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

Can we get Tori Amos's "Crucify" named official song of the EPA?

i will nominate it at the next all hands meeting

so, unexpected televised speech from afghanistan at 7:30pm (EST) tonight?

https://twitter.com/#!/natlsecuritycnn/statuses/197400468731871232

It's one year since Bin laden was killed and Obama wants to remind folks

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/obama-make-televised-speech-afghanistan-730-pm/story?id=16255583

Obama, whose secrecy-shrouded trip came on the one-year anniversary of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, met in Kabul with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The two leaders signed a long-term partnership agreement that governs the United States' role in Afghanistan after NATO-led combat forces leave in 2014. NATO leaders are due in Chicago in late May for a summit at which they are expected to spell out how the alliance's troops will hand over security duties to Afghan security forces throughout 2013.

Obama's trip also carried a strong political flavor: He has been using the May 1, 2011 bin Laden raid to pummel presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney

Have received emails from two different entities asking me to pester Pelosi re her recent Simpson-Bowles comments:

We need to speak out now to stop House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi from agreeing to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits.

Recently, Leader Pelosi expressed support for the Bowles-Simpson plan that would have slashed Social Security benefits — a plan that when it came out she rightly deemed "simply unacceptable."1

And the Washington Post reported that last year she agreed to a "grand bargain" President Obama negotiated with John Boehner that would have slashed benefits not just for Social Security, but for Medicare and Medicaid too.2

We've learned from past battles that preemptive concessions by Democrats can lead to disastrous outcomes

hmm, that seems worth pestering her about. I wonder what kind of calculation she's making there. (fwiw I can't see the GOP getting behind the Bowles-Simpson plan at all so there's that...)

has everyone read that Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann piece about why shit's so bad between the political parties? Matt Steinglass at The Economist wrote a good response.

SHEEPLE ALERT at Alfred's link:

MommyBoy, Dude...we compromised when government was 15% of GDP and it grew to 20%...we compromised again and it hit 25%...we compromised again and it hit 30%....call us crazy...but compromised yet again and it grew to 35%. Today? It's 41% of GDP. Dude...Are you one of the sheeple? Do you not see what's happening? Wake up.

American politics are nothing like Dutch politics, because we don't have ten parties in our legislature. And yet in some ways American politics are very much like Dutch politics: they share themes like anger at ruling political elites, immigrant/native tensions, existential anxiety at the shrinking industrial economic base and widening inequality. And most important, as it turned out after the Dutch centre-right and centre-left cut their deal, it seems that voters—however partisan they may be—really like a compromise. This is something we saw in America as well, last summer after the debt-ceiling impasse, when voters expressed wide relief that the two sides had cut a deal, any deal. For all the ideological convictions they may profess to hold, ultimately, most voters like to see the politicians in Washington cooperating to get things done. This may not always be such a great thing—politicians may receive a bump in the polls from reaching a compromise that is, substantively, awful. But it suggests, at least, that there is a political resource available for politicians who would like to strike deals with each other, and that our march towards partisan gridlock and failure is not entirely irresistible.

this is 'how it's supposed to work' but if you are guaranteed to get primaried for being the moderate dude, the national 4% 'bump in the polls' for your party is not really of much use to you

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/cold-truth-about-obama-and-fdr-by.html

Depressing read

would lead nicely into William Burroughs' Thanksgiving Prayer

Never read that before. Wow.

http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/william_burroughs_thanksgiving_prayer

Greenwald on the quisling courts, most recently bowing to the Obama DOJ in exculpating John Yoo:

(1) not a single War on Terror victim — not one — has been permitted to sue for damages in an American court over what was done to them, even when everyone admits they were completely innocent, even when they were subjected to the most brutal torture, and even when the judiciary of other countries permitted their lawsuits to proceed; and,

(2) not a single government official — not one — has been held legally accountable, either criminally or even civilly, for any War on Terror crimes or abuses; perversely, the only government officials to pay any price were the ones who blew the whistle on those crimes.

# of DOJ requests to the FISA court to eavesdrop on and/or physically search Americans/legal residents: 1,745

# of FISA court denials: 0

http://www.salon.com/2012/05/04/more_federal_judge_abdication/

Can the Obama administration just announce its criteria for drone attacks? They might get support on a few of them, although I am sure Greenwald would say we or Yemen should have recaptured this guy and put him back in jail:

Yemen's government and the al Qaeda-linked group both identified one of the men as Fahd al-Qasaa, who escaped from prison in 2005 after being convicted of a role in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole warship in Yemen's port of Aden. That attack killed 17 U.S. sailors.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-05-06/news/sns-rt-us-yemen-attackbre8450b2-20120506_1_ansar-al-sharia-al-qaeda-yemen-s-defence-ministry

And that one former CIA guy on his book tour touting torture says he wants Obama to have the military catch and torture these guys to get more (unreliable) info, rather than taking them out with drones

tot in-touch liberal petition-signing spam:

Tell Mitch McConnell: Do the Right Thing

I wonder whether he will try to demand something for his caucus' votes on student loans. Does he pay attention to these petition-signing things sent in by libs?

# of DOJ requests to the FISA court to eavesdrop on and/or physically search Americans/legal residents: 1,745

# of FISA court denials: 0

this is fucking criminal police state shit imo

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304746604577380451079997304.html?mod=lifestyle_newsreel

"The newest troops in Afghanistan are barely old enough to recall the event that sparked the long war"

This also means that there are adults in Kabul who spent most of their life under US occupation.

100% sure there are also plenty of kids whose parents we have 'accidentally' blown up too.

freedom ain't free

Tying in that subject with the latest "foiled" underwear bombing:

No matter how many times the U.S. kills innocent people in the world, it never reflects on our national character or that of our leaders. Indeed, none of these incidents convey any meaning at all. They are mere accidents, quasi-acts of nature which contain no moral information (in fact, the NYT article on these civilian deaths, out of nowhere, weirdly mentioned that “in northern Afghanistan, 23 members of a wedding celebration drowned in severe flash flooding” — as though that’s comparable to the U.S.’s dropping bombs on innocent people). We’ve all been trained, like good little soldiers, that the phrase “collateral damage” cleanses and justifies this and washes it all way: yes, it’s quite terrible, but innocent people die in wars; that’s just how it is. It’s all grounded in America’s central religious belief that the country has the right to commit violence anywhere in the world, at any time, for any cause.

http://www.salon.com/2012/05/08/us_attack_kills_5_afghan_kids/

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/05/senate-gop-blocks-debate-on-dem-student-loan-bill.php?ref=fpnewsfeed

does pelosi have a sick chest piece? click to find out

http://www.rollcall.com/issues/57_132/The-Illustrated-Congressmen-214337-1.html

also, richard lugar rip

Fuck, NC. Almost twenty points ahead at the moment (I mean, us here in Durham are going to tilt that back a bit when we finally report, but nowhere near enough). What are the chances of a federal court challenge to the amendment?

Six degrees of forever:

In 1977, when Lugar came to the Senate, 3 of his colleagues had been born in the 1890s. One--McClellan--voted on Social Security in 1935. — @TerryMoran via web

also, richard lugar rip

― goole, Tuesday, May 8, 2012 8:38 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

shakey, would you like to do the honors?

(figuratively)

Never gave a damn about him. He, Joe Biden, and Chuck Hagel were the Bipartisan Trio beloved by the Sunday morning talk show hosts.

but he DID incarnate Indiana politics for most people

bayh bayh

so, north carolina :(

srsly

it ain't all asheville yet huh

what a fucking crock btw

Lugar did do things like tell Reagan no, "constructive engagement" is not going to end South African apartheid.

fuck a state imo

There's a lot of North Carolinians who are surely backwards on this issue, but make no mistake...this was a calculated campaign of misinformation and fearmongering that virtually guaranteed this result from the moment it was born. If people would just take the time to read and research measures like this one, there's no way a single one of them would ever pass. The evil architects count on laziness and kneejerk reactions.

Luger: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/08/in-statement-lugar-defends-campaign-while-criticizing-partisan-environment/

GOP to Lugar: drop dead

I kind of hope that North Carolina is seen someday as the character in a sitcom or cartoon who thinks everyone is angry about a particular issue and decides to become as extreme about it as possible just to impress everyone, only to come back later all fired up before realizing that everyone else's opinion has changed in the meantime and they have become a laughingstock.

I wish you could have been with those of us who worked day and night against the amendment. my county voted 69.7 against and Orange County next door voted 78.9 against.

been stuck w/ this person around for years now, still, this is really a bizarre surprise

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/76072.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2XTuc6i1Uo

big hugs to you aero; tho I'm not a gay marriage cheerleader per se, that's not what this was about.

Yeah, I appreciate the work you put into this, aero. Thank you! I'm sorry NC went the way it did.

x-post re Lugar-

Lugar was among the few Republican senators up for reelection in 2012 to vote against the banks. As Anna Palmer and Robin Bravender reported, bank lobbyists decided early on to use the Indiana primary today to make an example out of Lugar:

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/it-wasnt-tea-party-part-ii.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/sen-richard-lugars-searing-concession-statement--read-it-here/2012/05/09/gIQAgLm2CU_blog.html

not going quietly