The ‘George Bush kept us safe’ deception

In fear-driven US, there seems to be a pathetic need to see the president as some kind of god-like figure who will keep watch over us and keep us from coming to harm. The Republican debate on Wednesday was, as expected, largely fact-free and full of hyperbole and distortions but the one jaw-dropping moment for me was when Jeb! Bush! defended his brother’s record by saying that whatever else he might be accused of, “he kept us safe”. This line got applause from the audience. It was incredible that not a single person on the stage or the moderator pointed out that 9/11 happened when GW was president.
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Is religion becoming outdated in America?

On The Nightly Show Larry Wilmore discusses with his panel the above topic, sparked by the fiasco in Kentucky. What is interesting is not the answer but the fact that these kinds of discussions are becoming common on TV and other forms of popular media. The grandstanding by Kim Davis and her allies may have been a warning sign to many people that religious extremism and a sense of entitlement, that is manifesting itself as a persecution complex if they cannot do whatever they want, is getting out of hand.
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The Iran deal goes through

With all the attention focused on the Republican debate, a major event that been largely obscured is that today marked the end of the 60-day deadline to block the nuclear deal the P5+1 nations made with Iran. A final attempt in the US Senate to add amendments to the deal that would have effectively killed it failed today to get enough votes to overcome a filibuster and so the deal goes through.
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Is Jeremy Coybyn the most left wing Labour leader ever?

Veteran journalist Tariq Ali goes down the list of all Labour Party leaders and makes the case that in Jeremy Corbyn, the party has elected the most left-wing leader in its history. But he says that Corbyn will have his work cut out for him. The Blairites of so-called New Labour had put the selection of candidates for parliament so much under their control that the current crop of Labour MPs in parliament (the Parliamentary Labour Party or PLP) will obstruct him.
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Matt Taibbi on what to expect in tonight’s debate

Now that the establishment war on Donald Trump is fully out in the open, Matt Taibbi expects the debate tonight to be a setup with the three moderators, but especially Hugh Hewitt, chosen so as to guarantee that they will arouse Trump’s ire. He says that the goal will be to get Trump to do something that will dent Trump’s popularity with his supporters but that the effort will backfire.
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