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

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/2chambers/post/disclose-act-new-donor-transparency-law-blocked-in-senate/2012/07/16/gJQAbm7WpW_blog.html

The Senate has failed to advance legislation that would require independent groups to disclose the names of contributors who give more than $10,000 for use in political campaigns.

The measure, known as the DISCLOSE Act, died in a 51 to 44 vote on a procedural motion. It needed 60 votes to move forward.

bcz every nation that's gotten them has started to behave more responsibly?

lol

you mean like Israel? or North Korea? Pakistan?

Republicans say the measure could have a chilling affect on political giving, subjecting campaign donors to intimidation from their political opponents.

The bill is a response to the 2010 Citizens United ruling, in which the U.S. Supreme Court said that corporate campaign donations are a form of free speech and cannot be limited by government. Some nonprofit groups and unions are not required to reveal their donors. The bill would require speedy disclosure of big donors.

Intimidation, huh?

if you can imagine having a clue about the nature of siege warfare, or trench warfare, or any other kind of warfare that involves thousands of people and famine and pestilence, as it has for millenia, then this kind of warfare - 3am helicopters, robot assassinations, and self-destructing computer code - should be recognized for what it is - the most civilized form of war that this species has ever seen.

tombototm

fwiw I still don't like it, but it's better than firebombing Tokyo

ugh

v easy to say when you're not on the receiving end of a pushed button

i think we're having a means-ends disagreement here tom...

v easy to say when you're not on the receiving end of a pushed button

tmi

automated warfare: so fresh, so clean.

Republicans say the measure could have a chilling affect on political giving, subjecting campaign donors to intimidation from their political opponents.

Wasn't this argument explicitly rejected by the Supreme Court in regards to the California Prop. 8 donors?

the important thing about it is that less people die. that is all. that you can't see that as an improvement is weird.

xp

not good enough

and fwiw one person dead is still too many afaic. but 10 dead people /= 10,000 dead people.

xp

being a "less"/"fewer" pedant is total hell

imagine teaching the diff between "amount" and "number" to twenty year olds.

DJP that's why you should be in favor of more death and more dead, it's just simpler

I agree Shakey but I'm more and more appalled by the distance it gives us from the killing and the way it no longer implicates us since we're no longer sending our sons to do it on the ground but I guess people probably felt that way when the first jawbone or javelin was used instead of strangling or pummeling to death with your fists.

being a "less"/"fewer" pedant is total hell

being a "less"/"fewer" pedant is total hell

― PITILESS LIVE SHOW (DJP), Tuesday, July 17, 2012 9:09 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hurts me a thousand times more than any other solecism

So are only choices are isolationism or the Prez looking at "terrorist baseball cards" and ordering a button pushed with no due process? I don't think so. Never gonna hapopen because Congress won't do it, but an expanded FISA Court that would rule on drone usage could be a middle ground.

MW otm

and many of the "ten" HAHA ppl we are killing have fucknothing to do with "keeping us safe" or whatever bullshit is being spouted by Panetta & Co.

but I guess people probably felt that way when the first jawbone or javelin was used instead of strangling or pummeling to death with your fists.

naw dude this is how MEN beef

we should really stop killing HAHA ppl

if one death is a tragedy + a million is a statistic, it's a good thing that in modern society we're mostly dealing with tragedies and not statistics!

if you can't see the fucking hilarity in these arguments, Dr Strngelove sux

the firebombing of tokyo took place during a war, with armies and an ending; it was a Total War yes that was not confined to battlefields and militaries (i read a funny [if you have a sick sense of humor] statistic the other day about the relative intactness of postwar european industry -- factories and mines and so on -- on a continent with an apocalyptically devastated civilian population) but at least it was not an endless global militarized police action with no boundaries or uniforms under which even citizens of the policing country can be declared enemy combatants and executed by extrajudicial robots for things they exhorted people to do on the internet. this is not a war; it is a permanent order. nothing to be done of course so whatever but it's fair to find it creepy and unacceptable for a country that supposedly treats the rule of law and the citizen's inalienable rights as holy, and SHUT UP THIS IS THE MOST CIVILIZED WE'VE EVER BEEN is only a hair away from IF YOU'VE DONE NOTHING WRONG YOU HAVE NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT.

it's fair to find it creepy and unacceptable for a country that supposedly treats the rule of law and the citizen's inalienable rights as holy

I would hope it's clear that I do find it creepy and unacceptable

excellent use of brackets!

those two sentiments are completely unrelated afaict except that you wrote them both in caps? xxp

i believe they both relate to CRUSHING DISSENT

you forgot "except for THE FACT THAT" etc

xxp i was mostly talking to tombot

i think the two sentiments have a similar "what's with your high standards why do you think this is a problem" foundation

plus yes as others have pointed out the little call of duty muppets sitting in their comfy chairs remotely bug-splatting brown people is probably even worse for the soul than everything else we do

i think you can simultaneously appreciate that we live in one of the most civilized peaceful times in history (cf Pinker's recent book) and think that we should protest the things that are still wrong + immoral. that's why the sentiments are unrelated.

lol Morbz doesn't have high standards he has some sort hysterical hyperbole disorder

xp

where i fall out w/ ilx leftism completely is that i suspect some of those wrong + immoral things have a causal relationship w/ the 'most civilized peaceful time in history' part.

but no need to yell at me about it. i already know what [collective] u think about it.

naw dude this is how MEN beef

Humans, otoh, use whatever they can including crossbows, poison, nuclear bombs, and iTunes.

The 'SHUT UP' part of the first sentiment is not unimportant, I think.

no, Mordy, I think we're aware of these Ironies of History but still think they're disgusting

original objection was not to morbs but to domestic progressives who need to learn some fuckin history

our times are pretty peaceful for me and i guess all the other people like me are bringing the average up higher than it's usually been but if you're lying in bed in your village in yemen listening to the lawn mowers overhead and wondering if you're a Combatant or not the distinction prolly seems pretty academic

I mean, the President thinks so too! If aiming a drone at a suspected terrorist and his family keeps him from killing Americans in Times Square, he doesn't think twice.

If you're in Yemen, you probably have a better chance of being killed by somebody other than a drone.

and our times might be peaceful but we're trading the slaughter of Western citizens for economic rape on a global scale.

I mean I guess I'd rather be vaporized by a drone than pay the interest rates on my apartment

"The most civilized peaceful time in history" might suddenly look different if toddlers in a Park Slope sandbox got turned into hamburger by erratic drones now and then. "sigh, the price of world peace, pass the macarons"

if they got turned into hamburger why would you need macarons?

Alfred, I read that as the president wanting to kill ppl in Times Square (which I can partially understand tbh) but getting it out of his system by killing random dudes in Yemen.