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

ehhh that stat doesn't prove that elections can be bought (although they can)

it just proves that people give more money to people who are gonna win

"people"

yeah, i think the fact that most congressional elections are effectively non-contested kinda proves iatee's argument ... who's gonna give money to a sacrificial lamb?!?

me?

ever the martyr, you.

Zac that Ratigan interview is very odd, whats with the random end bit of "oh hey you're into surfing lets talk about that instead of WORLD DOOM for a bit ok yeah".

i didn't even watch the clip tbh, i was just keeping the link from the original taibbi article that the quote was from.

yeah, i think the fact that most congressional elections are effectively non-contested kinda proves iatee's argument ... who's gonna give money to a sacrificial lamb?!?

― Gay Andy Taffel (Eisbaer), Wednesday, January 4, 2012 4:50 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

whole lotta hat hanging on the word "effectively" there

most congresspeople are popular within their district so even when they're seriously contested, spending more money isn't enough. this isn't an argument that money doesn't matter, just that it buys influence more than it wins election.

s

and why are they non-contested? because the gerrymandering is done by the two corporatist parties? High rate of incumbent return is another result from the same game-fixing.

xxp

also cause most voters are happy w/ their shitty congressperson as long as they bring home a project or two and don't have a sex scandal

"happy" implies that they're actively satisfied. the truth is they don't really give a fuck.

and why are they non-contested? because the gerrymandering is done by the two corporatist parties?

short answer: no

It's complicated, but I'd say gerrymandering done by the two corporatist parties is a factor along with zoning rules, the history of residential segregation, various other political and economic issues, and more.

YES Cordray appointed

FYI

disgust with the NDAA not overwhelming enough to keep me from lol'ing at Republicans getting endrun on the Cordray appt

did he end up going with Rob or Nate

@natecordray
Nate Cordray
X Games party tonight at the Conga room
31 Jul via Twitter for Android Favorite Retweet Reply

I wanted really badly to post that as an image but am too dumb :(

Recess appointments for the NLRB too...

MITT ROMNEY IS ANGRY!

“President Obama’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is perhaps the most powerful and unaccountable bureaucracy in the history of our nation, headed by a powerful and unaccountable bureaucrat with unprecedented authority over the economy. Instead of working with Congress to fix the flaws in this new bureaucracy, the President is declaring that he ‘refuses to take no for an answer’ and circumventing Congress to appoint a new administrator. This action represents Chicago-style politics at its worst and is precisely what then-Senator Obama claimed would be ‘the wrong thing to do.’ Sadly, instead of focusing on economic growth, he is once again focusing on creating more regulation, more government, and more Washington gridlock. As President, I will focus on turning around our economy so that America can once again lead the world in job creation.”

commenters on speaker.gov demand impeachment!

no one knows what they're talking about!

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/recess-graph.png

on twitter: "Romney, if recess appointments are 'Chicago-style politics, then Reagan is Al fucking Capone."

To be fair, doing it the way Obama has is pretty unprecendented...but I'm sure he'd be willing to promise to do it again in return for an up-or-down vote on the rest of his slate...

"not to do it again"

not unprecedented

unprecedented in the sense that the Senate is not technically in recess due to ridiculous GOP antics

the resistance in the senate is totally unprecedented too

xps

^^^^^^^^^^^^

unprecedented in the sense that the Senate is not technically in recess due to ridiculous GOP antics

^^^ I had misgivings too until I remembered the reindeer games Senate GOP has played the last three weeks.

Recess appointments....

recess appointment = getting high with the choom gang

Password case reframes Fifth Amendment rights in context of digital world

i'm a little skeptical that ramona fricosu was such an advanced user of encryption that the prosecution can't break her password (did they try "password"?) but it's interesting

Another proud moment in Obamaland

In a crushing blow to the healthcare community, President Obama is expected to sign new legislation that prohibits federal funding on needle exchange programs both domestically and abroad -- a federally funded program that he himself signed into effect in 2009.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/04/needle-exchange-programs-san-francisco_n_1184420.html

click link, find out it's a poison pill in a much larger bill.

wow that fuckin sucks

then that's just fucking fine, Matt. Goddamn you all to hell.

fuck

fuck this fucking guy

I can't even from the degree of assholism necessary to oppose needle exchange programs. That is just next-level asshole

saying

like there's "oh this will affect people a few-levels-removed down the bueraucratic chain" and then there's "actual irl people will get fucked the fuck up thanks to this particular thing"

Thre's actually people in the huffpo thread saying this is a good thing, they should be left to die because its their choice to do needle drugs. I mean... I just...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/a-telling-sign-scott-brown-comes-out-in-support-of-cordray-recess-appointment/2012/01/04/gIQA8r68aP_blog.html

too bad the rest of the country isn't massachusetts

only w/r/t politics obv

I get in arguments with Dems who, clawing for reasons to defend Obama, say "politics is the art of the possible." Jay Rosen interviewed by Greenwald:

I think it’s crippling sometimes to our own sense of efficacy in politics and media, if we assume that the media has all of the power to frame the debate and decide what consensus is, and consign things to deviant status. That’s not really true. That’s true under conditions of political immobilization, leadership default, a range for normalcy, but in ordinary political life, leaders, by talking about things, make them legitimate. Parties, by pushing for things, make them part of the sphere of debate. Important and visible people can question consensus, and all of the sudden break it. These spheres are malleable; if the conversation of democracy is alive and if you make your leaders talk about things, it becomes valid to talk about them.

And I really do think there’s a self-victimization that sometimes goes on, but... there’s something else going on, which is the ability to infect us with notions of what’s realistic is one of the most potent powers press and political elites have. Whenever we make that kind of decision — “well it’s pragmatic, let’s be realistic” — what we’re really doing is we’re speculating about other Americans, our fellow citizens, and what they’re likely to accept or what works on them or what stimuli they respond to. And that way of seeing other Americans, fellow citizens, is in fact something the media has taught us; that is one of the deepest lessons we’ve learned from the media even if we are skeptics of the MSM.

And one of the things I see on the left that really bothers me is the ease with which people skeptical of the media will talk about what the masses believe and how the masses will be led and moved in this way that shows me that the mass media tutors them on how to see their fellow citizens. And here the ‘Net again has at least some potential - because we don’t have to guess what those other Americans think. We can encounter them ourselves, and thereby reshape our sense of what they think. I think every time people make that judgment about what’s realistic, what they’re really doing is they’re imagining what the rest of the country would accept, and how other people think, and they get those ideas from the media.

http://ggdrafts.blogspot.com/2012/01/jay-rosen-on-political-possibility.html

click link, find out it's a poison pill in a much larger bill.

I've seen far worse rhymes.

too bad the rest of the country isn't massachusetts

thank god it isn't. brown's just triangulating his position b/c of warren, who came out crowing about the wonderfulness of the appointment that she really deserved. i've said it befor and i'll say it again, scott brown is a really nice dude but he is just so fundamentally ... opportunistic that it makes me question everything about his careeer.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/january_february_2012/features/what_if_he_loses034501.php

I'm glad Obama's been doing so much about climate warming but then again I'm a radical socialist leftist like him!

Just to play devil’s advocate, some environmentalists argue that coal plants will only make those investments if we make it more expensive not to, to keep burning coal in a way that hurts the environment.
That’s probably a true statement. Again, I’m not an expert. But dirty coal, high sulfur content I believe what they claim that is, sometimes that’s the only stuff we have available. I don’t know. I really shouldn’t answer a question I’m not familiar with. Can the government really make that coal more expensive? Isn’t it just supply and demand? They can say, “You can’t burn it because you don’t have the controls and it’s going to take millions and millions to get that equipment.” And then they make the decision, we’ll do it or we’ll shut it down, and they’re tending to shut it down.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/content/images/2006/10/19/dmu_head_in_hands_315x420.jpg

Someone ask these idiots how much coal they put in their car.

alright, i'll stop with this one, but i have to quote this in full:

David is a 61-year-old coal miner living in Virginia.

Ezra Klein: Who are you supporting in the election?
David: Romney.
EK: Why?
D: Cause Obama is against everything. Particularly coal miners. And he’s done nothing.
EK: When you say he’s against coal miners, what are you referring to, specifically?
D: He’s shut the coal mines down. That’s why I’m not working.
EK: When did your mine shut down?
D: Been off work four months.
EK: Why did they say it shut down?
D: No market for it. Because of the electric power plants. Obama’s shutting them down, Because of the EPA.
EK: Do you think the mine will reopen if Romney is elected?
D: Yes.
EK: Why?
D: He supports coal miners.
EK: What are your other voting issues?
D: Obamacare isn’t any good. He shoved it down the American people’s throats. They didn’t even know what they voted on. 2,500 pages or more. They didn’t even read it. That’s what the Democrats do. They’re just no good.
EK: What would you like to see Romney do on health care?
D: Repeal Obamacare.
EK: Do you want him to put anything in its place?
D: Yes, like it was before. The United States had the best health care in the world. They didn’t have to mess with it. It’s gone up double since Obama.
EK: Which candidate do you prefer on Medicare?
D: Romney.
EK: Why?
D: Because of his plan.
EK: What do you like about it?
D: Folks my age don’t have to worry about Social Security. But before me they can put it into stock. It’s their decision. Obama is taking billions of dollars out of Medicare for Obamacare.
EK: So you’d like to see private accounts in Social Security?
D: That’ll be good.
EK: What do you think about Afghanistan. Do you think we should leave in 2014, as Obama has said? Or sooner? Or stay longer?
D: We should stay longer.

sorry, but lol @ stupid

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/08/30/040830crat_atlarge?currentPage=all

The Perlstein article reads a lot like he has never ever heard of spam before in his life. I see a lot of those '23-Cent Heart Miracle' ads on a lot of sites - isohunt for example - they don't really signify "you'll buy anything" as much as "we have no idea what to sell to you, or what to sell you as". If it's an indictment, it's of the fact that there's no coherent audience on these sites - my favourite ads on the conservative sites that I've started to click on (thanks to ILX) are the ones where the ad-provider has gone "fuck it, throw them a World of Warcraft ad".

But then there's this...

Maggie Neale is a 69-year-old retiree living in Central Virginia. She’s a registered Republican who voted for John McCain in 2008 but plans to vote for President Obama this time around. We talked by phone.

Q: Who are you planning to vote for in this election?
A: Well, my husband would roll over in the grave if he heard this… actually he’s up on the shelf so maybe he’d explode [laughs softly]. But I’m going to vote for Mr. Obama.

Q: And did you vote for him last time around?
A:No, I voted for McCain in 2008. I’m a registered Republican. I did vote for Carter way back when, but I’ve pretty much voted for Republicans ever since. If I had been a year older, I would’ve voted for Mr. Kennedy when he was running.

Q: So what changed your mind this time?
A: I liked the man running against Obama in ’08, and I don’t like the man who’s running against him now. And I don’t think Obama’s done that bad a job. People will point to the economy being bad, but the problems have been worldwide. We haven’t slipped any, and we’ve come up since.

Q: Do you have criticisms of Obama?
A: He could have been stronger on a few issues. Maybe on the debt.

Q: And what don’t you like about Romney?
A: His feelings on a lot of issues dealing with women, his attitude toward women. I think he’s for the upper class. I know if Obama wins, my taxes will go up because I live on stock income, since my husband was a farmer, but… I don’t know if I’m going old or what, but I’m more socially-minded than I used to be.

Q: Were social issues a big factor for you in the last election?
A: No. Last time, it was Afghanistan and things like that. And the economy. But Obama has inherited this mess, this banker’s mess.

Q: And what’s your take on Afghanistan?
A: We never should’ve gone over to start with. We’re making ourselves broke with all these wars. And a lot of it’s about oil and all that. We need to concentrate on using less oil at home and being energy conscious. And that would probably better under Obama, especially with conservation and the fuel economy standards. I do think we need to be more conscious of everything we do environmentally. Romney would get rid of a lot of environmental rules on companies, but I don’t think that’s the right way to go.

Q: Has Obama’s health care law been a big issue for you?
A: I don’t think the health care bill was the best it could have been, but the country needed something and a step in the right direction. And I think repealing it would be awful for the poor and those on the edge.

Q: Have you been saturated with ads out in Virginia? Anything that stands out for you?
A: I really don’t pay much attention to TV. I read. My most contact has been through the phone. I’m out here in central Virginia, rural Virginia. I bet the Republican National Committee has called me 10 times for every call Obama has made. It’s gotten to the point where I just hang up when I see the initials RNC.

Q: Anything else that strikes you about this election?
A: I don’t know that I have ever completely voted my conscience before, but the Republican Party has gone way way too far to the right. I know a lot of middle-class people will vote for them because they think it will make economy better, but I think we’re doing the best we can right now.

WKIW this lady I think.

yes

Supposedly it's a really minor fracture and he'll be back in a week

The Perlstein article reads a lot like he has never ever heard of spam before in his life. I see a lot of those '23-Cent Heart Miracle' ads on a lot of sites - isohunt for example - they don't really signify "you'll buy anything" as much as "we have no idea what to sell to you, or what to sell you as". If it's an indictment, it's of the fact that there's no coherent audience on these sites - my favourite ads on the conservative sites that I've started to click on (thanks to ILX) are the ones where the ad-provider has gone "fuck it, throw them a World of Warcraft ad".

What you're missing is the endorsement aspect. Republican newsletters and personalities directly endorse and advocate for snake oil. It's not sold ad space.

totally xxp

ugh zing failure again sorry, gotta work on that

meet the new boehner, same as the old boehner

Surprise surprise

Whoa, Boehner might be willing to be reasonable on the budget!!

The House speaker, John A. Boehner of Ohio, striking a conciliatory tone a day after the Republican Party’s electoral drubbing, said on Wednesday that he was ready to accept a budget deal that raises federal revenue as long as it is linked to an overhaul of entitlements and a reform of the tax code that closes loopholes, curtails or eliminates deductions and lowers income tax rates.

hold the phone, was that a typo...?

The House speaker, John A. Boehner of Ohio, striking a conciliatory tone a day after the Republican Party’s electoral drubbing, said on Wednesday that he was ready to accept a budget deal that raises federal revenue as long as it is linked to an overhaul of entitlements and a reform of the tax code that closes loopholes, curtails or eliminates deductions and lowers income tax rates.

but how would that even

Mr. Boehner made it clear that his vision for additional revenue includes a tax code that lowers even the top income tax rate from where it is now, 35 percent, not where it would be in January when the Bush-era tax cuts are set to expire — 39.6 percent. At least some of that additional revenue would come from economic growth that he said would be fueled by a simpler tax code.

FUCK YOU JOHN BOEHNER

yeah he was being extra sneaky today, fuck him forever

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i0aKPIse1bbtAHD3LIdkpTfHfw7g?docId=c116e763ff084c0289aa2bd1b519032d

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The California man behind an anti-Muslim film that roiled the Middle East was sentenced Wednesday to a year in prison for violating his probation stemming from a 2010 bank fraud conviction by lying about his identity.

U.S. District Court Judge Christina Snyder immediately sentenced Mark Basseley Youssef after he admitted to four of the eight alleged violations, including obtaining a fraudulent California driver's license. Prosecutors agreed to drop the other four allegations under an agreement with Youssef's attorneys, which also included more probation.

American Politics Thread 2013: Bangs, Whimpers and Filibusters