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

http://www.thedailybeast.com/videos.html#ask-andrew-anything

7th through 11th clips at this link

I haven't linked to one of his in a while, but this one worth a read for how it rips apart a Dem talking point.

ehhh I think O did try to close Gitmo and then when he realized it was not going to happen, he turned tail and doubled down on Bushco policies

I'd be inclined to agree if he didn't already support warrantless wiretapping as senator

so that whole "my first act as President" thing was just for show...?

looks that way, according to the evidence

and the second act was gonna be marching on a picket line HA HA

obama never met an awful indefensible thing he couldn't say 'on the other hand...' about.

failure of imagination there

barbarism begins at home

IIRC, closing gitmo polled well and then people got all NIMBY about it and the polls weren't so positive anymore.

yeah, after congress (dems included) stalled on it

"What made Guantanamo controversial was not its physical location: that it was located in the Caribbean Sea rather than on American soil (that’s especially true since the Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that U.S. courts have jurisdiction over the camp)."

This is... not true. Being outside the US in some sort of legal grey area totally had something to do with why it was controversial.

I posted the Gitmo thing on one of the 6 Gitmo threads, dating from when it was Bush's Inferno and not another Democratic Shhhhhhh.

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/7-20-12-Drought-forecast.gif

hellooooo dustbowl

this dust was made by you and me

obama never met an awful indefensible thing he couldn't say 'on the other hand...' about.

I think Obama sees value in a strong state security function. Clinton did too. What that probably means in the long term - since the opposition, such as it is, favors even more permissive policies regarding violence and intrusion in the service of the state - is that the state security apparatus of the US will continue to resemble the types of federal or state police functions in "teh eurozone," meaning that DHS and CIA and FBI and your local cops are going to continue to collaborate more "fruitfully" until we all but have the functional equivalent of MI5 + MI6 + GCHQ all working together to fight "threats" as defined by the incumbent.

I will reiterate that it is extremely important for opponents of these types of policies and practices to fully understand the risk assessments and trade-offs that the state security folks are acting on. Writ across the community of practitioners, analysts and operators that do this stuff on a daily, there is NOT a desire to fuck with us. There IS discontent with the emergence of authority-blending that could enable the abuse of such power against citizens, but it is very hard to get individual civil servants to speak out unless they personally witness abuses and misconduct.

The importance of private citizens banding together to complain, bitch, whine and sue against the state security apparatus - and demanding more than bureaucratic "within 60 days of this memo, the agencies will name an ombudsman" non-answers to the problem - cannot be overstated.

BLUF: the best thing anybody can do right now about drone strikes and stuxnet shit is to put their weight behind existing advocacy groups and get organized. The political cost of supporting intelligence, counter-intelligence and defense encroachment on civil security needs to go up, and keep going up. If you really believe that black ops and robot ninja shit is distasteful, hone your message and cane that shit to the polls.

I can't believe I just used military middle management jargon in an ILX post after all these years. Jesus 30mm Christ. BLUF = "Bottom Line Up Front"

smdhbot

thanks, urban dictionary

it must be very hard to get individual civil servants to speak out when whistleblowers are getting bricked at a record pace.

tombot, always a man of the people

The importance of private citizens banding together to complain, bitch, whine and sue against the state security apparatus - and demanding more than bureaucratic "within 60 days of this memo, the agencies will name an ombudsman" non-answers to the problem - cannot be overstated.

the funny thing is, i'm sure obama would totally agree with this. then he'd sit down at his desk and OK the prosecution of yet another whistle-blower under the espionage act.

gets back to my point about increasing the political cost of such behavior.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/07/the-feds-violated-the-constitution-but-the-obama-administration-wont-say-how/260239/

This is a huge departure from what has traditionally been understood to be constitutionally permitted. We do not normally allow the government to indiscriminately make copies of everyone's private correspondence, so long as they promise not to read it without a warrant: The copying itself is supposed to require a warrant, except in extraordinary circumstances. It appears almost certain that a very different rule is in effect now, at least for the NSA.

The four star motherfucker who was and remains in charge of this overreaching, wasteful and illegal bullshit is speaking at DEFCON in Las Vegas this weekend. Overheard: "not sure where I'm gonna source the rotten tomatoes." That's not enough.

hehehe

http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/drone-court-advantage/

patronizing sarcasm has always been a powerful tool for reform

well hell reform ain't happenin'

patronizing sarcasm has always been a powerful tool for reform

well played, deploying patronizing sarcasm in the service of decrying the effectiveness of...patronizing sarcasm

it took Nixon to go to China.

true story, nixon is high highly regarded by chinese people :/

hehehe

http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/drone-court-advantage/

― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Thursday, July 26, 2012 2:29 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"Indeed, Reid notes they’re the sort that, at a loss to explain record corporate profits — bye bye, Bush recession — turn to arguing “the government’s use of drones and waging of covert wars and the drug war are the most pressing problems facing the planet.”

http://blog.reidreport.com/2012/01/on-bullying-glenn-greenwald-and-the-nun-rape-smear/

gee I wonder why they chose that column to quote out of context. Mysterious.

jeez, that new inquiry thing is labored.

House and Senate leaders are nearing a temporary spending deal that would keep the federal government running for the first half of the next fiscal year, which will begin in October, aides in both parties said Monday, an effort to avoid a messy government shutdown fight on the eve of the November election.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/congressional-leaders-near-deal-to-keep-government-running/2012/07/30/gJQA9ryWLX_story.html?hpid=z1

This would be no fun!

lemme guess, more cuts to random shit, no taxes, still running huge deficits

yep

Congress moving towards pushing Office of Legal Counsel into releasing drone authorization documents.

Cornyn also noted that just because he wants to see the memo doesn't mean he'd necessarily disagree with its contents.

lol no kidding

still if it's something of an unintended consequence of this shameless partisan posturing that these memos are made public, that's a good thing

the sub headline is "But if they get it, they won't be allowed to show it to you."

regular Americans should know what kind of conduct could lead to them being blown up by a deadly flying robot

kind of sad that I lived to see this sentence in a news story tbh

http://www.fullmetalhero.com/attachments/34945d1341780741-transformers-movie-unicron.jpg

just wait until other countries get deadly flying robots and they engage in battle with ours! that'll be so fun for everyone!

http://www.usmagazine.com/uploads/assets/articles/45638-hugh-jackmans-real-steel-beats-george-clooneys-ides-of-march-at-box-office/1318193426_hugh-jackman-real-steel-b.jpg

some good news, sorta kinda: 20-week abortion ban fails by not getting enough of a majority to proceed to the Senate.

http://www.salon.com/2012/08/01/dont_chant_u_s_a/

It's liberal Americans' Olympic dilemma: How do they root for their countrymen without being jingoistic?

shit like this is why ppl hate liberals

yeah, bcz they watch the Olympics

The President’s lethargy on the matter of judicial nominations is inexplicable. So is his silence on the subject. George W. Bush complained loudly when he felt Democrats in the Senate had delayed or obstructed his judicial nominees. Obama has said little. Indeed, Bush had a public judicial philosophy as President, frequently calling on judges to “strictly apply the Constitution and laws, not legislate from the bench.” As a former president of the Harvard Law Review and long-time lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, Obama has a great deal of familiarity with legal issues but hardly ever talks about them. His legal philosophy, if he has one, is unknown.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012/07/why-judges-matter.html

http://plainblogaboutpolitics.blogspot.com/2012/07/catch-of-day_31.html?m=0

The one culprit I'd add here, on top of the Republicans and Obama, are liberal activists and interest group leaders, who in many cases (not all!) just ignored the problem.

Does blaming liberal activists and interest group leaders on this issue make sense? Would that have made a difference during the first 2 years of the Obama administration? Would it now?

shit like this is why ppl hate liberals

― Mordy, Wednesday, 1 August 2012 14:07 (6 hours ago) Permalink

yeah, bcz they watch the Olympics

― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 1 August 2012 14:10 (6 hours ago) Permalink

televised sports, familiar bastion of liberaldom.

confusing rooting for the home team with 'jingoism' is so fucking ridiculous