Five New Year’s Resolutions For President Obama

The Article: Five New Year’s resolutions for President Obama by Julian Zelizer in CNN.

The Text: As millions of Americans think about how they can do better in 2014 through their New Year resolutions, President Obama might want to make a few of his own.

Although it is true that the president has faced a horrendous political environment — filled with tea party Republicans intent on obstructing every proposal and media that are often too willing to report dubious facts — Obama has not made his situation much easier for himself.
In a number of areas, he might think about strategies that can improve his political standing and put him in a better position for the political fights over immigration, the budget, climate change and foreign policy that loom ahead.

Treat your Democrats well: President Obama has not taken enough care of Democrats on Capitol Hill. Throughout the year, Democrats have continued to express frustration with the White House for putting them into extraordinarily difficult political situations and sometimes leaving them to stand alone as they face the fallout.

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Kim Jong Un Versus Christmas

Seasonal cheer, warmth and materialism–it must be stopped by the obviously not decadent, materialistic Kim Jong Un.

The Founding Fathers On Duck Dynasty

Free speech you protects you from bludgeoning courtesy of the federal government; it doesn’t protect you from losing your job due to ignorance.

The 2013 Year In Review

The mayor ranted that he would kill Mike Tyson. He ranted he’d only need 10 minutes. Then only five.

The mayor confessed he smoked crack cocaine. “Probably in one of my drunken stupors.” He wasn’t sure which one. But one of them, anyway.

The mayor was black-mailed by gang members. They wanted $5,000 and a car for the video of him allegedly smoking crack cocaine. $150,000, for the other one.

And yet Toronto mayor Rob Ford was not arrested. He was not shot. He was not even impeached. Toronto mayor Rob Ford was more popular than ever. His approval ratings spiked up 3% since his crack admission—higher than President Barack Obama’s, according to a Forum Research survey of 1,049 Toronto voters. He even mulled running for Canadian Prime Minister.

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A Former US Drone Program Employee Speaks Out

The Article: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on by Heather Linebaugh in The Guardian.

The Text: Whenever I read comments by politicians defending the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Predator and Reaper program – aka drones – I wish I could ask them a few questions. I’d start with: “How many women and children have you seen incinerated by a Hellfire missile?” And: “How many men have you seen crawl across a field, trying to make it to the nearest compound for help while bleeding out from severed legs?” Or even more pointedly: “How many soldiers have you seen die on the side of a road in Afghanistan because our ever-so-accurate UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] were unable to detect an IED [improvised explosive device] that awaited their convoy?”

Few of these politicians who so brazenly proclaim the benefits of drones have a real clue of what actually goes on. I, on the other hand, have seen these awful sights first hand.

I knew the names of some of the young soldiers I saw bleed to death on the side of a road. I watched dozens of military-aged males die in Afghanistan, in empty fields, along riversides, and some right outside the compound where their family was waiting for them to return home from the mosque.

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