Day: December 17, 2014
This is Going to Piss Off Ted Cruz’s Dad
Not to mention little Marco Rubio. But America’s policy toward Cuba makes no sense, and these reforms are long overdue. There will be a hew and cry from the old guard in Miami, from FOX, and from the far rightwing, but since when have they been on the sensible side of issues?
Obama Fatigue Is Widespread
70%
Of Americans want the next president to take a different approach to governing. “Even among Democrats, 47% said they wanted a successor who takes a different tack — about the same as the 46% who wanted an Obama-like approach,” according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll: “Looking ahead to 2016, seven in ten That puts Mr. Obama in George W. Bush territory: In the latter part of Mr. Bush’s second term 74% wanted the next president to take a different approach.”
Jeb Bush a Solid Moderate Republican
37
Jeb Bush’s ideological score based on a combination of three statistical indices created by Nate Silver. Bush’s score is “similar to Romney and McCain, each of whom scored a 39. He’s much more conservative than Huntsman, who rates at a 17. Still, Bush is more like his father, George H.W. Bush, who rates as a 33, than his brother George W. Bush, who scores a 46. And the Republican Party has moved to the right since both Poppy and Dubya were elected.”
It’s OK to Be Politically Incorrect If You’re French
On behalf of the French delegation, I want to tell you, you are very beautiful.
— French ambassador Gérard Araud, quoted by the New Yorker, in a text message to U.N ambassador Samantha Power, adding that, “As a Frenchman, I’m not condemned to be politically correct.”
The Terrorists Are Winning: Polls Find Growing Support for America As a Torture State
In its report on the torturing of terrorist suspects by the U.S. government during the Bush-Cheney administration, the Senate Intelligence Committee revealed a long list of abuses:
Detainees were forced to stand on broken limbs for hours, kept in complete darkness, deprived of sleep for up to 180 hours, sometimes standing, sometimes with their arms shackled above their heads.
Prisoners were subjected to “rectal feeding” without medical necessity. Rectal exams were conducted with “excessive force.” The report highlights one prisoner later diagnosed with anal fissures, chronic hemorrhoids and “symptomatic rectal prolapse.”
The report mentions mock executions, Russian roulette. U.S. agents threatened to slit the throat of a detainee’s mother, sexually abuse another and threatened prisoners’ children. One prisoner died of hypothermia brought on in part by being forced to sit on a bare concrete floor without pants.
In a facility codenamed COBALT, but referred to as the “Dungeon,” the United States created a chamber of horrors:
There Are (at Least) 23 Good Reasons Why Jeb Bush Should Not Run for President
Jeb Bush has made his intentions about running for the high office his father and brother occupied. Mother Jones magazine offers a scathing list of 23 reasons he should probably reconsider.
As the magazine puts it: “From questionable business dealings to allegations of philandering, the former Florida governor’s past is an opposition researcher’s dream.”
