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

Hopefully it turns out better than their stunt with the cannon

http://news.yahoo.com/court-oklahoma-cant-enforce-sharia-law-ban-011240179.html

"At some point we have to decide whether this is a country of, by and for the judges, or of, by and for the people."

Um, did you just move here or were you dropped on your head a lot as a child?

lol I did not really get the context of the legal argument until the very last sentence of the article

i feel like, on efficiency grounds, a progressive organisation should be threatening a response to the lack of action regarding wall st, rather than impotently pushing for a so not gonna happen long-belated enquiry into it. like surely they would get more traction saying "fuck you you should have investigated we're not voting" or w/e, over "let's keep the flame a burnin re: you suddenly 180-ing on resolving that shit three years after the fact"

By the way, today's anniversary makes the thread title true!

yep

libs never threaten Democrats, ever. they don't want to be Naderized by their neighbors.

I thought this framework from a Weekly Sift article, The Four Flavors of Republican, was an interesting way to think about members of a party with very different priorities:

http://weeklysift.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/gopstructure.jpg?w=530&h=397

The article goes on to define the four archetypes, talk about areas of agreement and disagreement among them, and then closes with:

Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush unified the four flavors, but this year no candidate does. NeoCons can’t support Ron Paul, Libertarians can’t support Rick Santorum, and Theocrats can’t support Mitt Romney. That’s why Republican insiders keep having fantasies about some new candidate — it’s basically the same fantasy they had about Rick Perry before he turned out to be an idiot: a tough-talking, pro-business, Christian Reconstructionist who wants to abolish the EPA.

Each non-fantasy candidate exposes a different fault line, so expect Obama to run differently depending on who the Republican nominee is. His increasing economic populism of late is evidence that he expects to run against Romney.

keep it real America!

obama is having a 30k plate fundraiser 100 ft down the street from my boyfriend's building tonight, which dr. morbius nickname for bam should i use when i derisively heckle the attendees?

Buffet always bringin the lolz

which dr. morbius nickname for bam should i use when i derisively heckle the attendees?

Obamao

baroque o-bomber

bam will be there after he wraps one of his other private fundraisers w/ an ex-bear stearns exec

obama is having a 30k plate fundraiser 100 ft down the street from my boyfriend's building tonight, which dr. morbius nickname for bam should i use when i derisively heckle the attendees?

Obamoneybags

his other private fundraisers w/ an ex-bear stearns exec

this is more delicious than the dinner!

Obamoneybags

― lumber up, limbaugh down (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, January 11, 2012 7:06 PM (36 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

might have to paint this on a sheet and hang it from the balcony

keep it real America!

this really depressed the shit out of me.

^ :(

was already feeling really low cause of this

http://nymag.com/news/features/danny-chen-2012-1/

but now, man

looking forward to asking my in-law (currently on TOD w State Dept in Afghanistan) about this

NOBAMNEY

btw you can tell those are Taliban cuz they're corpses, just like Vietcong

Greenwald on the assassinations of Iranian physics professors.

Is it just ME who didn't realize that 5 or 6 of these dudes have been MYSTERIOUSLY blown up or gunned down in the last 2 years?!? Does it not seem completely bonkers?

The NYT finally deigned to publish a story on the front page.

assassinations are totally predictable imho. what did you expect Israel to do.

they're pretty well determined to be the only nuclear power in the area, and they have the means and the backing to make it happen

I disagree w/Greenwald and Sullivan. I thunk terrorism should be more strictly defined and not bandied about recklessly. It is an attempt to sway a government's policy or to bring about recognition for a cause or organization by means of terror. These are targeted assassinations that attempt less, I think, to sway the government of Iran than simply to kill important scientists who may be working at obtaining nuclear weapons. It's less terrorism than low-level acts of war.

It's less terrorism than low-level acts of war.

But Greenwald has said this.

Even the NYT story included a quote admitting as such.

assassinations are totally predictable imho. what did you expect Israel to do.

I can't tell how seriously to take this?

Shakey's next post puts it in context.

I don't think Shakey is providing moral justification so much as (perhaps) pointing out that there's a long history of assasination in the region both by and against Israel.

And that it's the kind of think one would expect Israel to do to achieve its goals

What do people think are the chances of US involvement?

wd be unsurprising October Surprise by President Hope.

What do people think are the chances of US involvement?

The chance that we weren't involved is about as low as Obama's second term being the liberal one.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2012/01/201211244648837585.html

US officials have denied any role in the apparent killing of an Iranian nuclear scientist, and condemned the bomb attack which Tehran said was linked to Washington and Israel.

"I want to categorically deny any United States involvement in any kind of act of violence inside Iran," Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, told reporters on Wednesday when asked about Iranian allegations over the attack.

Tommy Vietor, a National Security Council spokesman, added: "The United States had absolutely nothing to do with this. We strongly condemn all acts of violence, including acts of violence like this."

ha ha ha.

Dennis Perrin tweet!

Israel is the 1972 Miami Dolphins of nuclear weapons. No one else in the region can match its record.

ANTI ISRAEL OBAMA CONDEMNS ISRAELI ACT OF SELF DEFENSE PROFESSOR ASSASSINATION

IDK, the US being involved on some level or not being involved on some level seem like equal possibilities to me. I could see Israel doing it with the nod from Washington, Israel doing it on its own without a nod from anyone, someone else doing it with the nod from Washington, etc.

To be clear, I would be surprised if neither Israel nor the US is invovled, I just don't think both necessarily were.

i don't think the US could have pulled something like this off. it involved a certain degree of knowing what the fuck is up in iran which we seem not to have

And if Israel could do it on its own, they likely wouldn't ask for a nod. They know we'd say yes, and not asking would give us deniability.

don't think anyone has said we were directly involved; it's more like like the Israeli general or whatever's reaction on Facebook yesterday: "I won't shed a tear."

does the level of direct involvement really matter? US's complicity in Israel's policies - since Israel wouldn't survive a day without the US - should be taken as a given.

I'm sure Israel does some things that irritate the US gov't, but none of it really matters - we either agree to look the other way, issue an empty/half-hearted condemnation, or actively support them. In any event, Israel does what it wants.

http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/01/12/thomas-perrelli-doj-point-person-on-foreclosure-fraud-settlement-stepping-down-by-march/

This appears to be good news. DOJ attorney who was in charge of trying to push through the weak settlement agreement on mortgage robo-signing is leaving the Justice Dept.

We strongly condemn all acts of violence, including acts of violence like this.

Really? You can't be bothered to write 'unjustified' or 'senseless'? We just today droned 5 'militants' on the Pakistani border.

that was a humane targeting