How do you stop a flood of refugees from migrating from Syria to the EU? Why, you pay Turkey to keep more of them, obviously! At least, that seems to be Angela Merkel's plan: German Chancellor Angela Merkel has offered Turkey the prospect of support for faster progress on its bid to join the European … Continue reading Back-scratching, EU-style

Paul Ryan really doesn't want to be Speaker of the House. I get that. It's a very, very shitty job right now. John Boehner did want to be Speaker of the House, badly, and it took the nihilist branch of his own party less than five years to retirement seem preferable to another day on … Continue reading Well, he’s got his dream spin, anyway

Last week, Iran test fired a medium-range ballistic missile, the Emad, that may be capable of carrying a nuclear payload. It's reportedly accurate to within 500 meters at a distance of 1700 kilometers, far enough to hit Israel on the fly, without having to skip it across the western Iraqi desert or something. This would … Continue reading Testing the limits of the nuclear deal

Uh, JEB? How much longer are you gonna keep pushing this obvious lie? https://twitter.com/JebBush/status/655098096649707520 Unless "us" means JEB and Poppy and Mama Bush, then no, George W. didn't keep "us" safe. That's what the words "we were attacked" actually mean. I'd be more upset about this, but I assume JEB will knock it off once … Continue reading Well, not *all* of us…

Ever get a flash of a thought and you think "hey, maybe I should write about that," and then you find out some really well-respected analyst like Paul Pillar already did? Welcome to my Friday: Whatever other motives Russian president Vladimir Putin has in doing what he is doing today in Syria, shoring up a … Continue reading Afghanistan 2.0?

The Israeli-Palestinian violence that has people openly wondering if we've entered a Third Intifada is only getting worse. 32 Palestinians and 7 Israelis have been killed in Jerusalem over the past two weeks, and the situation promises to keep escalating right along with the severity of the Israeli security crackdown. Palestinian access to Al-Aqsa has … Continue reading From bad to worse with no end in sight

Whether you care about Hillary Clinton's political aspirations or not, what happened at the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012, deserves a real Congressional investigation. The four Americans who died in the attack on the consulate deserve a real Congressional investigation. Maybe such an investigation wouldn't find anything wrong, maybe it would … Continue reading People should be righteously angry about the Benghazi Committee

We've always been at war with Eastasia in Afghanistan. Well, OK, it only seems like we have. But that's not changing any time soon: The United States will halt its military withdrawal from Afghanistan and instead keep thousands of troops in the country through the end of his term in 2017, President Obama announced on … Continue reading Never-ending war is officially never going to end

Ben Carson is taking a break from this whole presidential campaign thing to make a little money: Republican presidential contender Dr. Ben Carson has put his public campaign events on hold for two more weeks to go on book tour for his new tome “A More Perfect Union” and catch up on fundraising events. The … Continue reading Well, at least his priorities are in the right place

Word came this afternoon that the Obama administration has decided to send 300 US soldiers and unarmed Predator drones to the central African nation of Cameroon, to assist a multi-national effort to defeat Boko Haram, based in neighboring Nigeria. Their mission will be to provide reconnaissance and intel for the multi-national force, which consists of … Continue reading Next stop: Cameroon