American Politics Thread 2013: I'm a cool Rodham grandma in the USA

usually such a chill crew, the new model army

Meanwhile Cheney actually invited to Sunday talk shows without Interpol arresting him.

this is old news, but o_O

http://nation.foxnews.com/2013/10/20/ted-cruz-receives-8-minute-standing-ovation-return-tx-after-shutdown-battle

http://twitchy.com/2013/10/22/sen-ted-cruz-greeted-in-arlington-texas-with-14-minute-standing-ovation/

christ

arlington is so embarassing

8 minutes, let alone 14 minutes, is an incredibly long time for a standing ovation

if there is video out there someone should juxtapose cruz's ovation face with 9000 corpses to represent the estimated number of Texans who will die each year because of TX's refusal to expand medicaid

god

The Justice Department for the first time has notified a criminal defendant that evidence being used against him came from a warrantless wiretap, a move that is expected to set up a Supreme Court test of whether such eavesdropping is constitutional.

Prosecutors filed such a notice late Friday in the case of Jamshid Muhtorov, who was charged in Colorado in January 2012 with providing material support to the Islamic Jihad Union, a designated terrorist organization based in Uzbekistan.

Mr. Muhtorov is accused of planning to travel abroad to join the militants and has pleaded not guilty. A criminal complaint against him showed that much of the government’s case was based on intercepted e-mails and phone calls.

haven't read anything about that but could be great news for our side

the more this stuff gets out into open court the better

yup

I mean the outcome may not be to my liking but it's definitely preferable to all this shit being done in secret without any actual legal trail.

The fly in the ointment is that so many sitting federal judges were appointed due to their affiliation with Federalist Society positions.

You're dead, you piece of shit coward. Get yourself buried.

"whichever way the wind blows, let it not be said that I do not also blow"

Immigration overhaul is not popular

with republicans

Right, so expecting them to suddenly change simply because Rubio wants to do it is stupid.

http://www.pewresearch.org/key-data-points/immigration-tip-sheet-on-u-s-public-opinion/

some self-awareness about their party's prospects provided brief glimmer of hope but yeah these guys are too stupid to figure out anything but the most short-term self-preservation strategies

Americans in not understanding how borders work shockah

btw that bullshit, fake hope that has been proffered for 25 years ("big tent" et al) is the prime reason the GOP has disintegrated.

why, because it's so transparently false?

obviously

How's that big tent raises all boats don't stop thinking bout tomorrow compassionate hopey changey thing working

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/378800000656072367/0993ce6a13f0abdbefd53b045c1013dc.jpeg

study group for major ivy students only

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0IM7xstI70

Rome, Georgia Republicans:

People in those districts are poorer and more likely to be unemployed than in the nation at large. They have focused their anger about their economic circumstances on Obama, and they want someone, anyone, to make him improve things for them. This is why Hackett praises his congressman, Tom Graves, for voting against the plan to end the budget impasse with Obama that produced the shutdown. “I think he’s great,” he said of Graves. “Somebody’s got to stand up to him.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/at-the-source-of-the-shutdown-the-economy-falters--and-anger-at-obama-runs-high/2013/10/28/67d51c90-3fe2-11e3-a751-f032898f2dbc_story.html?hpid=z4

so, NSA spying on allied leaders...how big of a problem is this? This is bad....but it looks like it started in 2006. But this means people either kept Obama in the dark (likely) or he let it go on (less likely)...either one of these things is pretty bad.

I mean Obama's not knowing shit is making him more like Reagan in ways I don't think he wants.

Obama's been pretty lenient on these matters... wouldn't be surprised if he knew and let it continue, frankly

lol yeah this administration loves "intelligence" why would you assume Obama didn't know about it

fwiw they're claiming he didn't:
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/10/26/us-may-have-buggedangelamerkelsphonesince2002report.html

It wouldn't surprise me at all. The intersection of a perpetual and bloated national security apparatus with 133t h4xx0rz probably results in a lot of stuff the president doesn't know about.

Whither Tombot? He could clue us in here.

Spying on Allied leaders since 2002. Obama is happy with Keith Alexander of the NSA (who said he's gonna retire next year) despite his confessing that their massive data-scooping has not stopped anything. Plus that Star Trek command Center he had still makes me smh at his spending of taxpayers dollars and his professionalism

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-us-army-star-trek-command-center-2013-9

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/02/nsa_director_admits_to_misleading

The other intelligence head, James Clapper, used to be a Bush era general, who said how certain he was that Saddam had nuclear weapons that he smuggled out of the country. Now under Obama he lied to Congress about data collection.

what bothers me really is that that command center doesn't really adhere to any ST design principles

The moment we ask law enforcement to discover criminals who have yet to commit their crimes, we legitimize the idea that the government may enter every crevice of our lives.

Obama doesn't care about that.

I mean, assuming he knows about it.

medea's glasses otm

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BXwzbSaCQAAPnk1.jpg

xpost Wasn't it revealed the go-ahead on Merkel stretched back to 2002? Anyway, there's no way Obama had no idea this was going on. Didn't he ever wonder how everyone knew what online shopping the Brazilian president did, or how often Merkel ordered pizza?

Anyway, back to America: is the VA governor race an early sign of the oft asserted theory that Republicans are doomed by demographics? Cuccinelli is apparently getting walloped in a way that no other VA candidate has been walloped. Maybe he should have run on a platform of mandating sodomy?

the less thought of the VA gov race the better i think

i thought i saw it reported somewhere that obama was briefed in 2010

anyway i don't know all the deets but i don't really have a huge problem with spying on other countries i guess, countries gonna spy, not really sure why this is an issue

but i don't really have a huge problem with spying on other countries i guess

yeah, this. the issue is they're "allies" i guess, but on that score i have to say i'm a little suspicious of merkel's motives here. or at least, i wonder what they are, not knowing much about german domestic politics.

because they got caught!

but yeah I ain't surprised and who cares

Merkel and the christian democrats just pulled off a huge win and need little help forming a government.. she can probably do whatever the fuck she wants right now

it's an issue because merkel can't be like "lol w/e" because german people have taken offense at the disrespect

what, exactly, did they get caught doing? i ask mostly rhetorically.

i have to admit to being fatigued by a lot of these espionage stories; they have a certain rhythm of greenwald/snowden making really sweeping claims followed by agency pushback followed by (maybe not) outside tech bod types saying, well, this claim is bogus but this defense is also etc etc etc

No one's ever gonna quit spying anyway. It's fun to pretend that we're mad about it, though.