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

Making people out of money. It's part of John Roberts' magic.

grab popcorn, and settle in for the next three years.

And they hired professors to make the impeachment arguments for them...and still nothing really there

well he is . . . quite tan

House of Reps now the fundraising arm for Heritage Action and RNC.

http://www.fair.org/blog/2013/11/22/politicos-pay-to-play/

Politico getting called out for its pay to play relationship with advertisers. Just a coincidence they say

a dating service, only between legislators and special interests

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-alec-stands-its-ground/2013/12/04/ad593320-5d2c-11e3-bc56-c6ca94801fac_story.html

everyone is a special interest

I know I'm pretty special.

there u go

(strikes a big-cheeked smile that shows no teeth whatsoever)

Some things never change--Centrist Dems (although maybe left being aggressive is a slight change):

In a sign of the left’s new aggressiveness, a coalition of liberals is trying to marginalize a centrist Democratic policy group that was responsible for a Wall Street Journal op-ed article this week that said economic populism was “disastrous” for the party.

The coalition, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and three other liberal advocacy organizations have urged their members to contact a group of congressional Democrats who are honorary leaders of the centrist group, Third Way. It published the op-ed article on Monday contending that the liberalism of Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio of New York City and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts would lead Democrats “over the populist cliff.”

The article — written by Jon Cowan, president of Third Way, and Jim Kessler, its senior vice president for policy — criticizes progressives like Ms. Warren and Mr. de Blasio for opposing measures to cut costs to Social Security and Medicare

from the NY Times

Centrists must be proud about this-- it looks like Senator Patty Murray might be willing to throw fed govt civilian employees under the bus, since Paul Ryan wants to protect corporations and rich folks--

"Mr. Ryan is pressing hard for an increase in the contributions that federal workers pay for their pensions — by as much as $120 billion over 10 years. "

p funny after that oped warren sent a letter to all the big banks asking them to disclose their think tank donations w/o mentioning third way

ffs RINO was dumb enough, do we really need to start introducing DINO into the conversation

p sure everyone is jk abt that

http://clsbluesky.law.columbia.edu/2013/11/15/why-have-no-high-level-executives-been-prosecuted-in-connection-with-the-financial-crisis/

do we really need to start introducing DINO into the conversation

no bcz Schumer is what the fucking Democrats ARE

Thad Cochran is going to run for reelection. I didn't really think he'd have the stomach for this fight.

Ah yes, the battle in Mississippi to show who can go farthest to the right. I guess he didn't want to give in to some young tea party punk

no bcz Schumer is what the fucking Democrats ARE

― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Friday, December 6, 2013 12:01 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Why don't liberals have their own tea party? http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2013/12/liberals-democraticteapartypolitics.html

ffs RINO was dumb enough, do we really need to start introducing DINO into the conversation

RINO and DINO sound like the beginnings of a great dinosaur-monster movie. or the names of pets in an updated version of the flintstones. or something.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/12/warren-and-centrist-democrats-are-already-at-war.html

at war!

take cover

midterm batshitness already has a high bar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rzKp6gYpSU

finally I understand the dangers of Obamacare

couldnt even get herzog smh

is it supposed to illustrate the truth that hardworking white american christians don't need a social safety net?

I think it's supposed to illustrate the truth that truckdrivers love Enya

Obama WH Doesn’t Want Journalists, It Wants Fawning ‘State Media’ Like MSNBC

I can't think of an administration in my lifetime that didn't really want a fawning state media

I think the point of his column was that Obama ran on transparency.

FYI, picked that up off of Glenn Greenwald's twitter jizzstream.

Oh I didn't read the column, I was just reacting to the title posted here

shout out to scahill

good piece re warren and the shifting democratic party http://www.salon.com/2013/12/09/economic_populism_isnt_just_about_elizabeth_warren

more context:

im Kessler, senior vice president for policy and a co-founder of Third Way, said Friday morning that Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D-Mass.) backing of a plan to expand Social Security compelled him and the president of the group to hit back with a Wall Street Journal op-ed lambasting the plan and economic populism.

"The impetus was really -- we saw after the most recently, this push that okay, it's time to really move the national Democratic Party to a much more liberal agenda, in this case, Senator Warren was the standard bearer -- she's on the cover of a lot of magazines," he said in an interview on Sirius XM with Ari Rabin-Havt. "We were a bit alarmed by that."

He added that Warren was an excellent senator from Massachusetts but questioned whether she could be good for the party nationally.

"That Social Security plan was the final moment for us," he said. "That Social Security plan had been out there but really languishing -- because Senator Warren has such a powerful compelling voice, she started talking about it, and it suddenly it became much more talked about and viable alternative."

He rejected the idea that the Monday op-ed was a way to take Warren "down a peg."

"She is a very compelling elected official and national figure," he said. "Her involvement in that particular bill, we just looked at it and said 'okay, this seems to be starting to get out of hand.'"

weve spent a long time convincing politicians to support this nonsensical bullshit and now this lady ffs

the funny thing is for all their years of work i dont think ss reform really ever had any chance, its so wildly unpopular, recall what happened when bush took a crack at it

Looks like they're gonna settle for now on voting for a package that cuts federal workers pensions, raises fees on airlines, doesn't touch tax loopholes, and a bottomline budget package amount lower than Paul Ryan once proposed, and maybe not extend jobless benefits/unemployment insurance. No chained cpi SS cut.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/12/08/durbin-jobless-benefits-not-a-budget-deal-breaker/

And they'll still have a raising the debt limit vote drama in February.

So Obama and Castro shook hands? Tsk tsk, taking advantage of Fidel's senescence.

raul

oh well, at least he might live to see HavanaDisney.

no, wait, not enough space -- DisneyGuantanamo!

Where do you come up with this stuff

Detention Land

this stuff only has to meet the ILX criterion of "shit flung against the wall," try n meet it sometime wawa

Political stagnation is so bad now in the usa that even the ilx us politics threads are stagnant.

dont be a zing lawyer morbs

The only proposed SS "reform" I am interested in seeing is removing the income limit on SS tax.