This is the thread for all things news.
Oh boy.
From ForeignPolicy.com
“The U.S. has lost track of some of Syria’s chemical weapons, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Friday, and does not know if any potentially lethal chemicals have fallen into the hands of Syrian rebels or Iranian forces inside the country.
“There has been intelligence that there have been some moves that have taken place. Where exactly that’s taken place, we don’t know.” Panetta said, in a Pentagon press briefing.”
Read more here
Oh wait…… Found em’!
From IsraelNationalNews
“The Supreme Military Council of the Syrian rebels released on a statement on Tuesday which said that the rebel forces took control of an army missile base in Damascus, in which ten ready-to-launch missiles were found. Some of the missiles, according to the statement, were converted to carry non-conventional warheads.
“During the successful operation, the operatives of the Free Syrian Army found a large number of rockets ready for launching, with enormous destructive capability, and they were very surprised to find missiles that were converted to carry non-conventional warheads and which can be equipped with chemical or biological warheads,” said the statement which was translated by Arab affairs expert Dalit Halevi.”
Read more here
Like I said. Oh boy.
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Update
Yeah, I know I’m beating the horse on this issue, but the horse isn’t quite dead yet!
From Newsbusters.org
“Knowing that exit polling has historically overestimated the Democratic vote and knowing how much the final regular polling in the 1980 race understated Ronald Reagan’s support compared to Jimmy Carter, it is worth looking at what the final poll results said in other presidential election years.
The facts show a similar trend in a pro-Democratic direction almost uniformly. Historically speaking, pollsters have underestimated how many people would vote for the Republican presidential candidate:
“Writing at National Review, reporter Jim Geraghty quotes an anonymous pollster who provides a helpful review of past polling data:”
Read more here
Wandering Views 
Re: Chemical weapons. Don’t bother with the story. The headline tells it all.
They know where most, but not all, of the weapons are.
Some could show up anywhere.
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Of all weapons in the hands of terrorists, biological and chemical weapons are the least to be feared. They have a way of backfiring or not working at all – like the attempt to turn chlorine headed for an Iraqi treatment plant into chlorine gas by blowing the transport trucks up. It turned out that form of chlorine doesn’t vaporise well. Disease needs no human agency to wipe out half the population – the Black Plague proved that too well, and no army needs to release such weapons on the opposing forces, for disease often follows war, as in the Spanish flu of 1918. Any half-trained terrorist handling such volatile material is more likely to kill himself or infect his family and neighbours. The only really significant threat that such weapons have to their intended victims is that of fear. Terrorism’s best friends are alarmists and doomsayers.
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Are we in better shape since before the “Arab Spring”?
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Great question, Chas. Only time will tell, but I am not optimistic. I believe we will learn that democracy may be inappropriate for some entities such as Iraq, Egypt and Detroit.
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Wow. Kristen Powers (a liberal, mind you) just said (on fox) that while normally she doesn’t “buy into” there being a strong media bias that favors one side, this election presents an egregious (I think that’s the word she used) example in which the media is on one side — and is simply ignoring so many things if they makes Obama look bad.
No kidding.
I’m becoming more and more concerned about how this all shakes out in terms of the media in our country. So many of my media co-workers continue to shrug bias charges off completely. It’s the people’s fault, in other words, it’s all in their imagination. (In some cases that’s true, but overall it just isn’t the case.)
The media is tone deaf on this entire subject with no real willingness seemingly to self-criticize. And that’s very worrisome to me.
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Donna J, Kirsten Powers has always been one of my favorite liberals. She is smart, honest and fair minded. I agree that this year seems to have brought us to a new low in MSM bias. As you pointed out the biggest bias comes from stories that don’t even get covered.
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Donna,
That’s why this is the case.
http://www.people-press.org/2012/09/27/in-changing-news-landscape-even-television-is-vulnerable/
“The transformation of the nation’s news landscape has already taken a heavy toll on print news sources, particularly print newspapers. But there are now signs that television news – which so far has held onto its audience through the rise of the internet – also is increasingly vulnerable, as it may be losing its hold on the next generation of news consumers.”
Technology makes it easy to read online instead of print. But why settle for what’s so obviously biased when so many alternatives exist?
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Here’a an Obama phone update.
http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/news/subsidized-cell-phone-program-nearly-doubles-in-oh/nRDqC/
“A program that provides subsidized phone service to low-income individuals has nearly doubled in size in Ohio in the past year — now covering more than a million people. At the same time, federal officials say they’re reining in waste, fraud and abuse in the program.
The Federal Communications Commission announced recently that reforms have saved $43 million since January and are expected to save $200 million by year’s end. In Ohio, savings are expected to be $2.9 million a year.
The savings were realized in part because the government gave out fewer cellphones to ineligible people and took steps to avoid issuing duplicate phones.
But the size of the program in the state — and profits to the increasing number of cellphone companies involved — has exploded in recent months, according to a Dayton Daily News analysis of program data.”
So they doubled the size and cost, but they saved 43 million. Sure, just like jobs they say they created/saved. Got it.
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I know I’ve been out of the country for a long time, but I simply can’t figure out why about half of our voting citizens would vote for Obama again. The first time around, maybe, but after the terrible job he’s done as President, how can they possibly vote for him again?
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AJ, Thanks for the good article on the media. I am one of those old people who has replaced the newspaper with Social Media. Most of the news articles I read each day come from Twitter.
We will spend $1.6 billion on Obama phones and service this year. If the government is going to continue to add new goods and services which it gives away, I would like to sign up for free Cokes and Mexican food.
Tychicus, Most of my family and most people I meet agree with you. The media has certainly hurt Romney, but the truth is he is a bad candidate. Romney combines the lack of conservatism and patrician outlook and style of a Big Bush with the unlikability of a Gingrich and the phoniness of a John Edwards.
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“Romney, but the truth is he is a bad candidate.”
Which is probably why the MSM was so clearly for him in the primary. If you will recall they systematically one by one destroyed each of the other candidates as they moved ahead of Romney until he was the only one left. I honestly think they consider him the easiest to beat.
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RW: Even though Romney is a flawed candidate, don’t you think the political pressure over the Benghazi debacle will grow big enough (despite the usual media resistance) to possibly put Romney over the top?
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I think you are right, KBells and glad to hear you are feeling better. Romney’s personal money was another factor in scaring off quality conservative opponents in the primaries. I would like to think that a Ryan or a Jindal could have defeated Romney had either run. However, they would have had to endure an onslaught of negative ads paid for by Romney’s money.
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However, I have began to warn up to Romney. With our economic problems a businessman may be just what we need, plus (and this is a biggie) he’s not Obama.
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Sorry Tychicus, but I don’t. The media is giving Obama a complete pass on Benghazi and the stupid statements made afterward by Susan Rice and others. The debates will be interesting. Obama is a good speaker, but not a great debater. Romney is a good debater, but his personality grates. Romney needs a knockout in one (preferably the first or the last) of the debates.
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Romney would not have had to spend a dime to discredit Ryan, Jindal or anyone else. The Daily Show, SNL, and MSNBC would have done the same number on them that they did on Bachman, Perry, Cain, Santorum and now Romney. It is clear from their pick of Romney that they think that class warfare is the best way to go.
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You may be right, KBells. However, the other Republicans who ran all had huge flaws. Most had no executive experience in government. The ones who did were dumb (Perry) or liberal (Huntsman). Gingrich is nasty and egotistical, a Republican Clinton. Bachman and Cain were inexperienced, lightweight affirmative action candidates. Santorum lasted the longest as he had the least obvious flaws. However, he also had no strengths other than the fact that he wasn’t Romney.
It has been a sad year. I will vote for Romney, but I don’t expect him to win. If he wins I don’t expect him to govern as a conservative or to be an effective leader. I hope I am wrong. You are surely correct that his business experience should be an asset.
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Chas @3 – I would say we are in no better and no worse shape. The powder keg just got its fuse shortened. Or did it? Both Qaddaffi and Mubarak were sick men – not even dictators last forever. The west did not start the Arab Spring and we can’t say to those who did that they should not have tried to gain their democratic freedom. After all, there hasn’t been intervention with Syria, and they are in even worse shape than Egypt or Lybia. It is just that the killings there aren’t of westerners, and thus don’t get as much attention.
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Roscuro, Good to visit with you and excited about your future plans. Did we possibly “start” the Arab Spring with the Iraq invasion, our creation of “democracy” in Iraq and Afghanistan and Bush’s pressing for democracy in the Middle East. Obama then continued the support for Middle East democracy. I don’t think we thought through the question of whether Arab democracy is in the best interests of the US, Israel or Arabs.
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Ricky – I agree that the war in Iraq was uneccessary. However, one could go further back, to even before the democratically elected president of Iran and what the CIA did to replace him with the Shah. To be blunt, the West made their first mistake in making the Middle East a pawn in its games of oil and world politics. I read a book written by a man who traveled in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Oman in the late 1940s. He wrote of seeing the first oil companies moving into these desert areas, then inhabited by illiterate tribesmen who answered to no one but themselves. Their only loyalties were to their tribes and their religion. Even then, they bitterly resented the infidel who entered their lands. Now, those same proud, independent people have education and money, and still carry their religious resentment. I don’t think that either the oil companies or the governments that backed them considered that the little tyrannies which they propped up to get their black gold were in the best interests of the West, Israel or the Arabs.
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Oil was discovered in Iran in 1908 and in Saudi Arabia in 1938. England and the US needed to control that oil in order to defeat the Nazis whom the Arabs supported.
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Oil development began on the Persian Gulf in 1941. This man was covering uncharted territory in the southern part of the peninsula between 1945-49, places which were just beginning to attract the attention of the oil companies. The Arabs whom this man traveled with did not even know who the Jews were – they had heard reports of them and wanted to know if they were a Bedu tribe.
As to necessary evils, the Allies also had reason to regret their agreements with Stalin – agreements which also had long-lasting and far-reaching consequences. One can argue whether they were right or wrong in both decisions, but no one can deny that the events which have filled the more than 60 decades since that war were influenced by the actions taken then. There is no event in history which is not the result of many other events and decisions and which does not in its turn, have its own dramatic effects on the future. There is a certain inevitability about what is happening in the Middle East now.
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Roscuro, I agree with your last paragraph. The point I was making at 6:14 was that from 2001 until today, we have assumed that promoting democracy is a good thing for us and the people involved. Despite electoral victories by Hamas in the Occupied Territories, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Shias who are Allies of Iran in Iraq, we still promote democracy.
The British and earlier Americans were wiser than our current leaders. They kept the Mideast oilfields out of the hands of the Nazis and the Communists by not blindly promoting democracy. Since we are now bankrupt, it is likely going to be up to the Germans, the Russians and the Chinese to manage the Arabs and the Persians over the next few decades.
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Ricky, I don’t see this as a result of a military promotion of democracy, starting with the Afghan invasion, and continued with the Iraq war. If anything, those failed attempts would have discouraged any other country from trying for such a structure of government. No, the impetus for these popular uprisings came from education and the spread of ideas about human rights. Right now, the Middle East reminds me strongly of South America in the first half of the 1800’s. The leaders of that revolution were simply following the ideals of the United States, yet Bolivar lived to say with bitterness that those who fought for freedom in South America had plowed the seas. Now, democracy is finally taking root there. But there had to be a beginning, no matter how bloody a failure it was.
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I’m not so sure I agree that Romney’s a terrible candidate. And, to be honest, he was the ‘best’ (that term being somewhat relative) of the GOP lot, frankly.
I can’t understand either how so many people (according to the polls) would be willing to re-elect the incumbent.
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I thought this article from American Thinker was interesting.
http://rt1302.infolinks.com/action/doq.htm?pcode=utf-8&r=13490048950981
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Sorry. I’ll try again.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/09/america_needs_a_traditional_conservative.html
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This defense of Empire is gross. In other news, Tychichus asks:
I simply can’t figure out why about half of our voting citizens would vote for Obama again. The first time around, maybe, but after the terrible job he’s done as President, how can they possibly vote for him again?
Allow me to suggest your understanding of the world is a little lacking if you can’t even fathom why someone might vote for Obama in 2012. Some ideas:
1. They don’t think he’s done a terrible job. Or, at least, they think McCain (or Romney) would have done about the same.
2. They support the right to abortion, efforts to combat climate change, the repeal of don’t ask don’t tell, same-sex marriage rights, etc.
3. They oppose lowering taxes on the wealthy (while raising them on the not-very-wealthy) and decimating programs designed to assist the poor.
4. They don’t like that Romney would, in these tight fiscal times, increase military spending.
5. They don’t want to go to war in Iran and are turned off by Romney’s saber-rattling and the fact that he’s beholden to Netenyahu/Adelson/AIPAC.
6. They see Obama as a genuinely decent guy who, policy differences aside, has their best interests at heart, while viewing Romney as an out-of-touch rich guy who will say anything to get elected, looks down his nose at 47% of the country and is primarily concerned with bettering the situation of the wealthy (of which he is one).
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BG, Your reasons why half the people might vote for Obama would be endorsed by the DNC. They are probably the reasons you will vote for Obama. However, the top five reasons voters will support Obama are:
1 He is a Democrat and 35-40% of folks will always vote for the Democrat.
2 Many voters like the food stamps, Medicaid, free phones, CHIPs benefits and other welfare they are getting and don’t want to see benefits cut.
3 Many folks have become dependent on benefits provided by the twin Ponzi schemes of Medicare and Social Security and want no changes to those programs.
4 He is black.
5. A number of people are woefully ignorant and highly influenced by a media that is extremely biased in favor of Obama.
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All reasons that might have occurred to Tychichus. Instead, he can’t think of any reasons someone might vote for Obama. To your points though:
1 He is a Democrat and 35-40% of folks will always vote for the Democrat.
Just like 35-40% of folks will always vote against a Democrat.
2 Many voters like the food stamps, Medicaid, free phones, CHIPs benefits and other welfare they are getting and don’t want to see benefits cut.
The poor vote at a rate much lower than the general population. Also, significant numbers of the poor (who receive these benefits) actually end up voting Republican. Or, if they do vote Democrat, it may be more attributable to race than to use of aid programs.
Also worth noting that a non-insignificant minority of this group actually votes Republican. Something like a third, if I recall.
Essentially what you’re saying here is that there’s a group of Democratic voters who vote their self-interest. The same could be said for the very wealthy, some of them will vote for Romney because they seem him as the ticket to a tax break.
3 Many folks have become dependent on benefits provided by the twin Ponzi schemes of Medicare and Social Security and want no changes to those programs.
Last I checked the elderly isn’t a group that skews Democrat.
4 He is black.
Agreed that many will vote for him for this reason if no other. That said, there are a lot of black folks who’re going to vote for Obama who wouldn’t have voted for, say, Herman Cain or Alan Keyes if one of them were the GOP candidate running against a white Democrat.
5. A number of people are woefully ignorant and highly influenced by a media that is extremely biased in favor of Obama.
Eh. We could as easily attribute some portion of Romney’s support to paranoiac Republicans who’ve been brainwashed by Limbaugh, Fox, etc. to believe all manner of lies about the president. For instance, how many Republican voters still aren’t sure the president was born in the U.S.? Or still aren’t sure he isn’t a closet Muslim?
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BG: I’m talking about beyond the biases, why would they vote for Obama given his abysmal record? Even if you just look at his economic record, it is clear that his policies haven’t and don’t encourage economic growth, and are in fact very destructive to our Republic.
Would you vote for Obama again?
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Answer: it’s not clear that his policies haven’t and don’t encourage economic growth and are, in fact, destructive. Or that his record is abysmal, given the state of the economy when he took office.
Some people think his policies are bad and his record is abysmal and others don’t. Those who do are, obviously, less likely to vote for him. However, even they might be sufficiently driven by other issues (gay rights, abortion, the environment, foreign policy) to vote for him anyway. Especially if they think Romney’s economic policies would be as-bad-or-worse anyway.
This time around I’m more likely to vote for Obama than I am Romney. My criticisms of Obama are:
1. His support for abortion.
2. His resistance to fundamental tax reform. (Same as Romney.)
3. His reluctance to tackle fundamental immigration reform. (Same as Romney.)
4. His decision to continue Bush-era civil rights violations in the name of combating terrorism. (Same as Romney).
5. His continued support for federal drug prohibition, specifically marijuana. (Same as Romney.)
6. The way in which the stimulus was structured. (Since there’s unlikely to be another stimulus this is mostly moot. Had Romney been in charge, I would probably disagree with his stimulus package as well. And you can be sure there would have been one.)
7. His reluctance to get us out of Afghanistan. (Here there are no good options; we’re basically damned if we do and damned if we don’t. While I might prefer a more speedy exit I recognize that it wouldn’t come without consequences. So I don’t hold this one against him very strongly. Also, Romney would be no better.)
So really the main issue is abortion. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it) I live in a deeply partisan state, so my vote in the general election doesn’t matter. This time around I didn’t even get to influence things during the primaries, since Romney was already the presumptive nominee by the time my state’s primary was held.
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Testing:
Peter L, you are talking about Angelo Codevilla’s dream of a Country Party, summarized as follows:
How, for example, to remind America of, and to drive home to the ruling class, Lincoln’s lesson that trifling with the Constitution for the most heartfelt of motives destroys its protections for all? What if a country class majority in both houses of Congress were to co-sponsor a “Bill of Attainder to deprive Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and other persons of liberty and property without further process of law for having violated the following ex post facto law…” and larded this constitutional monstrosity with an Article III Section 2 exemption from federal court review? When the affected members of the ruling class asked where Congress gets the authority to pass a bill every word of which is contrary to the Constitution, they would be confronted, publicly, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s answer to a question on the Congress’s constitutional authority to mandate individuals to purchase certain kinds of insurance: “Are you kidding? Are you kidding?” The point having been made, the Country Party could lead public discussions around the country on why even the noblest purposes (maybe even Title II of the Civil Rights Bill of 1964?) cannot be allowed to trump the Constitution.
This, of course would be ideal though in reality rather unlikely given political realiyu
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