Indefinite Detention? But I Have Soccer Practice at 4: U.S. Politics 2012

on answering tough questions, or How Paul Ryan Is Like Madeleine Albright and John Brennan (also, Saddam Hussein)

http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/003641.html

joe klein, brave defender of american 4-year-olds:

SCARBOROUGH: "This is offensive to me, though. Because you do it with a joystick in California - and it seems so antiseptic - it seems so clean - and yet you have 4-year-old girls being blown to bits because we have a policy that now says: 'you know what? Instead of trying to go in and take the risk and get the terrorists out of hiding in a Karachi suburb, we're just going to blow up everyone around them.'

...

KLEIN: "If it is misused, and there is a really major possibility of abuse if you have the wrong people running the government. But: the bottom line in the end is - whose 4-year-old get killed? What we're doing is limiting the possibility that 4-year-olds here will get killed by indiscriminate acts of terror."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/23/klein-drones-morning-joe

no chance a drone can destroy a TV studio eh

wow, what a piece of shit

scarborough is tacking left for the election or he's always been not so cool w/ drones?

that's always been the calculus of bombing campaigns

i guess scarborough is cool with it if the planes have pilots?

Scarborough likes Obama and Obama policies, but he has to backtrack every so often to give off the appearance he's still a reliable conservative voice in a liberal wasteland.

four year olds like Joe Klein.

We need a rolling drone thread

droning drones 2012

I would be cool with a scenario wherein an American pundit was executed every time a civilian was killed by an American drone

Opinion might shift somewhat in the media

Well, if we eliminate David Gergen we lose clemenza; if we eliminate Chris Hayes, Morbs and I bite the dust.

what if obama had to personally attend the funerals of all the innocent civilians

Aim all drones at Wolf Blitzer.

this'll all be over soon

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/plan-for-hunting-terrorists-signals-us-intends-to-keep-adding-names-to-kill-lists/2012/10/23/4789b2ae-18b3-11e2-a55c-39408fbe6a4b_print.html

Scarborough is auditioning for his 2016 run....this does NOT involve playing to the war crowd. (the thought of him running makes me so happy--google "Lori Klausutis" for why!)

Perpetual Drone War via "the disposition matrix," glory hallelujah:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/plan-for-hunting-terrorists-signals-us-intends-to-keep-adding-names-to-kill-lists/2012/10/23/4789b2ae-18b3-11e2-a55c-39408fbe6a4b_story.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/24/obama-terrorism-kill-list

I have a Republican in my life (okay, supposedly 'undecided voter') who is infuriated about the Libya situation. He's so angry that he can't even discuss it with me without stomping out bc I won't take it as seriously as him. It's hard to imagine ppl care about this tho. The supposed issue is that Obama "lied" about the cause of the attack. That he said the video caused it bc he wanted to deflect attention from the fact that it was actually a terrorist attack. I keep telling my Republican that we can consider it a terrorist attack whether or not it was caused by the video and that spontaneity has nothing to do w/ this category of 'terrorism,' but he just repeating over and over how horrific it is that the President lied and that it's the worst thing that ever happened. It's kinda frustrating having a conversation like this.

Scarborough was talking this morning about how happy he is with Roberts and Alito on the Supreme Court. Also re drones, he's uttering a policy point of some conservatives-- that we should be manly and going in and capturing and torturing terrorists to get info out of 'em, not just killing them with drones.

sorry, didn't recognize the URL that k3vin k had posted

$1 billion seems awfully low

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/10/24/federal-prosecutors-sue-bank-of-america-over-mortgage-program/?hp

morbz, you don't know how lucky you are that you just have to argue w/ the obama apologists on ilx. i have a guy telling me every day now that obama is soft on terror bc of ft hood + benghazi. when i try to explain how many deaths of muslims obama is personally responsible for, how maybe he is too gung ho about the war on terror and should work on killing fewer ppl, this guy won't hear of it. and he's not even the worst! he's an undecided voter. when i talk to republicans i know they're all just living in hazes of psychotic violence + hate. that's like what? 48% of the country?

http://jimromenesko.com/2012/10/24/milwaukee-journal-sentinel-decides-not-to-endorse-in-presidential-and-senate-races/

what's the thinking behind this?

cowardice?

yup

mordy, yr friend is essentially right on benghazi tho. obama & his admin spun that it was the reaction to the film and therefore spontaneous and couldn't be planned for. oh these muslims are so irrational and these filmmakers are so fucked up. disgusting politics tho not exactly on the level of using an attack to launch a war against an unrelated country, say.

that's not his complaint though. his complaint is that they minimized that it was preplanned bc they wanted to deny that it was terrorism related bc obama is soft (for whatever reason, he isn't speculating) in prosecuting the war on terror.

isn't that the same complaint? if it was spontaneous there was no way to have known and planned against it.

he says that he understands a president can't prevent everything. he's more upset that he lied.

your friend's dumb, mordy. i have a friend like that too (tho he's actually a 'republican') and i've exhausted all my patience with this shit

goodbye tsa, i hope!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/25/us/politics/rethinking-an-open-checkbook-for-a-security-colossus.html?hp&_r=0

the Mysterious Planet Debbie

http://www.salon.com/2012/10/22/obamas_kill_list_civil_liberties_abuses_democrats_dont_want_to_know/

― crazy uncle in the attic (Dr Morbius), Monday, 22 October 2012

excellent video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFh0nIYNAyY

http://i47.tinypic.com/169hx1j.jpg

this kid's a U.S citizen who was killed in a plane or drone strike shortly after turning 16, a few weeks after a strike took out his father, who was an AQAP propagandist. the kid's name is abdulrahman al-awlaki. i'm sure u've heard about him. u can read about it here. i was gonna do a poll abt how many ppl would even recognize him.

anyway someone official finally spoke on this on record, obama advisor robert gibbs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=7MwB2znBZ1g

he says, "I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well being of their children."

what if obama had to personally attend the funerals of all the innocent civilians

― but the boo boyz are getting to (Z S), Tuesday, 23 October 2012

better be careful, it's a cia tactic in pakistan to hit funerals of militants.

morbz, you don't know how lucky you are that you just have to argue w/ the obama apologists on ilx. i have a guy telling me every day now that obama is soft on terror bc of ft hood + benghazi. when i try to explain how many deaths of muslims obama is personally responsible for, how maybe he is too gung ho about the war on terror and should work on killing fewer ppl, this guy won't hear of it. and he's not even the worst! he's an undecided voter. when i talk to republicans i know they're all just living in hazes of psychotic violence + hate. that's like what? 48% of the country?

Dude, you're not going to change his mind. Directly attacking a deeply held belief head-on only re-cements in the muck. Hell, check the stats on people who double-downed on their belief that Iraq had WMDs after being show proof they did not.

It's the backlash effect, which we've mentioned before and I've banged on about in other threads, notable the Jenny McCarthy conspiracy theory one. Admitting you may be wrong is a fucking HARD thing to do, to yourself or to others, far more difficult than people give it credit for.

I'm not trying to change his mind, I'm just making conversation and doing some covert complaining!

oh, you mean my friend. i thought you meant morbz. lol

what can u do tho? he's a friend and we chat about politics. such is life.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/263721-liberals-fear-lame-duck-betrayal-by-incumbent

Shocking, I know.

acethepolitics.com/2012/10/xbox-gamers-approve-of-more-u-s-military-drone-strikes/

his father, who was an AQAP propagandist.

lol

if it's true that video game aptitude correlates to drone operation skill (something i've read before), i believe i'd be an excellent drone operator. that's what i remind myself whenever i'm feeling depressed about my job - it could be worse, i could be carrying around the guilt of killing people for a living.

some convenient omissions being made there bro

xp

true, he didn't even mention that the dad's killing was unlawful too

we need more polls that are pictures of people with the question "do you know who this guy is"

we need more polls that are pictures of people with the question "do you know who this guy is"

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/10/25/Romney/Romney-articleLarge.jpg

ROMNEY: Boy, seems like I remember this guy at a campaign stop somewhere in... Minnesota? Wisconsin?

http://www.chessville.com/images/Casablanca_BogartBergman.jpg

I'm not necessarily subscribing to this, but I'm linking it here because it seems relevant to the general discourse:

http://screwrocknroll.tumblr.com/post/34335827297/civilian-deaths-2003-present-this-graph-is-meant

Oh look what a surprise: the GOP blocks release of a report showing how cutting tax rates on the rich is not uh a fiscally sound idea.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/business/questions-raised-on-withdrawal-of-congressional-research-services-report-on-tax-rates.html

http://news.yahoo.com/errant-gingrich-email-obama-going-win-174518235.html