When will Hillary Clinton give up her candidacy ?

Actually, we know the exact opposite. A funny thing about reality. Things happen and people write about them and they become history that can be checked. There were several instances of embassies being attacked when Bush was President. I don't recall Congressional investigations or 4 years of media coverage on those attacks.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/may/12/john-garamendi/prior-benghazi-were-there-13-attacks-embassies-and/

Bernie,

I think you are overplaying your frequently cited research and analysis however extensive it may be. Phrases like
"No. That is a set of inter-related conceptions that are necessarily held by conservatives."
make no sense at all. There are no detectable forces in nature that require people of a particular political persuasion to hold certain inter related conceptions., Certain beliefs are indeed more common or rare in various groups of people, but what individuals believe and what motivated them is a matter of the complexity of the individuals themselves.

It appears to me that you may be governed by your own concepts of your political opposition and see them as a monolitic whole, while attributing individual choice and discretion only to those of a like mind to your own. That's not an uncommon illusion, however it is an illusion nonetheless.

That state of mind hardly constitutes scholarship or real intellectual inquiry. It is instead propaganda.

There is a left wing media in this country and a right wing one as well. Both have substantial reach, and my strong impression is that the left wing establishment has long been somewhat larger and more extensive that its right wing counterpart. Both are villified by their political opponents, though it appears to me that the religious fervor of that villification is a detectably greater coming from the left. Certainly your descriptions suggest that.

The attack on our consulate in Bengazi occured on the anniversary of 9/11 and just weeks before a Presidential election here. Nothing in that even or our immediate response to it suggested a reasonably sufficient degree of security or preparedness for the event, and our lack of immediaste response was highly unusual and, for one who in his personal experience has some connection to these things, very hard to believe. The immediate efforts put forward by the administration to attribute the event to some deranged sap who produced a videotape no one saw were a bit over the top.and strangely dismissive of the obvious causes, which were quickly verified.

It struck me as odd at the time that it was Susan Rice, not the Secretary of State, who made the tour of the Sunday News shows following the event. I quickly guessed that Hillary didn't want to associate herself with the disaster, but was surprised when she was shown in a news clip repeating the same absurd story to the assembled crowd at Dover AFB when the remains of those killed were returned. We now know from her own personal and other diplomatic communications that she already knew that story was faslse when she uttered it.

The strange inaction on the part of the Administration during this attack can now be seen as part of a larger pattern of deliberate inaction on the part of an administration apparently dedicated to it for some reason. The results so far have not been very good for us or anyone in the region.

The unpreparedness of the State Department for the attack in Libya immediately following the extended drama of the fall of its previous leader, was clearly inexcusable. The notion that the head of that department is not responsible for matters tended to by underlings defies reality. No political or military leader, and no corporate CEO could use such a defense without being laughed out of the room.

Further along in the piece, Jr says that they both speak their minds and damn the torpedoes. God knows what is on that lunatic's mind.

But the piece does quite properly present a serious dilemma for Trump as regards getting evangelicals on his side. It's a very interesting problem for him and them. Earlier, here or on another thread, I linked to another thoughtful piece that raised the possibility that Trump posed a threat not merely to the GOP but to the religious right itself.

Yes.

Probably because the Bush Admin didn't lie about the causes and try to protect their chances in the upcoming election.

There are more appropriate threads for the volume of unrelated topics being misplaced here. Intentional derailment always smacks of an egotistical inability to entertain divergent opinions.

When Mother Jones calls out a Democrat, they've been royally called out.

Take a good look at Hillary Clinton.

http://m.motherjones.com/environment/2014/09/hillary-clinton-fracking-shale-state-department-chevron

I'm not persuaded that this thread has been less focused than the norm for A2K. Most of the issues raised have been at least peripherqally related to Hillary's candidacy.

That as Secretary of State Hillary advocated modern energy development techniques to countries that need it is hardly a crime - no matter what Mother Jones says.

Certainly Bernie will need all the tax revenues ha can extract from energy producers to pay for the universal free health care and education he promises.

Have you ever heard of the old saying people who live in glass houses shouldent throw rocks?

Well, it's definitely your call to make, George. It does seem to be a concerted effort to control the narrative, but I'll leave it to you.

You and I can likely add fracking to (lol) several other issues we see differently. I think the people who are deciding between Hillary and Sanders aren't as friendly to fracking as you are.

So, crime: no. One more bit of evidence to legitimate progressives who hate fracking: just one more...

Hi george
First, I won't get into the Benghazi (what happened and why) conversation. Two reasons - 1) I've not followed the specifics with any care and it is not an area of expertise or interest and 2) if any minds have been changed through discussions here, I'd be very surprised.

No. That is the conservative framing. Obviously there are leftwing sites and publications. But your framing does not allow for media which stand outside of partisan-forwarding intentions and processes. The "mainstream media is a left-leaning phenomenon" is a notion repeated every hour of every day on right wing sites. It is the fundamental or core message of right wing media entities (I cannot think of a single exception and it is blatantly evident at Fox, NR, talk radio, Breitbart, Townhall, etc). It is a fundamental and predictable message coming from Republican politicians from Sarah Palin through Ted Cruz through John Boehner, etc. It serves a collection of functions but the most important functions are 1) justification of a separate and highly polarizing right wing media structure and the most important, 2) the isolation of a constituency into a closed-off epistemology (David Frum has spoken intelligently on exactly this point). If you watched the last GOP debate, a perfect example arose where Cruz quoted a "New York Times reporter" describing him very negatively. Who he was actually quoting was David Brooks, a conservative columnist. Cruz didn't mention that because it would upset and confuse the simplistic and false us/them framing.

It ought to. Merely consider Augustine's formulations of theology. Inter-related conceptions? Certainly and obviously. Necessarily held? Yes. Because one conception - Jesus' exception as being born without original sin - and another conception - the sinlessness of each of us at birth - must be, somehow, made coherent, thus the notion that original sin is passed down through sperm (and Jesus was the product of a virgin birth). The necessity is to create a set of conceptions that cohere, that appear to fit together such that the overall story makes sense.


This is a somewhat tricky one because there is always variation. Yet we need to be able to talk in a generalized or sociological language to describe broad or group categories and phenomena. Even though not all catholics would or do follow Augustine in that particular of his theology I just mentioned, catholicism is a thing, distinct from other such things. One can say "Catholics or Christians are X and Muslims are Y" (just refer to any right wing media anywhere for that one).

I don't see the right as being monolithic. I frequently write about the divisions and conflicts readily apparent in modern conservatism. But we both would hold that conservatism has broadly describable features. At times of extreme polarization, those features sharpen. Demands for doctrinal unity/adherence increase. Those who don't match the demanded doctrinal shape are castigated or cast out (Eric Cantor).

You are possibly already thinking of Donald Trump here. How on earth could I continue to insist that conservatism = X when this guy is raging through the GOP primary polls? Surely this guy is evidence that conservatism is varied and free-wheeling and non-doctrinal and non-monolithic.

My response would be that your party is in chaos. The center is not holding. Factions are clamoring for power. It is an extraordinarily interesting time if a dangerous one. Yet, again, certain features are broadly identifiable. Not least, conceptions of and claims to victimization. The proposed victimizers? Media. University professors. Washington. Liberals. Soft-bellied Republicans. New York values. Paulites. GOP Establishment. Etc. Also we see broadly the promotion of and belief in existential crisis.

In all of this, the feature I think you have been slow to get or admit is conservatism's propensity towards binary framing - us versus them - and to the inevitable exclusionary tendencies that must follow. And with that or driving that, an elemental determination to dominate.

You are probably right with respect to fracking part, although I believe that public support for this very effective way of producing energy through natural gas is a bit greater than you acknowledge.

Indeed the contribution of the transition from coal as a source of energy to natural gas has already produced a contribution to GHG emission reduction that is orders of magnitude greater than what has been done through the politically favored (and heavily subsidized) wind and solar power.

How will Bernie pay for all his promised free stuff if he suppresses beneficial economic activity this way? No one has seriously challenged him on the many contradictions inherent in the 20th century socialism he advocates. It's track record so far in the world doesn't recommend it.

He's going to pay for all of it by taxing the rich and corporations. I think that's what I heard, but at my age, my hearing can be a bit handicapped.

There are "binary framers" on both sides of the political aisle, and you appear (to me) to be one of them.

I think you indulge in far too many abstractions of a complex reality and do so with little insightful benefit or advance in real understanding - at least as far as I can see.

Human history is chaotic. It offers many lessons for us as we contemplate current events but many of them are contradictory, and we can't know for sure which of them applies most under given circumstances. It, like human behavior, is a complex system subject to large changes in consequences from small alterations in input. We can know and forecast certain average or likely outcomes with reasonable -but hard to quantify - accuracy, but that's about it.

That's why free markets work better than controlled ones and self-styled smarter-then-everyone else guys like the esteemed Professor Jonathan Gruber didn't get either his words or his calculations right in framing the Obamacare legislation.

How well did that work in Cuba and Venezuela?

Obamacare legislation was not an easy task, but it implemented a form of universal health care that can be modified/revised to improve upon it. All the republicans need to do is introduce legislation that will improve it rather than trying to repeal (52x's) it which is a waste of time and money.
It'll be interesting to watch a republican president's attempt to repeal Obamacare. There will be an uproar this country has never seen before.

It's worked pretty well in Canada, Japan, and Europe.
I'm just wondering why you picked two under developed countries.
The best health care in the world. http://www.businessinsider.com/best-healthcare-systems-in-the-world-2012-6

Yes, I know.

I agree with you that it's no easy task. I doubt seriously that Republicans will attempt to improve it if they retain power in the Congress. Many of the exchanges have gone bankrupt and much larger Federal subsidies will be required to keep the system afloat. Indeed it appears to be unravelling now and may simply fall under its own contradictions.

I picked two socialist countries.

Japan and Europe have been in the grip of economic stagnation for decades - I wouldn't bet a lot on their futures. Canada enjoys a very strong export market based on extraction of natural resources and trade with the USA. Like Norway with it's oil they can continue this for a long time.

From the commonwealth fund, Executive Summary

The United States health care system is the most expensive in the world, but this report and prior editions consistently show the U.S. underperforms relative to other countries on most dimensions of performance. Among the 11 nations studied in this report—Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States—the U.S. ranks last, as it did in the 2010, 2007, 2006, and 2004 editions of Mirror, Mirror. Most troubling, the U.S. fails to achieve better health outcomes than the other countries, and as shown in the earlier editions, the U.S. is last or near last on dimensions of access, efficiency, and equity. In this edition of Mirror, Mirror, the United Kingdom ranks first, followed closely by Switzerland (Exhibit ES-1).