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

Meanwhile in Florida:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/florida-gop-takes-voter-supression-to-a-brazen-new-extreme-20120530

We're aware of it. God bless Rick Scott.

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2012/05/58-percent-of-voters-targeted-in-noncitizen-hunt-are-hispanic-whites-gop-least-likely-to-face-purge.html

So if George Will's claims are to be believed, the Citizen's United decision has mostly helped really rich people use their free speech (not corporations use theirs), and thus, libs should quit complaining.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/montana-attempts-to-buck-the-supreme-court-on-citizens-united/2012/05/30/gJQA4DCi2U_story.html

Through March 31, the eight leading super PACs supporting Republican presidential candidates received contributions totaling $96,410,614. Of this, $83,220,167 (86.32 percent) came from individuals, only $13,190,447 (13.68 percent) from corporations, and only 0.81 percent from public companies. McConnell says, “Not a single one of the Fortune 100 companies has contributed a cent” to any of the eight super PACS. These facts refute such prophesied nightmares as The Post’s fear that corporate money “may now overwhelm” individuals’ contributions.

Citizens United ...grammar correction

rule by ludicrously rich owners of corporations is preferable to rule by corporations dontchaknow

yeah, that's a distinction slight enough as to be entirely meaningless, isn't it?

corporations are people, my friend

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012/05/the-presidents-kill-list.html

reposting this short piece schlump posted in the sociopath thread, so everyone gets a chance to read it. davidson's really great; her judgements somehow don't feel like moralizing, which is difficult to do with an issue like this

yeah she writes so well. & so openly, like she's giving you something to think over rather than telling you what to think. have gotta read the full times piece. i don't have fully formed thoughts on this yet & i'm kinda hesitant to jump in before that, but i do find it so hard to think about this stuff. there's a great piece in the new harper's, which is extracts from oral testimony given by the families of victims of a drone strike, i think in pakistan maybe a year ago, thirty or so people having been killed while attending a ceremonial community meeting. & you read it & it's horrifying, but also part of what's horrifying about it would be horrifying of any account of ""collateral damage"", whatever the means of attack - the issue of automation, & of removing killing from human consequences, is another strand of it. there is a weirdly mathematical take on afghanistan in a sebastian junger interview that stuck in my head since i read it:

Will history judge Afghanistan a worthwhile war?

For me, the criterion is whether it increases or decreases human suffering. We killed bin Laden and dismantled al-Qaida, which are two good things, and we brought civilian casualties down from 400,000 in the 90s to around 10,000 in the decade that Nato's been there. If we pull out of Afghanistan in a way that doesn't precipitate a slide back into civil war – not that it would be perfect – then history should judge it a success.

& so it follows, according to this metric (obviously with like a zillion caveats, like that deaths were projected to continue at the same rate), that fewer overall deaths would make for it a reduction in total suffering & so a success. "success" &c. but do you get to make that choice? davidson's point about envisaging the power in the hands of a functionary or someone we don't have such an imaginary-friend hard-on for is great. the drift away from oversight & public discussion is so scary.

oh man i'm so behind on harper's

the article's the bomb

more than anything this shit reminds me of Nixon/Kissinger's expanded bombing campaigns, only made even creepier/more disturbing by the element of specificity involved

it's not like the Afghans didn't get their hair mussed!

oh man i'm so behind on harper's

― twittering spinster (k3vin k.), Friday, 1 June 2012 16:51 (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i don't even read harper's really but i've found i feel better about being able to check it if i don't try for the long eight page articles about inner-city [something]/histories of american attitudes/w/e, but if i just read, is it findings? it's so interesting. this month there's this great, paragraph-long excerpt from a police report on that whole escaped-zoo-animals thing, which happened in ohio sometime. or a couple months back there was this haunting precis of a school trip to a morgue.

gonna go wiki expanded bombings, is this cambodia or am i confused

yes I was referring to Cambodia

ty. good (albeit weirdly redolent of BABEL) article: http://gawker.com/5913960/lets-stop-killing-people-for-probably-being-up-to-no-good

that is a deeply dope piece, max

colbert too: http://gawker.com/5914785/stephen-colbert-tries-to-stay-off-obamas-kill-list

max gets points for reasonably engaging with commenters

Cornel West to TNC re Obama and the killings:

"You have Martin Luther King's statue in your office, but you are sending these unmanned drones out, and bombs are dropping on innocent people. That's not a small thing. That's not a small thing. We know from historic examples that if you engage in a certain kind of foreign policy it eats at your soul on the domestic front."

I kind of hate Cornel West but he is OTM kinda good to see someone from the lefty black community going after O on this

hey some of max's readers think the GWOT is still going on; set em straight, Shakey!

I don't do comments

Rehashing the recent past

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_06/the_choice_questionable_someth037704.php

link to tnr article with claim that the current jobs mess is at least partially Obama’s responsibility because he decided against prioritizing more and bigger stimulus when such a bill still had a chance to make it to his desk

However some commenters say the weak Dem Congress even then might not have gone for a bigger stimulus

Rehashing the very recent past, right before the election:

Of course, It's incredibly important that Barrett defeat Scott Walker in Wisconsin, and the DNC's decision-making in refusing to help is baffling. I'm sure the President and his team feel that throwing their weight into this arena only to lose would be seen as a rejection of the President himself. This is typical shortsightedness: Republicans will spin it as a defeat for Obama whether the DNC is involved or not, even as Republicans across the country rub their hands in glee at the prospect of ending collective bargaining rights across the country.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2012/06/demographic-tidbits-from-wisconsin-by.html

the DNC has handled the Walker recount with its usual mix of cowardice and anxiety. As usual the GOP understands what a victory represents.

The First Bomber (another funeral attack this weekend) has quite an array of righty shits approving of his tactics:

http://www.salon.com/2012/06/04/obama_again_bombs_mourners/singleton/

oh you sillies, New Dems don't like labor unions any more than Republicans. at best, they tolerate them b/c they get out the vote (just like the non-Teabag GOP tolerates but doesn't really like the Jesus Freaks).

http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/06/04/a-bipartisan-solution-to-endorse-breaking-up-the-big-banks/

A Weekly Standard columnist routinely criticized by the left, now advocates (for his own reasons) breaking up big banks.

This will never happen.

Bravo to Paul Krugman, who often flails on American TV:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r-AKruzmkk&feature=youtu.be

I'm just seeing a big white space. Is it his HardTalk appearance?

He was excellent on This Week yesterday.

I just looked at my mail-in ballot for the first time, and I'm like, "Wtf is Roseanne Barr doing on here."

xpost i'm also just seeing a white space.

am guessing its video of klugman being badass on the BBC's newsnight in the UK? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqDnnzY_tU8

"This is not a household, this is an economy" is a great line. "Your spending is my income, my spending is your income."

Brits in this clip take dangerous rhetorical tack with Krugman. "Don't you think ..." "You must agree that ..."

"No," says Krugman.

Harry Truman and the do-nothing Congress may be the stuff of legend, but guess what? That probably had little to do with Truman's victory. Truman won because the economy was on a tear for the entire year before the 1948 election: Nominal GDP skyrocketed (chart below) and real GDP was growing at a pretty healthy clip too. Economically speaking, it was a terrific peacetime performance.

Obama doesn't have this. He's got about 3% nominal growth and 2% real growth. There might be justice in blaming this on Republicans, but probably not electoral victory.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/06/myth-harry-truman-and-do-nothing-congress

Sometimes justice is enough

Tim, the restrictions of the Sunday talk show format – you cannot get too "partisan" lest you offend one of the seven conservatives who always outnumber the moderate who's supposed to be the "liberal" – often make Krugman look wan.

The governor has laid out very detailed plans. People can go to mittromney.com and learn about them for themselves. But I think what we really have here...

(CROSSTALK)

KRUGMAN: ... ...I know from detailed plans and there is nothing there. There is not...

Nice, he was able to get past Stephanapoulis and George Will and cut to the point

I agree, Alfred. He was stellar on Sunday, though. Every comment right on point.

—stats about today's election to decide the future of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker:

70 percent: How much more expensive the governor's recall election is than the state's second-most expensive race (the 2010 gubernatorial campaign)

$30.5 million: Amount raised by Walker to fight off the recall effort

$3.9 million: Amount raised by his challenger, Tom Barrett, the Democratic mayor of Milwaukee

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/06/wisconsin-walker-recall-money-stats

Thanks for nothing DNC

can't risk another 4 years of nothing for something.

at least they sent Bill Clinton, friend of sterling vulture capitalists, last week.

http://www.people-press.org/2012/06/04/partisan-polarization-surges-in-bush-obama-years/

http://www.people-press.org/2012/06/04/partisan-polarization-surges-in-bush-obama-years/01_pp_12-05-25_values_slideshow/

pew survey day!!!

republicans in a very 19th century mood

The polling finds little support for the broad notion of American “declinism.” As has been the case in previous political values surveys, a large majority agrees that “as Americans we can always find a way to solve our problems and get what we want.” The public’s confidence in the nation has not been dulled, even as Americans have become more skeptical about prospects for economic growth.

Yay! U-S-A!!!U-S-A!!!

Plus we can get some great Friedman and David Brooks pieces out of this polling.

Rick Perlstein in Wisconsin. Note his argument with a poster.

omg at that Quad Printing thing

Andrew Sullivan discovers the obvious: Republicans are big fat liars.

Stop comparing BO to LBJ, Kevin Drum says.