Ben Carson: Bungling Surgeon

Yeah, I don't really think the terrorists -- assuming they really are terrorists; as re: Paris I'm told it's too early to know just what their motivation was -- much give a shit about U.S. military strength. President Obama could park two carrier groups off the coast of Syria and they wouldn't bat an eye.

Unplug it, wait 30 seconds, then plug it back in.

 

ISIS fighters are the most feared in the world, because they will rape your wife, and sell your daughter into sexual slavery before cutting off your head. That's why whole towns will empty out as they approach.

Our military has abilities that are unrivaled. We don't need to be savage to be feared. But, we do need a leader who is feared by terrorists, and Obama is not that leader.

He doesn't even pretend to be that leader. He talks about containing ISIS, and eventually, with imaginary Arab ground troops, defeating them. He told George Stephanopoulos just yesterday that ISIS had been contained:

"I don't think they're gaining strength," Obama said of ISIS. "What is true, from the start our goal has been first to contain and we have contained them. They have not gained ground in Iraq and in Syria they'll come in, they'll leave. But you don't see this systemic march by ISIL across the terrain."

"What we have not yet been able to do is to completely decapitate their command and control structures. We've made some progress in trying to reduce the flow of foreign fighters and part of our goal has to be to recruit more effective Sunni partners in Iraq to really go on offense rather than simply engage in defense," the president said.

Obama on ISIS: "We Have Contained Them"

His inability to stand up to Putin, his refusal to enforce the Red Line he drew in Syria, and his claims that Climate Change is our greatest threat only embolden terrorists.

He also does not personally authorize every drone strike.

And, for God's sake, clean the fucking spray head on your coffee machine.

 

So what was the tactic for each president when dealing with terrorists?

Reagan - Give weapons to their enemy, then let the enemy kill them

Bush I - fight them half way

Bush II - Be more aggressive in the fight... full invasion

Obama - Continue the fight

After reading the news last night, can anyone honestly say any of this shit actually works?

 

Sigh. OK.

Gerrymandering may prove a Pyrrhic victory for the GOP

In 2009, Republican Party leaders decided to heed Karl Rove, the campaign guru, who told them pragmatically, "He who controls redistricting can control Congress."

Following the Rove dictum, the party poured $30 million, mostly raised from corporations, into what it called "RedMap," a strategy to dominate the once-a-decade redistricting process in 2011 by capturing majority control of as many state legislatures as possible in the 2010 election.

RedMap was a smashing success. In 2010, Republicans picked up 675 legislative seats nationwide, giving the GOP control of legislatures in states that held 40% of all House seats, versus Democrats with only 10%. (The rest were under split control.) When it came time for gerrymandering, they ran a precision operation. They used sophisticated software to determine not only which town and which neighborhood should be allotted to which district but which street and which home. In the 2012 election, they saw the fruit of their labor. Republicans came out with a 33-seat majority in the U.S. House, even though they lost the popular vote.

And...

How Dark Money Helped Republicans Hold the House and Hurt Voters

Exactly how the Republican effort worked has been shrouded in mystery until now. But depositions and other documents in a little-noticed lawsuit in North Carolina offer an exceptionally detailed picture of Republicans' tactics.

Documents show that national Republican operatives, funded by dark money groups, drew the crucial lines which packed as many Democrats as possible into three congressional districts. The result: the state's congressional delegation flipped from 7-6 Democratic to 9-4 in favor of Republicans. The combination of party operatives, cash and secrecy also existed in other states, including Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan.

 

Reagan's political doctrine - well, you know, the doctrine of the people who ran foreign policy, since Reagan didn't - is a giant reason we are where we are right now.

It didn't start under Reagan. That would fair to say. Hell, proxy wars in the Cold War are older than him. But the general idea to confront Communist ideology at every turn not only help bankrupt the Soviet Union - I'd argue it wasn't near the primary cause, but whatever - it also transported the "American imperialist" brand to all kinds of places that otherwise wouldn't have given a shit. Additionally, it helped to bloom the Soviet war/weapons machine that spun in a hundred different directions - often into the hands of terrorists - after the collapse of USSR. I'm an American and I support, you know, "America" and all - I really do - but our world gatekeeper mode has helped create the rogue, non-state threats. And it's helped fuel the drug war, too.

 

So it's both. You're only bothered by certain parties' gerrymandering efforts/results AND you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Because only someone who doesn't know what he's talking about would have allowed this little bit -- "Republicans came out with a 33-seat majority in the U.S. House, even though they lost the popular vote" -- to appear in a quote. Now, in case you're confused, I'll spell it out for you ... the so-called "popular vote" vis-a-vis the HofR is of absolutely no meaning. It's stupid to even bring it up.

 

I don't think the extreme gerrymandering happens in the big states anyway.

The smaller states, the ones with Republican secretarys of state is where the real fun happens.

Look at Tennessee. Nine congressional districts. Seven republicans and two democrats in a state with largely white rural areas and metro areas with large black populations.

Memphis and Nashville are the two places with Democrats as congressmen. Chattanooga, which also has a sizeable black population, that district looks like an hour glass with a huge area of rural Tennessee.

Arkansas home base of the ever feared Clinton Machine (tm). The Clinton Machine so powerful, it lost the 2008 presidential primary and so powerful that despite only a slight majority of Republican voters in Arkansas, the state is now entirely Republican.

If you look at the congressional districts, you see that like in Tennessee the rural areas are mostly white, and the metro areas have larger minority populations. The districts have the urban areas paired up with the rural areas to create districts that favor Republicans.

The voter turnout in either state was laughably low with not even a third of registered voters in Tennessee turning out, while Arkansas was only slightly better at barely 40 percent.

You make it harder to vote, you get low turnout.

 

Here's what I wrote:

The Congressional seats are now laughably gerrymandered in some states. It's fish in a barrel, and kudos to the GOP for understanding that you win the House with election/map drawing tactics, not rhetoric or policies.

At this point, you're either looking for something to be huffily offended by, or arguing with yourself.

 

Must be hard to vote in Los Angeles, which had a 31 percent turnout for the 2014 midterms.

Certified Statewide Results Show Record Low Turnout for Regular General Elections in California | California Secretary of State

Of California’s 58 counties, Sierra had the highest November 2014 voter turnout with 73 percent of registered voters; the lowest voter turnout was in Los Angeles County with just 31 percent.

 

Back to the original premise of the thread, the Boston Globe confirms that Ben Carson really was a terrible surgeon:

Conjoined twin separation that launched Ben Carson’s fame ended poorly for twins - The Boston Globe

 

So the suicide bombers are afraid of who exactly?

 

Allah?