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

"reasonable adult" moderate.....grrrrrrr

Will DJP or Tim3llison or someone defend the Bahrain thing, or explain it to naive me? Does Obama really believe this military aid is a "carrot" that will get Bahrain to shape up, or that this aid is somehow necessary to counteract Iran or help the US maintain a presence in that part of the world?

why is it incumbent upon me to defend the Bahrain thing

fuck off

black people are the most responsible for obama's decisions iirc

I didn't realize that saying Obama is the candidate most in line with my political beliefs with the best chance of winning automatically means I approve of every fucking thing his administration does

well actually I did realize that, which is why I shouldn't be on these threads because oftentimes you guys are fucking morons

I won't defend weapons sales but it's pretty obvious why Obama thinks it's important to prop up the Bahrain regime - to annoy Iran and keep them from becoming the running the country by proxy

I hear he's trading arms for handos

Um, I said Tim3llison (whose race I do not know) or someone too, but sorry for singling anyone out. My error. Shakey, do you think this will really annoy Iran though?

Annoy is probably the wrong word. I'm pretty sure this is merely to warn them.

Iran will totally see this as (yet another) aggressive move to assert US hegemony in the region, no doubt about it

It also makes sense in the contect of the long-standing enmity between Sunni Arab kingdoms and the Shia Persian Islamic Republic

So the citizens of Bahrain are screwed--either they have their own current autocratic regime or one controlled by Iran.

mostly

would probably prefer Iran tho, given the shi'a majority

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/02/gop-drops-demand-for-offsetting-payroll-tax-cut.php

Can we believe TPM or its sources on this?

dude

its source is... an official statement

will lol if Tea Party morons buck Boehner on this

its source is... an official statement

― max, Monday, February 13, 2012 3:28 PM (8 minutes ago)

Yeah, but it's an offical statement from Republican leaders. How do we know we can trust it?!

Whenever a flood of fresh new faces sweeps into Congress on a tide of public reaction, the tide usually goes out in the next election and many are swept back out to sea. I look for at least half the new tea party reps to swim with that outgoing tide, not against it.

WmC otm

Boehner is such a shitty caucus leader, it's unbelievable

I can't imagine anyone else doing any better

from the gop's pov

Cantor's got some ideas...

when I call Boehner a shitty speaker, I don't just mean in terms of crafting legislation or holding his caucus together - he's shitty simply from an administrative standpoint. he can't count votes. how many times has he opened his mouth and proposed something, only to be forced to recant later by the rank-and-file? That shit just looks bad.

China's VP visiting the White House today:

The rest of Xi’s visit will likely be similarly scripted — heavy on protocol and heavily restricted when it comes to access to the media and the public. No press conferences are planned.

The goal, for the Chinese, is to protect Xi from potential embarrassment, especially from protestors.

“We know their pattern, it’s predictable,” said Tenzin Dolkar of Students for a Free Tibet, one of several groups planning to protest in front of the White House on Tuesday when Xi visits. “But even just knowing what day he’ll be here is more than enough. We know his haunts.”

...

On Thursday, Xi will focus largely on agricultural issues, with a symposium organized by the USDA. On Friday he will rejoin Biden in Los Angeles to visit a school teaching Chinese and meet with members of the business community.

Lastly, for those elite protesters willing to shell out serious money for courtside seats, Xi is also widely rumored to be planning a last stop at a Lakers game.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/checkpoint-washington/post/as-chinas-xi-visits-us-details-still-under-wraps/2012/02/13/gIQAlLheBR_blog.html?hpid=z2

not just a VP - future premier

er, president

ceo, w/e

China sentences dissident to 7 years for poetry
BEIJING -- A Chinese court has sentenced a dissident writer to seven years in prison over a poem he wrote urging his countrymen to gather at a public square, a human rights group said Friday. The hefty sentence comes ahead of next week's visit to the U.S. by Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping — widely expected to be China's next leader — where he is likely to face questions on human rights.

The U.S. government on Friday voiced deep concern over Zhu Yufu's reported sentencing and the recent convictions of three other dissidents who have received nine- and 10-year prison terms for subversion or inciting subversion over the last few months

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/china/national-news/2012/02/12/331378/China-sentences.htm

http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2012/02/13/poets-peaceniks-and-protesters-meet-chinas-leading-dissidents/#zhu-yufu

there's a thread for that

rolling buried alive in china 2012

but yeah, I can't really see the US pushing XJP on this at all when he comes to visit

I can't really see the US pushing him on it at all, ever.

http://ussc.edu.au/blogs/Are-red-states-addicted-to-government-spending

With interesting quote from Yglesias, down below:

The poor Mississippians subsidised by rich New Yorkers aren't hypocrites at all. They vote according to their self-interest — for the party that wants to maintain transfers to them. However, on election day, their middle and upper income neighbours are more likely to vote Republican than middle and upper income people New York.

Matt Yglesias, meanwhile, has a good explanation of how federal transfer help even the well-off in red states:

One is that high-income people living in low-income states are generally very conservative in their political ideology but probably benefit more from federal income support programs more than they realize. If you own fast food franchises in the Nashville area, for example, you're going to form a self-perception as a self-reliant businessman but the existence of Medicaid and the Earned Income Tax Credit are helping to ensure that your customers have adequate income to sometimes eat at your Taco Bell. These chains of dependency snake even longer. If you sell luxury cars in Florida, many of your customers are probably medical professionals who are earning high incomes because other people have Medicare benefits. The aggregate geographic transfer patterns, in other words, do make a real difference to the economic life of the nation. The existence of transfer payments props up the entire local economies of low-income, low-productivity parts of the country.

Low income Mississippians aren't decrying government spending while relying on the taxes of rich liberals. But middle-class Mississippians might get more out of government spending than they thought.

http://ussc.edu.au/blogs/Are-red-states-addicted-to-government-spending

eh they can only be voting for their self-interest if they're
a. conscious of it
b. they're not doing some cognitive dissonance thing

what we need to do is just rename everything 'government benefits'

you're not getting social security anymore, you're getting your 'government benefits check'. you're not getting a tax credit, you're getting a government benefits credit. also all highways are renamed to like 'government benefits route 23'

robbery? call the police government benefit
flames engulfing your home? call the fire government benefit

but yeah there's a difference between cagey voters who are cackling and secretly thinking 'have cake and eat it too' and people who genuinely think that they hate cake but have been eating nothing but cheesecake for 10 years and just never really understood that cheesecake is a form of cake, or maybe just decided not to think about it when the subject came up.

"guvmint, hands off my Social Security" etc

I like that government benefits idea.

men & women in uniform: GI GB

I'm an elite government benefits special forces soldier

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/da/CBGB_club_facade.jpg/250px-CBGB_club_facade.jpg

Country, Blues and Government Benefits

(someone else do the OMFUG part, I'm lazy)

but yeah there's a difference between cagey voters who are cackling and secretly thinking 'have cake and eat it too' and people who genuinely think that they hate cake but have been eating nothing but cheesecake for 10 years and just never really understood that cheesecake is a form of cake, or maybe just decided not to think about it when the subject came up.

― iatee, Wednesday, February 15, 2012 10:14 AM (1 hour ago)

hahahaha

but yeah there's a difference between cagey voters who are cackling and secretly thinking 'have cake and eat it too' and people who genuinely think that they hate cake but have been eating nothing but cheesecake for 10 years and just never really understood that cheesecake is a form of cake, or maybe just decided not to think about it when the subject came up.

lol ... you're still describing morons, though.

CORRECTION: In an earlier version of this story, the president's tweet was incorrectly attributed to Bo, the Obama's dog. When the president personally writes a tweet, he signs the messages with his initials ("bo"). We regret the error

That's from the Huffington Post

huff huff post

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_02/boehners_bad_week035434.php

was gratified to hear this

er, read whatever