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

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

^^^^

i can convince myself either way on that one. whatever is in their way in a given minute turns into the greatest threat to freedom ever p quickly.

but since their deal is and increasingly will be about change prevention i think iatee is probably right.

change prevention not including taking a wrecking ball to the EPA there?

gutting the epa wouldn't be worth risking the kinda things democrats could do when they got 51 senators again

Sure sure I agree, I'm just saying that they're talking a lot of change, even if it's just muddleheaded change 'back'.

words cannot express my joy at this announcement

^^^represented the district I grew up in the entire time I lived there

hey look a nazi

http://oaklawn.patch.com/articles/republican-congressional-candidate-says-holocaust-never-happened#c

lol I really thought you would be exaggerating

I hate Illinois Nazis.

Isn't that where George Lincoln Rockwell was from?

turns out not. still, tarfumes otm

anyway, shit. brown over warrren by 10

http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2012/02/new-poll-shows-2.php

maybe it's for the best. i've been getting really concerned that senator warren would be a disappointment at best and a disaster at worst. not to mention she's been doing some serious rmde concern-trolling lately w/ her email blast about how ted kennedy's name shouldn't be used in deference to the family.

Just curious how she would be a "disaster", and does that mean worse than Brown?

Lots of folks in Massachusetts had never heard of her until recently it seems:

Warren's visibility has climbed. Among a broader sample of 500 residents, 40 percent in October said they had never heard of her; that number fell to 22 in the recent survey. Her favorable ratings moved in smaller increments, from 28 percent to 40 percent.

there is no 'maybe it's for the best' when it comes to losing a senate seat in the most liberal state in the country

*sigh*

Yep, read about that in tpm . Amazing

offending e-mail/joke already in the "Is this racist?" thread

pretty much i agree w/ the argument put forth here:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/07/why-liberals-are-lame-part-3-why-a-warren-run-for-senate-is-a-bad-idea.html

i think warren is a unique talent and I worry that she'll be wasted, and maybe permanently so, if she becomes senator.

i pretty much don't agree with that at all. i like yves smith plenty but i don't think her political acumen is all that

I'm no Cap'n Save Obama but I found a lot of generalizations in that piece. Besides, if we mean utility I prefer Warren in the Senate, in which she'll have a modicum of influence, than outside kicking against the Obama pricks.

yeah I think a reliably left wing and well-spoken senator
(in one of the only states where that's 'safe') is worth more than some symbolic figure. she will have plenty of political independence as a senator and gets about as much camera time as she wants.

Frankly, in an era of anti-contraception, anti-choice fervor, another woman in the Senate canot but be an excellent thing if no other reason than to publicly shame some of the shitheads presently therein.

Name a progressive Senator who has been able to do much to champion progressive ideas there? Sanders? Franken? Whitehouse? Sherrod Brown? I love all those guys, and like Sanders and especially Franken, Warren would presumably be able to leverage her public support to push some ideas through. But are any of them more effective at championing progressive values than Warren was before her White House gig, when she regularly appeared on the media and excoriated the banks in terms that made sense to real people?

I do not agree with this. There is strength in congressional numbers, that could help all those named folks, plus I don't think the comparison between their prior effectiveness and hers conveys how effective she would be in the future if elected.

Warren would presumably be able to leverage her public support to push some ideas through. But are any of them more effective at championing progressive values than Warren was before her White House gig, when she regularly appeared on the media and excoriated the banks in terms that made sense to real people?

Classic bad political writing: mitigate the punch of your concession with a flabby adverb ("presumably") or pronoun ("some"), then follow it with a rhetorical question.

from an older article about why Brown is ahead:

Nearly two-thirds of independents also believe there is a benefit to having one Democratic and one Republican senator representing Massachusetts. As a whole, 60% of general election voters agreed that split party representation was beneficial.

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/feb/17/news/la-pn-poll-scott-brown-leads-elizabeth-warren-in-massachusetts-20120217

I bet those same folks who like split party representation also complain that Congress is not getting anything done

god what a bunch of morons

it's massachusetts, some of them are literally morans probably

I think people are pretty slow when it comes to understanding how american politics has changed over the years, there was a time when divided government meant 'compromise', it does not anymore

http://www.mediaite.com/online/sen-hatch-obama-traded-hardhat-for-hipster-fedora-and-double-skim-latte/

“President Obama has traded in the hard hat and lunch bucket category of the Democratic Party for the hipster fedora and a double skim latte,” he said. “The president is putting the preferred lifestyle policies of wealthy urbanites ahead of the needs of blue-collar and union workers and middle-class Americans.”