6, 2015 at 5:59 pm

    @Germy: Evidence please.

  40. 40.

    Germy

    December 6, 2015 at 5:59 pm

    @Randy P: Isn’t “cuckservative” code for “race traitor”?

  41. 41.

    schrodinger's cat

    December 6, 2015 at 6:00 pm

    @goblue72: See American foreign policy in Pakistan. Kthxbai.

  42. 42.

    Germy

    December 6, 2015 at 6:00 pm

    @goblue72: See: Shah, Iran

    South American death squads, etc.

    Propping up dictators always bites us in the end.

  43. 43.

    scav

    December 6, 2015 at 6:01 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: You forgot biology — that’s a two-few. Evolution and the nasty rubby bits stuff. PE will add mandatory gunplay and target practice.

  44. 44.

    Schlemazel

    December 6, 2015 at 6:01 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:
    Well only approved math & the science found in Genesis
    I doubt they would ever say that, only that they want to use the bible as the basis for all law (after all it is the basis of the Constitution).
    Certainly the flat tax is a really really bad idea, a simple, stupid disaster of a ‘fix’ so it would be a popular point with the GOP but I think many are afraid to mention it because its proponents have never done well. Maybe the average voter is not as stupid as I think.

  45. 45.

    Peale

    December 6, 2015 at 6:02 pm

    @D58826: I cannot understand the eagerness to get involved. I can understand the eagerness to wish that Daesh would go up in flames. But no one appears to be bothered by them. Saudi Arabia and Oman think the most pressing problem is that Yemen isn’t poverty stricken enough. Israel is still more concerned with Assad. Turkey as well. Despite the big showy bomber run of a few weeks back, Russia and Assad are more concerned with eliminating any rebel groups the U.S. Might support. There’s no point in doing anything except making sure the Kurds aren’t annihilated.
    It still would be helpful if sometime next year, Daesh would be driven from Mosul.

  46. 46.

    pat

    December 6, 2015 at 6:05 pm

    @Felanius Kootea:

    There’s a cynical part of me that thinks that Republicans in particular have realized they can achieve a two-fer: hold the threat of Daesh over US voters’ heads to whip up fear and help the gun manufacturers who partially fund their campaigns make profits

    I agree with everything you said. Daesh must be celebrating the reaction they get from a couple of nuts killing a few Americans in a horrific manner. Why kill people in their own country when they can get a bigger bang for their buck here or in Paris?

  47. 47.

    D58826

    December 6, 2015 at 6:05 pm

    @Mike in NC: Well they can point to W’s smashingly successful 6 weeks mission accomplished campaign in Iraq to prove their point. Oh wait………

  48. 48.

    piratedan7

    December 6, 2015 at 6:09 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: for the most part, he provides a lucid window into what is going on over on the Right. Granted his sympathies are over there but he’s also usually quite candid about the lunacy that is part and parcel of the current trends over there. In that respect, I find him a useful read in that he’s mostly an honest villager as opposed to the likes of David Brooks and the rest of the totebagger crowd or the usual beltway punditry.

  49. 49.

    schrodinger's cat

    December 6, 2015 at 6:09 pm

    @scav: Isn’t biology included in science?

  50. 50.

    schrodinger's cat

    December 6, 2015 at 6:11 pm

    @efgoldman: Who would be Henry VIII of the American Church? Cruz?

  51. 51.

    scav

    December 6, 2015 at 6:11 pm

    Wait a minute, why are we assuming there will continue to be public elementary schools at all, let alone standards, and testing? Once everything is privatized, there’ll be no reason to produce numbers to weild as a weapon against the public schools, moreover stats (and standards) will only work against the financial well-being of the chartered schools. It’ll be interesting to see if their free-market ideals or their christianist mind-and-culture control bent will win out when parents attempt to teach their children the forbidden sciences.

  52. 52.

    Keith G

    December 6, 2015 at 6:11 pm

    @D58826:

    this becomes the new normal.

    I suppose that that will be the one second encapsulation, but since this is an address from the Oval Office, the vocabulary will veer toward “determination” and such.

    I suppose the President has been told about many known residents here to be worried about and that there are possibly untold many more (hundreds?) who could be influenced, inspired or radicalized. What he has been told and may not repeat probably is very disconcerting.

    The question is what will he say about the availability of high powered , large capacity semi automatic weapons.

    Depending on how he proceeds tonight, this might be his most notable “legacy” speech, were he to clearly and emphatically detail the choices facing the American public.

  53. 53.

    goblue72

    December 6, 2015 at 6:12 pm

    @Germy: South American death squads haven’t blown back at us.

    We’ve had little blowback to us from Iran – none of the various “terrorist” attacks on U.S. soil were linked to Iran. Bombing Iran would have accomplished nothing.

    Blowback isn’t bad things happening to people abroad. Blowback is bad things happening to Americans domestically.

    The only possible one is 9/11 in terms of client-state Pakistan. Solution in that case is cutting aid to Pakistan until they toe the line. Not bombing them.

    Again, the alternative being proposed by the “grown ups” leads to worse outcomes.

  54. 54.

    scav

    December 6, 2015 at 6:13 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: Sorry, yes, I was playing with test-tubes in mine. Yoikes! I must have been exposed to multiple sciences independently in my benighted education!

  55. 55.

    scav

    December 6, 2015 at 6:17 pm

    @efgoldman: There’ll have to be some sort of conjoined twin separation attempted on Lutherans, no? (luckily, I think there are dotted lines to cut along there.) Wonder what will happen to the Amish? They’re dangerous pacifists and persist in not speaking English.

  56. 56.

    Anoniminous

    December 6, 2015 at 6:17 pm

    @Peale:

    Reports supposedly from Rojava are saying the Russians have given the Kurds heavy weapons. I don’t know how accurate this is. If the Russians wanted to give Erdoğan hissy fits that would be the way to do it. What does seem to be accurate is the Russians have no problem with the Kurds linking Afrin and Kobane Cantons cutting the Daesh supply lines to Turkey.

  57. 57.

    Anoniminous

    December 6, 2015 at 6:21 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    The two legs of modern Biology is the Theory of the Cell and the Theory of Evolution. Repubs have no problem with the first since they don’t know what it is, they have HUGE problems with the latter because of Middle Eastern Bronze Age Mythology

  58. 58.

    mdblanche

    December 6, 2015 at 6:22 pm

    @Emerald: Merde.

  59. 59.

    Villago Delenda Est

    December 6, 2015 at 6:28 pm

    @Corner Stone: This is because our media has the same relationship to the GOP as the media in the old Soviet Union had to the CPSU.

    Wipe them out. All of them.

  60. 60.

    Peale

    December 6, 2015 at 6:31 pm

    @Anoniminous: it is an important step. I’m assuming that Syria won’t be buying oil from daesh as well any longer. I mean, that’s something, right? Putin is rather shameless for criticizing Turkey for buying that oil when Assad bought it as well. not much can be done about extortion and kidnapping, though. But there is only so much income a wrecked economy of 8 million can produce for them.

  61. 61.

    Ruckus

    December 6, 2015 at 6:41 pm

    @Felanius Kootea:
    Terrorism doesn’t work in the long run, only in the short term. And only then to scare people. Why doesn’t it work? Because you don’t win friends from the people you terrorize. You may get some converts to your side but you don’t get the society you are terrorizing. Look at here, we’ve had very few terrorists from anywhere/any rational in the middle east over the last 14 yrs and we’ve attacked entire countries just because. (We created far more problems by doing so and many said this would be the result but we did it anyway) We are currently bombing Daesh strongholds (although it seems the gop candidates don’t know this. Among almost everything else they don’t know, the list seems endless) rather than entire nations but we won’t wipe them out. The fact is the only way to stop terrorism is to change the societies that spawns the terrorists in the first place. We face the same problem here. The gun humpers are effectively terrorists and have figured out how to convince people that joining them is the only answer. The use fear that there is no way to stop them so joining them is the only answer. We don’t have to follow that path but changing directions takes time, effort, leadership and even timing.

  62. 62.

    D58826

    December 6, 2015 at 6:42 pm

    @Keith G: I’m not sure Americans want that. We are an impatient people with a short memory. More people follow the Kardashians than know who their congress critters are. If it doesn’t happen within the 50 states and in English then it isn’t worth knowing or caring about.

    One of the things that we have to do is engage the Muslim community that is susceptible to the Daesh on terms that are culturally relevant. One example is the concept of the caliphate. Now I’m not a Muslim and I make no pretense of being a religious expert but from what I have read over the past year the idea of the restoration of the caliphate strikes a very deep religious cord in the Islamic world. Even among the vast majority of Muslims who are non violent. It is sort of like ‘next year in Jerusalem’ before 1948 in the Jewish world. That outreach has to be done by Muslims. Christians cannot do it. If the face of Western policy is Ted Cruz talking about carpet bombing or Donald Trump talking about Muslim registries, then we have lost the battle and the war before we even start. It is going to be a long slow and ofttimes painful process and SB and Paris will not be the last of the successful attacks in the west,
    Unfortunately that does not make for a good bumper sticker or campaign slogan sound bit. .

  63. 63.

    Anoniminous

    December 6, 2015 at 6:44 pm

    @Peale:

    Russians want Assad to stay. That’s been the major sticking point with the US. I do not know why the US wants Assad out. That he would buy oil from Daesh seems a bit short-sighted and, frankly, bizarre.

    ETA: And Iran wants Assad to stay, as well. So mayhap that’s the reason?

  64. 64.

    Ruckus

    December 6, 2015 at 6:45 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:
    The PTB don’t want a flat tax.
    They want no tax for the wealthy. They get that, they could care less about you and me getting taxed to death. Probably encourage it in fact.

  65. 65.

    Peale

    December 6, 2015 at 6:51 pm

    @Anoniminous: I’m trying to find the articles from the spring or summer where I read about those oil sales both in Turkey and to the Syrian army. Since the articles wrre before this latest Turkey-Russia chest thumping exercise, I thought it was common knowledge that this bizarre bazaar for oil took place.

  66. 66.

    D58826

    December 6, 2015 at 6:51 pm

    @Anoniminous: This is a perfect example of the problem that Obama faces in putting together a coalition. The two sides most invested in supporting Assad in Syria are the Russians and the Iranians. Neither one scores high on the American BFF list. On the other hand our NATO ally Turkey is more concerned with the Kurds than Daesh. And the center of gravity in the Sunni world – Saudi Arabia is more concerned with it’s semi-cold war with Iran and pumping out its poisonous Wahhabi version of Islam. All of the countries that might be part of an anti-Daesh coalition all have bigger diplomatic fish to fry than uniting to defeat Daesh. And not to put to fine a point on it none of them give a flying f*** about how many terrorist attacks occur in France/England or the US,

    Needless to say Obama can’t come out and say any of that in public.

  67. 67.

    Peale

    December 6, 2015 at 7:01 pm

    @D58826: yep. That will change if daesh makes more high profile attacks within Saudi Arabia or Turkey. But ISIS in Saudi Arabia hasn’t done much. I remember one terror bombing, but nothing that the Saudis would find as threatening. Just a blip.

  68. 68.

    qwerty42

    December 6, 2015 at 7:08 pm

    @Felanius Kootea:

  69. 69.

    Keith G

    December 6, 2015 at 7:09 pm

    @Peale:

    Needless to say Obama can’t come out and say any of that in public.

    And that is a shame since those facts need to laid out before the American public. The self-nurtured vacuity evident in so many leads them to cling to simplistic assertions when events get unsettled.

  70. 70.

    qwerty42

    December 6, 2015 at 7:12 pm

    Some of the hysteria seems similar to the same hysteria that came in the 19th century over the “anarchists” who ended up in the cartoons of the 20th century as carrying large cannon-ball like bombs. It does not mean they are not dangerous (President McKinley), but …

  71. 71.

    Liberal

    December 6, 2015 at 8:08 pm

    @Schlemazel: depends. In the abstract (not really practical, but…) a flat tax on wealth would be pretty reasonable.

  72. 72.

    Denali

    December 6, 2015 at 9:13 pm

    Marie LePen’s speech to the EU Parliment was wildly applauded. Comments were very supportive of her.

    Very depressing.

  73. 73.

    Matt McIrvin

    December 6, 2015 at 9:35 pm

    @qwerty42: Those guys did way more acts of terrorism than today’s Muslim immigrants to the US manage.

  74. 74.

    Matt McIrvin

    December 6, 2015 at 9:37 pm

    …I would argue that the Haymarket bomb had at least as large an effect on US history as 9/11. Probably did more political damage.

  75. 75.

    Matt McIrvin

    December 6, 2015 at 9:40 pm

    @Anoniminous: Well, in a pure moral sense, Assad actually is horrible. If the US actually props him up, even if the alternative is worse, I guarantee progressives and people generally fond of human rights will be bashing the US government for doing that, in the grand tradition of supporting friendly tyrants for geostrategic reasons.

  76. 76.

    Matt McIrvin

    December 6, 2015 at 9:43 pm

    @D58826:

    Now I’m not a Muslim and I make no pretense of being a religious expert but from what I have read over the past year the idea of the restoration of the caliphate strikes a very deep religious cord in the Islamic world.

    It does, but I think it’s not necessarily a positive one unless you’re already very marginalized and desperate. Otherwise, it’s almost as if a Christian claimed to be the Second Coming of Jesus. If you’re a Christian you’re not necessarily going to be receptive to that; in fact you might well find it to be absurd blasphemy.

  77. 77.

    Anne Laurie

    December 6, 2015 at 9:54 pm

    @qwerty42:

    Some of the hysteria seems similar to the same hysteria that came in the 19th century over the “anarchists” who ended up in the cartoons of the 20th century as carrying large cannon-ball like bombs. It does not mean they are not dangerous (President McKinley), but …

    Yeah, as far as I can tell, the main achievements of those Haymarket-era anarchists were giving Teddy Roosevelt an earlier boost to the White House… and getting J. Edgar Hoover started in the government-sponsored peeping-tom business, under Attorney-General Palmer.

    Teddy was gonna be President regardless, but J. Edgar’s FBI might’ve been avoided without the scare value of filthy immigrant bomb-throwers (and their potential alliance with African-Americans looking to exercise the franchise they’d supposedly been given 40 years earlier)…

  78. 78.

    Matt McIrvin

    December 6, 2015 at 9:58 pm

    @Anne Laurie: They wounded the American labor movement in its moment of birth, too. The Haymarket incident is both why May Day is Labor Day all over the world, and why it isn’t here.

  79. 79.

    gorram

    December 6, 2015 at 11:58 pm

    @Anoniminous: Assad has killed vastly more people within Syria than any rebel group, including Daesh. I think Obama, in a sort of classic fashion, has reached a really utilitarian conclusion but hasn’t articulated what it is or why he’s reached it to people who aren’t following along on their own.

  80. 80.

    karen marie

    December 7, 2015 at 8:30 am

    Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) are dominating the news with substantive fights about privacy rights and terrorism.

    This is where he lost me – went off the rails, really – and I guffawed.

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