Permanent war

So as expected, president Obama said yesterday that he will continue the long-standing US practice of all war, all the time, finding new wars to start even a the old ones drag on. ISIS/ISIL has now given momentum to that effort by moving public opinion in the US by some horrific acts. Of course, if the beheading of two Americans can anger public opinion here so much, one can imagine what is the reaction of people in that region when the US blasts so many of their people to bits with powerful hi-tech weaponry.
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Rich getting richer

Not that this will be a surprise but via Kevin Drum, I learned that the Federal Reserve has released a set of economic data that among other things shows that the gap between the rich and the poor has indeed been getting bigger at an astonishing rate within the last 25 years, with the top 3% making enormous gains at the expense of the bottom 90%, with the balance 7% remaining relatively stable.
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The push for more war

Today president Obama will speak to the nation and likely once again drag the country into another military conflict. There have been calls for president Obama to ‘take strong action’ against ISIS/ISIL, arm ‘moderate’ Syrian rebels (whoever they are), get back into Iraq, deploy NATO against Russia, in addition to the drone attacks that keep going on in other parts of the world. He will choose the by now standard option of bombing from the air, supplying weapons to our ‘allies’ and ‘moderates’ (who may tomorrow be ‘enemies’ and ‘extremists’) so that no US military personnel will be at immediate risk.
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The changes in Iran

Journalist Ramita Navai talks with Jon Stewart on what is happening in Iran. She says that reformists in the country who seek a more democratic state that has less theocratic influence have been disturbed by the chaos in neighboring countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria due to the influence of foreigners. As a result, they have retreated from seeking quick changes and are now looking for a more gradual process that is generated by forces purely from within the country.
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Shift in the climate change zeitgeist

There has been long-standing opposition in the US to recognizing that anthropogenic climate change is a real phenomenon and needs to be taken seriously, with great efforts taken to discredit the research. The opponents have taken strength from the fact that religious ideas are strong in the US and a significant segment of the population are science skeptics and willing, even eager, to repudiate the conclusions and recommendations of the scientific community, even promoting cranks like Christopher Monckton, who was beautifully made fun of by an Australian TV show.
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The November election puzzle

The Republican party has done a bang up job of pursuing policies that alienate wide swathes of the public, such as women, minorities, LGBT, poor, and young to name the major groups. The only parts of the electorate that has escaped unscathed from are rich (and middle class and poor people who think that the rich are on their side), older, white, male, xenophobic, and racist voters.
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The threat posed by immigrant children

Michael Che of The Daily Show speaks to some of the people who are convinced that the influx of refugee children from Central America is all part of some grand covert plan to destroy America, that they are Trojan horses. At the same time, he finds encouraging signs that a lot of people see the issue not as some kind of existential threat to the US but simply as children fleeing persecution.
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Froomkin blogs again

Dan Froomkin was one of the best reporter/bloggers in the mainstream press before he was fired by the Washington Post in June 2009 for being too hard on the occupant of the White House, first George W. Bush and then later on Barack Obama, threatening the relationship the newspaper carefully cultivates with power, where you are allowed to criticize but only within certain limits.
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