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

http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2012/02/virginia-ndaa-nullification-bill-passes-senate-committee-8-4/#.T0Yh61R6PVQ.facebook

interesting development. but, the tenth amendment center? yuck!

odd poll from PPP asks americans of their impressions of the fifty states:

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_US_022112.pdf

Over the course of four months starting last October, PPP asked
American voters nationally what their impressions of each state are. Hawaii came out on top, by far, with California bringing up the rear.

Americans generally have a favorable view of most states. Only five are in negative territory, led by California (27% favorable and 44% unfavorable), Illinois (19-29), New Jersey (25-32), Mississippi (22-28), and Utah (24-27). Only seven other states have netpositive
ratings in the single digits, and another breaks even (Louisiana).

54% see Hawaii positively and only 10% negatively, followed in the top ten by Colorado (44-9), Tennessee (48-14), South Dakota (42-8), Virginia (45-13), Montana (39-7), Alaska (46-17), Oregon (43-14), and North Carolina and Pennsylvania (each 40-11). Ten others are in positive territory by at least 21 points.

Women have a higher opinion of New York by 27 points more than men, Massachusetts by 22 points, Delaware and California by 16, New Hampshire by 15, Vermont and Illinois by 13, and Connecticut by 11, while men see North Dakota more favorably by 17 points, South Carolina by 15, Wyoming 14, Montana 13, and Iowa and South Dakota 10.

Democrats’ favorite states include Hawaii, Massachusetts, Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Colorado, and New York, and their least favorites are led by Texas, Alabama, and Mississippi. Republicans love Alaska and Texas, and absolutely hate California, followed distantly by Illinois and Massachusetts. So the greatest partisan gap is for California, which Democrats like 91 points more than Republicans do, followed by
Texas, which is favored more by Republicans by 82 points.

Black voters dislike 10 of the 14 Southern states.

forgive by bad pagination there

net favorability ratings:

http://motherjones.com/files/images/blog_states_favorable_0.jpg

WI at #12 and MN at #40 is hurting me in my heart

interesting development. but, the tenth amendment center? yuck!

I sympathize but, really, screw nullification, esp coming out of Virginia. Do they really want their capital burned down again?

I suspect that Hawaii's popularity has very little to do with its politics or its people.

haha new jersey

I suspect that Hawaii's popularity has very little to do with its politics or its people.

i have to assume the same goes for TN.

WI at #12 and MN at #40 is hurting me in my heart

I don't even understand how this happened

one explanation could be that conservatives are more likely to incorporate their political views on a state in determining their opinion on the state so the whole wisconsin thing made conservatives 'like wisconsin'?

Alaska and Virginia placements perplex me, too.

I think there are a lot of opinion variables getting mixed up and the poll would seem like it had more logic to it if it were limited to a certain demographic

wisconsin: uh beer, 'that 70s show', v powerful cheese ad lobby, the packers. could be some partisan effects w/r/t the governor there.

minnesota: cold as hell, 'fargo', woeful & hateable sports teams. idk!

xps i think just throwing everthing together is part of the charm of this poll.

haha oh yeah the packers, that's prob not a minor thing tbh

in any case most people have very few concrete opinions on these things, like I am pretty sure my dad and grandmother do not have an 'opinion' on north dakota

lol at the gender split on the Dakotas. Wonder if this has anything to do with awareness of anti choice laws.

I seriously doubt more than 10% of america could tell you which of the two dakotas was passing anti choice laws

what % could tell you which dakota was north or south of the other

a decent %, at least 60

a blog i work for did a series about "worst states" and we were all supposed to vote and i had no idea how to rate some of them. i have to have an opinion about arkansas? i mean get real

haha yeah and like, max is a 'person on the internet' with 'opinions', like ilx is filled w/ people who are desperate for reasons to make long lists ranking things, most people genuinely do not have these kinda desires or view of the world so lots of polls that assume they do end up being nonsense.

I nabbed some amazing fried chicken & pecan pie at a gas station in AR, so 9 out of 10

I think most people prob do have 'an opinion' on california, texas, hawaii, 'new york', the place they live, the places nearby

what a weird pie (xp)

my ultimate strategy was to give nj 10 and no other state higher than 5

it still ended up in the bottom 10. well top 10.

no joek i would try that pie

nj welcomes america's hatred

http://crooksandliars.com/files/vfs/2010/10/chris-christie.jpg

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_02/big_tent_tensions035593.php#

Ruth Marcus should read this from Ed Kilgore who has taken Steve Benen's spot at Washington Monthly when Benen moved on:

Do “liberal party activists” control the agenda of the Democratic Party? I don’t think so.

I must have missed the moment when the major Democratic candidates for president in 2008 (or for that matter, 2004) embraced the single-payer approach to universal health coverage that is undoubtedly popular among “liberal party activists.” I also failed to notice newly elected president Barack Obama supporting nationalization of the banks, or a multi-trillion dollar economic stimulus package, or reversal of Bush administration policies on surveillance, at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009. Obama sure did go to the mats on behalf of the “public option” on health insurance—in itself considered a major compromise by “liberal party activists”—when the deal when down on health reform, didn’t he? And hey, Democratic congressional leaders most definitely saluted when “liberal party activists” demanded crackdowns on or actual expulsion of Blue Dog Democrats who were voting against major party legislation, didn’t they?

*sigh* no mention of climate change/energy policy

I found chicken fried pecan pie, pecan crusted southern-fried chicken & deep-fried chicken pot pie, but no fried chicken & pecan pie. All of these things look amazing tho

I want all of the pies

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/73218.html#ixzz1nFQ624H9

He continued, “This ‘tax policy’ is an example as well as today’s speech on his ‘energy policy’ shall be. Here is the bottom line, last night it took 70 dollars to fill the tank of my 2008 H3 Hummer, what is it costing you? What does it cost the president to fill his gas tank?”

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Allen West is so dumb, I get the idea he thinks that Barack Obama himself has a gas tank. Not his car, him.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/sns-rt-us-court-obamatre81n0mq-20120224,0,349579.story

Barack Obama is close to becoming the first president in at least half a century to finish a full term without making an appointment to a U.S. appeals court, considered second in importance only to the Supreme Court.

When the U.S. Senate returns next week, a new chapter in the fight over judicial nominations will begin, with the stakes especially high for the Washington, D.C.-based court that hears challenges to government regulations, including those on environmental law and civil rights. The D.C. Circuit, as it is called, is also often a springboard to the Supreme Court where four of the current nine justices served on the D.C. Circuit.

Obama's failure to put anyone on the 11-judge D.C. Circuit, where three vacancies now exist, reflects both rising partisanship and Obama's early priorities.

...

Senate Republicans blocked the Democratic president's one nominee to the D.C. Circuit in December, and the administration has yet to offer any new candidates.

why should he bother, really. GOP will just block them.

holy wow, i didn't realize he hadn't filled ANY appellate positions

There is poor phrasing by the writer in that article. Obama has gotten some appellate court nominees appointed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_judges_appointed_by_Barack_Obama

yeah I figure he's referring specifically to the DC circuit

i bet an editor added that comma. fireable offense imo.

they were like WHAT'S GOING ON, THERE HAVE ALREADY BEEN ALMOST THIRTY WORDS, IN THIS SENTENCE, AND THERE HAVEN'T BEEN ANY COMMAS, HOW WILL PEOPLE READ IT

i have personal issues w/ commas

i've given all i have but i'm still on the payroll

whoa this is nuts! ANONYMOUS & WIKILEAKS vs. STRATFOR

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/feb/27/wikileaks-stratfor-emails-anonymous

http://www.newsday.com/business/technology/wikileaks-publishes-leaked-stratfor-emails-1.3560346

cnbc says it's 'reminiscent a spy novel'

http://www.cnbc.com/id/46535884

first reaction from a TPM reader is... more 'like newsmax'

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/02/lordy_lordy_lordy.php

(i'm super curious about these but tbh i'm kinda paranoid about reading wikileaks.org at work)

oh crap i didn't realize that newsday link was paywalled. sorry bout that.

Could be fun (but it's wrong--hacker obtained stuff!). Partnering with Goldman Sachs, communication with Karl Rove, and a terminology memo containing stuff like:

A "Barium Meal" is defined this way: "When there is a leak, feed bits of radioactive (traceable, false) information to suspects. See which bit leaks. You will know who leaked it. The leaker will know you know. Livens up a dull day like nothing else we’ve ever seen. Bring the kids."

And a “Code Crypt,” in turn, is described as “the code name and control of a source in encrypted form. If this confuses you, it’s working.”

The spy lingo glossary is just one document amid an enormous cache from Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based private intelligence company that counts government agencies and some of the world’s biggest companies among its clients.

Rick Perlstein's latest.

Here's the problem: Even if Obamaism works on its own terms – that is, if Sullivan is right that Obama’s presidency is precisely on course – it can't stop Republicans from wrecking the country. Instead, it may end up abetting them.

To understand why, let's look at Ronald Reagan. Barack Obama has famously cited him as a role model for how transformative a president can be. Well, what did he transform, and how did he do it? Here's how: He planted an ideological flag. From the start, he relentlessly identified America's malaise with a villain, one that had a name, or two names – liberalism, the Democratic Party – and a face – that of James Earl Carter. Reagan's argument was, on its face, absurd. For all Carter's stumbles as president, the economic crisis he inherited had been incubated under two Republican presidents, Nixon and Ford (see this historical masterpiece for an account of Nixon's role in wrecking the economy), and via a war in Vietnam that Reagan had supported and celebrated. What's more, to arrest the economy's slide, Jimmy Carter did something rather heroic and self-sacrificing, well summarized here: He appointed Paul Volcker as Federal Reserve chairman with a mandate to squeeze the money supply, which induced the recession that helped defeat Carter – as Carter knew it might – but which also slayed the inflation dragon and, by 1983-84, long after Carter had lost to Reagan, saved the economy.

In office, Reagan, on the level of policy, endorsed Carter's economics by reappointing Volcker. But on the level of politics, in one of the greatest acts of broad-gauged mendacity in presidential history, he blamed Carter for the economic failure, tied that failure to liberal ideology and its supposed embrace of "big government" (Carter in fact took on big government), and gave conservatism credit for every success. Deregulation and supply-side tax-cuts brought us "morning in America," he said. That was bullshit, but it won him a reelection landslide against Walter Mondale, Carter's VP, whom he labeled "Vice President Malaise."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h874BPSnbWc

holy shit Obama is really getting ready to enjoy himself this summer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=inxnx2fPg2g