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

Republican opposition ensured that a measure pressed by President Obama and Senate Democrats to raise effective tax rates for the superrich would not come to a decisive vote.

Thank you Mark Pryor, alleged Democrat from Arkansas for voting with the filibustering Republicans on this. Sure, Dems were 9 votes short of 60 and the Buffet Rule alone would not solve everything, but still.

Washington-based conservative writer aghast at Hillary Clinton; plus yesterday's NY Post had a photo with the caption "Swillary":

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100150955/is-hillary-clinton-becoming-an-embarrassment-as-secretary-of-state/

It is hard to imagine Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Madeleine Albright or Henry Kissinger “livin' la vida loca” on the world stage. This was less an example of “smart power” than a boozy nightclub audition for the sixth season of Jersey Shore. Hillary Clinton’s Colombian antics are an embarrassment for a high-level cabinet member on official duty, and have lowered the office of Secretary of State. Not exactly the sort of image the federal government should be projecting at a time of widespread public disillusionment with Washington excesses.

Have you seen digby's response?

Nice.

The substantive news from Colombia is not good:

Overlooking violence against Colombian labor leaders and ongoing efforts to prevent unions from forming, the Obama administration announced at the Summit of the Americas over the weekend that the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement will take effect May 15.”

GUESS WHO'S BIZzACK?

http://i.imgur.com/qyrr5.jpg

That is actually the best photo.

omg

Andrew v. otm

first as tragedy, then as Poochie.

Slick Willie looks like he's three feet tall! Love the tie though.

Compare and contrast these ex-two-term-presidents: Clinton v. GW Bush.

every president ever >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> GWB

even Andrew Johnson?

sure why not

which wars did Johnson start/which economic disaster did he create I forget

for a certain segment of the population he helped foster an economic disaster and war that has lasted to this day

He created a racial disaster in the South iirc

not disputing Johnson being stupid/drunk/incompetent btw

in any case it's pointless to compare any pre-20th century president to what a president does today, might as well compare him to napolean

btw I don't mind thinking Bush is worse than Andy Johnson but in the let's-send-young-men-needlessly-to-their-deaths Wilson and Nixon are pretty horrible.

i don't really strongly associate Nixon with let's-send-young-men-needlessly-to-their-deaths, or at least not as much as JFK + LBJ, but i'm sure i'm wrong

Nixon prolonged the Vietnam War, ordered the invasion of Cambodia, gave the ok to the CIA to eliminate Allende – turns the stomach really.

for a certain segment of the population he helped foster an economic disaster and war that has lasted to this day

key difference here is that Dubya's policies fucked the ENTIRE country (granted some worse than others), not just "a certain segment".

Johnson's failures are egregious, but the scale of Dubya's mismanagement is like a fucking Bible EPIC: 9/11, Iraq war, Katrina, housing collapse/economic meltdown

no one is doing their assigned work (pouts)

my impression is that while JFK and LBJ both escalated the Vietnam war, neither was as brazenly cynical and opportunistic as Nixon was when it came to killing people for political gain.

key difference here is that Dubya's policies fucked the ENTIRE country (granted some worse than others), not just "a certain segment".

shakes, what's the difference? Johnson's racism and disinterest in Reconstruction fucked the ENTIRE country for a century!

key difference here is that Dubya's policies fucked the ENTIRE country (granted some worse than others), not just "a certain segment".

You're not seriously saying this, are you?

that fucking SOB Clinton did more than his share of initiating "W's economic disaster"

W and Billy were sockpuppets, as is Hopey

the northern states did allright during Reconstruction iirc

lol shakey you are digging yourself in a hole to defend a statement w/ no particular value anyway

entirely possible

neither was as brazenly cynical and opportunistic as Nixon was when it came to killing people for political gain.

I guess I won't say who's worse than Nixon.

Speeding tickets, Indy 500, etc etc

whether or not dubya was a better or worse president than johnson reveals absolutely nothing about anything, those dudes lived in entirely different universes and had entirely different roles in history, it's like arguing about pizza vs. china, the only measure by which you can compare them is 'effectiveness as a politician' which actually doesn't matter because their political goals were to do bad things to the world

we're just having fun here – lighten up

lightening up is the foundation of the problem with this whole conversation

one could just as easily argue that LBJ and nixon lived in an entirely different universe than bush -- even the political world that bush sr. operated in seems pretty remote.

james buchanan was even worse than andy johnson IMO, a total imperialist and incompetent fuckhead.

I guess I won't say who's worse than Nixon.

Speeding tickets, Indy 500, etc etc

― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, April 17, 2012 1:38 PM (44 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

coppola?

Great Barney Frank interview:

Q: But isn’t part of that just because the media is expected to be adversarial?

A: Who expects it to be adversarial? Where did you read that? Did you read that in the First Amendment? Where did you read that the media is expected to be adversarial? It should be skeptical, why adversarial? Adversarial means you’re the enemy. Seriously, where does that come from?

Q. Okay, maybe “skeptical” is the better word.

A:But that’s a very different word. You reflect the attitude: adversarial. And there is nothing in any theory that I have ever seen that says when you report events that you’re supposed to think, I’m the adversary, so that means I want to defeat them, I want to undermine them, I want to discredit them. Why is that the media’s role? But you’ve accurately stated it, and I think it’s a great mistake.

Q. Do you think I just showed my hand there?

A. No, I don’t think you showed your hand personally. I think you reflected the Weltschmerz.

Q: But you know the old aphorism, “Afflict the comfortable, comfort the afflicted.” I think that’s more what I was trying to get at.

A: When have you comforted the afflicted? I don’t see that in the media. I don’t see reporting that comforts low-income people or the environment. I think it’s negative about everybody.

Q: I read somewhere a few years ago that when you were done here, you planned to write a book on the gay-rights movement.

A: My career and the gay-rights movement are serendipitously coterminous, to use too many big words. I worked for the mayor of Boston in the late sixties, and my bailiwick was, among other things, liberal issue groups. There was no gay-rights activity in Boston at the time—none—and I guarantee you that because, as a closeted gay man, I was hoping to meet other gay people. It would have been a twofer for me. It didn’t happen. I went off to work in Washington for a year in 1971, and I came back to Massachusetts in 1972 and there was a gay-rights movement. Very few political movements in America have as clear-cut a starting line as the gay-rights movement with Stonewall. There were some very brave people before, but Stonewall really did crystallize it. I did not set out to be the crusader. But I realized that I could not honorably walk away from this.

Here’s what happened: In 1972, the gay-rights groups in Massachusetts jointly sent out a questionnaire to everybody running for the state legislature that year to ask, “Would you sponsor a gay-rights bill?” And I was the only one that said yes, so I became the gay-rights leader.

Q: Kind of by accident.

A: I believe very strongly that people on the left are too prone to do things that are emotionally satisfying and not politically useful. I have a rule, and it’s true of Occupy, it’s true of the gay-rights movement: If you care deeply about a cause, and you are engaged in an activity on behalf of that cause that is great fun and makes you feel good and warm and enthusiastic, you’re probably not helping, because you’re out there with your friends, and political work is much tougher and harder. And I think it’s now clear that it is the disciplined political work that we’ve been able to do that’s won us victories. I am going to write about the history of the LGBT movement partly to make the point that, in America at least, this is the way you do progressive causes.

Q:So if you look at something like Pride Weekend—

A:Pride Weekend was very important early on because people didn’t know who we were. The hiddenness was a problem. Today, pride has no political role. It’s a fun thing for people.

That last is very true, and I guess Occupy is working for me because I don't find its events "great fun."

Lobbyists waltz into the White House, nothing to see here

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/us/politics/white-house-doors-open-for-big-donors.html

it's like arguing about pizza vs. china

china

Alfred, could you link to the full interview? Not sure if I missed it upthread.

Never mind, found it.

It's pretty awesome actually: http://nymag.com/print/?/news/features/barney-frank-2012-4/

You were talking about the Republicans and not being able to work with them. But isn’t your ultimate beef with the voters, since it’s the voters who reward that behavior?

I’m glad you said that, you’re very smart. These days, in developed countries, everybody says you need a private sector to create wealth, you need a public sector to create rules by which wealth is created. Sensible people understand that. The tension between left and right has been where you draw that line, but it’s been a contest between people who see maybe a 20 percent overlap. Let me read this to you. [Picks up copy of Friedrich von Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom.] “In no system that could be rationally defended would the state just do nothing.” ­[Closes book.]

Do you read Hayek a lot?

For these purposes. For the first time in American history, we have people in power now who reject that idea. If they knew it was Hayek, they might think, Well, maybe. But they reject the public sector. That’s why we can’t work together.

I liked that snippet of the Frank interview, but he misused Weltschmerz (worldly pain), when he probably meant Weltanshauung (worldview).

This game again:

In a major escalation of a slowly building fight over funding the government, the White House has warned House Republicans, in no uncertain terms, that the government will shut down in September if the GOP does not adhere to an agreement they cut with Democrats in August during the standoff over raising the nation’s debt limit.

“Until the House of Representatives indicates that it will abide by last summer’s agreement, the President will not be able to sign any appropriations bills,” writes Jeffrey Zients, acting director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, in a letter addressed to congressional appropriators Wednesday.

The message is simple: The government will shut down just ahead of the 2012 presidential election if Republicans break faith with the debt limit deal.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/04/obama-to-gop-abide-by-the-debt-limit-deal-or-else.php

awesome sauce!

hilarious