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

still time to drop a piano on Scalia before that happens...

wd be surprised if there were 3 votes against it.

still time to drop a piano on Scalia before that happens...

what makes you think the piano wouldn't bounce back?

Todd Akin’s Wife Compares GOP Abandonment to Rape, Tyranny

Lulli Akin said that efforts to push her husband out of the race threaten to replace elections “by the people and for the people” with “tyranny, a top-down approach.” She added, “Party bosses dictating who is allowed to advance through the party and make all the decisions—it’s just like 1776 in that way.”

She cited colonists who “rose up and said, ‘Not in my home, you don’t come and rape my daughters and my … wife. But that is where we are again. There has been a freedom of elections, not tyranny of selections since way back. Why are we going to roll over and let them steamroll us, be it Democrats or Republicans or whomever?”

Todd Akin said his wife’s comparisons to 1776 were “a little more grandiose than the way I would say it”

not-in-kansas-anymore.jpg

Akin family dinner:

Lulli: I ordered in Chinese for dinner, is that ok with you?
Todd: Sure thing hunbun. I could use a good meal. I was raped in the office today, absolutely raped.
Lulli: Same here. Gary came by with about the thousandth round of revisions on the interim strategy document and he raped me with his edits, it was brutal.
Todd: Can you pass the remote? I want to see if there are any shows about rape on.
*Telephone rings*
Todd: Hello?...What...? You gotta....you gotta be raping me. Unbelievable.
*Hangs up*
Todd: (muttering) you gotta be raping..this is...
Lulli: What is it?
Todd: That was the Chinese place. They're out of spring rolls.
Lulli: We're getting raped from every direction, similar to the American Revolution.
Todd: RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

seriously wtf is up with them

LOL ZS

You gotta....you gotta be raping me

And when their eloquence escapes me, their logic ties me up and rapes me.-Todd Aikin

Greenwald takes note:

Nothing is more consistent than war propaganda, especially the propaganda aimed at the citizenry of a nation at war by its leaders. It simply never changes, no matter the war or the leaders:

Associated Press, Tuesday:

"US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Monday that while he is very concerned about rogue Afghan troops and police turning their guns on US and allied forces, he sees the insider attacks as the 'last gasp' of a Taliban insurgency that has not been able to regain lost ground."

CNN, 20 June 2005:

"The insurgency in Iraq is 'in the last throes,' Vice-president Dick Cheney says … 'The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.'"

point would be better taken if "never changes" didn't mean "never changes over the course of seven years"

Can I finish? Can I finish? Can I finish?

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/09/25/3020058/ross-perot-memoir-coming-out-in.html

(I thought there'd be a Perot thread, although I'm not exactly sure why.)

Stanford/NYU study says of US spin on its drone warfare: "The narrative is false."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/25/study-obama-drone-deaths

Friedersdorf's blog post today worth a read on that front.

it's a strong post until he gets to the inevitable 'this is why i'm voting for gary johnson' part.

sorry, for sullivan, but: http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/09/killer-robots.html

it's a strong post until he gets to the inevitable 'this is why i'm voting for gary johnson' part.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, September 26, 2012 6:44 PM (27 minutes ago)

yup lol

i mean there's always going to be a 'ok, hold on...' moment when you read even the smartest, most reasonable libertarian, but he ought to at least acknowledge that a gary johnson presidency would have pretty serious consequences for a lot of ppl. a candidate who wants to can social security and medicare doesn't automatically become the savior of the republic just because he doesn't traffic in racist conspiracy theories like ron paul.

has this been posted yet? http://www.salon.com/2012/09/27/hey_left_wing_quit_griping/

Apparently, we are not allowed to celebrate the fact that the attorney general for 12% of all Americans is pretty cool in a few key ways or figure out where that could take us.

gave up reading at this point, does anybody edit anything at all anymore?

Also, hate to pull a Morbs but some of the stuff the left wing is agitated about is kind of "bigger picture" than she is willing to allow.

There is idealism somewhere under this pile of bile, the pernicious idealism that wants the world to be perfect and is disgruntled that it isn’t — and that it never will be.

i cannot roll my eyes hard enough

sooo fucking sick of those kinds of articles one way or another

Pile of Bile (or POB for short) is an American R&B-based horn section and band, originating in Oakland, California, that has been performing for over 44 years.[1] They are best known for their funky soul sound highlighted by a powerful horn section and precisely syncopated bass-guitar lines. There have been several lead vocalists, the most famous being Lenny Williams, who fronted the band between early 1973 and late 1974, the period of their greatest commercial success.

"pernicious idealism." Fuck you, Solnit. Commenter Mazer_Rackham otm.

Always amused by how assuaging one's "moral superiority" is the diagnosis of the non-Dem-lefty, not adhering to one's principles.

Harvey Milk was a politician. Citizens are not in the position to "give people hope" for a living.

http://crookedtimber.org/2010/11/01/on-not-being-obliged-to-vote-democrat/

The argument I want to establish here is that the decision about whether or not to vote Demcrat (versus the alternative of abstaining or voting for a minor party) is a serious one, which is up to the conscience of the individual voter to make, and which deserves respect from other people whether they agree with it or not. Obviously in making that argument, I’m going to have to venture into a number of unpalatable home truths about the Democrats as they are currently organised (abstract: ineffectual, cowardly, surprisingly warlike, soft-right, generally an obstacle to the development of social democratic politics), but let’s get this clear right up front - voting Democrat might often be the right thing to do in any given case, depending on local conditions; it might even usually be the right thing to do. What I’m not going to accept, however, is that it is always or definitionally the right thing to do.

OTM

Dear Allies,

Forgive me if I briefly take my eyes off the prize to brush away some flies, but the buzzing has gone on for some time.

i have a feeling i'm not going to like this article

here i thought the allies had already won WW2

President Romney would reconsider the efficacy of torture:

In one of his first acts, President Obama issued an executive order restricting interrogators to a list of nonabusive tactics approved in the Army Field Manual. Even as he embraced a hawkish approach to other counterterrorism issues — like drone strikes, military commissions, indefinite detention and the Patriot Act — Mr. Obama has stuck to that strict no-torture policy.

By contrast, Mr. Romney’s advisers have privately urged him to “rescind and replace President Obama’s executive order” and permit secret “enhanced interrogation techniques against high-value detainees that are safe, legal and effective in generating intelligence to save American lives,” according to an internal Romney campaign memorandum.

While the memo is a policy proposal drafted by Mr. Romney’s advisers in September 2011, and not a final decision by him, its detailed analysis dovetails with his rare and limited public comments about interrogation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/28/us/politics/election-will-decide-future-of-interrogation-methods-for-terrorism-suspects.html?ref=politics

has this been posted yet? http://www.salon.com/2012/09/27/hey_left_wing_quit_griping/

― Mordy, Thursday, September 27, 2012 11:57 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://www.jamiedole.com/gifs/ThumbsUp.gif

do you really read these stupid articles all day?

these pieces of shit with their "enhanced interrogation" terminology how can they look at themselves in the fucking mirror in the morning? honestly cannot understand it

the crooked timber article makes the mistake of assuming that not voting is a neutral action. it's actually the same thing as a vote for 'whoever was gonna win'.

xxp ppl here like Solnit!

i remembered her mansplaining article got a big response

the crooked timber article makes the mistake of assuming that not voting is a neutral action. it's actually the same thing as a vote for 'whoever was gonna win'.

http://www.sam-shepard.com/deadhorse10x.jpg

I hope Baldwin beats Thompson In Wisconsin for Senator, and Warren can win in Massachusetts. They could quickly become 2 of the most progressive Dems there

2-5 they both sell out

I knew you'd burst my bubble

2-5 the first hint they give of not being flawless socialist robots is eagerly seized on by left-wing curmudgeons as proof of their 'selling out.'

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

didja think Feingold was a flawless socialist robot?

i just mean let's at least give them the benefit of the doubt unless we're given reason to think otherwise.

ah youth

Running for office these days pretty much is selling out.

no it isn't

lol yes it is, people of principle with differing opinions can at least agree that if you run for office you're a sellout, c'mon now man

I was being glib. But if you're a progressive sort, working in the private sector for some progressive cause, you're going to have to compromise significantly once you get elected. And even the stuff you don't compromise on you won't get through the DC morass. And really, what prominent politician aside from Carter has left office to go onto something other than a corporate think tank or lobbying firm or something like that?