Understatement of the year. One of Obama’s more carefully hidden “policy successes” was forcing police to release criminals who wouldn’t or couldn’t pay bail, regardless of flight risk or danger to the community.

Shukran! But that’s my point–sham doesn’t map neatly onto Syria or the Levant, making either an arbitrary choice of translation. Further, ISIS (or ISIL) is just as arbitrary as any of the other names the group has picked for itself–AQI or IS or whatever. Arbitrary. But only Donald Trump and his acolytes seemed to get deeply offended when Obama used ISIL, as if there were something more nefarious behind it than simple persnickety nerdishness.

My favorite remains dai’esh, both because everyone else in the world uses it and because it actually infuriates dai’esh, who threaten death to anyone who uses it. I suspect we don’t do it because Americans struggle with the pronunciation; have you ever heard John Kerry say it? Basically just says “dash.” Ugh.

Susanamantha and Molly: my accusation of provincialism had nothing to do with her choice of pronunciation. I’m already on record as accusing Obama of being a pretentious twit for using the local pronunciation. My problem was Molly’s claim to have heard that pronunciation from literally no other human being on earth; considering that *at the very least* over a billion South Asians, some of whom live in the US or appear on American media, pronounce Pakistan correctly, then she must have had to really work at it to stay so isolated from the bigger world around her.

And, just as a reminder to everyone upset at the thought that a mere 2/3 of ISIS territory had been recaptured under Obama, the vast majority of fighting has been performed by Muslims–mostly Sunni Arabs.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/892366646542782464

Check it out:

http://www.multpl.com/shiller-pe/

Perhaps so, but it is strange to see the arguments about why obama didn’t deserve much credit (but it was all about the Fed pumping money) almost disappear from one set of media voices.

Sorry, the question of ISIL vs ISIS isn’t as clear cut as you claim and the issue certainly can’t be reduced to a domestic political template, which strikes me as classic orientalist silliness. Al-Sham does indeed refer to the Levant as you say, but this usage had long been archaic when Da’ish first employed it. Al-Sham in common usage in Syria and Lebanon, indeed the entire Arab world, has long meant Syria, as Shami was a term Syrians but not Lebanese used to refer to themselves. Sham in the universal parlance of the region also refers to Damascus. Finally there’s the disadvantage of using a term seen by everyone in the region as quaint. While you’re not exactly wrong you’re a long way from being candid and correct. The fact remains that this whole debate boils down to USG once again tripping all over themselves while the rest of the world giggles.

Who believed the Russian people believed that?

When I was growing up—the 50s—it was widely believed that most people in Russia were oppressed mightily by their government and did NOT believe. That idea was held by most Americans as far back as I can remember.

I also remember learning, when I was quite young, the old saw “There is no Pravda in Izvestia, and there is no Izvestia in Pravda” or in English “There is no truth in News, and there is no news in Truth.”

So I have no idea what you’re referring to when you write “we believed the russians were stupid to believe such things as communism and their own press…”

Prior to President Trump’s inauguration, I predicted a coming story arc in three acts. Act one involved mass protests in the streets because Hillary Clinton’s campaign had successfully branded Trump as the next Hitler. Sure enough, we saw mass protests by anti-Trumpers who legitimately and honestly believed the country had just elected the next Hitler. I predicted that the Hitler phase would evaporate by summer for lack of supporting evidence. That happened.
I also predicted the anti-Trumpers would modify their attack from “Hitler” to “incompetent,” and that phase would last the summer. That happened too. The president’s critics called him incompetent and said the White House was in “chaos.” There were plenty of leaks, fake news, and even true stories to support that narrative, as I expected. Every anti-Trump news outlet, and even some that supported him started using “chaos” to describe the situation.
Now comes the fun part.
I predicted that the end of this three-part story would involve President Trump’s critics complaining that indeed he was “effective, but we don’t like it.” Or words to that effect. I based that prediction on the assumption he would get some big wins by the end of the year and it would no longer make sense to question his effectiveness, only his policy choices.

How does the anti-Trump media gracefully pivot from “chaos and incompetence” to a story of “effective, but we don’t like it”? They need an external event to justify the turn. They need a visible sign of the White House moving from rookie status to professional status.

They need General John Kelly to replace Reince Priebus as Chief of Staff.

Done.

ISIS, economy, higher retirement accounts, Priebus, Korea contained so far, mexco..

whatever… but its more fun reading people who get it right and then watching it unfold than people who are entertained by guessing out of context of missing history and news, and methodologies and so on.

By year-end, expect “Effective, but we don’t like it.”

Now for some related fun. I have often said Trump supporters and anti-Trumpers are in the same movie theater but watching different movies on the same screen. You’ve seen lots of evidence of that, but I’m going to give you an experiment you can try at home.

It might blow your mind.

1. Identify your most lefty, Trump-hating friend or family member.

2. Share this link of President Trump’s accomplishments while you are in the same room so you can watch them read it.

3. Watch as your lefty friend turns “cognitively blind” to the list of accomplishments as if it is not really there. Your subject will KNOW President has accomplished nothing, and all of his or her friends know it, and the television channels they watch know it. So how-the-hell could there be in existence an extensive list of legitimate accomplishments that make perfect sense and can easily be verified?

The only way that list of accomplishments can exist in your anti-Trumper’s world is if the anti-Trumper has been in a hallucination for months, duped by the media and everyone they love. The existence of the list of accomplishments will form a crack in their reality. It simply can’t exist. That’s the trigger for cognitive blindness. The list will simply be “invisible,” but not in the literal sense, only the mental sense. If you check back in two days, your anti-Trumper will claim once again no such list exists.

Watch their eyes when they say it. It will be freaky.

the fun part of magic is that its APPLIED PSYCOLOGY of the non clinical kind that borders on the con artist… people who know peoples minds better than most professionals (and without needing much theory,scieence or such behind it, as its applied, not theory).

when you apply academia, it does not work well

but when you apply what someone says that knows, or has experience, or such, then it works.. and works well.

funny how we prefer the first, hate the second, and even worse, hate being shown thats our preference (and pretend the second doesnt exist).

kind of the same thing with the trump list of accomplishments.
and example above…

here is the link of accomplishmetns
https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/63nxsn/update_i_was_tired_of_liberals_saying_trump_hasnt/

No, they are anything but stupid

They were compelled to act as if they believed, or else..

and so WE BELIEVED…
they never did…

thats a hint for watching things…