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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
The Pentagon has quietly sidelined a program that placed blast gauges on thousands of combat troops in Afghanistan.
NPR has learned the monitoring was discontinued because the gauges failed to reliably show whether service members had been close enough to an explosion to have sustained a concussion, or mild traumatic brain injury.
But the small wearable devices did produce a trove of data on blast exposure that could eventually have helped researchers understand the links between bomb blasts, concussions and brain diseases. And they produced evidence that many service members are exposed to worrisome levels of blast pressure simply by being near a heavy weapon when it's fired.
The decision to warehouse the blast gauges is "a huge mistake," says retired Gen. Peter Chiarelli, who was the Army's vice chief of staff before retiring in 2012 and is now the chief executive officer of One Mind, a nonprofit focused on brain illness and injury.
Mild TBI was the signature wound of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, affecting more than 200,000 troops. Having data from blast sensors could play "a very, very important role in helping us understand why an individual has negative effects from a concussion," Chiarelli says, "or why an individual develops one of the neurodegenerative diseases that seem connected with concussion, everything from ALS, to Parkinson's to dementia and even Alzheimer's."
When NPR contacted the Army, a spokesman said it would be early 2017 before it could respond to an interview request.
But Eric Fanning, secretary of the Army, did discuss the decision in a letter to Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y. One problem was that the gauges failed to show how much blast exposure is too much, Fanning wrote, adding that "The DoD's current inventory of blast gauges does not provide consistent and reliable data in the training or combat environment."
The blast gauges are about the size of a quarter, and troops wear three of them on their helmets and upper bodies. The gauges contain sensors that measure overpressure, the sudden increase in air pressure caused by an explosion.
An overpressure of just 5 pounds per square inch can burst an eardrum. One-hundred PSI can be fatal. And somewhere in between is probably where most concussions occur.
The Army began outfitting thousands of combat troops with blast gauges in 2011.
Kyle Sims was a Special Forces medic who helped deploy the gauges in Afghanistan. He remembers the first time he saw the gauges help a soldier. Oddly, the soldier hadn't been anywhere near a bomb blast.
"He was a soldier who fired a shoulder-fired rocket," Sims says. "And that shoulder-fired rocket actually gave him a pretty significant overpressure exposure just because he was firing it from a bit of a confined space."
When the soldier returned from his mission, he said he had a headache, Sims says. "The medic checks his gauges, sees that he's got an exposure, takes him over to the hospital, gets a good neuro exam, [and] he gets diagnosed with a concussion."
So this soldier's brain had taken a hit just from firing his own weapon.
But the gauges had done their job. "And I thought that that was going to be the start of great things, you know, that we were really on the right path," says Sims, who began working with the company that makes the gauges this year, after leaving the service.
Source
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few years ago, the corporate education movement seemed virtually unbeatable. It was lavishly funded; documentaries like Waiting for Superman and organizations like Teach for America helped give it a liberal, do-gooder gloss; and politicians across the political spectrum dedicated themselves to squeezing teachers’ unions, boosting charter schools, and talking up public-private partnerships.
But this year things look different. The corporate reformers still have lots of money to dump on local politicians, but they appear to be short on momentum. The Democratic Party establishment has distanced itself from Rahm Emanuel’s messianic battle with the Chicago Teachers Union. High-stakes testing is increasingly discredited. And on November 8, Massachusetts voters handily defeated Question 2 — a ballot proposal intended to lift the state’s cap on charter schools — despite corporate reformers pumping $23.6 million into the campaign.
So how did Massachusetts defeat the privatization juggernaut? To find out, Jacobin’s Elizabeth Mahony spoke to Carlos Rojas Álvarez, the student field director for Save Our Public Schools Massachusetts, a grassroots coalition of students, parents, and educators. We talked about the danger Question 2 posed to public education; how student and teacher organizers grappled with the legacy of segregation and racist schools in Boston; and how “No on 2” helped lay the groundwork for new organizing against Trump.
I think it’s important to start off by saying that the first charter schools in Massachusetts arrived in 1993 as part of the education reform bill that we saw passed that same year. The original intent of charter schools was by and large good and driven by the right reasons — mainly to create hubs of experimentation, innovation, trying different educational models and then being able to bring them back to larger school districts that were struggling with improving student performance and outcomes.
As so many good things are, it was quickly hijacked by investors who saw charter schools as a lucrative business opportunity. And so began the co-optation of charter schools, to open more and more of them not as places of innovation but as replacements for public schools — replacements where generally speaking private boards were in control of school policies, parent and student representation was nonexistent and accountability to the public was nonexistent. They were supported by public funds but operated by private interests that were successfully lobbying for tax breaks and incentives that made returns on charter school investment even more lucrative.
So we’ve known this has been happening for a long time. One of the most successful strategies of the charter school movement has been exploiting people’s fears about their future and their children’s futures, particularly peoples’ anger at the failure of public schools to deliver the promises that we hold as a society.
Now of course many of us understood that the reason why some public schools aren’t as successful as others has everything to do with wealth inequality, poverty being probably the biggest factor in determining educational outcomes for students. This is compounded by the attacks on public education, and the defunding and budget cuts, that we’ve seen in the past two decades.
The charter school movement has been very good at exploiting that fear and using parents and students who have been frustrated with their public education system, who were left with no real analysis of why public schools aren’t doing the best they can. The movement harnessed their angst towards something that looks good but is actually a threat to the communities they purport to serve, and a threat to all students and all families.
In Massachusetts this has been no different.
Massachusetts had a cap that was put in place because lawmakers acknowledged that the expansion of charter schools would have a negative impact on the funding to public school districts, and acknowledged charters’ problems with accountability, transparency issues, hyper-discipline, counseling out based on test scores, selective enrollment practices, etc.
This year, the wealthy funders of the charter school movement saw an opportunity to move away from that legislative process, where a true grassroots coalition of students, parents, and teachers had roundly defeated them year after year. They decided to depart from that process and bring the decision as a referendum to the Massachusetts public.
I think they were overconfident in their ability to win, so they poured an unprecedented amount of money into this ballot question. But parents, students, and teachers came together and we quickly responded to that threat with our own campaign to defeat Question 2.
Public Education Can Win
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On December 20 2016 22:04 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2016 16:11 LegalLord wrote:Anyways, for those that haven't been paying attention, the Obama camp picked Tom Perez, his Secretary of Labor, as his preferred choice for DNC chair and the challenge to Ellison: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-dnc-chair-tom-perez-keith-ellison-20161213-story.htmlI'm not really sure what I want out of the DNC but I will say that I am absolutely not fond of what direction the establishment Democrats are taking. It seems they are pushing for a more "the midterms will give us gains against the Trump administration so we should just wait it out" approach rather than one that will yield more to the progressives. If they do, then I'm probably not voting for them next time around. Ellison is a much better pick than Perez. Which means I have no doubt they'll get Perez.
For better or worse, and fairly or not, they have essentially turned this into a "Sanders and Warren" versus "Obama and Clinton" battle for leadership. While I have my problems with both Sanders and Ellison the progressive wing is still most likely the future of the party, barring a realignment against a more populist Republican Party.
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It’s almost an accepted dogma that in the United States (and in several other countries), liberals are much more in favor of taking actions to curb climate change whereas conservatives block such actions. That’s certainly true within the halls of power. For instance, in the United States, it has become a litmus test for Republication candidates to deny humans are causing climate change, to try to claim that it isn’t important, in many cases to demonize the messengers (the scientists), and to work to halt climate science so we won’t know how bad the problem is.
Conventional wisdom – and in fact the seemingly obvious message from this past election – is that this denial is good politics. If you want to get elected as a conservative, you have got to be anti-science.
But perhaps what we thought was so just isn’t. A fascinating study was just released by Yale and George Mason Universities that involved a national survey of American opinions. What this survey found was astonishing. Almost 70% of registered voters in the U.S. believe that their country should participate in international agreements to limit global warming. Only 1 in 8 registered voters believe the U.S. should not participate in such agreements. Similarly, 70% of respondents support limits on carbon dioxide, the most important human-emitted heat trapping gas.
Moreover, they agree to limits even if that means electricity costs will increase (although they won’t). What this means is that 7 in 10 registered voters agree with President Obama’s signature climate accomplishment, the Clean Power Plan. When considered by party affiliation, the responses were 85% for Democrats, 62% for Independents, and 52% for Republicans. Yes, even among Republicans, whose elected officials systematically mock science, the majority of voters are in agreement about the importance of taking climate change seriously.
Amongst the respondents, more than 80% agreed that if a carbon tax is imposed, the revenues should be used to improve U.S. infrastructure, and large majorities support using the funds to help displaced fossil fuel workers or reducing the national debt.
A deeper dive into the results reveals that American voters are more knowledgeable about energy and the energy economy than is the president elect. They recognize the connection between the new clean energy economy and their own country’s economic vitality.
More than half of voters understand that transitioning to newer and cleaner fuels will improve economic growth and create new jobs – something we are already seeing. A small minority believe that transitioning to a clean-energy system will hurt the economy. Furthermore, a majority support exploring clean and renewable energy on public lands by a very large margin compared with those who support more fossil fuel extraction on those same lands.
Source
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On December 20 2016 23:56 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Show nested quote +It’s almost an accepted dogma that in the United States (and in several other countries), liberals are much more in favor of taking actions to curb climate change whereas conservatives block such actions. That’s certainly true within the halls of power. For instance, in the United States, it has become a litmus test for Republication candidates to deny humans are causing climate change, to try to claim that it isn’t important, in many cases to demonize the messengers (the scientists), and to work to halt climate science so we won’t know how bad the problem is.
Conventional wisdom – and in fact the seemingly obvious message from this past election – is that this denial is good politics. If you want to get elected as a conservative, you have got to be anti-science.
But perhaps what we thought was so just isn’t. A fascinating study was just released by Yale and George Mason Universities that involved a national survey of American opinions. What this survey found was astonishing. Almost 70% of registered voters in the U.S. believe that their country should participate in international agreements to limit global warming. Only 1 in 8 registered voters believe the U.S. should not participate in such agreements. Similarly, 70% of respondents support limits on carbon dioxide, the most important human-emitted heat trapping gas.
Moreover, they agree to limits even if that means electricity costs will increase (although they won’t). What this means is that 7 in 10 registered voters agree with President Obama’s signature climate accomplishment, the Clean Power Plan. When considered by party affiliation, the responses were 85% for Democrats, 62% for Independents, and 52% for Republicans. Yes, even among Republicans, whose elected officials systematically mock science, the majority of voters are in agreement about the importance of taking climate change seriously.
Amongst the respondents, more than 80% agreed that if a carbon tax is imposed, the revenues should be used to improve U.S. infrastructure, and large majorities support using the funds to help displaced fossil fuel workers or reducing the national debt.
A deeper dive into the results reveals that American voters are more knowledgeable about energy and the energy economy than is the president elect. They recognize the connection between the new clean energy economy and their own country’s economic vitality.
More than half of voters understand that transitioning to newer and cleaner fuels will improve economic growth and create new jobs – something we are already seeing. A small minority believe that transitioning to a clean-energy system will hurt the economy. Furthermore, a majority support exploring clean and renewable energy on public lands by a very large margin compared with those who support more fossil fuel extraction on those same lands. Source
That research doesn't really say what it claims to say. Because what people support wrt climate change and what they will vote for are not necessarily correlated at all. You see, even if 52% of Republicans are in favor of climate change laws, they might be far less vehement about it than the 48% that doesn't. Lets say 20% of the 52% pro-CC-legislation see it as a make-or-break issue, whereas 40% of the 48% does. That would mean that by supporting climate change, they would lose 19.2% of their voters, whereas by opposing it they lose 10%. Even if half of those 10% (so 5%) go to the Democrats, they still come out ahead.
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On December 21 2016 00:25 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2016 23:56 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:It’s almost an accepted dogma that in the United States (and in several other countries), liberals are much more in favor of taking actions to curb climate change whereas conservatives block such actions. That’s certainly true within the halls of power. For instance, in the United States, it has become a litmus test for Republication candidates to deny humans are causing climate change, to try to claim that it isn’t important, in many cases to demonize the messengers (the scientists), and to work to halt climate science so we won’t know how bad the problem is.
Conventional wisdom – and in fact the seemingly obvious message from this past election – is that this denial is good politics. If you want to get elected as a conservative, you have got to be anti-science.
But perhaps what we thought was so just isn’t. A fascinating study was just released by Yale and George Mason Universities that involved a national survey of American opinions. What this survey found was astonishing. Almost 70% of registered voters in the U.S. believe that their country should participate in international agreements to limit global warming. Only 1 in 8 registered voters believe the U.S. should not participate in such agreements. Similarly, 70% of respondents support limits on carbon dioxide, the most important human-emitted heat trapping gas.
Moreover, they agree to limits even if that means electricity costs will increase (although they won’t). What this means is that 7 in 10 registered voters agree with President Obama’s signature climate accomplishment, the Clean Power Plan. When considered by party affiliation, the responses were 85% for Democrats, 62% for Independents, and 52% for Republicans. Yes, even among Republicans, whose elected officials systematically mock science, the majority of voters are in agreement about the importance of taking climate change seriously.
Amongst the respondents, more than 80% agreed that if a carbon tax is imposed, the revenues should be used to improve U.S. infrastructure, and large majorities support using the funds to help displaced fossil fuel workers or reducing the national debt.
A deeper dive into the results reveals that American voters are more knowledgeable about energy and the energy economy than is the president elect. They recognize the connection between the new clean energy economy and their own country’s economic vitality.
More than half of voters understand that transitioning to newer and cleaner fuels will improve economic growth and create new jobs – something we are already seeing. A small minority believe that transitioning to a clean-energy system will hurt the economy. Furthermore, a majority support exploring clean and renewable energy on public lands by a very large margin compared with those who support more fossil fuel extraction on those same lands. Source That research doesn't really say what it claims to say. Because what people support wrt climate change and what they will vote for are not necessarily correlated at all. You see, even if 52% of Republicans are in favor of climate change laws, they might be far less vehement about it than the 48% that doesn't. Lets say 20% of the 52% pro-CC-legislation see it as a make-or-break issue, whereas 40% of the 48% does. That would mean that by supporting climate change, they would lose 19.2% of their voters, whereas by opposing it they lose 10%. Even if half of those 10% (so 5%) go to the Democrats, they still come out ahead.
Just take any public opinion poll that lists challenges facing the nation that Congress & the President might take action on. See how many rank the impacts of climate change in the top three. See how many put the environment or pollution in the bottom three. When you talk about vehemency, pro-ACC that think it's a big deal--that it's a matter of immediate public concern--(which matters when you talk about expected costs), aren't that numerous. When you talk about amorphous deals involving multiple countries, that's a better psychological out. Countries acting together, sharing the burden, and all that.
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On December 20 2016 12:51 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2016 12:45 Doodsmack wrote:On December 20 2016 12:41 xDaunt wrote:On December 20 2016 12:40 Doodsmack wrote:On December 20 2016 12:14 xDaunt wrote:
Anyone who has done any kind of professional negotiation will recognize the simple tactics immediately. Him saying "keep the drone you stole" seems to me more like a statement that doesn't make sense. If doing the unexpected entails saying things that don't really make sense, I'm not sure I buy that this is some sort of smart negotiating tactic. I guess he could say later on that he didn't make a big deal out of the drone, but he did openly put the One China policy on the table so it's not like he's not stirring the pot. Ignore the drone. He's telling China to go fuck itself. Now does it make more sense? Well I hope that's not the case (and I don't know if it is), because I don't think US-China relations are such that we should be coming in right now and saying fuck you I'm taking everything that I can. Why not? Furthermore, do you not think that that has been China's attitude towards the US and the West for some time now?
Do you feel the same way about Russia?
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WASHINGTON ― Donald Trump launched his Twitter campaign against China’s seizure of a U.S. Navy research submersible last week to great fanfare ― and, as it turns out, hours after the crisis had already been defused.
It’s unclear whether the president-elect or his aides knew that fact ― it would have been included in the intelligence briefing available to him each morning ― before he sent out his misspelled missive of outrage at 7:30 a.m. Saturday.
“China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters ― rips it out of water and takes it to China in unpresidented act,” Trump wrote. He deleted that version and replaced it with “unprecedented” spelled correctly at 8:57 a.m.
But even his first version came four hours after U.S. Ambassador to China Max Baucus was informed that the Chinese navy had agreed to return the “underwater unmanned vehicle,” The Huffington Post has learned.
That information would have been known to Trump had he taken the “Presidential Daily Brief” prior to posting his first tweet. Whether he did that Saturday, or whether he or his staff even bothered to check with the State Department or the Pentagon about the status of the matter before weighing in, is unknown. Officials in Trump’s transition office did not respond to queries from The Huffington Post.
Trump has said that he finds the brief repetitive and that he does not need a daily briefing because he is smart. His staff has said Trump is receiving the briefing about three times a week.
In any case, Trump transition team spokesman Jason Miller was quick to take credit for his boss when news broke that China had agreed to return the device. At 11:54 a.m., he tweeted: “@realdonaldtrump gets it done,” and attached a link to an article in The Hill about the resolution of the incident. At 6:52 p.m., Miller tweeted a link to another story in The Hill, this one about his earlier tweet taking credit for Trump’s initial tweet.
And Trump himself capped off the day with a final tweet sent during the short motorcade from Palm Beach International Airport back across the Intracoastal Waterway to his Mar-a-Lago resort following a rally in Alabama: “We should tell China that we don’t want the drone they stole back.― let them keep it!”
The encounter’s resolution, though, resulted not from Trump’s 140-character snippets of anger, but days of traditional diplomacy. The Chinese vessel had taken the submersible on Thursday just as the USNS Bowditch was preparing to retrieve it about 60 miles northwest of the Philippines’ Subic Bay in the South China Sea.
Source
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On December 21 2016 01:41 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Show nested quote +WASHINGTON ― Donald Trump launched his Twitter campaign against China’s seizure of a U.S. Navy research submersible last week to great fanfare ― and, as it turns out, hours after the crisis had already been defused.
It’s unclear whether the president-elect or his aides knew that fact ― it would have been included in the intelligence briefing available to him each morning ― before he sent out his misspelled missive of outrage at 7:30 a.m. Saturday.
“China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters ― rips it out of water and takes it to China in unpresidented act,” Trump wrote. He deleted that version and replaced it with “unprecedented” spelled correctly at 8:57 a.m.
But even his first version came four hours after U.S. Ambassador to China Max Baucus was informed that the Chinese navy had agreed to return the “underwater unmanned vehicle,” The Huffington Post has learned.
That information would have been known to Trump had he taken the “Presidential Daily Brief” prior to posting his first tweet. Whether he did that Saturday, or whether he or his staff even bothered to check with the State Department or the Pentagon about the status of the matter before weighing in, is unknown. Officials in Trump’s transition office did not respond to queries from The Huffington Post.
Trump has said that he finds the brief repetitive and that he does not need a daily briefing because he is smart. His staff has said Trump is receiving the briefing about three times a week.
In any case, Trump transition team spokesman Jason Miller was quick to take credit for his boss when news broke that China had agreed to return the device. At 11:54 a.m., he tweeted: “@realdonaldtrump gets it done,” and attached a link to an article in The Hill about the resolution of the incident. At 6:52 p.m., Miller tweeted a link to another story in The Hill, this one about his earlier tweet taking credit for Trump’s initial tweet.
And Trump himself capped off the day with a final tweet sent during the short motorcade from Palm Beach International Airport back across the Intracoastal Waterway to his Mar-a-Lago resort following a rally in Alabama: “We should tell China that we don’t want the drone they stole back.― let them keep it!”
The encounter’s resolution, though, resulted not from Trump’s 140-character snippets of anger, but days of traditional diplomacy. The Chinese vessel had taken the submersible on Thursday just as the USNS Bowditch was preparing to retrieve it about 60 miles northwest of the Philippines’ Subic Bay in the South China Sea. Source
We have an unknown world ahead of us come Jan 20th, folks.
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On December 20 2016 23:46 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +few years ago, the corporate education movement seemed virtually unbeatable. It was lavishly funded; documentaries like Waiting for Superman and organizations like Teach for America helped give it a liberal, do-gooder gloss; and politicians across the political spectrum dedicated themselves to squeezing teachers’ unions, boosting charter schools, and talking up public-private partnerships.
But this year things look different. The corporate reformers still have lots of money to dump on local politicians, but they appear to be short on momentum. The Democratic Party establishment has distanced itself from Rahm Emanuel’s messianic battle with the Chicago Teachers Union. High-stakes testing is increasingly discredited. And on November 8, Massachusetts voters handily defeated Question 2 — a ballot proposal intended to lift the state’s cap on charter schools — despite corporate reformers pumping $23.6 million into the campaign.
So how did Massachusetts defeat the privatization juggernaut? To find out, Jacobin’s Elizabeth Mahony spoke to Carlos Rojas Álvarez, the student field director for Save Our Public Schools Massachusetts, a grassroots coalition of students, parents, and educators. We talked about the danger Question 2 posed to public education; how student and teacher organizers grappled with the legacy of segregation and racist schools in Boston; and how “No on 2” helped lay the groundwork for new organizing against Trump.
I think it’s important to start off by saying that the first charter schools in Massachusetts arrived in 1993 as part of the education reform bill that we saw passed that same year. The original intent of charter schools was by and large good and driven by the right reasons — mainly to create hubs of experimentation, innovation, trying different educational models and then being able to bring them back to larger school districts that were struggling with improving student performance and outcomes.
As so many good things are, it was quickly hijacked by investors who saw charter schools as a lucrative business opportunity. And so began the co-optation of charter schools, to open more and more of them not as places of innovation but as replacements for public schools — replacements where generally speaking private boards were in control of school policies, parent and student representation was nonexistent and accountability to the public was nonexistent. They were supported by public funds but operated by private interests that were successfully lobbying for tax breaks and incentives that made returns on charter school investment even more lucrative.
So we’ve known this has been happening for a long time. One of the most successful strategies of the charter school movement has been exploiting people’s fears about their future and their children’s futures, particularly peoples’ anger at the failure of public schools to deliver the promises that we hold as a society.
Now of course many of us understood that the reason why some public schools aren’t as successful as others has everything to do with wealth inequality, poverty being probably the biggest factor in determining educational outcomes for students. This is compounded by the attacks on public education, and the defunding and budget cuts, that we’ve seen in the past two decades.
The charter school movement has been very good at exploiting that fear and using parents and students who have been frustrated with their public education system, who were left with no real analysis of why public schools aren’t doing the best they can. The movement harnessed their angst towards something that looks good but is actually a threat to the communities they purport to serve, and a threat to all students and all families.
In Massachusetts this has been no different.
Massachusetts had a cap that was put in place because lawmakers acknowledged that the expansion of charter schools would have a negative impact on the funding to public school districts, and acknowledged charters’ problems with accountability, transparency issues, hyper-discipline, counseling out based on test scores, selective enrollment practices, etc.
This year, the wealthy funders of the charter school movement saw an opportunity to move away from that legislative process, where a true grassroots coalition of students, parents, and teachers had roundly defeated them year after year. They decided to depart from that process and bring the decision as a referendum to the Massachusetts public.
I think they were overconfident in their ability to win, so they poured an unprecedented amount of money into this ballot question. But parents, students, and teachers came together and we quickly responded to that threat with our own campaign to defeat Question 2. Public Education Can Win
It was a good effort to defeat the provision, but the provision itself was pretty horrible and overtly bad which I'm sure helped a ton.
https://ballotpedia.org/Massachusetts_Authorization_of_Additional_Charter_Schools_and_Charter_School_Expansion,_Question_2_(2016)
New charters and enrollment expansions approved under this law would be exempt from existing limits on the number of charter schools, the number of students enrolled in them, and the amount of local school districts’ spending allocated to them
Who would seriously think that's a good good idea! The actual provisions of the bill were terrible and a bunch of pro-charter school people spoke out against it.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
Obama interview with NPR on his way out: link
Lot of garden variety stuff, but one notable tidbit of commentary:
'This is going to be a browner country'
Obama spoke about the growing Latino community and how the next generation needs to be educated and feel included in this country since they will be ensuring America's success. "If you stopped all immigration today, just by virtue of birth rates, this is going to be a browner country," he said.
For those here who gush over the idea that "whitey" is going to be displaced by demographics and that this is "the last election of the boomers" I suppose that's good commentary. Frankly I'm none too fond of this Democrat trend of saying "the demographics are going to favor us so let's play identity politics all the way to the White House."
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The leader of the Austrian far-right Freedom Party has signed what he called a cooperation agreement with Russia’s ruling party and recently met with Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, the designated national security adviser to President-elect Donald J. Trump of the United States.
Word of the agreement with Russia was the latest sign that the Kremlin is forging bonds with political parties across Europe in what some European leaders suspect is a coordinated attempt to meddle in their affairs and potentially weaken Western democracies. Many of these efforts are murky and involve obscure groups, and it is unclear what, if any, direct involvement President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia may have.
The Freedom Party leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, reported the signing of the agreement with United Russia, Mr. Putin’s party, on Monday on his Facebook page, where he also disclosed that he had visited General Flynn a few weeks ago in Trump Tower in New York.
“Internationally, the Freedom Party continues to gain in influence,” wrote Mr. Strache, a dental technician who has led the party since 2005.
The Freedom Party, founded in the 1950s by ex-Nazis, surged this year...
The New York Times
Seems to me that Russia has realized it can capitalize on populists emerging in domestic politics in Western countries. By doing things that tend to favor a populist party, Russia gains support/indifference among that party and its supporters, because they are benefitted in their domestic politics, and then they are presumably more favorable to working with Russia.
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On December 21 2016 01:49 Doodsmack wrote:Show nested quote +The leader of the Austrian far-right Freedom Party has signed what he called a cooperation agreement with Russia’s ruling party and recently met with Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, the designated national security adviser to President-elect Donald J. Trump of the United States.
Word of the agreement with Russia was the latest sign that the Kremlin is forging bonds with political parties across Europe in what some European leaders suspect is a coordinated attempt to meddle in their affairs and potentially weaken Western democracies. Many of these efforts are murky and involve obscure groups, and it is unclear what, if any, direct involvement President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia may have.
The Freedom Party leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, reported the signing of the agreement with United Russia, Mr. Putin’s party, on Monday on his Facebook page, where he also disclosed that he had visited General Flynn a few weeks ago in Trump Tower in New York.
“Internationally, the Freedom Party continues to gain in influence,” wrote Mr. Strache, a dental technician who has led the party since 2005.
The Freedom Party, founded in the 1950s by ex-Nazis, surged this year... The New York Times
And why is Flynn mentioned in this when he appears to have nothing to do with the subject of the article?
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
I suppose "working with foreigners who are willing to cooperate with you" can qualify as meddling.
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On December 21 2016 01:52 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2016 01:49 Doodsmack wrote:The leader of the Austrian far-right Freedom Party has signed what he called a cooperation agreement with Russia’s ruling party and recently met with Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, the designated national security adviser to President-elect Donald J. Trump of the United States.
Word of the agreement with Russia was the latest sign that the Kremlin is forging bonds with political parties across Europe in what some European leaders suspect is a coordinated attempt to meddle in their affairs and potentially weaken Western democracies. Many of these efforts are murky and involve obscure groups, and it is unclear what, if any, direct involvement President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia may have.
The Freedom Party leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, reported the signing of the agreement with United Russia, Mr. Putin’s party, on Monday on his Facebook page, where he also disclosed that he had visited General Flynn a few weeks ago in Trump Tower in New York.
“Internationally, the Freedom Party continues to gain in influence,” wrote Mr. Strache, a dental technician who has led the party since 2005.
The Freedom Party, founded in the 1950s by ex-Nazis, surged this year... The New York Times And why is Flynn mentioned in this when he appears to have nothing to do with the subject of the article?
See my edit about the symbiotic relationship between Russia and Western populists.
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On December 21 2016 01:54 Doodsmack wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2016 01:52 Gorsameth wrote:On December 21 2016 01:49 Doodsmack wrote:The leader of the Austrian far-right Freedom Party has signed what he called a cooperation agreement with Russia’s ruling party and recently met with Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, the designated national security adviser to President-elect Donald J. Trump of the United States.
Word of the agreement with Russia was the latest sign that the Kremlin is forging bonds with political parties across Europe in what some European leaders suspect is a coordinated attempt to meddle in their affairs and potentially weaken Western democracies. Many of these efforts are murky and involve obscure groups, and it is unclear what, if any, direct involvement President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia may have.
The Freedom Party leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, reported the signing of the agreement with United Russia, Mr. Putin’s party, on Monday on his Facebook page, where he also disclosed that he had visited General Flynn a few weeks ago in Trump Tower in New York.
“Internationally, the Freedom Party continues to gain in influence,” wrote Mr. Strache, a dental technician who has led the party since 2005.
The Freedom Party, founded in the 1950s by ex-Nazis, surged this year... The New York Times And why is Flynn mentioned in this when he appears to have nothing to do with the subject of the article? See my edit about the symbiotic relationship between Russia and Western populists.
Still has nothing to do with why Flynn is mentioned. Did he broker the agreement between this Austrian Political Party and the Russian Party? If so why not say that (and provide something of evidence)
It does not mention anything he did, it just casually drops his name with 0 attachment what so ever to the context.
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On December 21 2016 02:00 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2016 01:54 Doodsmack wrote:On December 21 2016 01:52 Gorsameth wrote:On December 21 2016 01:49 Doodsmack wrote:The leader of the Austrian far-right Freedom Party has signed what he called a cooperation agreement with Russia’s ruling party and recently met with Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, the designated national security adviser to President-elect Donald J. Trump of the United States.
Word of the agreement with Russia was the latest sign that the Kremlin is forging bonds with political parties across Europe in what some European leaders suspect is a coordinated attempt to meddle in their affairs and potentially weaken Western democracies. Many of these efforts are murky and involve obscure groups, and it is unclear what, if any, direct involvement President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia may have.
The Freedom Party leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, reported the signing of the agreement with United Russia, Mr. Putin’s party, on Monday on his Facebook page, where he also disclosed that he had visited General Flynn a few weeks ago in Trump Tower in New York.
“Internationally, the Freedom Party continues to gain in influence,” wrote Mr. Strache, a dental technician who has led the party since 2005.
The Freedom Party, founded in the 1950s by ex-Nazis, surged this year... The New York Times And why is Flynn mentioned in this when he appears to have nothing to do with the subject of the article? See my edit about the symbiotic relationship between Russia and Western populists. Still has nothing to do with why Flynn is mentioned. Did he broker the agreement between this Austrian Political Party and the Russian Party? If so why not say that (and provide something of evidence) It does not mention anything he did, it just casually drops his name with 0 attachment what so ever to the context.
Well the Austrian guy mentioned Flynn in the same breath as this thing with Russia, so while Flynn is not directly involved in the agreement, this shows the alignment between populist parties and other populists and between populist parties and Russia. This is who the Trump camp is associating with.
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On December 21 2016 01:49 Doodsmack wrote:Show nested quote +The leader of the Austrian far-right Freedom Party has signed what he called a cooperation agreement with Russia’s ruling party and recently met with Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, the designated national security adviser to President-elect Donald J. Trump of the United States.
Word of the agreement with Russia was the latest sign that the Kremlin is forging bonds with political parties across Europe in what some European leaders suspect is a coordinated attempt to meddle in their affairs and potentially weaken Western democracies. Many of these efforts are murky and involve obscure groups, and it is unclear what, if any, direct involvement President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia may have.
The Freedom Party leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, reported the signing of the agreement with United Russia, Mr. Putin’s party, on Monday on his Facebook page, where he also disclosed that he had visited General Flynn a few weeks ago in Trump Tower in New York.
“Internationally, the Freedom Party continues to gain in influence,” wrote Mr. Strache, a dental technician who has led the party since 2005.
The Freedom Party, founded in the 1950s by ex-Nazis, surged this year... The New York TimesSeems to me that Russia has realized it can capitalize on populists emerging in domestic politics in Western countries. By doing things that tend to favor a populist party, Russia gains support/indifference among that party and its supporters, because they are benefitted in their domestic politics, and then they are presumably more favorable to working with Russia.
You meant to say common sense emerging in Western countries?
User was temp banned for this post.
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On December 21 2016 02:04 Doodsmack wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2016 02:00 Gorsameth wrote:On December 21 2016 01:54 Doodsmack wrote:On December 21 2016 01:52 Gorsameth wrote:On December 21 2016 01:49 Doodsmack wrote:The leader of the Austrian far-right Freedom Party has signed what he called a cooperation agreement with Russia’s ruling party and recently met with Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, the designated national security adviser to President-elect Donald J. Trump of the United States.
Word of the agreement with Russia was the latest sign that the Kremlin is forging bonds with political parties across Europe in what some European leaders suspect is a coordinated attempt to meddle in their affairs and potentially weaken Western democracies. Many of these efforts are murky and involve obscure groups, and it is unclear what, if any, direct involvement President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia may have.
The Freedom Party leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, reported the signing of the agreement with United Russia, Mr. Putin’s party, on Monday on his Facebook page, where he also disclosed that he had visited General Flynn a few weeks ago in Trump Tower in New York.
“Internationally, the Freedom Party continues to gain in influence,” wrote Mr. Strache, a dental technician who has led the party since 2005.
The Freedom Party, founded in the 1950s by ex-Nazis, surged this year... The New York Times And why is Flynn mentioned in this when he appears to have nothing to do with the subject of the article? See my edit about the symbiotic relationship between Russia and Western populists. Still has nothing to do with why Flynn is mentioned. Did he broker the agreement between this Austrian Political Party and the Russian Party? If so why not say that (and provide something of evidence) It does not mention anything he did, it just casually drops his name with 0 attachment what so ever to the context. Well the Austrian guy mentioned Flynn in the same breath as this thing with Russia, so while Flynn is not directly involved in the agreement, this shows the alignment between populist parties and other populists and between populist parties and Russia. This is who the Trump camp is associating with.
I'm sure that this man also met with other people during the last few weeks, why are they not reported in the article?
I have plenty of trepidation about Trump's Russian connections but just name dropping Trump associates into random articles concerning Russia is bullshit. Without evidence of a connection between Flynn's visit and this deal there is no reason to name drop him other then to try and create clickbait.
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On December 21 2016 02:10 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2016 02:04 Doodsmack wrote:On December 21 2016 02:00 Gorsameth wrote:On December 21 2016 01:54 Doodsmack wrote:On December 21 2016 01:52 Gorsameth wrote:On December 21 2016 01:49 Doodsmack wrote:The leader of the Austrian far-right Freedom Party has signed what he called a cooperation agreement with Russia’s ruling party and recently met with Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, the designated national security adviser to President-elect Donald J. Trump of the United States.
Word of the agreement with Russia was the latest sign that the Kremlin is forging bonds with political parties across Europe in what some European leaders suspect is a coordinated attempt to meddle in their affairs and potentially weaken Western democracies. Many of these efforts are murky and involve obscure groups, and it is unclear what, if any, direct involvement President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia may have.
The Freedom Party leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, reported the signing of the agreement with United Russia, Mr. Putin’s party, on Monday on his Facebook page, where he also disclosed that he had visited General Flynn a few weeks ago in Trump Tower in New York.
“Internationally, the Freedom Party continues to gain in influence,” wrote Mr. Strache, a dental technician who has led the party since 2005.
The Freedom Party, founded in the 1950s by ex-Nazis, surged this year... The New York Times And why is Flynn mentioned in this when he appears to have nothing to do with the subject of the article? See my edit about the symbiotic relationship between Russia and Western populists. Still has nothing to do with why Flynn is mentioned. Did he broker the agreement between this Austrian Political Party and the Russian Party? If so why not say that (and provide something of evidence) It does not mention anything he did, it just casually drops his name with 0 attachment what so ever to the context. Well the Austrian guy mentioned Flynn in the same breath as this thing with Russia, so while Flynn is not directly involved in the agreement, this shows the alignment between populist parties and other populists and between populist parties and Russia. This is who the Trump camp is associating with. I'm sure that this man also met with other people during the last few weeks, why are they not reported in the article? I have plenty of trepidation about Trump's Russian connections but just name dropping Trump associates into random articles concerning Russia is bullshit. Without evidence of a connection between Flynn's visit and this deal there is no reason to name drop him other then to try and create clickbait.
The mere fact that this Austrian populist party is aligned with both Russia and Trump's camp, and mentions both in the same breath, is newsworthy. And "newsworthy" is different from "there is definitely a sinister conspiracy here", which is not what the article is saying.
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EPT
