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

Yay!

Noonan peddled the same stew on "This Week" last Sunday.

Not surprisingly, I thought E.J. Dionne quoting Nixon in his uncle's eulogy was funny. ("Uncle Ethan would always insist, 'I am not a crook...'")

good nyt editorial on awlaki, obama, and targeted killings: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/opinion/sunday/the-power-to-kill.html?_r=1&hp

A United States service member walked out of a military base in a rural district of southern Afghanistan on Sunday and opened fire on three nearby houses, killing at least 16 civilians, including several children, local villagers and provincial officials said.

Villagers in Belandi in the Panjwai District of Kandahar, where the shooting took place, said the service member had attacked three houses, killing at least 16 in total. Five other villagers were wounded, they said.

After the killings, villagers collected the bodies, and drove them to a nearby American military base to protest. Burn marks could be seen on some of the bodies, and the villagers said that five of the dead were young girls, age 6 or younger.

jesus.

Epithets fail me when describing this guy. Couldn't he just have committed suicide?

Don't think that's exactly what was motivating him tbh.

Strategizing--

The lunch invitation is striking because Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Obama are thought not to be particularly close — nor to have an especially warm relationship. But the White House seems intent on courting Mr. Bloomberg.

Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, said the lunch was part of a continuing dialogue that the president very much valued. Over the last two years, Mr. Obama has invited Mr. Bloomberg to play golf on Martha’s Vineyard and has dispatched Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to Gracie Mansion to seek the mayor’s views on the economy.

“They speak from time to time,” Mr. Carney said. “The president always enjoys an exchange of ideas and insights with Mayor Bloomberg and is appreciative of the mayor’s leadership on immigration, the economy and education, as well as his commitment to New York City.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/nyregion/at-a-private-lunch-bloomberg-and-obama-discuss-the-future.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120312

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/03/19/120319fa_fact_klein?currentPage=all

Prez speeches not that influential (article linked above) but current polls show people believe Prez can influence gas prices. Hmmmm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/the-morning-plum-how-rising-gas-prices-put-obama-at-risk/2012/03/12/gIQAjwAA7R_blog.html?hpid=z1

I can't remember if Kevin Drum is someone who gets quoted or ridiculed around here. Anyway, if you can look past the headline, I think this is fair--credit where credit is due, pointed criticism, some cognizance of circumstances.

http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/03/barack-obamas-had-pretty-damn-good-presidency

What we can glean from this is an understanding of why we are on the road that we are on. Again, it's based on what went into his thinking, being surrounded by radicals. You could hearken back to the days before the Civil War, when too many Americans believed that not all men were created equal. It was the Civil War that began the codification of the truth that here in America, yes, we are equal and we all have equal opportunities, not based on the color of our skin. You have equal opportunity to work hard and to succeed and to embrace the opportunities, the God-given opportunities, to develop resources and work extremely hard and as I say, to succeed. Now, it has taken all these years for many Americans to understand that the gravity, that mistake that took place before the Civil War and why the Civil War had to really start changing America. What Barack Obama seems to want to do is go back before those days when we were in different classes based on income, based on color of skin. Why are we allowing our country to move backwards instead of moving forward with the understanding that as our charters of liberty spell out for us, we are all created equally?

lmao is she talking about voldemort or something

what the

"that which must not be named"

the Drum piece relies on a level of ruthless pragmatism that is anathema to the progressive cause AFAICT; I think it's a convincing argument because it's the exact same one I would make, and this thread alone is a pretty good indicator of how well it will go over with progressive voices in this country

xpost is she playing that stupid Taboo game, where you are given a word and you have to describe it without saying it? WTF

x-post-- I will end up voting for Obama as a pragmatic step while likely counting myself as agreeing with some of the naysayers in this group of people that Drum describes:

Unless you're just bound and determined to sulk in your tent while insisting that healthcare was a sellout and the stimulus was too small and Dodd-Frank was feeble and the mini stimuli were more like micro stimuli, there's just no way around the fact that this is a historically colossal set of progressive accomplishments, especially in the face of a historically hostile political environment.

Regarding the 13 of the 50 accomplishments that Drum signals out for praise, while these two are accomplishments, I think even given the hostile environment, they could have been more progressive.

2. Passed the Stimulus
3. Passed Wall Street Reform

These folks however make me want to be a true blue Obama believer:

But: asked about the president’s religion, only 9% of evangelicals in both states agree Obama is a Christian (as opposed to 26% of non-evangelicals in Alabama and 19% in Mississippi). An actual majority (50% in AL, 54% in MS) of evangelicals think Obama is a Muslim, and the rest say they don’t know. It’s worth noting that the “don’t knows” probably include quite a few people who don’t think Obama is a Muslim, but also, like Rick Santorum, don’t much believe mainline Protestants are actually Christians.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_03/conservative_evangelical_world035994.php

It’s worth noting that the “don’t knows” probably include quite a few people who don’t think Obama is a Muslim, but also, like Rick Santorum, don’t much believe mainline Protestants are actually Christians.

ugh this is smug bullshit.

you'd probably find a ~few~ more ppl in the south who don't think santorum's catholics are really christians but don't give two thoughts to idk episcopalians or methodists. and even those numbers are probably pretty small these days.

I've always wondered how these polls would work out if it were like

"what is barack obama's religion? you get $100 if you answer correctly."

like how much is barack obama ~rhetorically~ a muslim for these people and how many people actually believe he practices islam?

I was told in the Covenant church that all other denoms, including Catholocism, were to be considered properly Christian as long as individual believers had made sincere conversions, but I do remember the teachers telling us that seemed to think it was a really big deal, shocking news, EVEN CATHOLICS DO U SEE??

I thought only my fellow Catholics had divine authority to cast out demons; we're still doing it, after all, with gay priests.

tbf all catholics are cannibalistic idolators

For those of you who despair of four more years:

http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-stump/101605/democratic-overconfidence-meet-the-long-commute

But unless national security is pretty much your sole obsession, I really have a hard time understanding progressives who are disappointed in him. Obama has gotten more done for the progressive cause than Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, JFK, or Harry Truman—and, on balance, nearly as much as LBJ, since he doesn't have any epic disasters to weigh down his successes.

'nearly as much as LBJ' is outright batshit crazy, unless kevin drum is working from some classified definition of 'nearly as much as' that hasn't been cleared for release yet.

he's been more progressive than clinton and five republicans. isn't that enough??

tbh, vietnam was a pretty big clusterfuck iirc (i don't rc, i was born in 1984) xp

Polls:

Republicans excited by Obama's drop (due to gas prices) and by another poll suggesting that Limbaugh has not hurt them with women

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/03/12/oh-my-obamas-approval-rating-hits-new-low-in-cbs-poll/

I never read this link, and maybe he's manipulating numbers, but who knows.

I've always been very cognizant of the fact (and have said so many times here) that Obama may well lose in November. But if, in the midst of a strengthening economy, he loses because of higher gas prices--which, among other things, are a reflection of a strengthening economy--that'll be maddening.

Polls:

Republicans excited by Obama's drop (due to gas prices) and by another poll suggesting that Limbaugh has not hurt them with women

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/03/12/oh-my-obamas-approval-rating-hits-new-low-in-cbs-poll/

I never read this link, and maybe he's manipulating numbers, but who knows.

This article is based on a CBS News poll. Both Gallup and Rasmussen have his approval rating at 49% and both have had his approval rating much lower than 41% in the past.

http://plainblogaboutpolitics.blogspot.com/2012/03/expect-polling-variation.html

The new ABC/Washington Post poll this morning has produced a ton of buzz (at least as far as I can tell from my twitter feed) because Barack Obama's approval rating fell from 50% in their last poll to 46% in this one.

Everyone cut it out! It's almost certainly noise. Pollster's current average prior to this poll was sitting at 47.4%. This one is 46%. There's nothing to explain!

There's often a strange disconnect between Gallup and everyone else (I perhaps wrongly assume they know what they're doing, since they invented this stuff)--they'll have Obama way down when he's up everywhere else or, like now, vice versa. This piece offers some possible explanations:

http://www.salon.com/2012/03/13/obama%E2%80%99s_sudden_polling_crash/singleton/

Over all, 54 percent of poll respondents believed that a president can do a lot to control gas prices, as opposed to 36 percent who believe they are beyond a president’s control.

As long as this is the case, gas prices will be a political issue. I'm not sure what Obama can do to change this perception, especially with the GOP eager to capitalize on the issue by linking gas prices to Obama policies such as the pipeline and Iran, never mind the facts. The media of course will do it's typical fact-free reporting: Republicans says A, Democrats say B - there is no objective truth of the matter.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/approval-ratings-gas-prices-and-statistical-noise/

More fuel for Morbs' fire:

http://www.thenation.com/article/166757/why-president-obama-keeping-journalist-prison-yemen

A flicker of honesty:

“The first lesson you learn as a pollster is that people are stupid,” said Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling, a Democratic polling firm. “I tell a client trying to make sense of numbers on a poll that are inherently contradictory that at least once a week.”

Tom Jensen and iatee (like how much is barack obama ~rhetorically~ a muslim for these people and how many people actually believe he practices islam?) both OTM

lol

In other news Peter King continues to be a slimy asshole.

the final results are in!

http://i41.tinypic.com/28su2oy.png

only one vote in the whole state? man ron paul you did terrible

congratulation to richard santorum!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/opinions/gas-prices/

more lolz in Arizona!

really sorta incredible how much the GOP thinks hating on contraception is a winning political strategy/appropriate legislative goal

if they weren't equally convinced that shitting on Latinos was also a winning political strategy, then their hating on contraception might make more sense.

For sheer entertainment value, I don't know whether the Culture War or Class Warfare gives me more for my internet dollar.

love all of the comments-box outrage over soldiers being asked to disarm during leon panetta's speech in afghanistan

hate to be a jerk here but i often wonder if military spouses are not the densest demographic in america

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/03/14/444308/house-republican-leaders-renege-debt-ceiling/

Shakey, reassure me that the triggers will still work, and that the agreed-upon sequestration defense cuts will go through. I'm guessing the House Republicans will get to break the deal with no consequences, and that moderate Dems will cave, and they will make domestic spending cuts instead.