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

We've read a bunch of stories published in newspapers in the last few months about the millions of 18-15 year olds with insurance and their grateful parents. The least the president can do is acknowledge it.

The one that garnered the most support — at 44 percent — was throwing out the entire law

just mystifying

The Dems' circular logic ("It's not popular therefore we can't discuss it") is so maddening.

in the end i wonder if the public doesn't have a basically accurate attitude toward "obamacare": it was pretty half-assed for all the usual depressing reasons

(@alfred): it actually gets me in the mindset of the "long game" talk people used to do - do they have something up their sleeves for the campaign, maybe? (no.) it's like watching a movie where there's a lot of tension-building music but the actual action is just one guy sitting at a table not going to the stove, where a kettle is whistling

the way the Dems marketed and sold this was a disaster

I don't think they even tried to market it, after it passed.

it actually gets me in the mindset of the "long game" talk people used to do

O's "long game" was to foment dissent within the GOP ranks and encourage the fringe right to come to the fore. which happened.

here's another example

GOP would just eliminate the EPA altogether, if they had their way.

oops gettin my politics threads mixed up

O's "long game" was to foment dissent within the GOP ranks and encourage the fringe right to come to the fore. which happened.

i don't believe this for a second

no obamacare decision today. maybe monday! get hype!

there was all the stuff about Limbaugh, converting Arlen Specter, goading the right-wing about the birther stuff, there are a lot of little things that made it clear this was their goal

xp

well, I'm glad their goal of really getting the fringe to expose itself has resulted in so many restrictions on reproductive rights in state houses across the country! well done, long game

yeah I think they've run into some unintended consequences lol

like it works as an election strategy to paint your opponent as a fringe lunatic (GOP did very well with this strategy for years) - kinda breaks down at the legislative level, unless you really break party unity and get some defectors, which obviously hasn't happened.

yeah I think they've run into some unintended consequences lol

I did irl lol here

O's "long game" was to foment dissent within the GOP ranks and encourage the fringe right to come to the fore. which happened.

If there was a long game, I do not think it was what you think it was.

ok UNO then.

NYU prof writing for The Guardian about why Republicans get the white working class non-college educated southern males with jobs vote. Hmmmm, looks a little too simplistic for me.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jun/05/why-working-class-people-vote-conservative?CMP=twt_gu

politics at the national level is more like religion than it is like shopping. It's more about a moral vision that unifies a nation and calls it to greatness than it is about self-interest or specific policies. In most countries, the right tends to see that more clearly than the left. In America the Republicans did the hard work of drafting their moral vision in the 1970s, and Ronald Reagan was their eloquent spokesman. Patriotism, social order, strong families, personal responsibility (not government safety nets) and free enterprise. Those are values, not government programmes.

The Democrats, in contrast, have tried to win voters' hearts by promising to protect or expand programmes for elderly people, young people, students, poor people and the middle class. Vote for us and we'll use government to take care of everyone! But most Americans don't want to live in a nation based primarily on caring. That's what families are for.

ha i knew that was haidt without you saying so

lol @ his uk book cover btw

http://www.amazon.com/The-Righteous-Mind-Politics-Religion/dp/0307377903

vs

http://www.guardianbookshop.co.uk/BerteShopWeb/viewProduct.do?ISBN=9781846141812

Aye, but that's just the US hardcover:
http://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Mind-Divided-Politics-Religion/dp/1846141818/ref=tmm_hrd_title_1

http://andrewgelman.com/2012/06/stop-me-before-i-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa/
http://andrewgelman.com/2012/06/cognitive-psychology-research-helps-us-understand-how-celebrated-psychology-researcher-jonathan-haidt-made-such-an-easily-avoidable-error/

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_06/food_stamps_versus_peanuts038122.php

bipartisan Senate farm bill is flawed and the House farm bill is likely to be worse

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/06/22/obamas-consumer-watchdog-gets-sued/

the next ridiculous constitutional challenge that will become fully accepted by half the country in 6-9 months

A small Texas bank, together with two conservative advocacy groups, have filed suit against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, claiming that its powers and Obama’s recess appointment of its director are unconstitutional.

The State National Bank of Big Spring, Tex., the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the 60 Plus Association, a conservative advocacy group for seniors, claim that Dodd-Frank effectively gives “unbounded power to the CFPB,” resulting in “unprecedented violations of ‘the basic concept of separation of powers’ ” laid out in the Constitution.
richard cordray, cfpb

The lawsuit also alleges that President Obama’s recess appointment of CFPB Director Richard Cordray was unconstitutional because it did not happen during an official Senate recess. Finally, it claims that the new Financial Stability Oversight Council is also unconstitutional for having “sweeping power and effectively unbridled discretion” to determine which banks are “too big to fail” and thus subject to greater oversight.

Bringing new meaning to 'frivolous lawsuit'.

that's what they said about the anti-mandate suits innit

i can guarantee that there is a federal judge or two who won't find such arguments "frivolous." probably in the federal circuit where this law suit was filed, not coincidentally.

lol: http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2012/06/14/rnc-latino-site-features-stock-photo-of-asian-children

So I can't understand how Harry Reid is going to fund the school loan thing, but he apparently got Senate cooperation (and they're waiting for the House)

Democratic presidents are better for the economy.

Texas GOP opposes critical thinking

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0712/78096.html

House Republicans cutting back on food stamp money

“Every American that I know has been in line behind the person who had pulled out the food stamp card with their buggy full of groceries,” said Rep. Austin Scott, a Republican freshman from Georgia, at an April meeting of the Agriculture panel. “They put it up there and they put it up there with their beer and their cigarettes and everything else. And whatever is covered under food stamps they pay for with the food stamp card and whatever is not, they open up their wallet and they pay for it with cash.”

I agree, this is horrific abuse of the system. Food stamps people should have to wait until all non-food stamps people have checked out before stepping into a line. Also to buy beer and cigarettes you should have to present your last paycheck.

Austin Scott may not realize that cigarettes are addictive, so the option of just stopping buying them is not exactly in the cards for most poor people on food stamps. Someone ought to explain this to him.

He'll say they should go cold turkey

To further muddy the waters:

[u]Published: August 19, 2011
Federal officials on Friday rejected Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s proposal to bar New York City’s food stamp users from buying soda and other sugary drinks with them.

The decision derailed one of the mayor’s big ideas to fight obesity and poor nutrition in the city. Mr. Bloomberg and the city’s health commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley, were quick to criticize the ruling by the United States Department of Agriculture as a disservice to low-income residents.

The decision was a victory for the soft-drink industry, which had lobbied against the proposal,/i]

that was from the NY Times

He'll say they should go cold turkey

He'd probably also make them move into carboard boxes and wear prison clothes.

He'll say they should go cold turkey

― curmudgeon, Thursday, July 5, 2012

Actually he'll say they should get jobs and pay for smokes themselves

And for everything else

“Every American that I know has been in line behind the person who had pulled out the food stamp card with their buggy full of groceries,” said Rep. Austin Scott, a Republican freshman from Georgia, at an April meeting of the Agriculture panel. “They put it up there and they put it up there with their beer and their cigarettes and everything else. And whatever is covered under food stamps they pay for with the food stamp card and whatever is not, they open up their wallet and they pay for it with cash.”

I'm sorry, can we just go back to this for a second so someone can explain to me why I should care about this scenario, which sounds like it is operating the way it's supposed to?

your hard-earned money is being used to pay for black people to live a life of ease

Years ago I had to ask a friend to entertain the possibility that the man or woman might have gotten the cash as a weekly handout from a child or relative.

black people are literally driving buggies into the grocery store to buy their traditional food of beer and cigarettes, and whatever their ebt card doesnt pay for they use cash money that they literally took out of your bank account

Rep Scott apparently believes that if you are not utterly destitute and penniless, then you do not deserve any public assistance. But if you ask him who does deserve it, he'd probably have objections to anyone getting it.

your hard-earned money is being used to pay for black people to live a life of ease

lol, the best thing about that statement is everyone I've ever seen in my 21 years of urban living who has done what was being described in that snippet was whitey mc super white

http://prints.encore-editions.com/500/0/two-african-american-men-sitting-in-horse-drawn-carriage-bakery-and-other-commercial-buildlings-in-background.jpg

I'm trying to think actually, I've seen black ppl with public assistance cards maybe a total of five times in my time in Boston? (largely due to the neighborhoods I've lived in as opposed to them not existing) Cambridge and Somerville definitely have a large contingent of white Americans on food stamps tho

when you're poor sometimes you need some beer and some smokes to take the edge off how bad it sucks to be poor & I mean that seriously & anybody who doesn't actually know that in his bones is my fuckin enemy, getting all aggro about "they're on food stamps but they bought beer!" is some miserable human being shit

dudes like this do make it easier for me to pull the level for the Dems so I appreciate that anyway