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

Krugman and others who seem to know more about the economy agree that we have made economic progress, but we could have made more. On the economy as with civil liberties, Obama made promises in 2008 that he has not kept. With a different economic team without Geithner we could have made more progress. Obama has gone after whistleblowers but not Wall Street.

Obama's refusal to release the legal argument for killing Americans abroad, and for putting them on secret lists, may make the CIA and the Pentagon happy but it is not consistent with his 2008 campaign or American ideals. But I'm still a hold your nose and vote for the least objectionable candidate who will win.

carter's term in office offers a useful demonstration of what happens to a president who isn't supported by his party.

and more than just a lack of faith in Obama, i have no more faith in the Democratic Party. i can no longer tolerate the gabbnebized mess that that sorry pack of clowns has become.

and yes, the economy has been slowly improving ... i'll even concede we've gone about it better than the Europeans (b/c at least early on during the crisis we didn't kick Keynesianism to the curb). i am also convinced that until the "money=law" problem that the OWS has been on about these past few months is satisfactorily resolved that we'll be right back in the same jam at some point.

have a grand theory obama's miseries w/r/t war, surveillance and the law are all based on domestic political fears, but i have no real proof, just a feeling. like, cheney pulled all this shit because he was legit interested in eternal global dominance. obama is paranoid about anything going wrong on his watch

Agree 100%, and expressed very similar sentiments on some thread about a year, year-and-a-half ago. Obama is afraid to call attention to himself by majorly reversing course on anything because he's a) a Democrat, b) an egghead, and c) black. The political strategy has been completely wasted in terms of Republicans, who go ahead and obstruct legislation and caricature him as an appeaser and such regardless. It may make a difference in terms of voters in the middle; I think many of them will see the bizarre disconnect between what Republicans say about Obama in terms of foreign policy and what he actually does.

That's all politcal, of course. The morality of what he's been doing is another issue, and I understand the anger.

Also agree with most all of DJP's long post, but simply stopped trying to say any of that stuff in politcal threads because it wasn't worth being ridiculed for.

well if DJP's argument is unknowable then neither is yours...

OK I give up, what's my argument?

I believe Carter was "anti-abortion" in the same way as Mario Cuomo was -- personally thinks it's morally untenable but didn't do anything to restrict it.

Carter jacked up military spending after Ford lowered it, and his UN ambassador Andrew Young didn't even vote for tough sanctions against South Africa. "Human rights" my ass.

srsly I'm not sure what "unknowable" thing yer talkin' about in my argument

Your argument is that Obama always intended to keep up with indefinite detention and that he lied about it so he could lefties to vote for him, which is a conclusion based on these facts:

- Obama said he was against indefinite detention on the campaign trail
- after getting into office his position changed

You can definitively say "Obama went back on his word." You can definitively say "Obama did not follow through on his campaign promise." You cannot say "Obama lied to us" because that is assigning intent to the facts.

(Just as goole is assigning intent to the facts re: his conspiracy, only goole acknowledged that he was assigning intent.)

there's no point in speculating about any politician's private motives. i would guess that obama probably feels a little more guilty about doing it than bush did, but it doesn't change the fact that both of them carried out essentially the same policy.

Obama's SEC as discussed in today's NY Times:

Even as the Securities and Exchange Commission has stepped up its investigations of Wall Street, the agency has repeatedly allowed the biggest firms to avoid punishments.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/business/sec-is-avoiding-tough-sanctions-for-large-banks.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2

i would guess that obama probably feels a little more guilty about doing it than bush did

heh see i wouldn't even go this far in the speculation!

for all his blindness the story that has emerged (i mean, who knows anything ultimately) was that bush was personally quite shocked, if only by the surprise, by stuff like abu ghraib. obama has some kind of sense of himself as making tough lincolnoid decisions that will appear judicious to history.

that's the kind of times-speak that pays for yves smith's traffic...

I don't care a fig why Obama decided to be Bush Plus on detention OR what his motives are. (When a modern US president does something morally right, it's always pure coincidence.)

yeah, thinking we know much at all about these cats from reading about em is wishful, at least til the postmortems come out. (Or tapes. Hours and hours of tapes.)

thanks for the link, curmudgeon -- i mean, really, i don't even see how investigating (let alone prosecuting) wrongdoing such as that surrounding the financial crisis is even an ideological question. i suspect the reasons are twofold: (a) Obama and the Democrats don't want to cut down the Wall Street money tree; and (b) ambitious SEC personnel who don't want to rock the boat b/c of consideration (a) and b/c they have plans to work for Wall Street (or the BigLaw firms that defend them).

Federal judges in New York and Wisconsin recently criticized the S.E.C. for its habit of settling cases by allowing companies to promise not to violate the law in the future.

This shit is some bad bad shit. It's time to clean house at the SEC.

regulatory capture :(

follow the money = the only effort i expend in trying to suss out politicians' motives. all the rest is pointless mental wank.

also, regulatory capture points to institutional rot much deeper than a single election can cure.

mic check

taking a personal day on May 1 for sure

you think there would be, if not money, serious political capital in being an anti-finance elliot ness figure. elizabeth warren's donation bucket says as much.

she seems unlikely to be interested in whores also.

there's never going to be enough money in being anti-finance as there will be in being pro-finance alas.

When Obama wanted to do that "Grand bargain" (cutting entitlements and such in exchange for some token tax increases) the argument was that he wanted to look like the "reasonable adult". Too often on many items it seems he believes that a centrist approach is the only "reasonable adult" option. Ok SEC we will just settle with these firms...

the SEC and other regulatory agencies pay a decent salary and have good benefits (well, until the GOP starts screaming about overpaid federal bureaucrats and Obama dutifully signs onto the cause the way he did with "entitlement reform"). but no, not as much as a hedge fund or a white-shoe law firm will -- nor should they (the taxpayers won't stand for it).

(When a modern US president does something morally right, it's always pure coincidence.)

Really? This is where your position starts to look less and less principled than lazy. What did Bush get for expanding AIDS treatment in Africa?

continued fealty from the religious right, for starters.

kinda wish we had message boards in 1937...

I think any president elected in the wake of the 2nd biggest economic meltdown in US history (and one with international ramifications every bit as large as the GD) is going to put the economy first, quite naturally. That Obama has done this is not suprising but that he's done it and passed healthcare reform is quite ambitious.

The real institutional capture is that nobody wants to mess w/finance when everybody's doing well and no-one dares mess w/them when times aren't doing so well. I just don't see OWS having the same intensity and breadth if unemployment were under 6%.

there's never going to be enough money in being anti-finance as there will be in being pro-finance alas.

The Rudy Guiliani Story!

What did Bush get for expanding AIDS treatment in Africa?

good press, future markets.

not to be a pedant, but i don't want to let "anti-finance" slip unnoticed: it's not about being anti-finance, it's about being anti-FRAUD (esp when the cost of such fraud ends up on the taxpayers' shoulders).

I think any president elected in the wake of the 2nd biggest economic meltdown in US history (and one with international ramifications every bit as large as the GD) is going to put the economy first, quite naturally. That Obama has done this is not suprising but that he's done it and passed healthcare reform is quite ambitious.

my biggest beef w/ obama is in him not putting the economy first *enough*

i kind of agree with parts of, or the spirit of, the post this is from, but idk whatthe heck this means:

- I don't think putting centrist judges who lean left on the Supreme Court is a bad thing; in fact, I think it is a very good thing.

other major beef was the "usefulness of indef. detention" post but JD already called you out on that one

(don't mean to seem like i'm picking on you but you had the longest posts so this is your prize)

http://i41.tinypic.com/icjnk7.jpg

there are a few nuggets in this image, if you really dig

oh ew

is that rush limbaugh??

yeah, the krafts were at his wedding

http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/02/soaking-poor-state-state

Surprise surprise, state taxes are not very progressive

it looks like Limbaugh is "digging for treasure" (so to speak) in that pic.

excerpt from latest moveon.org petition:

President Obama, I oppose your appointment of Michael Taylor, a former VP and lobbyist for Monsanto, the widely criticized genetically modified (GM) food multinational, as senior advisor to the commissioner at the FDA. Taylor is the same person who as a high ranking official at the FDA in the 1990s promoted allowing genetically modified organisms into the U.S. food supply without undergoing a single test to determine their safety or risks. This is a travesty.
Taylor was in charge of policy for Monsanto's now-discredited GM bovine growth hormone (rBGH), which is opposed by many medical and hospital organizations. It was Michael Taylor who pursued a policy that milk from rBGH-treated cows should not be labeled with disclosures. Michael Taylor and Monsanto do not belong in our government.
President Obama, Monsanto has been seen as a foe to family-based agriculture, the backbone of America, by introducing dangerous changes to plants and animals and by using strong-arm legal tactics against farmers for decades. Naturally occurring plant and animal species are permanently threatened by the introduction of DNA and hormonal modification, Monsanto's core businesses.

Report: US drones target rescuers, funeral attendees

A three month investigation including eye witness reports has found evidence that at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims. More than 20 civilians have also been attacked in deliberate strikes on funerals and mourners. The tactics have been condemned by leading legal experts.

Although the drone attacks were started under the Bush administration in 2004, they have been stepped up enormously under Obama.

There have been 260 attacks by unmanned Predators or Reapers in Pakistan by Obama’s administration – averaging one every four days.

http://www.salon.com/2012/02/05/u_s_drones_targeting_rescuers_and_mourners/singleton/

ANONYMOUS "senior American counterterrorism official" tells NYT: "One must wonder why an effort that has so carefully gone after terrorists who plot to kill civilians has been subjected to so much misinformation. Let’s be under no illusions — there are a number of elements who would like nothing more than to malign these efforts and help Al Qaeda succeed."

http://www.salon.com/2012/02/06/top_official_drone_critics_are_al_qaeda_enablers/singleton/

Getting a full picture of the drone campaign is difficult. It is classified as top secret, and Obama administration officials have refused to make public even the much-disputed legal opinions underpinning it. --from the NY Times

"it is difficult, are we supposed to ask somebody else?"

I wonder if the ACLU lawsuit re the legal memos will get anywhere? I doubt it.

don't hold your breath. Justice Department will probably make some appeal to top-secret details that nobody else can look at and the judges will go "welp, can't argue with that, you'll just have to take my word for it"

also if the president says it's legal, it is - B.Milhous Obama

http://debbiespenditnow.com/#anchor3

the Debbie Spend it Now ad/website/campaign is pretty awful, but i do have to express some admiration for the cool little animated shit that flies around in the background of the website, behind the text

is there anything in this besides momentary embarrassment? not sure what to think, potential GOP attack ad fodder but what else??

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/us/politics/major-obama-donors-are-tied-to-pepe-cardona-mexican-fugitive.html?hp

just momentary embarrassment.

How about the Republican's latest negotiation tool re extending the payroll taxes again. More extraneous demands:

At the behest of the manufacturing lobby, for example, Republican negotiators still want to delay an environmental regulation that would require industrial boilers and incinerators to release less mercury, lead and soot. What does that have to do with the payroll tax cut? Nothing, of course; Republicans are simply trying to get Democrats to pay a price for something they want.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/opinion/the-payroll-tax-fight.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha211

If this glowing piece from Sunday's Washington Post Business section is credible, Gene Sperling is the White House's liberal economic guy--trying to push Geithner slightly leftward and advocating to Obama for job-creation ideas

When Obama tapped him as Treasury secretary, Geithner asked Sperling to join as a no-title adviser. “The great thing about him was he was willing to come help do anything,” Geithner said. Sperling asked to be Treasury’s top adviser on fiscal policy. But he also encouraged Geithner — who was focused on stabilizing the financial system and faced critics who accused him of being too sympathetic to Wall Street — to pay more attention to populist ideas such as curbing executive pay.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/gene-b-sperling-obamas-jobs-creator/2012/01/17/gIQAJ8KXqQ_story.html

so glad Congress is authorizing drones to be flown in the US ugh way to go you stupid assholes

gotta get em ready for use on the Occupy Conventions

would it be hilar if people figured out how to shoot them down?