Boots On The Ground In Liberia

From the Times:

U.S. to Commit Up to 3,000 Troops to Fight Ebola in Africa

WASHINGTON — Under pressure to do more to confront the Ebola outbreak sweeping across West Africa, President Obama on Tuesday is to announce an expansion of military and medical resources to combat the spread of the deadly virus, administration officials said.

The president will go beyond the 25-bed portable hospital that Pentagon officials said they would establish in Liberia, one of the three West African countries ravaged by the disease, officials said. Mr. Obama will offer help to President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia in the construction of as many as 17 Ebola treatment centers in the region, with about 1,700 treatment beds.

Senior administration officials said Monday night that the Department of Defense would open a joint command operation in Monrovia, Liberia, to coordinate the international effort to combat the disease. The military will also provide engineers to help construct the additional treatment facilities and will send enough people to train up to 500 health care workers a week to deal with the crisis.

 

Officials said the military expected to send as many as 3,000 people to Africa to take charge of responding to the Ebola outbreak.

 

I am hazy as to the use of the word "Troops" in the headline; maybe it shouldn't, but it makes me think of guys with guns, rather than doctors, engineers and logistics specialists.

 

And the lead tells us that Obama has been "Under pressure to do more". So what? He has been under pressure to do more (and less!) on immigration and ISIS, to pick two other brewing debacles. Reports like this suggest that Ebola has the potential to take us into science fiction post-Apocalyptic terrotory, but the science is unsettled.

 

Is Obama leading on Liberia, or did someone just find an especially sensitive pressure point? And as to the use of the military, is dying of Ebola less dead than being shot (or beheaded) by ISIS?

 

Here is the White House fact sheet, which includes this description of the troops and the mission:

The United States will leverage the unique capabilities of the U.S. military and broader uniformed services to help bring the epidemic under control. These efforts will entail command and control, logistics expertise, training, and engineering support.

• U.S. Africa Command will set up a Joint Force Command headquartered in Monrovia, Liberia, to provide regional command and control support to U.S. military activities and facilitate coordination with U.S. government and international relief efforts. A general from U.S. Army Africa, the Army component of U.S. Africa Command, will lead this effort, which will involve an estimated 3,000 U.S. forces. 

•  U.S. Africa Command will establish a regional intermediate staging base (ISB) to facilitate and expedite the transportation of equipment, supplies and personnel. Of the U.S. forces taking part in this response, many will be stationed at the ISB. 

• Command engineers will build additional Ebola Treatment Units in affected areas, and the U.S. Government will help recruit and organize medical personnel to staff them. 

• Additionally, the Command will establish a site to train up to 500 health care providers per week, enabling healthcare workers to safely provide direct medical care to patients.

If we were sending out soldiers to provide basic maintenance of law and order I would be beside myself. But from another perspective, is this US effort sufficient in itself, a valuable contribution to a much larger multi-national surge, or an under-resourced feel-good mission that amounts to spitting into a forest fire?

 

After six years with Obama I know my bet. From the Times:

Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said the plan was an important first step, “but it is clearly not enough.” The focus on Liberia, he said, is too limited, and more help should be extended to Sierra Leone and Guinea, the other countries at the center of the worst Ebola outbreak ever recorded.

“We should see all of West Africa now as one big outbreak,” Dr. Osterholm said. “It’s very clear we have to deal with all the areas with Ebola. If the U.S. is not able or not going to do it, that’s all the more reason to say the rest of the world has to do it.

AS I WAS SAYING: The WaPo editors on ISIS:

The U.S. strategy to defeat the Islamic State is underpowered

And it's not even feel-good.

Comments

[Threadkiller]

Be All You Can Ebola.

[MarkO in Jackson Hole]

Oh, goody. It's 1918 again.

[clarice]

In response to an inquiry on the prior thread:http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/217811-obama-targets-popular-coolant-in-effort-to-fight-climate-change

[Miss Marple]

Color me suspicious.

Why Liberia and not the other two countries?

Lots of unanswered questions about this, if you ask me.

[clarice]

TM--spitting into a forest fire and subjecting our troops to an unnecessary danger IMO.

[Davod]

It is wonderful that the administration is making the effort to assist with the Ebola crisis in Africa.

However, I cannot help thinking this is being done to give Pravda the basis for saying Obama is doing more for Africa than Bush ever did combating AIDS.

How long before we see the first article?

[henry]

Completely OT, >a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/239913233/WI-GAB-redesigns-state-ballot-to-benefit-democrats">WI GAB redesigns ballot using tree hugging consultant from MA. Yes, the consultant is pictured hugging a tree. The GAB didn't tell anyone they did this, they just spent their time forcing county clerks to bend over once they accomplished it. Next, the GAB will screw up Voter ID (they already mailed out absentee ballots without getting ID).

[henry]

The GAB will mess with more than that last link. Need more coffee.

[maryd]

Clarice @ 10:26 -- exactly.
May I add that it is a complete perversion of our military's actual mission. The man is an idiot, and an evil one at that.

[Jane]

"However, I cannot help thinking this is being done to give Pravda the basis for saying Obama is doing more for Africa than Bush ever did combating AIDS."

That entered my mind too. I hope that is it, rather than a problem that is way too out of control and causing us great risk because he was playing golf.

[matt]

Ebola is a nasty sucker. The military has some very good people in the field of epidemiology and mass medical emergencies such as they were afraid of with Saddam in Iraq.

Isolation gear and wards, and people who know how to work in those environments are vital in controlling the spread of such a disease. Next month it could be SARS or H1N1. Diseases mutate.

So yes, it is in the Army's mission statement to have the capabilities and technology. Our soldiers go where they are told and there is plenty of precedent; the Japanese and SE Asia tsunamis come to mind.

[GMax]

Iowahawk has perfect pitch:

US campus 2014: No booze, no sex, no laughing, & totalitarian politics. Just like the Islamic State only a lot more expensive.

[maryrose]

henry:
Ohio is now forced by come dipwad judge to start early voting on Sept.30th instead of Oct.7th. Why pass laws in the legislature that is Republican ,only to have them overturned by the dem judges. People need to get up on election day and vote. If it is raining you go anyway. Like the absentee ballot kerfuffle in Wisconsin, dems flaunt the law and do whatever the hell they want. It is tyranny in a new form. The minority over-ruling the majority.
If repubs take the Senate I don't want to hear about any power sharing bs or giving dems additional seats on committees. They get nothing so they are powerless to degrade our country further. We need to rtemind people that under Obama our credit rating has been diminished and brought down.

[Miss Marple]

matt,

I would be more confident if it didn't seem like he has had to be prodded to do this.

Remember, when the outbreak started he acted like it was no big deal and he hosted people at that African conference without any visible concern.

I distinctly remember him saying that ebola wasn't a threat to the US.

So now he is sending the Army there. And why Liberia and not the other two high-risk countries?

I can't help it. Everything he does arouses suspicion in me.

[maryrose]

matt: We are not the world's keeper. We need to spread out our resources to help our own citizens first.Less people in Liberia better and then move some to Sierra Leone. It will take too long for Obama to get any credit for rersults.

[NK]

Assignment: explain in 50 words or less why this is the most vomitus thing published ANYWHERE this month:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/wild-words-brain-worms-and-civility/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

[Janet - the districts lie fallow, while the Capitol gorges itself]

Amen, maryrose @ 10:42. AMEN.

[Ignatz]

Ebola in Africa would seem to be more of a threat to the US than AIDS in Africa, so I can't say I have a big problem with something that is a small fraction of what W did with AIDS, although you gotta wonder why it is he thinks we can find proxy troops in Syria amongst a gang of fanatics but not in Africa where, after all, not exactly every doctor or nurse is dead or dying.

[Miss Marple]

NK, Krugman reserves to himself the right to determine who deserves civility, and of course, anyone he attacks has forfeited the right to civility because he says so.

So, how about I call him a few choice names? He long ago forfeited any respect from me.

I will henceforth follow Krugman Rules.

[NK]

Dead Horse Beating: well I was wrong. Cruz had reason to know the reaction to his 'stand by Israel' ultimatum would receive by some attendees, who he was told in advance would be there. Other pro-Christian/Pro-Israel pols pulled out of their commitment to speak when they learned Hezbollah supporters/Israel critics were attending. Cruz spoke notwithstanding the information:

http://freebeacon.com/issues/ted-cruz-stands-up-to-hatred-and-bigotry-at-conference-of-middle-eastern-christians/

[NK]

MissM-- you earn a gentlewomen's 'C' for getting 1/2 of the answer completely correct. The other half?

[Miss Marple]

Well, NK, I don't know economic theory, so his comments are mystifying to me. I do think it odd that he attaches the perjoratives "zombie, cockroach, brain worm" to ideas with which he disagrees.

And the worst thing,"failing to take responsibility", seems to be invisible to Krugman when it applies to HIM or to his idol, Obama.

[Threadkiller]

Thanks, clarice.

Odummy is talking abour r134 which was already being phased out by the EU. It is the primary refrigerant used in automobiles.

The whole thing is a ripoff.

[Ignatz]

Not looking to polish any apples but Krugman's worse crime is his invincible refusal to admit anything he ever says is wrong and his endless whining and mewling and puking if anyone, civilly or not, tries to educate him or hold him accountable for his almost constant stream of wrong, stupid and, yes, bad faith observations and tirades.

The conscience of an angry, dishonest, little shit.

[Miss Marple]

TK, Buried in the fine print is that the EPA is going to be awarding grants and low-interest loans to develop new ideas in cooling energy sources.

I guess that the money laundering for solar panels and windmills has run its course, so we need new boondoggles.

[jimmyk on iPad]

Has anyone questioned the constitutionality of early voting, at least for national office? The Constitution refers to a single Day, and I believe by law it is supposed to be the same day nationwide. Granted there's absentee balloting, but that's a special case.

[NK]

MissM-- ding ding... your resubmitted answer earns an 'A'. As you say Krugman's own 'predictions' have been a miserable failure, as explained numerous times by our dear host. On the 'easy money'-Stimulus/inflation debate with the Austrians, Krugman and his ilk were far more wrong in far more important ways. Did the easy money-stimulatus ignite economic growth based on the notorious (and now invalidated) Keynesian 'multiplier'. NO! Did the easy money-stimulus create broad based inflation? no... BUT!!! because the easy money-stimulus never made it out into the broad economy (it went to cronies and specific asset classes) it resulted in asset bubbles not broad based consumer inflation. But two of those assets were food/fuel commodities (Dollar denominated)which have HAMMERED USA consumers, especially in the absence or wage inflation. Austrian were wrong about where inflation would appear, but Krugman was wrong about everything. Oh, and shall we mention the DEBT Krugmanomics has created?
Krugman's a disgusting ass.

[NK]

RickB-- please repost here your comment about Baghdad's anti-ISIS strategy. The Baghdad Shia do know how to stick it to the Sunni tribes. And by teamming up with ISIS the Sunni have given the Shia a perfect excuse.

[NK]

RickB-- so Putin's economic blackmail obviated the need for rolling tanks into Eastern Ukraine? or those come later?

[Old Lurker]

TK from other thread:

Coolant story was WaPo via Lucianne.

$22T spent on Poverty since LBJ was Heritage Foundation (Rector).

My garage is now all clean and I am fully caffinated but I am still in a foul mood.

[maryd]

Matt @10:39 - Thanks for the correction. I was focusing on the media use of the term "troops" and wasn't aware of the epidemologists, etc. in our armed forces.
I still think that Obozo will find a way to screw this up.

[Danube on iPad]

How many guys signed up for this shit? What a morale-killer.

[Old Lurker]

How many guys' families supported their sons & daughters signing up for that shit? SIL was well trained to fight bad guys in the Marines but he sure as hell is not trained in CDC moonsuits and bleach.

[Rick B]

For those unsure as to what an actual strategy looks like:

Strategy

Result

Baghdad is applying a similar strategy to Sunni Iraq via denial of refined product. It takes some time for reserves to be consumed and smuggling will keep Achmed the Headchopper running around in his pickup until depletion occurs but Headchopper Central is going to have to deal with 5-10 million Iraqis shivering in the dark before winter's end.

NK,

Putin has achieved the strategic objective of maintaining Ukraine as a buffer state. He will let the Ukrainians shiver in the dark for at least one winter prior to altering the terms of their surrender. He really doesn't want the responsibility of actually taking care of a herd of bankrupt thieves.

[Captain Hate]

Slick not knowing the cameras were on:

http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2014/09/clinton-gets-caught-on-camera-during.html

[Ignatz]

--The Baghdad Shia do know how to stick it to the Sunni tribes.--

Except for the Israelis, that's all anyone has known how to do to anyone else for the last 1000+ years in the areas including and surrounding the "cradle of civilization".

[Rick B]

If what I've read about witch doctors being a vector of transmission for Ebola is correct, then this effort will will be an exercise in futility. It only takes a few witch doctors who have survived Ebola to overcome the efforts of the educated yet clueless credentialed morons who believe the native population in the bush capable of absorbing their instruction efforts.

[Some Guy]

Slick not knowing the cameras were on:

http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2014/09/clinton-gets-caught-on-camera-during.html

CH,

Not sure I would characterize Slick's remarks as "bashing" Bibi. Basically, I agree with him, Netanyahu isn't the "guy". Which is a compliment to Netanyahu.

The "guy", to these people, is someone who will give away too much in exchange for nothing. So recognizing that Bibi ain't that guy, isn't saying anything controversial.

[NK]

RickB-- sounds like it. He's bullied Ukraine into staying out of the EU, delaying free trade agreement with EU, and certainly NATO is a no go for Ukraine at this point. And his gas flows over Ukraine territory... clear win for Tsar Vlad, at virtually no cost to his gangster organization.. just the blood of 300 or so Dutch tourists.

[jimmyk on iPad]

I agree, Some a Guy, though it's worth remembering that they (Clinton and his ilk) do see it as bashing. What they say in private reveals what they would do in public, which is to stab Bibi in the back and undermine him in any way possible.

[Exasperatede]

Let the Saudis continue to lead the fight against ISSI

[narciso]

Well it is interesting they didn't start calling it a 'civil war' until the Shia started fighting back. We know from Batuta, that they filled the ranks of the ICP after they were dispossed from the professions

[jimmyk on iPad]

" his comments are mystifying to me. "

MM, I'll give one example of his hypocrisy, if that's the right term. He ridicules conservative economists for having predicted inflation, but on the utter failure of Keynesians' predictions of all the great stuff that would come from Fed policy and stimulus packages, there is no one who can shift goalposts more shamelessly. He tacitly admits failure by suggesting that we can have an honest debate about those things, so the bottom line is: conservatives wrong, brain worms, PK and the left wrong, hey, we can discuss it!

[NK]

Krugman is a clinical case study in the pathology known as 'projection'. That, and he's a shameless ass as others here have pointed out.

[Dave (in MA)]

I'm not sure you could say Bent Willy didn't know the cameras were on, with that boom mike sticking in his face like himself trying to put his moves on Paula Jones. </self-denounce>

[matt]

The threat of infectious disese is a global issue. Isolationism doesn't work very well, although we may end up with quarantines in some crisis.

Public health is a very difficult field because it involves very hard choices. Who lives and who dies.

We have been very lucky in the 20th and 21st Centuries so far. SARS was real, as was H1N1.

Ebola has been on the radar for 25 years and all of the literature is spooky. Maybe the vaccine used in Atlanta worked. Maybe the patient was one of the 30% who survive.

I would much rather stop it in the townships of Liberia than the streets of New York. There are some good reasons to take a global leadership position. Sort of like the case of Iraq. Obama blew it completely. maybe his advisers can temper the worst of his excesses.

[Old Lurker]

I agree with all of that, Matt. But create a medical peace corps for that and leave our military to kill people and break things.

[centralcal]

A glimpse inside the Jake">http://">Jake Tapper abode via Bon Appetit.

The rug and wallpaper are hideous.

Kinda makes you understand why his opinions and/or reporting can be all over the place.

[NK]

OL-- but the Dems are trying to devolve the USA military into a peace corps with no military ability to kill people and break things. That's been their objective since at least McGovern.

CaptH-- if you needed any further reason to drop the NFL from your viewing list, they are hiring Obummer cronies: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-16/nfl-names-former-white-house-official-to-public-policy-role.html

[centralcal]

Well the above link came out weird, but it seems to work.

[NK]

CC-- well his wife and kids are cute. The furnishings?.....

[Dave (in MA)]

The rug and wallpaper are hideous.

So's his taste in music. At least there are no communist propaganda posters visible.

[matt]

In 1990 we faced Saddam's chemical arsenal, and we did again in 2003. MOPP suits were issued to all of our troops. Our field hospitals were ready. Troops were trained in how to eat, perform their ablutions, fight, and rest in a chemical warfare environment.

This has not been emphasized recently, but we have NBC battalions and regiments specifically tasked for these kinds of events.

The only organization we have that is capable of responding is the Army because they do things on a mass scale. We have large field hospitals specifically designed for quarantine cases.They can serve 300 patients or more. We have numbers of them (unless we find out they were de-funded).

[NK]

So Obummer kicks Cuomo and NYS in the financial nuts -- he may be back in the private equity business soon, and become a client again: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-16/epa-rejects-most-of-n-y-s-511-million-tappan-zee-loan.html

[Ignatz]

Could they just once take a pic of one of these featured families where they're just doing what they do or are looking at the camera instead of these cutesy, dork poses where the guy or gal has a big dumb smile and the spouse has an ironic smirk and the kids look like a parrots somebody pulled through a hedge backwards?

[narciso]

Warren g, sir mix a lot, and the rocky road rug, words fail.

[GMax]

parrots somebody pulled through a hedge backwards?

OK I will bite. What would that look like?

[Janet - the districts lie fallow, while the Capitol gorges itself]

If what I've read about witch doctors being a vector of transmission for Ebola is correct, then this effort will will be an exercise in futility. It only takes a few witch doctors who have survived Ebola to overcome the efforts of the educated yet clueless credentialed morons who believe the native population in the bush capable of absorbing their instruction efforts.

Are we okay with allowing "other" cultures to educate now? We're gonna bring new ideas to Africa? How is THAT okay?

Didn't we have to hide & destroy all world views/cultures/beliefs, other than Islam, in the ME?
Why are we imposing our culture on Africa?

We should burn the medical books from the West & just build some roads in Africa...oh, & give their leaders lots of money.

[cathyf]

Treatment of Ebola patients needs to be centered around a core of the health care professionals who have survived infection already and can treat patients without worrying about getting infected. If someone can organize that, the world will come up with all of the money they need to do the job. If that's the military doing the organizing, it seems a reasonable project. If the reason our military organizes it is that plain old competence and honesty is in rather short supply there, well, you go to war against a virus with the civilians you have, right?

There also needs to be some moral education. Maybe the churches can get involved in that? I read yesterday a story about a man who survived the disease and returned home to his village and promptly infected his girlfriend in the only way possible for a recent survivor, which is sex. She died. C'mon, guys, you've just been through a horrible ordeal and survived, and your survival is largely because of the risks taken by people who cared for you. In return, do you think you could keep your pants on for a couple of weeks until your semen is no longer infectious?

[Old Lurker]

But Matt, all those resources were developed in case they were needed in war fighting somewhere. Once we send them out on a peace corp mission, they won't be there when ISIS springs something deadly in a real war.

[Sue]

WaPo says FEMA are going to narrowly keep the senate. Nate Silver says probability of Republican takeover down to 55%.

[Old Lurker]

Now if we wanted to, we could take say 75% of the money we give the UN and take Obamacare international. That would cure Ebola, right?

[lyle]

You will not be surprised who is behind this:

http://www.jammiewf.com/2014/desperate-democrats-unveil-benghazi-website-to-drown-out-any-potential-leaks-with-a-flood-of-information/

[narciso]

So Dempseys says special forces might be needed as petraeus and mattis suggested

[Ignatz]

See any GQ, Bon Apetit, Vogue family picture essay with a rat-nest haired little twerp who looks like he/she just got done losing a pillow fight.

[narciso]

Those reasonable syrian rebels are reacting badly to the news of the hudna, which they say didn' t happen

[GMax]

No movement in Gallup again today. He is stuck at 41% approval less than 50 days before a midterm election.

GQ, Bon Apetit, Vogue

There is your problem right there...

[Captain Hate]

Regarding Slick's remarks, he's backed off quite a bit from his earlier blaming Arafat for scuttling the whole thing to now having him say "we changed our minds, we'll take it now". This is vintage Clenis wanting to suck up to everybody at that lying POS Tom Harkin's fat fest. What he left out was that Ehud Barack was his hand picked Prime Minister through meddling in Israel politics by the Clintonites and that, surprise surprise, he was willing to give away more than any other more prudent PM. And overriding everything in his comments is taking credit for everything Israel offered even though nothing came out of it. Slick: the hero of make believe.

[lyle]

Paging rse. rse to the white courtesy phone, please:

http://eagnews.org/teacher-group-math-is-the-domain-of-old-white-men-and-22-doesnt-always-equal-4/

Like my previous link, you won't be surprised who's behind this, either.

[narciso]

The daily mail, having come up with bupkis, does a cheapshot pic of the Huntress

[NK]

Narciso-- so BOOTS ON THE GROUND, no Congressional resolution, no real consultation with Congress, no special appropriation, no consultation with the gov'ts of Iraq and Syria. Just send the boys in. What could possibly go wrong? Gallipoli? Dieppe? dien bien phu?

[lyle]

OK, just a wiff of the cesspool:

Radical Math was created by educator Jonathan Osler several years ago while teaching at El Puenta Academy in New Jersey. Osler taught Radical Math along-side Cathy Wilkerson, a former member of the Weather Underground Organization (with Bill Ayers) who once participated in a plot to detonate a nail bomb at a dance for military personnel at Fort Dix.

Radical Math provides hundreds of social justice math lessons obviously meant to indoctrinate. For example, lesson titles include “Sweatshop Accounting,” “Racism and Stop and Frisk,” “When Equal Isn’t Fair,” “The Square Root of a Fair Share” and “Home Buying While Brown or Black.”

[narciso]

Oh frabjous joy, Cathy wilkerson and paolo freire

[Ignatz]

-GQ, Bon Apetit, Vogue

There is your problem right there...--

I only see em when somebody links another DC power couple essay or another Moochelle abomination.

Otherwise my reading spans the wide gamut from Sports Car Market to Sporting Classics. :(

[narciso]

General, did marshall wax on the injustices of versailles

[NK]

Mrs Palin looks great in those photos coming from the gym. We should all look that good when we hit the gym. So there was a bust up and injuries, was she there as well? Were the reports that she was traveling in Texas false?

[GMax]

OH cmon you read the swimsuit edition of SI like all red blooded Murican males! I do if I find it at my barbershop...

[Old Lurker]

But Iggy you never went to my LUN yesterday about the robot guns which I thought might work well on the border....

LUN again

[Captain Hate]

Tammy Bruce is hammering the crones on Teh Spew for the Palin bashing done to welcome Norma Desmond, pointing out that the spector of wimmenz, including a 9/11 troofer, bashing a women who actually accomplished something is pretty damn distasteful.

[GMax]

I had been noticing a new acronym that I was unfamiliar with. SJW. All over the internet, but especially with younger demographics.

Turns out it a pejorative, meant to stand for "Social Justice Warrior" and definitely meant as a taunt.

There is some hope for the next generation, they don't like preening scolds. SHOCK FACE.

[Miss Marple]

Regarding the Tapper abode:

1. It does seem if they were going to show the wife pouring milk from a carafe, they could have removed the gallong plastic milk jug from the table.
2. Someone has convinced them to redo the house (probably the same tastemakers as those who advise Michelle Obama on dress). Note that the table and the chandelier seem to be traditional in design. "Not statement pieces anymore" says decorator looking for big bucks. So the hideous wallpaper, rug (white shag in a house with children) and the one lamp to his left on the sideboard are modern and tasteless. Drapes have also been added in a blue stripe.

I predict the table will soon be replaced with something involving a lot of glass and metal, and the chandelier will be removed for a single pottery-barn down light in industrial look. OR something with lots of capiz shells.

Then some edgy art will be hung on the walls. Also there will be added a modern sculpture.

And the children will never get their hair combed.

[narciso]

Well I have a more appropriate analogy, the Bay of pigs

[Miss Marple]

Oh, and white shag rug with a DOG!

LOL!

[NK]

What could go wrong? I left the BoP to you, and that will be an unfortunately apt historical analog, if USA SF lead a bunch of contractors into ISIS land.

[narciso]

Well they are strigoi, running away from the uv light, had she actually been there, they wouldn't who have been able to give a statement to the daily mail

[Captain Hate]

Tammy Bruce: Assuming Nicole Wallace was telling the truth when she said she didn't know who Sarah Palin was when she was announced as McCain's VP candidate, what does it say about the level of expertise in a national campaign that a highly placed GOPe operative was unaware who a popular Republican governor was?

[Dave (in MA)]

Never mind the DOG, there are kids eating out of narrow-based bowls directly above the rug.

[narciso]

That patton reference came from dempsey's statement about grievances

[Dave (in MA)]

It does seem if they were going to show the wife pouring milk from a carafe

You mean that flowerpot full of coffee?

[Miss Marple]

Dave, We just don't have good taste, do we?

Meanwhile, in the continuing farce of world events:

Hollywood Reporter @THR · 25m

United Nations Names Leonardo DiCaprio Messenger of Peace http://thr.cm/clwUa1

[Dave (in MA)]

I guess they get some points for using a coffee pot whose product page doesn't mention "sustainable".

[Captain Hate]

CaptH-- if you needed any further reason to drop the NFL from your viewing list, they are hiring Obummer cronies:

I'm in a bad place, NK; I don't know how to support the players whom I like without watching the product of execrable creeps like Goodell and most of the owners. Don't forget that Goodell was behind freezing Rush out of partial ownership of a club (maybe the Iggles?).

[narciso]

She was a detailee from the white house, the medici' s gal previously

[James D.]

I mostly agree with Matt @ 12:37 re: using the Army to help deal with the ebola crisis. AS he says, it's the only organization we've got with the resources and capabilities to operate on the scane required (just as the USN was the only force that could do what it did in the tsunami relief efforts).

I don't object on principle to that. The problem is, as always, the people coming up with the plans and giving the orders. Under a President and an administration that actually cared about this country, had even a smidgen of respect for the military and placed the slightest value on the lives of the men and women who serve it, I would have no problem at all with this plan.

Sadly, we have a President who does not care about this country, has no respect for the military and places no value on the lives of anyone other than himself and, possibly, his wife and children (although even there I wonder). Given that, I don't support or agree with this deployment, because I have to assume that, at best, the plan is poorly thought-out and will lead to more harm than good.

[lyle]

I thought it was STL, CH, IIRC.

[Captain Hate]

I'll defer to you on that, lyle.

[NK]

CH-- I had a text chat with our ChiTown friend about NFL player 'culture'. I believe NFL is the last major pro sport where thug culture still dominates, because of the demographic #s of the come/go players. Like the NBA, the NFL stars have pushed back against Thug Culture because of the endorsements they want to win. But on the field Thugism rules IMO. Boomer E was bemoaning the 700+ arrests since 2000, so I have a hard time rooting for NFL players. Goodell, and his owner crew? they can all go to hell.

[lyle]

Who said it?:

“Civilization as we know it today would be in jeopardy if the Republicans win the Senate.”

[NK]

CH/Lyle-- it was the StL Rams, and the franchise was ultimately sold to a muslim.

[Dave (in MA)]

Mrs. Tapper is or was a regional manager for Planned Parenthood.