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

Dammit Al I KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO SAY THAT.

Also, I tried last night but was rebuffed.

i knew you were going to gay that

Also, I tried last night but was rebuffed.

― Multiple Miggs (dandydonweiner),

can't put an asshole into an asshole -- it's geometry

(sorry, couldn't resist)

lolz make it stop

that's what she said, right?

i knew you would say that too

she said, "NO."

ew take it to the dating problems thread

aka the gay thread

at least she didn't say, "NEVER"

srsly

otoh he knew Vietnam wd be a disaster and went ahead, so fuck him

JFK almost certainly would've done this too.

so are we all honorable assholes

yes, all modern presidents are assholes

does FDR count as a modern prez?

do you guys really think labeling someone an asshole or not is at all a meaningful or insight provoking exercise

im not sure what that standard has to do w/ thread

uhg sooo predictable

i mean i just posted the photo of the one fucking murderous asshole giving the Medal of Freddom to the other fucking murderous asshole bcz it was "funny"

OK let's call LBJ a jerk, which he was. And a bully, and mean. I don't think Obama is really any of those, at least not as a part of his personality.

yes, he is a well-mannered Cheneyite.

out of those descriptions bully is maybe the only one that could ever help you understand anything

An asshole is someone who uses the tactics of a bully to get whatever it is they want.

cool random definition of asshole

You could always chime in your definition if you don't agree.

there is so satisfying definition of asshole in this context, asshole is just used to assert a basic badness about whatever politician so you can all high five each other re how well you have stood in moral judgement of them and then move on to even deeper conversations about like maybe you need to be an asshole to get stuff done

Nothing would ever get done on ILX without assholes.

civil rights act, voting rights act, medicare, medicaid, fair housing act -- ugh, what an asshole

It's not the journey, it's the destination!

yes we need more of his domestic assholism

http://img1.etsystatic.com/019/0/6100528/il_570xN.489185045_m5vh.jpg

all those white southern populists, where did they go...

luv lbj but it's impossible to be anything except conflicted about his temperament, because his foreign policy is the evil shadow of his domestic policy, like, when he says (about the eradication of poverty) "i'm sick of hearing we can't do things. hell, we're the richest, most powerful country in the history of the world. we can do it all" isn't that the same reason he thinks we can quickly wrap up a distant war against nationalist guerillas to preserve the self-determinative rights of a fictional state

so the asshole qualities (ruthlessness, stubbornness, near-pathological dishonesty) i love for their effectiveness in causes that deeply mattered and he loved for serving him well during his obsessive rise from nothing are the same ones that, almost the instant they're exposed to the wider world, turn him into a mass murderer and prevent him from becoming the reincarnated FDR, leaving him on the empty ranch to grow his hair out; it is a pretty flawless tragedy imo

now u could say that any american emperor in the world of the cold war and nsc-68 would have had all the same delusions about the possibility/necessity of victory in vietnam, plus have been under all the same institutional pressure, but even tho i'm as allergic to subjunctive jfk worship as anyone (except when delivered by donald sutherland obv) the excomm transcripts do make me believe that jfk does not think about the wider world and america's ability the way lbj does -- he's had so much time to swan about and read. johnson just scrabbles and scrabbles with his eyes fixed down and ahead until everyone who was in his way is gone (heh) and he finally has the only thing he ever wanted, and then it's over the cliff like gollum

but idk maybe Great Men have nothing to do with it maybe we were all gollum and the ring was the pax americana or something, it wasn't peace it was a desert, whatever

my favorite lbj lie is "all i have i would have gladly given not to be standing here today"

and it's the one LBJ line cited in Walt Disney World's "Hall of Presidents"!

JohnCornyn ‏@JohnCornyn 19m
Amazing what WH will do to distract attention from O-care

next hell get the economy going or something, shameless

invading iran would've gotten the economy going

damn so close

there's still time

true you can do war w iran p much whenever you want

http://i.imgur.com/nJ62VIZ.png

No retweet?

from a quick read it's not a terrible deal imho - if bibi is smart he won't protest it

oh hes smart, for instance look at this cool thing he drew

http://www.globalpost.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/gp3_small_article/bibi_bomb_graphic.jpg

bibi thinks it is smart to protest everything at all times

i guess that's what it hinges on - whether he sees the 'halting' in the deal as being sufficient to keeping iran from breakout nuke capacity. i don't have the expertise to parse all the details but they seem pretty comprehensive to me?

According to the agreement, Iran would agree to stop enriching uranium beyond 5 percent. To make good on that pledge, Iran would dismantle links between networks of centrifuges.

All of Iran’s stockpile of uranium that has been enriched to 20 percent, a short hop to weapons-grade fuel, would be diluted or converted into oxide so that it could not be readily used for military purposes.

No new centrifuges, neither old models nor newer more efficient ones, could be installed. Centrifuges that have been installed but which are not currently operating could not be started up.

The agreement, however, would not require Iran to stop enriching uranium to a level of 3.5 percent or dismantle any of its existing centrifuges.

as i understand it the breakout capacity comes from the quantity of 20% enriched -- and if this deal was executed faithfully that would eliminate that concern? (obv faithfulness not guaranteed)