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

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

I don't know how they targeted them or what I think of it but it was definitely an act of violence

those guys jumped in front of those missiles

gotta break a few eggs to keep SOME CRAZY REPUBLICAN from being elected

zogby poll of iraqi public opinion & US, ME opinion about iraq

http://aai.3cdn.net/2212d2d41f760d327e_fxm6vtlg7.pdf

this part is most interesting at first glance:

3. What Has Improved, What Has Not
Question: Since U.S. forces entered Iraq, how do you feel the following areas of life have been
impacted?

unsummarizable, but the US responses are broken down by partisan affiliation. the only iraqi demographic thinks any aspect of life has been improved since the entry of US forces is the kurds. american democrats have beliefs closer to arab iraqis but still quite a bit more optimistic. republicans think it all turned out pretty good, but often by small pluralities

Greenwald after quoting liberal bete noire Santorum on the wonderfulness of assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists:

We better hope and pray Rick Santorum never becomes President or else the legal prohibitions against assassinations will simply be ignored and that will become standard American policy — oh, wait. ...

lol that is ridiculous. we love assassinating people, just took a breather there for a decade or two.

Or did we?

well it was official policy not to for a little while anyway

Frank Church RIP

He was from Idaho! Idaho's one big claim to not being a complete GOP shill-state.

I went to college with his grandson.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/us-marines-urinating-video-identified-charges/story?id=15353762#.TxBT_PlkinA

on a completely different note: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-to-propose-combining-agencies-to-shrink-federal-government/2012/01/13/gIQAHsLqvP_story.html?tid=pm_politics_pop

Instead of beefing up and straightening out the SEC and increasing the staffing for Justice's white-collar unit (to go after Wall Street), Obama proposes a tiny little merger that he naively thinks will appease Republicans and make him look like a bipartisan pragmatist who wants to make life easier for businesses

Obama will propose combining the functions and staff of six trade- and commerce-related agencies and offices: the Small Business Administration; the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative; the Export-Import Bank; the Overseas Private Investment Corporation; and the Trade and Development Agency. The move would ease the regulatory burden on businesses and save money by eliminating duplicative functions such as human resources, the White House official said

I really think / hope that Obama's done with the 'appease Republicans', at least until after we see the Tea Party reaping the results of their yammering in 2014.

One would wish that, but his actions do not yet fully demonstrate that.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/01/cnns-loesch-champions-urinating-marines-110743.html

Is Loesch still a CNN reporter?

moral relativism leads to barbarism, you know

I had a dream last night that I feel belongs in this thread:

I saw people from a corporation dumping toxic sludge into a river, so I needed to "lobby the EPA" about the issue. The EPA office was a door on a long corridor of doors. But when I opened the door, it was just a closet with a young man woman standing in it, statue-like, as though they were playing hide-and-seek.

I said "Uh, I'm here to lobby the EPA." And they were like "you can't do that," and I was like "what do you mean?" and they say "You can't lobby the EPA. The EPA is not an organization you're allowed to lobby."

And I got all incensed and started talking about my rights, when I looked at the wall and saw a small banner that read "Ron Paul Campaign Headquarters," and suddenly they started laughing, and I started laughing, and they said something to the effect of "you got punked!"

The EPA office was a door on a long corridor of doors. But when I opened the door, it was just a closet with a young man woman standing in it, statue-like, as though they were playing hide-and-seek.

if only you knew how eerily accurate this was, in an abstract way

loesch thing is just beyond words

It's typical of the kind of tone deaf, emotionally retarded ppl who prefer justifyingmach posturing to winning wars. It's is essentially puerile lack of discipline.

Come on people, this is a war. What do people think this is?"

That's kind of how I feel about this, only not in the way Loesch means it. Killing people = fine. Peeing on the people we kill = OUTRAGE

She not only does not get the ugliness of the actions, she does not get that this also potentially puts our remaining soldiers there in increased danger

new drinking game: Try to argue with a pseudoliberal that Obama is not the Last Best Hope of humanity. Within 2 minutes, you lose if you hear the word PERFECTION.

what happens if someone says 'don't let perfect be the enemy of the good"?

pour a bottle of Ripple down their throat

blast some burnt by the sun and mosh

who really thinks he's perfection?

think morbs meant the standard retort would be "what do you expect, perfection?"

ah right. well that's a fair point though.

yes truly thought-provoking

yes, for these folx, it's the only standard they can imagine him not meeting

I think such folx are few enough they should be dismissed as irrelevan, rather than made the crux of some kind of argument about political reality.

there must be at least a few of them left; greenwald spends half his twitter arguing with them.

haha otm

isn't Steve Benen stil an Obamastan?

Yes.

Washington Monthly's blog under Benen is fixated solely on Republican bad deeds.

http://dccc.org/pages/GOPonvacation

Benen linked to this--- nice photoshopped pics of Boehner and Cantor on vacation