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

"i would like more rich people to move to newark" ...?

idk, pretty stupid. i'm more pissed that he's equating attacks on bain with "attacks on rev. wright," on some "both sides" shit.

frantic, nonsensical backtracking from Booker on his twitter account

Cory Booker ‏@CoryBooker
Right! Claim that he's "job creator" is wrong. That must b the point RT @dawn9476: Mitt running on business record @Bain. Thus its fair game
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Citizens United style superPac democaracy at work:

Through mid-May, outside groups had spent more than $124 million in this election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, double the rate four years earlier.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_05/super_pacs_dont_have_spouses037457.php

or democracy

Conflating Bain with all private equity is a pretty big step.

otoh, he's the mayor of effing Newark

via Greenwald:

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/205025-dems-receive-more-bain-dollars-than-gop

for the record, apparently Booker didn't vet his unease w/ Bain Capital/private equity-bashing by Sen. Lautenberg b/c i just got a spam/send-me-money email from Lautenberg's campaign where the Senator is happily bashing away at Bain and Romney's prowess at job-destruction.

Lautenberg is also rich as fuck, for what that's worth.

There were Occupy protests in November 2011 in Newark

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/breaking/occupy-wall-street-protest-reaches-newark/article_dee0bd58-1244-11e1-a728-001cc4c002e0.html

http://www.salon.com/2012/05/20/cory_booker_surrogate_from_hell/singleton/

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/05/our-awesome-totally-effective-non-good-guy-killing-drones-are-secret

same ol', same ol'

tot see Booker looking toward prez trail around 2020

it's our Death by Drone Czar!

http://www.salon.com/2012/05/22/john_brennans_new_power/singleton/

That's obviously troubling given that guy's history, and the complete lack of procedure and oversight. Plus the games the Obama Justice Dept. is playing in court on this in the ACLU case are troubling. But the minute I get irritated with Obama, I turn to the mainstream media and see over-the-top ranting from the usual suspects (W. Post, Chris Matthews, right-wing echo chamber) nitpicking the Obama campaign criticism of Romney and Bain, and I nearly turn into an Obama cheerleader, before getting disgusted and just turning to baseball news--my Orioles are in first place and have the 2nd best record in baseball. They haven't done this well in ages.

Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal using the White House's otherwise "classified" info-mongers as consultants for their Kill Osama film, how sweet for them:

http://www.salon.com/2012/05/23/wh_leaks_for_propaganda_film/singleton/

Ah yes, according to this article it will be the liberals fault if Obama loses (because Obama is currently talking liberal populism according to this guy and has angered supporters of business-minded Dem centrists like Daley and Booker)

http://nationaljournal.com/columns/against-the-grain/the-emerging-democratic-divide-20120522

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/nancy-pelosis-risky-pander-on-taxes/2012/05/23/gJQA1GOdlU_story.html

Honest question I hope someone can answer: when the US "sits down" to talk with Iran, or North Korea, or whomever, with the subject always being more or less one single issue - nuclear disarmament or at least allowing inspectors in - what are they actually doing? When I read a new story that says two days of talk with Iran have resulted in no progress, what does that mean? What have they been talking about? Does the US just say "please let in inspectors," and then the parties just sit around a table, quietly, until the session ends?

look at who one of the other "Democrats" involved in Pelosi's "people who 'only' earn $1M/year are middle class!" song-and-dance:

Ms. Pelosi and others who have taken this position, including Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), in other words, are contemplating spending several hundred billion dollars over the coming decade to help the wealthiest Americans.

no surprise that Chuckie, The King of Limousine Liberalism and Wall Street's Democratic Chew-Toy, is behind this.

when the US "sits down" to talk with Iran, or North Korea, or whomever, with the subject always being more or less one single issue - nuclear disarmament or at least allowing inspectors in - what are they actually doing?

prostitute gangbang iirc

iran/nk says 'what's it worth to you for us to stop refining fissile fuel? will you stop your embargo/unfreeze our assets? will you give us light water reactors? will you guarantee our territory from attack by anyone? we have seen what happens to sovereign states w/o nukes who disagree with you, btw.' etc

usa says 'what's it worth to you for us not to fuc u up? will you stop refining fissile fuel? will you respeck human rights? will you stop funding hezbollah/intl terrorism? will you stop talking about driving the israelis/south koreans into the sea?' etc

Yeah, but that takes five minutes. What is there to actually talk about? Do they just take long breaks to type up elaborate counterproposals back and forth?

tbf you have to take a bunch of breaks to catch up on professional sports

http://i50.tinypic.com/mws26g.jpg

envision it as an ilx thread about tipping

disappointed cameron wasn't pointing at merkel

god Schumer is a fucking sleazebag

Ms. Pelosi and others who have taken this position, including Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), in other words, are contemplating spending several hundred billion dollars over the coming decade to help the wealthiest Americans.

in other, inaccurate words.

http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/05/25/the-bush-tax-cut-fight-on-the-left-americans-for-tax-fairness-launches/

Labor and progressive groups versus Pelosi and Schumer

Anyway, the point is that Pelosi’s action has really damaged the ability to come to a decent resolution on the revenue side at the end of the year. The consequences of her shift is that 50% of the foregone revenues go to millionaires. And as for how this would work with the Buffett rule, the Administration that created the Buffett rule still wanted to go with $250,000 as the dividing line, and they clearly amassed a very large progressive coalition behind that principle.

What a mess.

P.S. Incidentally, I am glad that Americans for Tax Fairness also supports deriving MORE money from corporate tax reform than a revenue-neutral approach, which has been the watchword of the Obama Administration on this.

http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/05/22/democrats-still-myth-busting-proudly-boasting-about-spending-cuts/

Anybody besides me watching the Barrett/Walker debate?

http://www.c-span.org/flvPop.aspx?src=cspan1&msg=You+are+watching+the+C-SPAN+Networks&start=272.992&end=-1

How'd it go?

Before you take off for the weekend I need a quick hand. Our FEC deadline is near and I’m concerned about another round of spending coming from Rove’s people. If we can raise another $1 million by next week, we can keep pace. Can you help out with $25 before the long weekend starts? -Sen. Patty Murray

I once gave to the DSCC, so I get these emails still.

me2, but i just delete that shit w/t reading any of it. i refuse to be a fig leaf for the real money that comes from hedge-funders and Silicon Valley douchebags.

Plus I read that the Democratic party will not put serious money into Wisconsin re either the battle against Walker or into supporting a candidate running in the House against Ryan. I realize that is not the DSCC, but I have my doubts about them too.

Craig Gilbert of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this week noted the president’s absence in the recall fight, and, only last week, Wisconsin Democrats were begging the Democratic National Committee for help, to no avail.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_05/httpwwwwashingtonpostcompoliti037579.php#

Let the games begin: the NYT's comprehensive account of how Obama decides who dies. An excerpt:

A phalanx of retired generals and admirals stood behind Mr. Obama on the second day of his presidency, providing martial cover as he signed several executive orders to make good on campaign pledges. Brutal interrogation techniques were banned, he declared. And the prison at Guantánamo Bay would be closed.

What the new president did not say was that the orders contained a few subtle loopholes. They reflected a still unfamiliar Barack Obama, a realist who, unlike some of his fervent supporters, was never carried away by his own rhetoric. Instead, he was already putting his lawyerly mind to carving out the maximum amount of maneuvering room to fight terrorism as he saw fit.

It was a pattern that would be seen repeatedly, from his response to Republican complaints that he wanted to read terrorists their rights, to his acceptance of the C.I.A.’s method for counting civilian casualties in drone strikes.

The day before the executive orders were issued, the C.I.A.’s top lawyer, John A. Rizzo, had called the White House in a panic. The order prohibited the agency from operating detention facilities, closing once and for all the secret overseas “black sites” where interrogators had brutalized terrorist suspects.

“The way this is written, you are going to take us out of the rendition business,” Mr. Rizzo told Gregory B. Craig, Mr. Obama’s White House counsel, referring to the much-criticized practice of grabbing a terrorist suspect abroad and delivering him to another country for interrogation or trial. The problem, Mr. Rizzo explained, was that the C.I.A. sometimes held such suspects for a day or two while awaiting a flight. The order appeared to outlaw that.

Mr. Craig assured him that the new president had no intention of ending rendition — only its abuse, which could lead to American complicity in torture abroad. So a new definition of “detention facility” was inserted, excluding places used to hold people “on a short-term, transitory basis.” Problem solved — and no messy public explanation damped Mr. Obama’s celebration.

“Pragmatism over ideology,” his campaign national security team had advised in a memo in March 2008. It was counsel that only reinforced the president’s instincts.

Well.

That record, and Mr. Awlaki’s calls for more attacks, presented Mr. Obama with an urgent question: Could he order the targeted killing of an American citizen, in a country with which the United States was not at war, in secret and without the benefit of a trial?

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel prepared a lengthy memo justifying that extraordinary step, asserting that while the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process applied, it could be satisfied by internal deliberations in the executive branch.

Mr. Obama gave his approval, and Mr. Awlaki was killed in September 2011, along with a fellow propagandist, Samir Khan, an American citizen who was not on the target list but was traveling with him.

If the president had qualms about this momentous step, aides said he did not share them. Mr. Obama focused instead on the weight of the evidence showing that the cleric had joined the enemy and was plotting more terrorist attacks.

“This is an easy one,” Mr. Daley recalled him saying, though the president warned that in future cases, the evidence might well not be so clear.

sounds like due process to me!

such a fucking pig.

and this:

In the wake of Mr. Awlaki’s death, some administration officials, including the attorney general, argued that the Justice Department’s legal memo should be made public. In 2009, after all, Mr. Obama had released Bush administration legal opinions on interrogation over the vociferous objections of six former C.I.A. directors.

This time, contemplating his own secrets, he chose to keep the Awlaki opinion secret.

and this:

Standing before the Constitution at the National Archives in Washington, he mentioned Guantánamo 28 times, repeating his campaign pledge to close the prison.

But it was too late, and his defensive tone suggested that Mr. Obama knew it. Though President George W. Bush and Senator John McCain, the 2008 Republican candidate, had supported closing the Guantánamo prison, Republicans in Congress had reversed course and discovered they could use the issue to portray Mr. Obama as soft on terrorism.

Walking out of the Archives, the president turned to his national security adviser at the time, Gen. James L. Jones, and admitted that he had never devised a plan to persuade Congress to shut down the prison.

“We’re never going to make that mistake again,” Mr. Obama told the retired Marine general.

Greenwald probably jerked off on his keyboard.

You seem to be assuming that he cares more about being right about this bastard than angry about what lousy leaders we have. How clever.

tbf, show me any human being who cares about anything as much as he cares about being right

Bam caring about re-election

nice strawman for discrediting his critiques tho, hi5

GG dissects, Part I (quoting the NYT) -- it's the New 'You Can Tell They're Vietcong Cuz They're Dead':

Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent....

The C.I.A. accounting has so troubled some administration officials outside the agency that they have brought their concerns to the White House. One called it “guilt by association” that has led to “deceptive” estimates of civilian casualties.

“It bothers me when they say there were seven guys, so they must all be militants,” the official said. “They count the corpses and they’re not really sure who they are.”

http://www.salon.com/2012/05/29/militants_media_propaganda/singleton/

You seem to be assuming that he cares more about being right about this bastard than angry about what lousy leaders we have. How clever.

ok I know you're not talking to me

nice strawman for discrediting his critiques tho, hi5

― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, May 29, 2012 3:56 PM (57 minutes ago) Bookmark

lol this from Morbz