Houshphandzadeh wrote:policy changing when the number of refugees moves from maybe 1,000 to 190,000 is pretty natural and reasonable

As you see, the RNC has now expelled NBC News from the Republican debate schedule, charging them - in full and calculated hyperventilation - with conducting the debate in "bad faith."

If I don't say so myself, I think my comparison to the Boehner drama was more prescient than I realized. There has to be someone betraying them or some new outrage to feed the machine. With Obama fading into history, with the 'establishment's' candidate vanquished, now it's NBC News. You get a sense of where this is going that Ted Cruz says that Limbaugh or Hannity should moderate the debates. To be clear, this isn't about whether the debate was good or bad or whether axing NBC is fair or not. (I said the debate was a mess while it was happening.) In the grandest sense, who cares? It's just that the entire drama and whine-a-thon is ridiculous. This is their new big issue? Like I said, the outrage needs a target. Who's betraying them now. The pattern takes over everything.

Derek Davison ‏@dwdavison9318 1h1 hour ago
REPUBLICANS
AT DEBATE: I will tear Vladimir Putin's heart out and feed it to my wolves
2 WEEKS LATER: the mean man asked me a scary question

A key moment came when Denis McDonough, then the deputy national security adviser and long a powerful White House player with the president's ear, took charge of the administration's committee on Syria policy. He limited it mostly to planning for after Assad's fall.

The mixed signals left some rebel leaders disillusioned with US policy and believing that Gulf Arab states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar would be more reliable patrons. These states, owing to longstanding policy, preferred to arm the religious extremists they believed were better fighters. Moderates who resisted any ties with extremism, believing this would help them get the US support that they wrongly thought was imminent, lost out.

In Syria, if Assad's regime were to collapse today, the already fractious rebels would surely fight one another for control, as some already are. The chaos would worsen as the front lines multiplied, with ISIS and al-Qaeda likely benefiting.

To be clear, Assad created these conditions. He deliberately fostered both extremism and sectarianism for the express purpose of closing the world's window on intervening against him. He destroyed his own country, eradicating political and physical infrastructure such that organizing any post-Assad order looks near impossible. But it was evident that he was doing this throughout 2012 and 2013. As America stood by and watched, as the Obama administration vacillated between policies it would adopt only after it was too late, Assad hastened his own nation's destruction so as to close the window on an American solution to the Syrian war. And it worked.

pacino wrote:Unfixable: Where the Obama administation fucked itself with Syria:
Basically, they waited too long to arm the rebels and were preparing for Assad's fall instead of HOW to topple him; it was sort of a fait accompli amongst some of his closest advisors that Assad would fall, so they influenced the president to delay arming what were fairly moderate rebels at the time. This is a time where the usually fairly decisive Obama leaned on his 'team of rivals' and the situation failed. He basically chose the wrong voices to listen to.

A key moment came when Denis McDonough, then the deputy national security adviser and long a powerful White House player with the president's ear, took charge of the administration's committee on Syria policy. He limited it mostly to planning for after Assad's fall.

The mixed signals left some rebel leaders disillusioned with US policy and believing that Gulf Arab states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar would be more reliable patrons. These states, owing to longstanding policy, preferred to arm the religious extremists they believed were better fighters. Moderates who resisted any ties with extremism, believing this would help them get the US support that they wrongly thought was imminent, lost out.

NOTE: Clinton was helping lead the 'arm them earlier' side.


Now, it's much harder to judge who does and doesn't have good intentions and we are putting troops (albeit only 50 TO START) on the ground to ferret it out.

For all the good he's done globally and deomestically, this is a great failure of the Obama administration. I have confidence Clinton will make good judgements with it, though. I certainly don't think there are any Republicans who know what they're doing with this and Sanders falls too in line with Obama on this.

DUBNER: What’s it like for you to be sitting here, to have wanted to intervene much more directly in Syria, not being part of a team that took that direction, and seeing the aftermath?
SLAUGHTER: Intensely frustrating. It is just agonizing to see the paper every day because this was so completely predictable. And it’s been predictable. We’ve got a government that’s been using chemical weapons, that’s been dropping barrel bombs on its people. Now what’s happening is even the Syrian government supporters are fleeing. But, this goes to a point that I have made over and over and over again that the divide between strategic interests and humanitarian interests is a false one. That you could see that where a country’s population is being driven out of their homes and being massacred by their governments, sooner or later, very bad things will happen. Extremists will move in, and people will move out. And then that becomes a national security interest. And that’s what we’re seeing right now. But it was predictable. And we could have done something to stop it. And we didn’t. And now the problem is so much worse.
DUBNER: Considering what has happened and considering where we stand today, let’s say you were back in the State Department. Let’s say you’re Secretary of State today, what do you do? What is it not too late to do, assuming that the White House is susceptible to your suggestions and maybe you even have some leverage?
SLAUGHTER: Well, I think the White House is tired of hearing me on Syria. But there are two things that we can do. It is still not too late to create a no-fly zone on the Turkish border, possibly the Jordanian border. Creating a no-fly zone basically says to the Syrian government, “You have to stop dropping barrel bombs on your people, and if you use helicopters or fixed-wing aircraft to do that, we will take them out.” And we could do that from ships. So we’re not even talking about risking American planes. We need to do that because there has to be some safe place for Syrians within the country to go. There is no safe place in Syria. We have to do — and not just we the United States — we and Turkey and other states in Europe and the region collectively — have got to create safe space within Syria or we will continue to see people flee Syria. The second thing — and this is what we’re trying to do — is: ultimately the only solution is to reach a political compromise in Syria that will end the civil war. And that requires Russia and Iran, and Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, and Lebanon, and European countries sitting around a table and brokering a political solution. We have been trying to do that for a long time. I argue that unless you make clear to Assad that you are prepared to use force, at least to stop him from massacring his own people, he will not come to the table. So I think these two things are connected. But this is just going to get worse and worse and worse unless we can find a way to create a political solution. And then we still have to fight ISIL. So that’s just a piece of the larger puzzle.

Donatucci in response proudly cites PICA and Committee of Seventy reports that said unlike offices such as the sheriff's, which auditors have cited in years past for mismanaged funds, poor performance or the like, his office has done its job.

"They say, 'Oh, the office functions, but because it's patronage, we need to get rid of it,' " he said, adding that it isn't the old days of ghost employees: "My employees work."

He told of being appalled by civil-service employees' behavior in some other offices. "They're fresh. I can't comprehend how you treat people that way," he said. "For that reason, I'm convinced patronage works."

He broke down his rationale this way:

He gets a call from the city Democratic chairman, U.S. Rep. Robert Brady, or a fellow ward leader saying so-and-so needs a job.

Donatucci says the first thing he asks is, "Are they computer-literate?" A college degree? Even better.

So, if there is a job, even a per diem temporary gig, Donatucci hires. He notes that his appointees are like the mayor's: They are "at-will" employees, meaning he can hire or remove them at will.

And if issues arise with the person's work? Donatucci calls the patron.

"If there's an issue with an employee that's recommended, say, by a ward leader, there's nobody better to call than their godfather or godmother, and say, 'You better tell them to tighten up.' "

pacino wrote:When people say Philly political machine, they mean abominations like this

Donatucci in response proudly cites PICA and Committee of Seventy reports that said unlike offices such as the sheriff's, which auditors have cited in years past for mismanaged funds, poor performance or the like, his office has done its job.

"They say, 'Oh, the office functions, but because it's patronage, we need to get rid of it,' " he said, adding that it isn't the old days of ghost employees: "My employees work."

He told of being appalled by civil-service employees' behavior in some other offices. "They're fresh. I can't comprehend how you treat people that way," he said. "For that reason, I'm convinced patronage works."

He broke down his rationale this way:

He gets a call from the city Democratic chairman, U.S. Rep. Robert Brady, or a fellow ward leader saying so-and-so needs a job.

Donatucci says the first thing he asks is, "Are they computer-literate?" A college degree? Even better.

So, if there is a job, even a per diem temporary gig, Donatucci hires. He notes that his appointees are like the mayor's: They are "at-will" employees, meaning he can hire or remove them at will.

And if issues arise with the person's work? Donatucci calls the patron.

"If there's an issue with an employee that's recommended, say, by a ward leader, there's nobody better to call than their godfather or godmother, and say, 'You better tell them to tighten up.' "

What an open, accountable process!!! FWIW, the Republican in the Register of Wills race wants to abolish the position, which is probably the correct opinion.

TenuredVulture wrote:

pacino wrote:When people say Philly political machine, they mean abominations like this

Donatucci in response proudly cites PICA and Committee of Seventy reports that said unlike offices such as the sheriff's, which auditors have cited in years past for mismanaged funds, poor performance or the like, his office has done its job.

"They say, 'Oh, the office functions, but because it's patronage, we need to get rid of it,' " he said, adding that it isn't the old days of ghost employees: "My employees work."

He told of being appalled by civil-service employees' behavior in some other offices. "They're fresh. I can't comprehend how you treat people that way," he said. "For that reason, I'm convinced patronage works."

He broke down his rationale this way:

He gets a call from the city Democratic chairman, U.S. Rep. Robert Brady, or a fellow ward leader saying so-and-so needs a job.

Donatucci says the first thing he asks is, "Are they computer-literate?" A college degree? Even better.

So, if there is a job, even a per diem temporary gig, Donatucci hires. He notes that his appointees are like the mayor's: They are "at-will" employees, meaning he can hire or remove them at will.

And if issues arise with the person's work? Donatucci calls the patron.

"If there's an issue with an employee that's recommended, say, by a ward leader, there's nobody better to call than their godfather or godmother, and say, 'You better tell them to tighten up.' "

What an open, accountable process!!! FWIW, the Republican in the Register of Wills race wants to abolish the position, which is probably the correct opinion.

It's not ideal, but it has its merits. The biggest problem isn't accountability I don't think, but the favoritism that usually breaks down along ethnic lines.

The AKP lost its majority for the first time in 13 years in June when the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) entered parliament in a historic breakthrough.

Analysts said the resurgence in fighting between government forces and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) a month later appeared to strengthen the ruling party at the expense of the HDP, which barely scraped past the 10-percent threshold need to remain in parliament.

Besides the HDP, there was also disappointment for the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), which had hoped to join a coalition, and support for the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) also fell.

Turkey was rocked in the run-up to the election by a string of attacks blamed on the Islamic State group, including twin suicide bombings at an Ankara peace rally last month that killed 102 people.