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

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

Oh, look: Olympia Snowe, the one Republican who has single-handedly made numerous votes "bipartisan" is not seeking reelection.

Correct me but I thought she and Susan Collins had merged into one bipartisan senator...?

Intrade Obama re-election is at $6.14. $3.86 profit if he wins - I really wish I had money to plow into betting on the election.

Let Morbs be your bookie.

I dunno about that Perlstein piece - he's right in terms of the legislative/negotiation process and how the GOP gets to move the goalposts to the right. Obama on the campaign trail, however, is all too fond of calling out republican ideology as extreme, painting the Democratic party as different etc. It may all just be empty rhetoric, but he does do it.

so it's sort of a mixed bag. The GOP is also destroying itself by demanding this ideological purity, so it's not like it's a game they can just play forever - it's crippling them legislatively (they can't pass anything) and they are going to lose the next Prez election.

god that UAW clip is amazing portent of things to come, Romney does not have a fucking prayer.

(morbz)

talk is cheap

(/morbz)

good fucking riddance olympia snowe

^^^

maybe they will just elect a Democrat now

I got one in mind from Cabot Cove

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RlrfqB2ofg4/TfsLnL2nm4I/AAAAAAAABIU/zvTJF4o-OfY/s1600/Jessica%2BFletcher.JPG

they can get pretty teabaggy in Maine, though, amirite?!?

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/maine-partisan-candidate-filing-deadlines-are-march-15th

Elect Stephen King, that'd be amusing.

basically Dems and GOP will likely just be trading Nelson's seat for Snowe's

stephen king would have a pretty good chance at that seat if he really wanted it

But in a more neutral political environment, and in a federal race, Democrats will be heavy favorites to steal this seat from Republicans — their best pickup opportunity in the country, for sure.

when did jho start writing for the wapo

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/02/obama-on-fire-in-michigan.html

oh no somebody put him out quick!!

John Cole points out the contrast between this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xlRC0nsjtKQ

and the conservative reaction:

http://www.balloon-juice.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/anassholesayswhat.jpg

the article is pretty revolting too

http://cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/sex-crazed-co-eds-going-broke-buying-birth-control-student-tells-pelosi-hearing

sex crazed, you say, craig?

Excellent slut shaming in that; whether she had sex once in a cycle or 84 times, the cost would remain the same.

But in his mind she should be buying condoms on the free market, a few at a time; so it would not cost the same

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/02/republican-strategy

If the Republicans retake the Senate next year and have the opportunity to pass major legislation, I think it very likely they'll get rid of the filibuster, or pare it back in some complicated way that pertains to the issues they consider important. There's nothing in the constitution about needing to have 60 votes in the Senate. Democrats would have been better able to accomplish their agenda in 2009 and 2010 if they'd scrapped the filibuster, but they're too fragmented and hesitant to make those kinds of aggressive rule changes. Republicans have tighter party discipline, and the tea-party wing hates complex Washington rules that prevent the people's will from being done. I don't really see what's going to stop the GOP from making the changes they need to pass their agenda with a simple majority, if that's what they need to do.

nah the filibuster is probably the single most valuable thing to the republican party for the foreseeable future, the post-obama gop isn't gonna forget how valuable it's been

^^^^