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

I should change that to private security firms operating within the borders of the USA. Because, you know, xe or whatever they are now.

oops. yup.

http://www.gamergirlsunite.com/reviews/pcreviews/finalfantasyXI/FFXI_ship.jpg

I assumed for this whole discussion "drone" meant a plane w/ missiles on it. Why else would you have one?

snacks

Why else would you have one?

surveillance. helping nancy grace catch child murderers? I dunno.

Nancy Grace's drones would zip around the country, slut-shaming left and right

I got a drone RIGHT HERE for you guys.

traffic, news, weather, science, injuring smaller numbers of people at air shows...

I was hoping u were going for "Fugue for Tinhorns" xp

In other news:

A federal appeals panel in San Francisco ruled Tuesday that California’s ban on same-sex marriage violates the constitutional right to equal protection. The panel overturned Proposition 8, which was approved by 52 percent of the state’s voters in 2008 and amended the state’s constitution to limit marriage to a man and a woman.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/calif-same-sex-marriage-ban-ruled-unconstitutional/2012/02/07/gIQAMNwkwQ_story.html

Obama is not yet using drones in his war on Catholic hospitals(below is the right-wing spin) but he might:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-poor-pay-the-price-for-obamas-political-calculation/2012/02/06/gIQAU7W5uQ_story.html?hpid=z7

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/komen-catholics-and-the-cost-of-conscience/2012/02/03/gIQAqSGYnQ_story.html

Pasrkker is such a hack. I'd rather get rick-rolled.

Gerson and Parker. Apparently anti-choice and anti-contraception views and policies are constitutional, the reverse are not. Parker wanting people to cry the blues for the now-departed Komen official is comical.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_02/catholics_the_contraception_ma035251.php

Mark Shields, also Catholic, opined on the PBS NewsHour: “The fallout is cataclysmic for the White House and for the president.”

But:
Glad to see that public polling has been showing support for the decision.

cataclysmic oh please

Cokie Roberts was moaning on NPR too

about how bad this was for Obama. Hopefully the poll results will stay the same even if these inside the beltway folks are not happy

this is a blip in the newscycle, will be forgotten next week

Moanie was coking

Shields and Roberts, the two freshest thinkers in the punditocracy

Whitehouse all blowed up, President Obama hair and jacket singed, holding a smoking IUD.

blip in the newscycle, will be forgotten next week

Catholics who regularly attend mass may not be allowed to forget about this, depending on how incensed the bishop is over it. bcz catholics make up a chunk of the trad dem coalition, esp in the industrial eastern states like Pennsylvania, this may be more than a blip - although "cataclysmic" is not quite right, either.

this is a blip in the newscycle, will be forgotten next week

― max buzzword (Shakey Mo Collier

Romney, Gingrich, Santorum et. al. are trying to keep this Obama hates Christians and religious freedom meme alive too.

Religious freedom in USA: "Ground Zero Mosque" vs health provider "conscientious objectors" to rubbers

Polls show that as many as 98 percent of Catholic women in the United States have used birth control, despite the church's teachings.

We all knew Obama hated xians way before this. There's probably about 2 dozen chain emails going around with all sorts of facts. This will be a blip. I don't worry about long memories in USA, beyond obsessive haters.

it kinda depends on which states the mad catholics are in

Romney, Gingrich, Santorum et. al. are trying to keep this Obama hates Christians and religious freedom meme alive too.

they have caucus/primary votes coming up, after which there will be at least one less of them

and yeah very few people in this country are actually anti-birth control

And the people who are for real anti birth control, how many of them vote Democratic? That's a pretty hard-core social conservative to be on the other side in this age of extreme polarization.

Top Democrats are openly calling into doubt the chances that Congressional negotiators will reach an agreement to renew the payroll tax cut for the rest of the year—before it expires at the end of the month.

from TPM

I see that Digby and others are already worrying for me about how Dems may screw this up in order to reach a deal---

in a better world, Dems would realize they have the GOP over a barrel public opinion-wise, and just refuse to accept any GOP quid-pro-quo demands, let the GOP vote down the extension, and then rake them over the coals in the fall

the Dems are not known for political wiles though

that's putting it mildly

Yeah, they would be so blindsided by the "The Democrats just raised your taxes with 8% unemployment!" ads, they'd never be able to react. Because you know that's exactly what the GOP would have at the ready when the extension failed.

except that in this case it's the GOP that would be raising taxes...? as they would be explicitly voting against a tax break?

But they would blame it on the failures of Harry Reid and Obama to "work together" and "overecome partisanship" to accomplish an extension.. They're famous for that kind of crap.

that's so transparently false tho. Dems would just say "we voted for the tax break. The GOP voted against it. end of story"

hypothetically

Hypothetically Americans aren't morons swayed by the words of fucking Mitch McConnell but... welp.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-advisors-seek-compromise-on-contraception-rule/2012/02/06/gIQAlUwrwQ_story.html?hpid=z2

Stay strong White House, do not cave, please.

taking bets?

http://m.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/02/everybody-loves-drones

nice, america

*sigh*

The poll shows that 53 percent of self-identified liberal Democrats — and 67 percent of moderate or conservative Democrats — support keeping Guantanamo Bay open, even though it emerged as a symbol of the post-Sept. 11 national security policies of George W. Bush, which many liberals bitterly opposed.

Boehner comes out against boner blocking ...uh... I give up

looooooooove me, love me, love me.... xp

To expand on Shakey's point:

The Democratic Party owes a sincere apology to George Bush, Dick Cheney and company for enthusiastically embracing many of the very Terrorism policies which caused them to hurl such vehement invective at the GOP for all those years. And progressives who support the views of the majority as expressed by this poll should never be listened to again the next time they want to pretend to oppose civilian slaughter and civil liberties assaults when perpetrated by the next Republican President (it should be noted that roughly 35% of liberals, a non-trivial amount, say they oppose these Obama policies).

One final point: I’ve often made the case that one of the most consequential aspects of the Obama legacy is that he has transformed what was once known as “right-wing shredding of the Constitution” into bipartisan consensus, and this is exactly what I mean. When one of the two major parties supports a certain policy and the other party pretends to oppose it — as happened with these radical War on Terror policies during the Bush years — then public opinion is divisive on the question, sharply split. But once the policy becomes the hallmark of both political parties, then public opinion becomes robust in support of it.

that post is sort of hystrionic (quel surprise) but his point is valid

er Greenwald's post that is

american liberals 'not actually very left-wing' is not some shocka, it's why we are where we are