I'd feel guilty re-publishing everything Ted/Bors/Tomorrow et al. came out with, and the stuff from the British papers is probably a tad parochial, so...
...here's Matt Wuerker ! I guess he must be on some sort of retainer at Politico ? Actually, the guy's not bad at all, just not quite in the same league as some of his more risk-taking colleagues. Which, in this shitty risk-adverse media-environment is understandable.
Come across this sort of crap all the time, and never post anything either because a) I don't have any particular take, and/or b) it's a few days or maybe even weeks old, and thus not technically still news ? *
Frederick Forsyth 'set to reveal he was an MI6 spy'
Day of the Jackal author Frederick Forsyth is expected to reveal in his forthcoming autobiography that he was an agent of the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6
He has long been lauded for the uncanny realism of his spy thrillers, and now Frederick Forsyth is set to reveal the secret of his insider knowledge: he was himself an agent for MI6.
Fans of the 76-year-old author had suspected he may have had brushes with the Secret Intelligence Service, as MI6 is formally known, and Forsyth is expected to confirm they were right when his autobiography is published in September.
As a journalist for the BBC and Reuters, Forsyth spent time based in Communist East Germany and in Africa, where he became close to key figures including Odumegwu Ojukwu, leader of the Nigerian breakaway state of Biafra.
He has admitted in the past that he often draws on his real-life experiences for the plots and action in his books; his experience of reporting on an attempt to assassinate the French president Charles de Gaulle gave him the idea for his first novel, The Day of the Jackal.
He has also admitted having friends in MI6. In his newspaper column Forsyth has referred to “taking lunch with a senior officer of from the Secret Intelligence Service” though he did not explain how they knew each other and he has never gone as far as revealing that he was recruited by them.
Been so long since I saw them referred to as SIS that I almost thought they'd just dropped that in favour of the colloquial -- Hell, I still hear the FSB referred to in the media as the KGB for that matter.
Any writers out there relying purely on actual imagination, or is that just an urban myth ?
Well, with all but one of the candidates on this graphic now declared or declined (C'mon, Joe, c'mon, do it !), I suppose I should probably prune the non-candidates, but I will miss Santa Voldemort. Why oh why isn't Voldemort running for ruler of the free world ?
And I suppose there's a rumour going 'round about some guy called Gilmore, but fuck, I already included Fiorina* against my better judgement -- How obscure do we have to get with these people ?
Here's Piers Morgan on Barack Obama's 'frustration' with his failure to pass 'sufficient common-sense gun-safety-laws.'
Well, I just think it's too little, too late. Y'know, the president's been in office now, er nearly eight years; He's had plenty of time to prioritise gun-violence in America, and it's only very recently that we've heard him talk this way.
Really ? Seems to me that the president has been out there time and time again, after one mass shooting after another, decrying gun-violence, and urging Congress to work with him across party-lines, only for the Republicans (and some Democrats) in Congress to consistently block any efforts at gun-control.
But, perhaps not quite, memory being what it is after all. Looking over a review the Guardian did on Obama's responses to mass-shooting on his watch, tells a slightly different story, with Obama only really pushing for action in the last two or three years. So Piers may have a point after all.
As for what it will take for actual meaningful change in US gun-laws ? Well probably a complete sweep of the Congress for one, on such a scale, that will only come about when the underlying culture changes. And can we hope for such change as the millennials take over ? Well...don't count on it.
Here's one more poll-result, I just have to include because it's so utterly bonkers.
Story after story in the media of gun-owners accidentally shooting themselves or their loved ones, of children accessing guns and blowing their brains out. Never mind the increased risk of suicide. But Americans actually believe having a gun in the house increases their safety. This is the kind of crazy that decades of propaganda from the NRA has wrought, and with which Barack Obama has to battle.
Jeb “Apple Watch” Bush told a gathering of conservatives at an Americans for Prosperity event last night that he thinks the country should phase out Medicare, ending the program for those who aren’t already receiving benefits.
I think a lot of people recognize that we need to make sure we fulfill the commitment to people that have already received the benefits, that are receiving the benefits. But that we need to figure out a way to phase out this program for others and move to a new system that allows them to have something — because they’re not going to have anything.
This puts the supposedly “moderate” Bush to the right of Republicans’ most rabid budget hawks when it comes to the social safety net. When Rep. Paul Ryan proposed a budget that privatized much of the program, Democratic claims that Republicans wanted to “end Medicare” were dubbed the “Lie of the Year” by PolitFact; they weren’t ending the program, they were just radically changing it.
Well, now we know. Republicans want to end Medicare. Not just “as we know it,” but completely.
Bush justified his claim by arguing, as is always argued when Republicans attack Medicare, that the program is on its way to insolvency. That would be true if Bush got his way and we replaced Obamacare with Apple Watches, but as Kevin Drum at Mother Jones pointed out, current projections show Medicare spending reaching about half the proportion of GDP that it was projected to in 2005, falling from 13 percent to 6 percent.
Britain should not shy away from doing business with countries where corruption is a problem, according to David Cameron.
Writing in The Daily Mail ahead of a trade mission to South East Asia, the Prime Minister said the “wind of economic change is blowing east – and not just to China and India”.
He argued that Britain had concentrated too much on trading with Europe, rather than countries in Asia.
He wrote that people were wrong to argue that “we should avoid doing business with countries with barriers to trade including corruption”.
“Many in South East Asia have led the battle against corruption, which costs the global economy billions of pounds a year,” Mr Cameron said.
“Britain is joining them in that fight – I’ve put the issue at the top of the global agenda.
“Given a level playing field, British businesses can out-compete anyone in the world.” *
Sigh. This is an obvious candidate for 'posted without comment', but I will say this:
Cameron is interested in certain groups/individuals profiting here.
Those groups/individuals are mostly not in Asia.
Those groups/individuals are inherently corrupt.
Those groups/individuals are Cameron's friends or friends of friends.
Those groups/individuals are not you or anyone you are ever likely to know.
