2015 American Politics Thread: The 114th Congress Is in the House!

Representative Kevin Yoder (R-Citigroup) takes major credit for removing derivative regulations from Dodd-Frank.

http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/readers-opinion/as-i-see-it/article5360631.html

This next little while will be interesting.

Symmetry required it.

preparing to lol at what goes into a GOP "energy" bill

http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/simpsons-mr-burns-blocks-out-the-sun1-640x353.jpg

congress is being sworn in and everybody is kissing everybody in there

sounds gay

if you'll forgive a free beacon tweet

https://twitter.com/FreeBeacon/status/552553710828933121

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B6sXZwTCMAAqM0M.jpg

oh man, glance at that and it looks like they're waking up together on an american flag bed

lol

only thing missing is a couple of half-full glasses of whiskey on the bedstand and "you went to a concert" stamps on the back of their hands

oh...it's you...Nina? Nancy? Nadia? One of those...uuuuuugh my head

After he won, Boehner entered to a standing ovation and gave a speech calling this Congress to work together and end its gridlock. He finished with a stirring, though epically mixed, metaphor.

“So let’s stand tall and prove the skeptics wrong,” Boehner said. “May the fruits of our labors be ladders our children can use to climb to the stars.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M4ySFV-R4E

Quite a first week (so far!) for the DO SOMETHING Congress! They've relaunched the Benghazi probe (now with unlimited funding and open ended time frame!), replaced "math" at the CBO with "dynamic scoring", moved toward a vote on a dead-end bill for an oil pipeline, promised to repeal Obamacare, targeted Social Security for "reform", and now Mr. McConnell claims responsibility for the recovering economy. It's morning again in America!

ugh, wish Feinstein would retire first tbh. I hope Harris takes the seat, Newsom is a loathsome toad.

Harris might want to be governor first. If villaraigosa runs I will gladly vote against him if there is a semi viable alternative.

I more or less want Newsom to be prevented from occupying any office higher than the one he currently does, fuck that guy forever. Thankfully I think his appeal is limited... Harris is great otoh, I would totally vote for her. Everyone I know in LA seems to hate Villaraigosa.

uuuuuuugh, the dynamic scoring thing drives me nuts.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/11/paul-ryan-dynamic-scoring-tax

yeah this is the most outrageous thing they're going to be able to do imo

i don't know, the manufactured social security crisis is an up and coming outrageous thing that they might be able to do as well

We are bound to see many disgusting, dismaying, disingenuous, disastrous and downright diseased things coming out of Congress between now and January 2017. How could it be otherwise?

w/ Dem cooperation xp

imo Dem cooperation will probably be rare, but this lack of cooperation will be based entirely on tactical maneuvering ahead of the 2016 election. If the Dems were to win back control of the Congress in 2016 they still wouldn't improve anything beyond the margin.

Making progress via congressional action is like those childproof caps, where you have to apply a lot of pressure or else the cap just spins around, nothing underneath it budges, and you still can't get at what you want.

doesn't sound like the Dems are gonna cooperate much, and why should they, as Aimless points out it wouldn't be to their benefit in the 2016 elections

they can not cooperate and let their lame duck prez take the heat

Record-setting bridge-burning obstruction won the GOP the Senate though. I want to see Harry Reid break McConnell's filibuster record, if just for shits and giggles.

Come on, we're talking Dems, who lack that Republican killer instinct.

When Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) took to his chamber's floor on Wednesday he warned that the now minority Senate Democrats "had no intention of just rolling over" but added that the "gratuitous obstruction and wanton filibustering" of Republicans in the last Congress wouldn't be something Democrats would mimic now, pointing toward a big question about the 114th Congress.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/senate-democrats-using-filibuster-114th-congress

I assume all the Dems do in the next year or so is make dumb amendments to any legislation to use as dumb advertising fodder against a presumptive GOP nominee from the senate.

Dems will be split re voting for Obama's Pacific corporate trade bill though.

is Congress still real

Hopefully JEB Augustus abolishes the archaic institution.

Hopefully Repubs will fall short of winning over Dems to get 67 votes, but see below

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-small-band-of-moderate-democrats-could-be-key-to-the-gop-senates-success/2015/01/11/5172dfdc-9748-11e4-8005-1924ede3e54a_story.html?hpid=z6

“There will be a group of about 15 Democrats who are willing to work with [Republicans] on any given issue,” Kaine predicted in an interview. He is eager to work with the GOP on authorizing military action against the Islamic State and to revamp presidential war powers.

Fifteen is an encouraging number to Republicans, who now have 54 seats. If every Republican agrees on a piece of legislation, they will need to find at least six Democrats to help a bill clear the chamber’s arcane procedural hurdles and pass. If a few Republicans peel away — which is likely given the inflexibly conservative views of some GOP senators — McConnell might need to rely on even more Democrats. Sixty-seven senators will be needed if Republicans want to override an Obama veto.

Keystone will be the first test

srsly have you ppl been watching them the last 23 years

Republican Sam Brownback (R-Kansassippi) is raising taxes on the middle class and the poor, to pay for his tax cuts to the rich.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/brownback-tax-revenue-increase-budget

Shocking.

it's ok though, because the tax cuts for the rich boosted the Kansas economy so much that now everyone has a lot more money.

House Dem proposal to set the ground for a 2016 campaign argument. Democrat in the House proposing now, what they and the White House should have put forward several years ago (although White House has also been squeamish about such ideas):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/democrats-in-a-stark-shift-in-messaging-to-make-big-tax-break-pitch-for-middle-class/2015/01/11/d4438468-9999-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html?hpid=z5

The centerpiece of the proposal, set to be unveiled Monday by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), is a “paycheck bonus credit” that would shave $2,000 a year off the tax bills of couples earning less than $200,000. Other provisions would nearly triple the tax credit for child care and reward people who save at least $500 a year.

The windfall — about $1.2 trillion over a decade — would come directly from the pockets of Wall Street “high rollers” through a new fee on financial transactions, and from the top 1 percent of earners, who would lose billions of dollars in lucrative tax breaks.

...Brendan buck, a spokesman for House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) dismissed the proposal.

“Just as the sun rises in the east, Washington Democrats propose another massive tax increase,” Buck said. “Here in the House our focus is going to be on cleaning up the tax code so that we can lower rates for all taxpayers and help create good-paying jobs, not scaring them off with punitive tax hikes.”

what they and the White House should have put forward several years ago

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that it has been put forward now only because there is not a snowball's chance of it passing and no chance of their being blamed for its failure.

yep

lol? http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/11/7528337/senator-ted-cruz-nasa-subcommittee

boldly fighting to reduce spending in his home state, what a guy

Cruz serves a constituency in Texas, home of many NASA employees

Houston, we have a problem

LBJ fought hard to put those jobs in Texas, fool.

rick perry's legacy will make sure those high paying white collar jobs are replaced with fast food employees asap

Woo hoo, Romney may run again for prez

The Morning Squint this morning praising him for "being right" about Russia and terror.

Wait, I thought Congress broke up?

Not quite sure why HRC's last run is considered less embarrassing than Mittens', but I just wasn't made for these times I guess.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2015_01/warren_wins_on_weiss053697.php

Obama's wall street banker pick for a top position at Treasury , asked that his name not be re-sent to Congress for a vote. Warren and others opposed him. However, Obama's gonna put him at Treasury anyway as a "counselor", a position that doesn''t require Congressional approval.

I look forward to voting for her again

guys President Ted Cruz is gonna abolish the IRS! this is going to be so awesome

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/john-kerry-james-taylor-france

Now the French will love us, and terrorists and potential terrorists will repent. John Kerry brought James Taylor with him to Paris to sing "you've Got a Friend." OK, maybe it was touching

talk about terror.

i bet some Left Bank cineaste shouted "Let's have an automobile race, motherfucker!" at JT.

Total misread of the audience. Kerry should've brought Jerry Lewis.

you don't suppose Kerry could have left JT in France and revoked his passport

the plans they made put an end to you

Freedom!

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2015/01/15/377526088/conservative-koch-brothers-group-puts-congressional-gop-on-notice?sc=tw

The American people are fed up with a Congress that fails to cut taxes on the rich with sufficient zeal and commitment. Oh, and incidentally, the American people DEMANDS that Congress eliminate the social safety net at the same time, so the government's greatly reduced tax revenue is no longer wasted on helping all those working poor people. All it does is spoil them.

^ We know this because the highly-paid spokesperson for the Koch brothers feed-the-rich organization has boldly declared it.

State of the Union tonight to include tax ideas that should have been included when Dems had majorities. Ideas are also still less inclusive than House Dem proposal upthread, but better to have these items as subject of discussion that Republican trickle-down ones I guess. Also on the bright side, hopefully no talk for now re grand bargain and chained cpi and such

what, campaign on taxing the rich and lose donations?

that might endanger the Dems' ironclad hold on our guvmint

Did you see that Stepford wife farmer/soldier and new Iowa Senator Joni Ernst give the Republican response to the State of the Union? Wow, that was horrible.

better or worse than when it was Jindal

http://imgur.com/i8SpBem

Ernst was nearly as bad as Jindal. Pretty scary...That fake, frightening smile as she talked about anything from wearing plastic bags over her falling apart shoes as a child to wanting to end Obamacare but of course not offering something better.

For some reason I watched on CBS, where George Bush's golf buddy Bob Schieffer said she seemed nice and direct

search Ernst and Stepford in twitter

Inside the Beltway goof Millbank worries in the W. Post that neither Obama nor Ernst were worried enough about TERRORISM and how it could come to the US again

It's nice that after appearing in Sidney Lumet's The Verdict, the late Milo O'Shea was able to find a new career as the US Secretary of Energy.

http://s.mcstatic.com/thumb/6780506/19010036/4/flash_player/0/1/the_verdict_a_fair_trial.jpg?v=2

Ted Cruz....

But on Tuesday, Republicans were offering few specifics and retreated to their familiar criticisms of Mr. Obama: that he is a tax-and-spend liberal whose policies they could never endorse.
“This president, to every problem his solution is, ‘More taxes, more government,’ “ Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, said. “The American people made clear the last thing we want is yet more taxes from Washington, more government spending, more debt, more regulations.”

Mr. Cruz likened Mr. Obama’s approach to the famous “Saturday Night Live” spoof of the Blue Oyster Cult song “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper.”

“To every problem,” Mr. Cruz said, “his solution was, ‘More cowbell! More cowbell!’ “

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/us/politics/republicans-have-one-word-for-presidents-proposals-and-veto-threats-no.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=b-lede-package-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

You could at the same about the gops mantra of tax cuts and corporate welfare for oil companies

yep

and can someone tell me why the tea party aka the hard right of the gop gets its own sotu response? have there usually been multiple dem responses made by future presidential candidates or a lunatic fringe or what? someone link me to the dennis kucinich sotu responses.

I'm pretty sure whoever wants to respond can prepare a response

Yes, but I don't recall lefty ones. Maybe Morbs remembers some. I see there was discussion of the SOTU speech in the Barack Obama flaws thread

lol: http://www.inquisitr.com/1777070/joni-ernst-on-welfare-gop-senators-family-took-460000-in-taxpayer-handouts/

no surprise there

will never understand why this shit (cf. Bachmann family farm subsidies) doesn't get more traction in the liberal lamestream media

the right gets them because there is no one right wing voice of lunacy and because phony notions of balance.

obv liberal lamestream needs scare quotes

what a mess

http://www.buzzfeed.com/katenocera/anti-abortion-activists-target-republican-congresswoman-afte#.tpYLZgzZ20

Hyde Amendment not enough, of course

At the center of the controversy over the pulled vote and the target of much of the ire from anti-abortion activists is Congresswoman Renee Ellmers, a 3rd term member from North Carolina, who objected to language in the bill that would have required women to report their rapes to police prior to seeking an abortion. Ellmers and Rep. Jackie Walorski withdrew their co-sponsorship of the bill last week.

The vote was to take place on the same day as the March for Life, when hundreds of thousands anti-abortion protesters march through D.C on the anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade court decision. The House instead passed a bill banning taxpayer funding for abortions.

yeah I heard that on the NPR report. "It's on YOU, women, to show a police report before we let you go to the clinic!"

I like how the House GOP's backup tactic was to ban something that doesn't exist. good job guys.

Looking forward to the Werewolf and Dracula Protection Bill.

I love how it's suddenly not "murder" if it's a rape. Sometimes I'm afraid of what an illogical fruitcake far right nutter country we can be. This stuff is embarrassing.

the rape exemption is like a "two wrongs make a right" type of thing iirc

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/end-obamacare-and-people-could-die-thats-okay/2015/01/23/f436df30-a1c4-11e4-903f-9f2faf7cd9fe_story.html

hey, an honest conservative

Honest about how some folks could die, but not honest about the merits of the conservative Burr-Coburn-Hatch plan alternative to Obamacare, that has been criticized by both sides

honestly I respect people who oppose abortion in all cases including rape and incest more than those who make exceptions only for that.

Likewise, thousands of people die in homicides in the United States every year. We could reduce this number substantially, but we have (at least implicitly) decided that the costs — financial and otherwise — of more intrusive monitoring, additional policing, stricter sentencing and other, harsher measures are not worth the benefit. (Though we should continue debating whether marginally higher costs are worth marginally fewer deaths.) A sentry on every street corner and a government-monitored camera in every private room and hallway in America would significantly lower the homicide rate. But I wouldn’t make that trade-off.

holy cow, this dude is talented! i haven't seen lies this twisted flacked so confidently in a little while

I bet he read Ayn Rand.

Yeah, balancing that against "We could reduce the speed limit to 10, like the Care Bears on the left would like!" is a deft stroke.

10 isn't enough, cut the speed limit to 0

The Parmenidean Monad already took care of that.

Now this is the kind of free speech the Supreme Court likes

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — A network of conservative advocacy groups backed by Charles and David Koch aims to spend a staggering $889 million in advance of the next White House election, part of an expansive strategy to build on its 2014 victories that may involve jumping into the Republican primaries.

The massive financial goal was revealed to donors here Monday during an annual winter meeting hosted by Freedom Partners, the tax-exempt business lobby that serves as the hub of the Koch-backed political operation, according to an attendee. The amount is more than double the $407 million that 17 allied groups in the network raised during the 2012 campaign.

The figure comes close to the $1 billion that each of the two major parties’ presidential nominees are expected to spend in 2016, and it cements the network’s standing as one of the country’s most potent political forces. With its resources and capabilities — including a national field operation and cutting-edge technology — it is challenging the primacy of the official parties. In the 2012 elections, the Republican National Committee spent $404 million, while the Democratic National Committee shelled out $319 million.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/koch-backed-network-aims-to-spend-nearly-1-billion-on-2016-elections/2015/01/26/77a44654-a513-11e4-a06b-9df2002b86a0_story.html?hpid=z7

their father built joseph stalin's oil pipelines, and now they're the primary donors to the GOP. why does the left not hammer that point home every day? imagine if the family who was the #1 donor to the democratic party was that close to stalin

well, because the head of the Democratic Party is Stalin.

maybe they'd be able to fight fire with fire if that were so

pitts is tops

"In America, it has come to seem normal that a major news organization functions as the propaganda arm of an extremist political ideology, that it spews a constant stream of racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, paranoia and manufactured outrage, and that it does so with brazen disregard for what is factual, what is right, what is fair, what is balanced — virtues that are supposed to be the sine qua non of anything calling itself a newsroom."

http://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2015/01/26/fox-news/22364439/

McCain keeps it real for his war criminal homie

just for posterity, the 9 democratic senators who voted to approve the keystone XL pipeline:

Bennet (D-CO)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Donnelly (D-IN)
Heitkamp (D-ND)
Manchin (D-WV)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Tester (D-MT)
Warner (D-VA)

I don't see any surprises there

yeah, they were all expected. first veto on a major issue in obama's tenure, coming up.

Mary Landrieu we miss ye

Manchin has guaranteed his place in the Evan Bayh Hall of Fame of Worthless Democratic Senators

Protester Grabs Mic At Muslim Event: 'Islam Will Not Dominate Texas' (VIDEO)

Texan announces Islam unable to penetrate a bag of rocks.

good. slice and dice these scum

http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-defense-sequester-20150129-story.html#page=1

The House member for my district is going to pass away one of these days or weeks, btw. He's at home under hospice care now. Brain tumor + stroke + another brain tumor is no way to go.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/mississippi-rep-alan-nunnelee-diagnosed-with-inoperable-brain-tumor/

x-post. Obama's proposals to increase defense spending and domestic spending above sequestration will get rejected by the republicans and the White House knows that. But his indication of approval for more defense spending (for a country that already spends more than the next ten countries together) will just be taken as a sign of approval by Republicans to try to cut domestic spending, while increasing defense spending. So how is this good?

I guess the point is that it is good for Republican defense hawks and fiscal types to fight it out, but Obama encouraging the defense types does not seem that helpful to me.

According to the Washington Post:

. Although members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have warned of problems sustaining readiness, the military budget after adjusting for inflation is still in line with what it was in 2007, when the United States had much larger troop commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq.

nothing's getting done until 2017. i think he's trolling them, setting the terms for 2016. so now you want to increase defense spending and defense spending only, after having a fit about the deficit/debt? let's see you argue that it's good to do that but bad to increase domestic spending. rubio/walker/paul/christie/bush will flub that debate question every bit as much as they'll screw up gay marriage, abortion, and immigration

xp that does suggest that they wouldn't push for that anyway, which they would.

I hope nothing gets done. There are a few Republicans talking "entitlement" reform and tax reform, which makes me nervous because of Obama's previous endorsement of chained cpi and a grand bargain.

so far my reaction to the last few weeks has been, "What new majority?"

Nothing significant is going to pass. Obama's recent actions have clearly proven that he's a) going to accomplish as much as he can by exec order and b) setting the stage for the Dems for 2016. No big compromises that would hand the GOP poltical capital are going to happen.

When is the Supreme Court gonna hear that next Obamacare case? I see some political bloggers doing lots of 'what if' writing in regards to that.

Ah, yes. The Obamacare case where, in order to buy the plaintiff's interpretation of the law's intent the justices must find that Congress knowingly sabotaged the entire rationale for the law, rather than that it committed a minor oversight in writing a bill that ran to many hundreds of pages.

somehow it's not wasteful government spending for congress to keep hope alive about repealing nationalized romneycare, but foodstamps for starving children we cannot afford

support the troops!

http://www.stripes.com/report-pay-and-benefits-panel-to-recommend-killing-20-year-retirement-1.326293

let's pay for the oil wars with the money of those we sent to fight it rather than the people that got rich from it!

When is the Supreme Court gonna hear that next Obamacare case? I see some political bloggers doing lots of 'what if' writing in regards to that.

― curmudgeon

What else can they write about?

gettin congress working again!

http://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7553521/republican-dhs-shutdown

This is funny from the NY Times article on the Senate vote on the House DHS bill:

Republicans blamed Democrats for using a procedural maneuver to block the bill from coming to the Senate floor. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, warned that the president had executed a partisan “power grab” on immigration.

Let's see, McConnell is not in favor of partisanship. No, that can't be right. He must not be in favor of grabbing at power to accomplish one's ends or to prevent the opposition from accomplishing theirs. Um, no, it couldn't be that. Ah, now I got it! McConnell is spouting crap out his ass.

I'm not sure blobfish actually have enough muscles to spout anything

is there an """"explainer"""" of how the congressional GOP is actually managing to seem less capable of governing now that they have control of the Senate? Is it just that O.'s executive actions are emboldened b/c he's free from the burden of campaign optics and congress is doing the same amount of nothing as it was in recent sessions?

significant portion of GOP members have totally unachievable goals and no incentive to compromise, I'd say that's a large part of their problem

new display name here I come

This might more properly go in the "seems like it's from the Onion" thread:

http://host.madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/walker-strikes-truth-human-condition-from-wisconsin-idea-adds-workforce/article_a4ca4220-7211-5fc8-b2b9-0ab5313c6937.html

Shit. I guess it just wouldn't do for those college kids to be getting any big ideas now, would it?

Only if "the workforce" needs them.

aka "die Arbeitskräfte"

most current GOP members of Congress are there to raise their speaking fees, score book deals, and live in talk radio land. They're not there to legislate, but no one can say so.

so it's just continuing resolutions from here till the end of time I guess, could be worse.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2015_02/judis_recalibrates053978.php#

excerpt from analysis

But you can forgive John Judis for wanting to make it clear he thinks any Democratic advantage is gone, since he was the co-author, with Ruy Teixeira, of the 2002 book, the Emerging Democratic Majority, that first explained many of the demographic trends that became fully manifest in the 2008 presidential election—including, most surprisingly, the Democratic comeback in states like Virginia and North Carolina with the right balance of minority, professional, transplant and “knowledge worker” voters.

So as his first article at his new venue, National Journal (he was one of the New Republican veterans who resigned recently), Judis has written a piece with the careful if evocative headline, “The Emerging Republican Advantage.”

Its most interesting feature is the suggestion that Democratic weakness among white-working class voters is beginning to be matched or even exceeded in importance with a new weakness among voters—especially but not exclusively white voters—with a college but no postgraduate education, and with middle incomes between $50,000 and $100,000 a year. This is a big problem for Democrats, says Judis, not just because these “middle-class Americans” are a growing percentage of the population (unlike the non-college educated white working class), but because they are at best lukewarm to the populist messages Democrats are beginning to deploy to stem the Republican tide among the white working class.

Judis’ biggest fear is that in retrospect the Democratic renaissance he and Teixeira wrote about in 2002 may been seen as an aberration in a long Republican tenure driven by the American middle class’ mistrust of government and anger at “incompetence” and “redistribution.”

I'm a little skeptical of that "redistribution" conclusion ... otherwise I don't consider "mistrust of government and anger at incompetence" to be partisan positions

All I ever see or hear from Republicans is mistrust of the federal government. Not just from politicians but from folks on Facebook and others irl.

that's only temporary

remember how much they mistrusted the gov't during the Bush years? oh right

It's been going on since Reagan. As long as Bush was using the federal government to deregulate and cut taxes (that is shrinking the federal government in certain areas) Republicans thought that was a step in the correct direction in reducing the footprint of the federal government they mistrust. The "mistrust" is never logical-- its why Senator Ernst can bash the federal government (on things she does not like) while her family received farm aid. The initial problems with the rollout of healthcare did not help though.

it's been going on since way before Reagan!

nah I'll give'em this: the GOP had many more sane members before 1980.

it gets tricky to chart because of how the parties' have historically switched places (Democrats originally the party of the south + farmers/rural communities, GOP the party of Lincoln + northeast + industrialists) but the right wing (ie the south + rural communities) has always conveniently excoriated the federal gov't ("states' rights!", "the New Deal is socialism!", anti-desegregation)... when they weren't in charge of it. the left has excoriated the federal gov't when they weren't in charge as well, although typically for things like being too laissez-faire and in the pocket of corporate capitalists or for lashing out militarily/acting like a police state

xp

well, farmers + rural communities have not always historically been 'right-wing.'

but "mistrust of the federal government" is really vague as a term. Does it mean mistrust of the EPA? Or mistrust of the President ordering drone strikes against American citizens? cuz those are very different things that bother very different people for different reasons, and the constituency that's bothered by both is pretty narrow and fringe.

xp

"rural communities + farmers" = Populists.

farmers + rural communities have not always historically been 'right-wing.'

yeah I was specifically referring to the Dems origins as the party of Jefferson there (agrarian and pro-slavery, and typically skeptical of federal power), which ... I dunno it's kinda meaningless to ascribe contemporary political affiliations to people living in that era, but those attitudes and demographics have evolved/been passed down to the modern day along lines that we have come to call right-wing in contemporary parlance.

xp

@ZaidJilani
6 House Democrats say they wont attend #Netanyahu's speech; 4 say they will attend. Most undecided #SkipTheSpeech

CHEERS USA GOOD LUCK

http://onpoint.wbur.org/2015/02/05/infrastructure-improvement-obama-tax-overseas-roads-bridges

quick question: remember the 2010 GSA scandal where they were caught having a big expensive extravagant 4-day conference/party in Las Vegas? and does the general public really remember that?

i just ask because there's a WashPo article on the ramifications of that scandal today. the consequences of GSA's party are well-known to federal workers - congress made it excruciatingly annoying, tedious, and difficult to do anything related to travel, training and conferences - but I didn't think that the general public, beyond a few tea partiers, cared or remembered.

Haven't read the whole article to see if there's a chance for a slghtly less stringent standard. Also, is keeping most conferences out of Vegas really making things that difficult for conference planners?

Maybe Hillary can put a workgroup together to address it, like this one:

With advice from more than 200 policy experts, Hillary Rodham Clinton is trying to answer what has emerged as a central question of her early presidential campaign strategy: how to address the anger about income inequality without overly vilifying the wealthy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/us/politics/economic-plan-is-a-quandary-for-hillary-clintons-campaign.html?_r=0

. Also, is keeping most conferences out of Vegas really making things that difficult for conference planners?

heh, they're definitely keeping them out of vegas, but it's more than that. it's all the little things that are agonizing.

for example, let's say you're planning a mandatory training session, in-house. it's not a conference - it's just a 2-hour session that could have been set up with a simple meeting invite once upon a time. but there's an employee from another city that's going to be coming. and some consultant is going to come in to lead the training. it's not a conference.

managers get involved. "...is this a conference?" - no it's not a conference "is there travel involved?" well yes an employee is traveling from a different city but he does that all of the - "We need to let the deputy know. this is going to need approval if it's a conference" - it's not a conf- "it doesn't matter if it's a conference, if it appears that it could be a conference we're going to have to jump through the hoops" - you know we could just do a webinar since it's not really important that- "we're going to need you to fill out Conference Request form 2321-rev2" - but it's not a conference - "and in the review chain make sure to note that it's not a conference, we just have to verify that it is in fact NOT a conference even though it has the appearance of-" it doesn't even have the appearance of a conference, it's - "Request form 2321 is being revised again, apparently, we better just make sure that upper management is aware of this situation, we can let them know when we brief them next Thursday" (time passes) "Oh, I'm sorry, we forgot to mention this important conference issue..." - it's not a conference - "...during the briefing, we'll have to draft up a quick memo to let them know that we're requesting to have a conf- IT'S NOT A GODDAMN CONFERENCE! LET'S JUST MAKE IT A GODDAMN WEBINAR. SHIT! SHIIIIIIIIT! *runs down the hall and crashes through the window*

and for god's sake, PLEASE refrain from bringing in coffee or bagels to this training session because that definitely sounds conference-y and you know we don't need to deal with that right now

not only must you avoid conference, you must avoid even the appearance of a conference

lol @ "inclusive capitalism"

xxxp

if only the fucking shell game was sophisticated enough to be Orwellian, instead of Idiocracian.

Mitch McConnell is upset about filibuster abuse.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/mitch-mcconnell-shutdown-conundrum-obama

"You'll have to ask the leader," Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, the vice chair of the Senate Republican Conference, told TPM on Thursday.

burn tbh

http://www.prospect.org/article/needless-default

The administration’s foreclosure relief program was designed to help bankers, not homeowners. That disgrace will haunt Democrats.

By
David Dayen

I think Krugman and some others have been writing about this for awhile, and this provides further details

GOP circular firing squad in the house! http://news.yahoo.com/mcconnell-senate-stuck-over-bill-funding-homeland-dept-193718285.html

. Also, is keeping most conferences out of Vegas really making things that difficult for conference planners?

heh, they're definitely keeping them out of vegas, but it's more than that. it's all the little things that are agonizing.

for example, let's say you're planning a mandatory training session, in-house. it's not a conference - it's just a 2-hour session that could have been set up with a simple meeting invite once upon a time. but there's an employee from another city that's going to be coming. and some consultant is going to come in to lead the training. it's not a conference.

managers get involved. "...is this a conference?" - no it's not a conference "is there travel involved?" well yes an employee is traveling from a different city but he does that all of the - "We need to let the deputy know. this is going to need approval if it's a conference" - it's not a conf- "it doesn't matter if it's a conference, if it appears that it could be a conference we're going to have to jump through the hoops" - you know we could just do a webinar since it's not really important that- "we're going to need you to fill out Conference Request form 2321-rev2" - but it's not a conference - "and in the review chain make sure to note that it's not a conference, we just have to verify that it is in fact NOT a conference even though it has the appearance of-" it doesn't even have the appearance of a conference, it's - "Request form 2321 is being revised again, apparently, we better just make sure that upper management is aware of this situation, we can let them know when we brief them next Thursday" (time passes) "Oh, I'm sorry, we forgot to mention this important conference issue..." - it's not a conference - "...during the briefing, we'll have to draft up a quick memo to let them know that we're requesting to have a conf- IT'S NOT A GODDAMN CONFERENCE! LET'S JUST MAKE IT A GODDAMN WEBINAR. SHIT! SHIIIIIIIIT! *runs down the hall and crashes through the window*

― Karl Malone, Monday, 9 February 2015 15:26 (Yesterday) Permalink

I work for the government and don't travel, but from what I hear from others who need to, Karl is OTM.

"anti-theist" arrested in murder of 3 Muslim students in Chapel Hill

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/chapel-hill-shooting-craig-stephen-hicks-condemned-all-religions-on-facebook-prior-to-muslim-massmurder-arrest-10038126.html

Possibly over a parking spot

An NRA koan: If those Muslims would have been armed, this never would have happened.

<3 TV's Frank:

Erick Erickson ‏@EWErickson 2h2 hours ago
Boy, had that guy in North Carolina been a tea party member or Christian instead of an atheist gay rights activist, twitter would be on fire

Frank Conniff @FrankConniff
.@EWErickson Twitter is on fire about this, douchebag.

But the women’s father, Dr. Mohammad Abu-Salha, who has a psychiatry practice in Clayton, said regardless of the precise trigger Tuesday night, Hicks’ underlying animosity toward Barakat and Abu-Salha was based on their religion and culture. Abu-Salha said police told him Hicks shot the three inside their apartment.

“It was execution style, a bullet in every head,” Abu-Salha said Wednesday morning. “This was not a dispute over a parking space; this was a hate crime. This man had picked on my daughter and her husband a couple of times before, and he talked with them with his gun in his belt. And they were uncomfortable with him, but they did not know he would go this far.”

Abu-Salha said his daughter who lived next door to Hicks wore a Muslim head scarf and told her family a week ago that she had “a hateful neighbor.”

“Honest to God, she said, ‘He hates us for what we are and how we look,’” he said.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2015/02/11/4547742_chapel-hill-police-arrest-man.html

President Barack Obama asked Congress Wednesday to formally authorize military force against the Islamic State group, arguing the militants could pose a threat to the U.S. homeland if their violent power grab goes unchecked and urging lawmakers to “show the world we are united in our resolve to counter the threat.” The president elected on a promise to end America’s wars is sending Congress a proposed joint resolution to authorize military force against the swift rise of Islamic State extremists...

sad that the pretext for war is so flimsy that the president has to deign to ask congress to use its constitutionally mandated authority to approve this shit

re: chapel hill, this is really horrible, the victims and I have some close mutual friends and this is a fucked up thing to have happen in our community

lolz w everyone's favorite oompa-loompa

"The House has done its job," Boehner declared during a Wednesday media briefing. "Why don't you go ask the Senate Democrats when they're going to get off their a-- and do something other than to vote no?"

Stay classy, GOP

boehner that takes brass to new levels

seems like there's something hypocritical about boehner's whinypants, but i can't put my finger on it

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/11/opinion/thomas-b-edsall-the-republican-discovery-of-the-poor.html

the mortgage tax break should be eliminated tbh, replace it with a 9000% excise tax on all single-family home construction

lol wtf gop

sadly 'I know you are but what am I' seems to be the baseline for political discourse these days

time to replace the prisoner's dilemma as the default example of a game theory scenario, and replace it with what's happening now w/r/t gop, dhs, immigration, shutdown etc.

the house and senate GOP are acting in their own interest and it makes absolutely zero sense in the end. even if they somehow managed to overturn the immigration EO through the DHS funding bill, obama would veto it. and they're not going to be able to get it to his desk, even.

http://kirbyforgeorgia.com/481-2/

Ethical treatment of Embryos

We in Georgia are taking the lead on this issue. Human life at all stages is precious including as an embryo. We need to get out in front of the science and technology, before it becomes something no one wants. The mixing of Human Embryos with Jellyfish cells to create a glow in the dark human, we say not in Georgia. This bill is about protecting Human life while maintaining good, valid research that does not destroy life.

well there goes that plan

those kids'll grow up to be spineless

hey, at least we're still ahead of Israel

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/12/u-s-drops-49th-world-press-freedom-rankings-second-lowest-ever/

pobrecitos:

A month into their newfound control of both chambers of Congress, it wasn't supposed to be like this for Republicans. Instead of advancing a conservative agenda and showing voters they can govern, they are confronting the very real possibility of a shutdown of the Homeland Security Department later this month.

That's because they can't overcome Senate Democrats' stalling tactics in a dispute over immigration.

"I suppose elections have consequences except in the United States Senate," complained GOP Rep. Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina, summing up the frustration for many House Republicans. "Tell me how it would be different if Harry Reid were still running the place," he added, naming the Senate Democratic leader who was booted into the minority in November's midterm elections.

Although their party is now setting the floor schedule and calling hearings, Republicans are finding to their chagrin that important things haven't changed from when they were in the Senate minority.

Republicans are six votes short of the 60 needed to advance most legislation, and Senate rules grant numerous rights to the minority party. That means if Democrats remain united, they have the ability to block GOP bills just as they did while in the majority

govt doing nothing, the best-case scenario for the rest of my shabby lifetime

I hope not. I'd like to get SOMEthing done in the next 25 years.

Move your house inland, preferably a red state.

Yeah brownback got a ton of shit done in kansas

Then there's Tom Cotton, Republican from Arkansas

Tom Cotton is Ted Cruz with a war record, Sarah Palin with a Harvard degree, Chris Christie with a Southern accent — a force to be reckoned with. He may sound like he’s speaking gibberish to you or to me when he asks why there were no prisoners in Guantánamo before the prison existed, but to the Republican base he’s speaking their language as clear as day and it will fit nicely on a bumper sticker: “Let ‘em rot.”

http://www.salon.com/2015/02/12/sarah_palin_with_a_harvard_degree_why_new_senator_tom_cotton_is_so_frightening/

nothing new out in the red states either, more of the same:

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/02/republicans-are-cutting-taxes-rich-and-raising-them-poor

I have to say this Oregon guv who just resigned puts me in mind of Dabney Coleman:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/13/john-kitzhaber-resigns_n_6679800.html

congrats on your new bisexual governor, Orrrgun!

Damn! I hadn't heard about the resignation. He's correct when he says he was more or less railroaded out of office.

I'm not buying the idea that he conspired with his live-in partner to enrich her via the power of his office. It was more or less a big mess, mainly driven by her adamant insistence that he trust her and not interfere with her freedom to pursue her own ambitions, coupled with her very, very bad judgment and insensitivity to the ethics of her position. afaict, he did nothing worse than letting her have her head.

dunno where wolfers got this diagram

https://twitter.com/JustinWolfers/status/568180577314201600

looks like jeb is getting the band back together

but he's not here to talk about the past, see

Colin Powell notably absent

Why are the economically downtrodden not pissed off enough to march?

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/02/inequality_and_american_protest_history_why_are_no_movements_rising_up_against.html

off-hand I'd say because marching doesn't accomplish anything

see 1910-73

Christ, you are in true fucking vintage form today

"he said to the mirror"

street demonstrations lost their effectiveness as soon as centers of power figured out how to render them meaningless - ie, don't give news organizations footage of cops shooting protestors etc. Without that, media coverage declines, nothing "exciting" is going on, no one pays attention, rinse and repeat.

don't get me wrong I think the whole history of protest movement tactics is really fascinating. marching in the street itself was originally an explicit threat of violence, meant to convey the appearance of an army ready for battle. (and often there *were* actual battles). Then that tactic lost its utility - it was too dangerous, and it ceded victory to the side that had the most weapons/muscle, which was invariably the authorities. So then non-violent marching developed as a viable tactic, one that was successful because it was predicated on forcing the authorities to overplay their hand - the protestors could elicity sympathy by exposing the violence inherent in the system, which could then be converted into public pressure in favor specific policies. But then another shift occurred - the authorities realized protests wouldn't be successful if nothing newsworthy (ie, violence) happened, so they conspired to either a) render all protests non-newsworthy by refusing to be goaded into violence or b) made sure that any acts of violence that were perpetrated were the fault of the protestors, essentially making the protest backfire. And then people realized that marching in the street no longer accomplished anything, so they stopped doing it. the end.

an ever increasing number of poor people live in places where there really isn't any great place to march

this was a thing w/ occupy wall st local, a bunch of them were in parking lots or whatever

mind numbing debt maybe has demoralized lots of folks too. back in the day people may have been poor as dirt but at least they weren't in indentured hock for astronomical medical bills / tuition /car payments/ mortgages. but prosperity trickles down, you see . . .

i would say the post-ferguson demos show that the authorities are still paranoid about marches, and also, what helped galvanize the movement was independent media on webcams. people could definitely march, and it would prob help, if the goals were right. street-taking still works around the world. i loved the film Maidan, which showed how powerful it can be, but also the mind-numbing amount of work needed to get it to function. people need to be interested enough not just to show up, but also to organize, and get suplies.

people are paranoid about riots not marches nobody cares about marches

(in america)

there been hella marches here since afghanistan, but when ppl marched down the interstate, well, i saw THAT shit on the news

No need for marching:

Walmart, the United States’ largest employer, said Thursday that it would increase wages for a half-million employees as it reported its first rise in shopper traffic in more than two years.

The retail giant, which has been criticized for continuing to pay some employees the bare legal minimum, said that all of its United States workers would earn at least $9 an hour by April

I don't think the reality of "Walmart, the United States’ largest employer" had ever registered with me until this moment.

wonder how many staff they'll lay off to cover the increased wage bill

finally replacing the greeters w/ robots who can greet at 2x the speed

op piece by Cornell guvmint prof in the NYT yesterday: people w/ economic insecurity don't go activist on economic issues because they do a brutal mental calculus and conclude nah can't afford money or time. "In short, political messages based on insecurity can backfire precisely because they remind people of their difficult circumstances. I call this self-undermining rhetoric — rhetoric that brings to mind considerations that undermine the very goals the rhetoric aims to achieve."

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/18/opinion/dont-talk-about-those-unpaid-bills.html

btw the Slate piece was talking about "in the streets" as movements, not just marches, for the scant few of you who did not read it.

not to glorify the civil rights movement / 50s/60s / hippies too much but i wonder if there's a study correlating the decline of student protests/marches with the post-reagan explosion in college tuition. campuses are calm calm places and it might have something to do with how expensive school is (not just that there's no draft)

it's true, uni education was coming to be regarded as a people's right in those days. Now community college is the only option for what, 45% of HS graduates?

I'd say slacktivism coupled with post-y2k cynicism is responsible. When Occupy Wall Street started up I met just as many people who thought it was a joke and used the old talking points about people with iphones being hypocrites. Everyone is out-smarting everyone else, and the Occupy thing was made out by the media to be a joke and something that people (especially 20-somethings who would otherwise be involved w it) should look down on.

Not to understate police violence and the super confrontational nature of state power recently...

http://www.npr.org/2015/02/17/386976209/have-the-rich-really-gotten-richer

Also check out this story from leftist radicals NPR on how the rich don't get social safety nets and are actually hurting more than you think.

and in the case of people in their 30s and 40s (and beyond) who find their wages stagnating or shrinking, people that old just don't do such things, right? xp

I marched in middle age. Against the then-immanent Iraq War. Knew it was futile in terms of stopping the war, but thought it worthwhile in terms of making anti-war sentiment visible.

yeah, me too; i was being ol' sardonic Dr M

Obama vetoed Keystone

Despite their majority in the Senate, Republicans are four votes short of being able to override Obama's veto.

They have vowed to attach language approving the pipeline in a spending bill or other legislation later in the year that the president would find difficult to reject.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/24/us-usa-keystone-idUSKBN0LS2FH20150224

boehner's response:

"The president’s veto of the Keystone jobs bill is a national embarrassment," he said, adding: "The president is just too close to environmental extremists to stand up for America’s workers. He’s too invested in left-fringe politics to do what presidents are called on to do, and that’s put the national interest first."

probably a lot easier move for Obama when we have an oil glut

put the national interest first.

Canada's?

O did not really "veto Keystone." He may leave the final decision to the next prez.

Now the environmentalists are "fringe" and "extremist". I swear these people at this point just want to choke us to death - environmentally and economically. Was a time - in the 70's - when even Republicans at least paid lip service to environmentalism. Promoting the corporate-introduced notion that environmentalism is "fringe" and "extreme" is even worse.

So is our environmental situation. Again, I swear these corporate assholes want the rest of us dead so they don't have to compete with us.

that's always been the plan

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vKuslG3BxAw/TROr5hOzKLI/AAAAAAAAA_o/yjixs3MTiq0/s1600/Capitalism1280x800.png

This stuff about Obama *is* racist, and I'm sick and tired of Republicans being bullies about it. First Giuliani calls him a "communist" and far left, now Boehner says he's extreme and fringe.

No one calls them on it, but it's part of a history of suspicion of black politics as extreme, sentimental and irrational. The RW has for years libeled black politicians as too "far left" and " anti-colonial" in their literature.

People should call them racist - straight up, and not back down. Fuck these earth-killers.

hey now it's not fair to play the race card!

do not GSI race card btw

they call HRC far left too, and Bubba

out country is like a junior high run by sadistic 7th graders. it's a good thing taxes are low though

they call HRC far left too, and Bubba

Exactly. Republicans would be saying exactly the same things about a white Democrat POTUS. No?

Not to the same extent. O gets extra hate because of race

Washington Monthly thinking about 2018 midterms via Washington Post Dem Plum Line blog interview with Connecticut gov--

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2015_02/yes_its_time_to_think_about_20054389.php

PLUM LINE: Isn’t the problem that Democrats still don’t know how to deal with the midterm dropoff among their voters? What will stop that from happening in 2018, when all these big governors’ races are at stake?

MALLOY: I don’t think Democrats in most cases have come up with a strategy for that drop-off. We did in Connecticut. That’s why I’m still standing. We had a 56 percent participation rate. We contacted voters over an 18-month period of time. Republicans have done an exceptionally good job of making their voters feel like they’re part of a team. We need to replicate that. We need to make our voters feel like they are part of a team, that this is a continuing process, that every year there’s an election of importance. We need to retrain our voters.

So is that the answer? Better voter contact over a longer period of time? I dunno. It would be helpful, though, if Democrats also spent some time figuring out how to up their game with voters who do show up in midterms, like old folks, among whom the Silent Generation is being rapidly replaced by us Baby Boomers, who are a bit more open to voting Democratic.

As per the discussion above though, the context of who is actually going to be POTUS will be an enormous factor in 2018?

cpac y'all

https://twitter.com/MSignorile/status/571429737266069505

no justice no peace!

walker/palin 2016!

WASHINGTON — In a huge embarrassment for Republican leaders, the House voted down their bill Friday to avert a Homeland Security shutdown hours before the midnight deadline.

The House GOP plan was to pass a three-week stopgap bill to delay the immigration fight against President Barack Obama's executive actions until March 19.

But even that failed to pass, losing conservatives who considered it too much of a surrender to a lawless president as well as Democrats who demanded a yearlong DHS funding bill without any restrictions on Obama's immigration policies.

The vote was 203-224. Fifty-two Republicans voted against it, while 12 Democrats voted for it.

"This was a conscience vote about trying to uphold the Constitution," Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC), one of the "no" votes, told TPM. "If you're supposed to cave in because you don't want 30,000 people to lose their paychecks — how do you make a stand if you don't take a stand? ... It's the only option we have."

looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/faaaaaaaail

good URL

its the only option we have.. aside from, you know, governing

how do you make a stand if you don't take a stand

i seem to recall those lyrics from the title song to a sly stallone film, can't remember which...

long-forgotten Professor Griff line iirc

http://33.media.tumblr.com/f316d7d2917fe0b9a5a367f66cf6c06e/tumblr_nkgpt1KBMZ1qdmmiqo1_500.gif

Work of art!

he's a goddamned patriot

smooth crotch = perfect touch

A 1 week extension. Will have to wait and see what brilliance the House will come up with by then

data collection forevah

http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/nsa-spying-wins-another-rubber-stamp-20150227

Sad.

gonna miss ya: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/us/politics/senator-barbara-mikulski-of-maryland-to-retire.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

Gonna be a fabulous week with Bibi in town.

matthew yglesias sees a constitutional crisis coming:

http://www.vox.com/2015/3/2/8120063/american-democracy-doomed

rolls together poli sci stuff about presidential (rather than parliamentary) systems, polarization, the "executivization" of governance and constitutional hardball

The best we can hope for is that when the crisis does come, Americans will have the wisdom to do for ourselves what we did in the past for Germany and Japan and put a better system in place.

Hmmmmm, not sure of the crisis coming or that these other systems are better

I would love to have a parliamentary system

The best we can hope for is that when the crisis does come, Americans will have the wisdom to do for ourselves what we did in the past for Germany and Japan and put a better system in place rising coastal waters swallow every major city.

nearer my God to theeeeeeeeee

so HRC and those emails: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/us/politics/hillary-clintons-use-of-private-email-at-state-department-raises-flags.html

I can't figure out WHY she used personal email for four years and no one brought it to her attention. In Florida Rick Scott has conducted a lot of public business on private emails precisely so he can get around one of the country's fiercest public disclosure/sunshine laws and I'm mad as hell about it. As usual with the Clintons they choose mystery.

I can't figure out WHY she used personal email for four years and no one brought it to her attention. In Florida Rick Scott has conducted a lot of public business on private emails precisely so he can get around one of the country's fiercest public disclosure/sunshine laws and I'm mad as hell about it.

Your second sentence answers your first sentence.

iit's the "and no one brought it to her attention" that's left unanswered. you would hope that one of her handlers would realize it was a problem early on and tell her to quit it. but then again, other agency heads also used personal email over the last few years and endured minor scandals, and i'm sure others are still doing it today.

i am not an HRC fan by any stretch but she could have killed and grilled puppies and i'd still vote D, compared to what i'm hearing out of scott walker/JEB/ben carson/rand paul/ALEC/etc. if/when the yglesias crisis comes i hope that how outnumbered and old fox/gun/KKK nation is affects for the better whatever new set up

if she killed and grilled puppies it would be a misdemeanor in that world

the house finally gave up on the DHS funding/immigration thing.

coincidentally, this was announced just before netanyahu's address, which will probably dominate the news

aren't they smart

tbh even if it was a slow news day, otherwise, i don't have a good feel for how much people care about the GOP/DHS/immigration shutdown thing. the other day I was trying to explain it to someone who hadn't heard anything about it, and unless you're the author of a book on communicating succinctly, it's nearly impossible to explain in a concise manner. and even after the explanation, the person didn't really care at all. it's hard to get a good read of whether anyone cares about this shit at all. the results of the most recent mid-terms suggest that not many people do.

a handy list:

* April 2011: House Republicans threaten a government shutdown unless Democrats accept GOP demands on spending cuts.

* July 2011: Republicans create the first-ever debt-ceiling crisis, threatening to default on the nation’s debts unless Democrats accept GOP demands on spending cuts.

* September 2011: Republicans threaten another shutdown.

* April 2012: Republicans threaten another shutdown.

* December 2012: Republicans spend months refusing to negotiate in the lead up to the so-called “fiscal cliff.”

* January 2013: Republicans raise the specter of another debt-ceiling crisis.

* September 2013: Republicans threaten another shutdown.

* October 2013: Republicans actually shut down the government.

* February 2014: Republicans raise the specter of another debt-ceiling crisis.

* December 2014: Republicans threaten another shutdown.

* February 2015: Republicans threaten a Department of Homeland Security shutdown.

http://www.salon.com/2015/03/05/the_right_has_fked_up_minds_meet_the_researcher_who_terrifies_gop_congress/

does anyone read much in this vein of "political psychology"? this was a very interesting interview, but my inclination is to think that the types of analyses the interviewee advocates underplay the role of clannishness or group affinity in determining political affiliation.

maybe this has been discussed on (an)other thread(s)

it's hard not to conclude -- even being generous -- that "conservatives" are a bit touched

case in point

http://news.yahoo.com/conservative-case-against-enforcing-immigration-law-120000524.html

"Removing all 11.2 million undocumented immigrants, both forcibly and through Mitt Romney's infamous "self-deportation" policy, would take about 20 years and cost the government between $400 billion and $600 billion. The impact on the economy would be even larger, according to the study: Real GDP would drop by nearly $1.6 trillion and the policy would shave 5.7 percent off economic growth."

and still they won't shut the fuck about it

that's not really what the interview is about, though -- it's a misleading headline, because the interviewee pointedly disclaims that he's talking about social pathology.

although i think it might be relevant insofar as maybe "conservatism" isn't about the sort of quasi-libertarian principles its exponents claim it is about.

nothing much on ile about John Jost, from that Salon article.

the Tom Schweich suicide story is fucked up on so many levels.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/joe-biden-on-ben-carsons-gay-choice-comments-i-mean-jesus-god/

might as well enjoy this

"Removing all 11.2 million undocumented immigrants, both forcibly and through Mitt Romney's infamous "self-deportation" policy, would take about 20 years and cost the government between $400 billion and $600 billion. The impact on the economy would be even larger, according to the study: Real GDP would drop by nearly $1.6 trillion and the policy would shave 5.7 percent off economic growth."

and still they won't shut the fuck about it

they'd probably spout some bullshit about the massive savings generated by these mooching freeloaders being deported or all that 1.6 trillion being redistributed to all the hard working white people who will take the jobs in the fast food restaurants, janitorial services, picking produce in fields and meat processing plants that are vacated........

it's Crooked Dem Fucker Indictment time

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/03/06/391255700/source-justice-department-prepares-to-charge-sen-menendez-with-corruption

heeeyyy sup

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/mark-dayton-minnesota-governor-profile-scott-walker

turns out a depressed loser who doesn't want anything can't be cowed and can't be hurt (that's always been my read on the guy) (helps to be rich as shit to begin with too)

i always thought herb kohl was a litle like that, only he was also kind of ineffectual

did dayton ever have anything to do with running the target corp? unfortunately like a lot of big-box chains they are known for union-busting, which would seem to cut against dayton's political agenda.

no i don't think so. he's an heir to the original family. the dayton's name isn't on anything anymore (except a parking ramp downtown, in my heart)

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/bob-menendez-theory-iran-feds

this is p funny (BUT THEN WHAT IF)

great moments in liberal website photo editing:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/texas-gop-sign-former-fetus

tbf he looks like a fetus

he also looks like a grown up donkey lips from salute your shorts.

http://www.fanpop.com/images/polls/2127_3_full.jpg

If you had to pinpoint the moment this worldview began to crystallize, it would probably be around the first debt-ceiling showdown, in 2011, when Obama tried repeatedly and desperately to cut a budget deal with House Speaker John Boehner only to realize, eventually, that Boehner did not have the power to negotiate. The administration has now decided that in many cases, even adversarial bargaining fails because the Republican leadership is not capable of planning tactically. “You have to be careful not to presume a lot of strategy for this group,” Pfeiffer said. “I’ve always believed that the fundamental, driving strategic ethos of the Republican House leadership has been, What do we do to get through the next caucus or conference without getting yelled at? We should never assume they have a long game. We used to spend a lot of time thinking that maybe Boehner is saying this to get himself some more room. And it’s like, no, that’s not actually the case. Usually he’s just saying it because he just said it or it’s the easiest thing to solve his immediate problem.”

This analysis puts the administration at odds with the reading of American politics that still dominates much of Washington reporting. Many political journalists imagine that the basic tension for the White House lies between Obama’s liberal base and appealing to Americans at the center, who will be crucial for tipping elections.

Pfeiffer believes the dynamic is, in fact, the opposite: “The incentive structure moves from going after the diminishing middle to motivating the base.” Ever since Republicans took control of the House four years ago, attempts to court Republicans have mostly failed while simultaneously dividing Democratic voters. Obama’s most politically successful maneuvers, by contrast, have all been unilateral and liberal. “Whenever we contemplate bold progressive action,” Pfeiffer said, “whether that’s the president’s endorsement of marriage equality, or coming out strong on power-plant rules to reduce current pollution, on immigration, on net neutrality, you get a lot of hemming and hawing in advance about what this is going to mean: Is this going to alienate people? Is this going to hurt the president’s approval ratings? What will this mean in red states?” And yet this hesitation has always proved overblown: “There’s never been a time when we’ve taken progressive action and regretted it.”

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/03/dan-pfeiffer-exit-interview.html

better late than never, sigh

Usually he’s just saying it because he just said it or it’s the easiest thing to solve his immediate problem.

he's not the brightest oompa loompa

“There’s never been a time when we’ve taken progressive action and regretted it.”

smdh. is it any wonder that half the voting age population never votes.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2015_03/lets_give_em_something_to_talk054580.php

Kilgore:

I dunno about you, but I’d rather have HRC debating, say, Bernie Sanders or Martin O’Malley than Ron Fournier or the many hounds at Politico. It would feed the hungry media beast in a way that would if nothing else chew up words otherwise available for narrative-driven obsessions of the media’s own choosing that have little or nothing to do with what she’d do as president.

versus
some comments on the posting:

media just wants to obsess on HRC the same way they did on Gore, so no matter what issue a Sanders might raise, they will just focus on HRC alone

I heard the question being asked on npr this morning and it was the stupidest fucking thing I've heard this week

http://thinkprogress.org/world/2015/03/11/3632393/john-kerry-obliterates-marco-rubios-conspiracy-theory-iran/

RUBIO DO U KNO WE ARE FIGHTING ALONGSIDE IRAN IN TIKRIT RIGHT NOW YOU DUMB FUCK

Kilgore seems little concerned about the email thing, while others are a little bit more unhappy, meanwhile Jeb Bush chuckles as his private emails issue was largely uncovered.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/top-democrats-are-alarmed-about-clintons-readiness-for-a-campaign/2015/03/11/36c0763a-c818-11e4-aa1a-86135599fb0f_story.html

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/03/11/two-names-the-press-omits-from-email-coverage-c/202847

How about that Secret Service (D'oh):

Two Secret Service agents suspected of driving under the influence and striking a White House security barricade disrupted an active bomb investigation and may have driven over the suspicious package itself, according to current and former government officials familiar with the incident.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/secret-service-agents-disrupted-bomb-investigation-at-white-house/2015/03/12/0eb74590-c8c4-11e4-aa1a-86135599fb0f_story.html?hpid=z1

onion is on it

WASHINGTON—Expressing gratitude for helping her escape certain punishment, Malia Obama quietly thanked two Secret Service agents Thursday for taking the rap after she crashed a government vehicle into a White House barricade while returning from a late-night party. “Thanks so much, you guys; I promise I’ll be way more careful next time,”

Prince Andrew of New York had this guvmint email archiving figured out -- his admin PURGES all official email after 90 days! Til now, I guess. A true Clintonite down to his corpuscles.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/cuomo-calls-policy-criticism-email-purges-29616981

as a paralegal that has to deal with compliance for discovery requests and lawsuits this shit is a circus

if this was something like bank of america instead of the gov't you'd have like 50 different backups of everything

fun charts too

Spending channeled through the tax code tends to overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest Americans.

According to an analysis of $340 billion in tax subsidies for housing, education, retirement and savings in 2013, the top 1 percent received about $95 billion, more than the $90 billion received by the bottom 80 percent combined, said the Corporation for Enterprise Development, a nonprofit organization that seeks to build assets for low- and moderate-income families.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/18/business/economy/taxes-take-away-but-also-give-back-mostly-to-the-very-rich.html

, the top 1 percent received about $95 billion, more than the $90 billion received by the bottom 80 percent combined

reminds me of this fun chart:

http://www.motherjones.com/files/income-inequality-2.0.gif

I should save up my pennies to buy a lobbyist for myself

seriously though, that's astounding. if everyone receiving a bonus on wall street took half of their crazy bonuses and gave it to a minimum wage employee, it would double the wages of the ~1 million people who work for minimum wage.

^^^ THIS! (Or you should just go to school and better yourself, and get out of that minimum wage job.)

Exactly. And once this House budget proposal passes (with its changes to Medicare and Medicaid), those minimum wage workers will really learn how to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/03/18/give-house-republicans-credit-for-producing-a-budget-this-cruel/

Dick Cheney likes lattes. Seated in his favorite brown-leather chair in the sunlit study of his home in McLean, Virginia, the former vice president of the United States can toss back two of the warm java blasts in an hour. They come from a stainless-steel machine in the kitchen and a slender, mustachioed housekeeper named Gus, who serves them in custom-ordered white Starbucks cups outfitted with cardboard Starbucks sleeves.

that's the first paragraph of the playboy interview, apparently (choosing not to click because i'm at work)

I'd prefer a Playboy interview with Gus. xPOST

Two lattes in an hour!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

they keep his heart beating

new from evil angel: dick's warm java blasts vol viii

Was reading on ilm that Azealia Banks was being interviewed in Playboy, didn't realize Cheney as well.

his wife did write softcore porn

http://www.amazon.com/Sisters-Lynne-Cheney/dp/0451112040

lol

What do women want? A new edition of
By A Customer on May 1, 2004
Format: Mass Market Paperback Verified Purchase
Just focus for a moment on the nickname of the husband of the authoress, and it becomes E-Z to understand why Lynne Cheney's throbbing pudenda compelled her to write this novel more than two decades ago. As directed by the Commander in Chief, the White House gynecologist has since infibulated the author. Yet potent testimony of the intensity of gratified female desire remains between the well-thumbed pages of the few yellowing copies of "Sisters" that have not been purchased and burned by Attorney General John Ashcroft and his staff members.

"Sisters" made its debut when Mrs. Cheney was an unknown scribbler, though her words undoubtedly inspired the life choices of her daughter Mary. It is shameful that partisan political pressure upon Lynne's publishing house, as well as her current status as Second Womyn of the United States, keeps this moist, glistening gem from being reissued. Readers across America would find "Sisters" a fine excuse for self-abuse if only this exquisite paean to Sapphic love, as well as to prophylactic-clad heterosexual bonking in the Wild West, became widely available once again! Forty-four bidders attempted to buy a yellowing copy from eBay, yet only one succeeded, at a price beyond rubies.

Obama has ended up following Cheney's worldview nearly to the letter, but I guess just not as lol, and that's what matters.

well he hasn't shot any friends in the face yet

still time tho

Outward Bound w/ Rahm

more drones than troops for O

Giuliani urges Republicans to confirm Lynch as AG

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/20/rudy-giuliani-loretta-lynch_n_6910424.html

Seems like this can go here (and not just the Rahm E thread)

Unless they get the crazy lefty money machine going nationally, it’s not going to matter that there’s a resurgent left,” said an adviser to Mr. Emanuel who did not want to speak publicly about strategy. “The liberals at Heartland Cafe in Rogers Park can think great thoughts and read poetry for Chuy, but nothing else will happen.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/us/chicago-mayors-race-is-cast-as-a-test-of-liberalism.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=2

"Crazy Lefty Money Machine," my fave early Paul Simon composition

really how many George Soroseseses are there?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/03/23/mitch-mcconnell-has-a-plan-to-derail-obamas-climate-agenda-it-might-actually-work/

Former Obama legal issues and appointments advisor, Law Prof Larry Tribe helping MCConnell with constitutional analysis (that others differ with) re state rights re fed regulations

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said he didn't know what the Republican party's environmental platform is, but he does know that GOP inaction on climate change is Al Gore's fault.

"You know, when it comes to climate change being real, people of my party are all over the board," Graham said after a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations while responding to a question about whether Republicans could work with Democrats to address climate change.

"I said that it's real, that man has contributed to it in a substantial way," Graham continued. "But the problem is Al Gore's turned this thing into religion. You know, climate change is not a religious problem for me, it's an economic, it is an environmental problem."

The senator then said that Republicans do not have a clear stance on climate change, or a plan to address it.

"I think the Republican Party has to do some soul-searching. Before we can be bipartisan, we've got to figure out where we are as a party. What is the environmental platform of the Republican Party? I don't know, either," he said.

Graham, who has said before that environmental policy could be a problem for the GOP in 2016, indicated that he would like to help the party develop an environmental platform.

"I'd like to have a debate within the party. Can you say that climate change is a scientifically sound phenomenon? But can you reject the idea you have to destroy the economy to solve the problem, is sort of where I'll be taking this debate," he said.

so basically he's about 30 years behind

god he's dumb

or MAYBE strategically and cynically "dumb"

what is the difference these days, who knows

all of those debate "questions" were literally addressed decades ago

the GOP has a long list of items that require soul-searching. i like to imagine them all wandering into the desert together to search for their souls, getting lost, and never coming back.

ohohohoh or maybe they get lost but then they FIND their souls and return and suddenly kick ass

wrapping your servitude to the owner class inside bait for the starving class takes a certain kind of genius/cojones/deathwish, take your pick.

What is the environmental platform of the Republican Party?

You have to destroy the economy to solve the problem

Seems like he kinda answered his own question there.

since the economy only really works for rich fucks anyways seems like a win-win

@ggreenwald
Congress, in its usual kneeling posture, says they have no problem at all with Israel spying on the US

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/24/congress-totally-cool-with-israel-spying-on-u-s-officials-negotiating-with-iran.html

digby makes the obvious point:

Israel is spying on the US, with US knowledge apparently. But Israel is sharing what it learns with opposition members of congress in order to influence policy within the US government.

These people want to jail Edward Snowden for espionage while actual members of the US Government are working with a foreign nation to undermine an anti-nuclear peace agreement!

That Bergdahl issue again, fuck.

george will has an opinion.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-income-inequality-benefits-everybody

Monopoly profits are social blessings when they “signal to the ambitious the wealth they can earn by entering previously unknown markets.” So “when the wealth gap widens, the lifestyle gap shrinks .” Hence, “income inequality in a capitalist system is truly beautiful” because “it provides the incentive for creative people to gamble on new ideas, and it turns luxuries into common goods.” Since 2000, the price of a 50-inch plasma TV has fallen from $20,000 to $550.

Henry Ford doubled his employees’ basic wage in 1914, supposedly to enable them to buy Fords. Actually, he did it because in 1913 annual worker turnover was 370 percent. He lowered labor costs by reducing turnover and the expense of constantly training new hires.

All these thoughts are from John Tamny, a one-man antidote to economic obfuscation and mystification. Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), who called economics “the dismal science,” never read Tamny, a Forbes editor, editor of RealClearMarkets and now author of the cheerful, mind-opening book, “Popular Economics: What the Rolling Stones, Downton Abbey, and LeBron James Can Teach You About Economics.”

a one-man antidote to economic obfuscation and mystification

Carlyle quote from his well-thumbed Bartlett's.

whoops, i used the wrong link. i don't know why anyone would read it anyway, or why i chose to read it and share it with you all, but here's the corrected link.

btw, what the rolling stones can teach us about economics is that keith richards got so pissed about the tax rate in england in the early 70s that he moved to france.

Also, heroin.

LOL @ the great example Henry Ford being 101 year ago.

i love how debt doesn't factor into george's little fairy tale world

As George notes, if you can buy a made in China Iphone, or whatever you need at a bargain rate at Walmart, who cares about debt or the fact the 1% elite make that much more than you. Inequality brings you food and a phone.

That Will thing annoys me. Typically for conservative talkers, he's all on about how smart and clear-seeing he is, and how disappointingly stupid his opposition is being.

He posits a right-wing fantasy-land in which government spending is EXACTLY THE SAME as setting money on fire. In this view, the money ingested and expended by the wealthy and corporations is ever-flowing and miraculously regenerative, but governments are some weird monetary black hole.

Actually, the opposite is probably closer to the facts. Government spending is NOT simply flushed down the toilet; it goes back into the economy, usually pretty quickly.

- Directly buying things. For example, the Navy needs a lot of ketchup. So if you grow tomatoes or make ketchup, then - surprise! - tax dollars are flowing right back to you.

- Salaries and benefits to government workers.

Note: conservatives want you to think "pencil-necked EPA geek" when you hear the phrase "government worker." But that category omits all the soldiers, sailors, marines, police, firemen, teachers, etc. Those people are heroes when it's convenient for conservatives, but suddenly lazy and parasitic when it's convenient to lump them into the category "government workers."

And what do you think these folks do with their (allegedly lavish) paychecks? Set them on fire? No, they BUY THINGS. So if you sell groceries or cars or clothing to government workers, tax dollars are going right back into your pocket, as if by magic.

- Government contracting, which is OVERWHELMINGLY for defense. But even when it is not spent on guns, bombs, planes, and tanks, it is often spent on things like roads, bridges, etc. Guess who benefits? People whose jobs involve making those things. Also the people who sell food, clothing, housing, etc. to the people who make those things. And so on. I'm pretty sure the VPs of General Dynamics have nice houses. Somebody built those houses, somebody cleans them. I'm also pretty sure they consume groceries.

- "Entitlements" and "welfare," in all their varied and allegedly lavish forms. But do welfare recipients set their (allegedly lavish) checks on fire? No, they BUY THINGS. FROM PEOPLE. So if you sell groceries or cars or clothing or haircuts to welfare recipients, tax dollars are flowing right back into your pocket.

Indeed, poor people buy MORE things relative to their income. Because they have to. Otherwise, they'd starve. So it goes back to the economy fast. Much faster than corporately hoarded cash, for example.

not without precedent, of course, and as abhorrent as ever. DIPLOMATIC IMMMUNITY.

An 800-page independent report commissioned by the US-friendly Colombian government and the radical left rebel group FARC found that US military soldiers and contractors had sexually abused at least 54 children in Colombia between 2003 and 2007 and, in all cases, the rapists were never punished–either in Colombia or stateside–due to American military personnel being immune from prosecution under diplomatic immunity agreements between the two countries.

http://fair.org/blog/2015/03/26/colombian-report-on-us-militarys-child-rapes-not-newsworthy-to-us-news-outlets/

this is the kind of freedom to operate we needed in iraq that they wouldnt agree to. fuckin islamofascists.

so this indiana thing

Hey, Pence says this Indiana law does not allow discrimination. Who are we and everyone else he didn't want to talk to after signing the bill, to question him.

the jackson 5 come from gary. isn't that enough?

Harry Reid is gonna retire

Gonna be a mess in Nevada. No one to replace him. 2016 looks bleak in the Senate. Fortunately things can get always get worse.

They will.

I wish Harris was replacing Feinstein instead of Boxer

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/03/27/harry-reid-endorses-chuck-schumer-to-succeed-him-as-senate-minority-leader/

fuck this shit

was just gonna say Feinstein and Schumer will both die in the Senate, and help kill most of us along the way.

Schumer can fight for Wall Street from the Senate, and HC from the White House. Ugh

time for the Harry Reid retrospective think pieces

Reid said that Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) would serve as the torch bearers for the populist wing and hold the caucus's feet to the fire.

Oh, thanks

http://www.vox.com/2015/3/26/8296863/mcmorris-rodgers-obamacare

My esteemed congressperson's obamacare panic effort backfired. One of my colleagues is in the fb screenshot which is kind of awesome.

this is kind of inappropriate but

PATTY MURRAAAYYY PATTY MURRAY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgvP-hKC66Y

I hate this site but this is a solid retrospective: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/harry-reid-resigns-legacy-116468.html?ml=tb

jeffrey dahmer tells charles manson he's too violent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA-K93l5LgM

@ggreenwald
Bill Kristol worried Schumer is "too pro-Israel" to become Senate Dem leader. Don't worry, Bill: no such thing!

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/kristol-podcast-schumer-too-pro-israel-get-support-senate-democrats-leader_900607.html

One day after announcing himself as presidential candidate, Texas Senator Ted Cruz fired a few shots across the bow of Wall Street, and the firm that employs his wife as managing director.

In an interview with Bloomberg's With All Due Respect, Cruz was asked by host Mark Halperin whether, on balance, Goldman Sachs was a positive or a negative force on society.

"Like any institution, there's some of both," Cruz responded, adding, "Goldman is one of the biggest banks on Wall Street, and my criticism with Washington is they engage in crony capitalism. They give favors to Wall Street and big business and that's why I've been an outspoken opponent of crony capitalism, taking on leaders in both parties. I think big business, if they're building a better mousetrap, great, but it shouldn't be government favoring, and let me give you an example: Dodd-Frank. Sold to the American people as stopping 'too-big-to-fail.' What happened? The big banks have gotten bigger. Goldman has gotten bigger..."

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-03-24/ted-cruz-knocks-goldman-sachs-employer-of-his-wife

This guy, he's phonier than a used car salesman.

If he could actually comprehend the level of irony here his head would explode.

Building a better mousetrap what the fuck?

“I am unabashedly proud of everything about Heidi,” Cruz replied when Bloomberg Politics asked if her career at Goldman Sachs could undermine his critique of crony capitalism at the investment bank.

Not just proud of, but reliant upon. Beyond the personal support that all candidates require from their families, Mrs. Cruz brings political talents to the table that could prove helpful in the 2016 election season. Her Goldman Sachs ties make her a “not-so-secret weapon” in terms of fundraising...

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/416095/ted-cruzs-not-so-secret-weapon-his-wife-joel-gehrke

And she’s a foreign-policy expert, having served on the National Security Council during George W. Bush’s presidency. Far from fretting that she could be a liability to his presidential candidacy, the senator and his team are “very confident that she is one of our campaign’s greatest assets,” according to spokesman Brian Phillips.

Oh yes the successful foreign policy of the W presidency what great experience that must have been.

plausible: harry reid was beaten up. by the mob. in las vegas.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/01/ok-so-what-really-happened-to-harry-reid.php
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/03/what-really-happened-to-harry-reid-part-2.php
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2015/03/29/so-what-really-did-happen-to-harry-reid/

http://www.vox.com/2015/3/30/8309137/harry-reid-mafia

and it's Mitch McConnell instead of Sinatra who says "That's enough."

just super plausible, and sane, and well-suited to real life, to consider

In NRO's political obit for Reid it alluded to Reid's being a sleazeball who's benefitted from the public trough or something but included, of course, no hyperlinks. I tend to think he is.

But I love this bit from the Vox story:

Reid — who has grown wealthy enough while in office to make the Ritz-Carlton his DC residence

a friend of a friend lost pretty much all sight in one eye when a p90x resistance band snapped and hit him square in the face

ps this is the best part of the vox story

Reid reported the attempted bribery to the FBI. They set up a sting, but Reid ended up going off-script and choking the criminal as he was about to be arrested.

"You son of a bitch, you tried to bribe me!" Reid said.

President Petrol

http://arcticjournal.com/press-releases/1438/us-approves-shells-arctic-drilling-lease

While a day ago:

The Obama administration on Tuesday outlined an ambitious plan for slashing U.S. greenhouse-gas pollution over the next decade, calling for accelerating the shift from fossil fuels to clean energy to stave off the worst effects of climate change.

Documents filed with the United Nations formally committed the United States to lowering total U.S. carbon emissions by 26 to 28 percent by 2025, compared with 2005 levels. White House officials called the plan “ambitious and achievable,” and said the pollution cuts could be made without hampering economic growth.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/03/31/obama-administration-citing-climate-risks-plans-steep-cuts-in-greenhouse-gas-pollution/

Why both of these steps, drilling and new :

Here's 1 attempt at an explanation, obviously consider the source

http://www.businessinsider.com/r-heres-why-obama-is-approving-arctic-drilling-again-2015-4

mcconnell is pulling a cotton:

In an effort to undermine international negotiations aimed at combating climate change, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is telling other countries not to trust President Obama’s promise to significantly reduce the United States’ carbon emissions.

In a statement released Tuesday, McConnell warned other countries to “proceed with caution” before pledging any carbon emissions reductions to the United Nations, saying the U.S. would likely not be able to meet its own climate goals. The statement came shortly after Obama announced the official U.S. plan to slash the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions as much as 28 percent as part of an international agreement brokered by the U.N.

“Even if the job-killing and likely illegal Clean Power Plan were fully implemented, the United States could not meet the targets laid out in this proposed new plan,” McConnell said, adding that “Our international partners should proceed with caution before entering into a binding, unattainable deal.”

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/04/01/3641594/mcconnells-inner-tom-cotton/

the loyal opposition!

so now all congress is reduced to is pumping out glorified press releases talking shit about the president every two weeks?

now?

oh no, veto #4. unions bad! what will the dastardly kenyan dictator do next to undermine the confidence of the job creators?

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/237481-obama-vetoes-gop-bill-on-union-elections

xxp it beats actually governing.

McDonald's is raising wages. This New Republic writers says its because of the economy , not due to protests and such

McDonald's is part of a growing trend in big business. Wal-Mart made news earlier this year when it announced it would raise its wages for 500,000 workers to more than $10 per hour next year. TJ Maxx, Ikea, Target and Aetna have all raised their wages in the past few months. All of these companies are not buckling under societal pressure to boost pay. They’re doing so for economic reasons. And surveys of employers bear this out as well

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121433/mcdonalds-raising-its-workers-pay-because-economy

lameduck Dem presidents discover the unions, huh? visions of Hillary sugarplums in 2023...

All of these companies are not buckling under societal pressure to boost pay. They’re doing so for economic reasons.

these companies would like you to know that they are NOT considering public feedback at all

@glennbeck
Excited to announce that @GGreenwald will be my guest tomorrow at 9amET.

the convergence is upon us

i imagine that there are some issues where they could find common ground (certain civil liberty issues)

you don't have to be a paranoid lunatic to think obama has a poor secrecy and foreign policy record, but it... well it doesn't help, but he does.

curious if glenn and glenn will talk mike pence and indiana

boy...Glenn looks unhealthy.

you think Greenwald will wear cargo shorts and flip-flops to show him up?

So according to this expert the Iran deal is far better than anyone had a right to expect.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/04/glenn-beck-tells-glenn-greenwald-progressives-caused-world-war-ii/

That reads more like a mashup of two different conversations than actual discussion.

Beck and other conservatives with their same crazy talking point regarding Indiana and Iran. Conservative tweets in the link

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-nuclear-meltdown-commences.html

the point about pakistan is a truthbomb. everyone always pisses their pants about proliferation but pakistan literally helped give north korea the bomb and what did we do about it? jack shit.

Jeb Bush identified himself as “Hispanic” in a 2009 voter registration application form for the State of Florida unearthed by the New York Times.

so very lol

if this was a dem the right would put this on his/her tombstone and we'd never hear the end of it

. . . which is exactly what they did!

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=elizabeth+warren+native+american

leader-in-waiting Schmuck in action

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/chuck-schumer-bucks-white-house-on-iran-116713.html

This article about the horrifying Kansas bill includes this awesome throwaway moment:

Sen. David Haley, D-Kansas City, called the bill’s passage during Holy Week ironic. He chided Republican members of the Senate, who regularly hold Bible studies at the Capitol, to reflect on whether the bill matched the teachings of Christ.

results 1 - 20 of 5,210,000 for 'horrifying Kansas bill'

https://www.google.com/#q=horrifying+kansas+bill

http://prod.static.chiefs.clubs.nfl.com//assets/images/imported/KC/photos/2012-Coaching-Cards/Chapin_Bill.jpg

The narrative writes itself when you GIS Horrifying Kansas Bill. Amazing

http://www.speaker.gov/titanic

http://pando.com/2015/04/10/war-nerd-the-confederates-who-shouldve-been-hanged/

Speaker Boehner's staff obviously got into the liquor cabinet.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/nyregion/new-tack-for-de-blasio-wooing-business-leaders-he-once-denounced.html

christ what an asshole

A week and a half ago, Chuck Schumer, currently third in the leadership of the minority party in the U.S. Senate, moved quickly to solidify his position as the next leader of Democrats, securing the support of his caucus.

This week he endorsed Republican Senator Bob Corker’s bill, which, on paper, gives Congress the right to approve the nuclear agreement hammered out with Iran by the U.S. and its allies (collectively known as the P5+1). In reality, this bill is yet another carefully crafted attempt to thwart a negotiated end to this nuclear standoff.

Schumer told Politico: “I strongly believe Congress should have the right to disapprove any agreement, and I support the Corker bill, which would allow that to occur.”

The ramifications of the Corker bill are clear. Republicans will not grant their stamp of approval to any treaty signed with Iran. Regardless of their rhetoric, in the absence of a negotiated agreement, the neoconservative dream of military action against Iran creeps closer to reality.

Thus in his first major public act following the announcement of his presumed ascension to the top Democratic position in the Senate, Schumer undermined the views of the overwhelming majority of Democrats across the country, in particular the left flank of the party, whose activism (and online contributions) he will in part rely on to recapture the majority in the 2016 congressional elections.

He's already got enemies on the left because he's got wall streets dick in his mouth, this doesn't seem wise to piss them off for an entirely different reason..

Schmuck isn't wise

Don't think he cares who he irritates on the left

yes there's no Crazy Lefty Money Machine to get Schmuck out of office next time.

he and Hil, perfect together

(although frankly, a GOP prez and Congress is EXACTLY what the Dem whorehouse deserves in 18 months)

no they don't

With Alfred. Nitpick and criticize the Dems in Congress all you want, but no one should be stuck with the hateful nonsense the GOP is bringing

bsabsvr

hillary ensued

http://www.buzzfeed.com/rubycramer/internal-data-hillary-clinton-paid-women-and-men-equally#.qiPdJa7M9

Bill Kristol: If Dems Nominate Hillary, GOP Should Nominate Dick Cheney (VIDEO)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CCesLVCUAAAF2V7.jpg

LOL yes it is

bill kristol should be in jail

http://images.rcp.realclearpolitics.com/27523_5_.jpg

thx for reminding me

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/04/why-do-progressive-states-have-regressive-tax-codes

The nation's most regressive tax code belongs to Washington, a state that was ranked by The Hill last year as the bluest in the country based on its voting patterns and Democratic dominance. The poorest 20 percent of Washingtonians pay an effective state tax rate of 16.8 percent, while the wealthiest 1 percent effectively pay just 2.4 percent of their income in taxes.

There's a clear explanation for that: Washington has no income tax and thus heavily relies on a sales tax that disproportionately affects the poor

This is probably the one major thing I dislike about Washington. There was a ballot initiative in 2010 to set up a state income tax for individuals who make over 200K / families over 400K and it got shot down 65-35 which is crazy to me.

That whole "you know, I MIGHT make $200,000 a year some day and man that would suck to have to pay taxes on that" mindset is insane to me. Meanwhile enjoy your shitty education and infrastructure.

It's fucking insane that the tax cutoff is $14,000 a year. I was thinking it should at least be cut off at poverty level. Then I looked into the official Department of Health and Human services Poverty Guidlines. Apparently if you make over $12 a year you are not living in poverty!

2015 POVERTY GUIDELINES FOR THE 48 CONTIGUOUS STATES AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Persons in family/household Poverty guideline
For families/households with more than 8 persons, add $4,160 for each additional person.
1 $11,770
2 15,930
3 20,090
4 24,250
5 28,410
6 32,570
7 36,730
8 40,890

http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/15poverty.cfm

(CNN)The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said Tuesday they have resolved key differences on the bill regarding Iran's nuclear plan, meaning that passage of the bill through the chamber looks more certain.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker said Tuesday that negotiators had reached a bipartisan agreement on legislation allowing Congress to review a final nuclear deal with Iran.

"What I'm most proud of is we've kept the pure integrity of the process in place and the President cannot lift, while Congress is reviewing this, cannot lift the congressionally mandated sanctions, which is what they've been trying to do and push for over the past couple of weeks," Corker told reporters as he headed into a classified briefing on the emerging Iran agreement with Secretary of state John Kerry and other top administration officials. "While Corker said that "no one should ever count their chickens before they hatch," he expressed optimism that when the bill comes up for a vote in the committee later Tuesday it would pass, as expected.

According to a Corker aide familiar with the details of the bill, it requires the President to submit the final agreement to Congress, which will have up to 52 days to review and approve the deal. That includes an initial review period of 30 days, with 12 more days added automatically if Congress passes a bill and sends it to the president and an additional 10 days of congressional review if Obama vetoes the legislation.

so fucking stupid

i don't know why the president should be able to unilaterally lift congressionally mandated sanctions tbh

unless we're just done w/ this whole separation of power thing and the executive is going to be in charge of all decisions from now on

it's the general congressional opposition that's incoherent and stupid, not the tactics

GOP wants to deny Obama any successes of any kind and Dems cowed by AIPAC and Bibi all too eager to oblige, even though neither faction has any clear demands about what else they could possibly want out of a deal with Iran. all they want is no deal.

obama kinda opened a precedent for congressional intervention in foreign affairs when he sent the syria plan to them for approval.

that's inaccurate. they have very clear demands. for one, they want iranian recognition of israel. now maybe it's so unlikely that it's not worth including, but it's dishonest to say that they haven't said what demands they want. in fact bibi released a whole list of things he wants from a deal.

now maybe it's so unlikely that it's not worth including

*ding ding ding*

this is the kind of demand that is made to ensure that no deal will happen, and it doesn't even have anything to do with *why* the sanctions are in place in the first place. Sanctions weren't instituted because Iran wouldn't recognize Israel, they were instituted because of Iran's nuclear program.

Also Bibi is not a member of congress (much as he might like to be), I haven't read of any congressional members signing off on his list of demands.

sure maybe but obama said himself in 2008:

Only recently have some come to think that diplomacy by definition cannot be tough. They forget the example of Truman, and Kennedy and Reagan. These presidents understood that diplomacy backed by real leverage was a fundamental tool of statecraft. And it is time to once again make American diplomacy a tool to succeed, not just a means of containing failure. We will pursue this diplomacy with no illusions about the Iranian regime. Instead, we will present a clear choice. If you abandon your dangerous nuclear program, support for terror, and threats to Israel, there will be meaningful incentives — including the lifting of sanctions, and political and economic integration with the international community. If you refuse, we will ratchet up the pressure.

so ya know. let's not pretend like anyone here is a particularly honest dude. not the iranians, not the israelis, not the congress and not obama.

and not Speaker Netanyahu

If you abandon your dangerous nuclear program, support for terror, and threats to Israel, there will be meaningful incentives — including the lifting of sanctions, and political and economic integration with the international community.

this was a speech, not legislation and you will note there is no straight 1:1 correlation between any of those things - it's a very general statement

i mean ok all politicians lie to get elected, but considering that he legit campaigned on sanctions only being lifted w/ Iranian secession of terror support, and threats to Israel, it's pretty disingenuous to come back today and be like 'no, that requirement is totally crazy.'

legit campaigned on sanctions only being lifted w/ Iranian secession of terror support, and threats to Israel

this is a nice misreading, but it's wrong

'sanctions have nothing to do w/ terror support + threats!' 'they would never accept it anyway!' 'you just want to kill the deal!' < this is all WH propaganda to try and sell the current deal

also yes lol campaign speeches

I hear Gitmo is closed oh wai

xp

lol tell me how it's wrong:

Instead, we will present a clear choice. If you abandon your dangerous nuclear program, support for terror, and threats to Israel, there will be meaningful incentives — including the lifting of sanctions, and political and economic integration with the international community. If you refuse, we will ratchet up the pressure.

how does that not mean - incentives for abandoning nuclear program, support for terror, and threats to Israel, ratcheting up pressure for refusing those things?

But even if Obama had made this recognition a cornerstone of the Security Council agreement this Congress would still have found another footnote to argue over. Frankly, given Obama's foreign policy malfeasance I wouldn't trust him either but with the other SC members it's a case of the Legion of Doom keeping a close eye on each other as they guard their self-interest.

like be honest - if the game has changed, or obama is desperate for a deal, or he just said shit in 2008 to get elected, ok whatever. but don't tell me - no, actually the plain meaning of the words he spoke are false and ppl who still hold that position in 2015 are disingenuous.

you have Congressmen agreeing with John Bolton that we should drop missiles on Iran. Why should we take them on good faith?

i assume that if congress wants a veto-proof majority for this bill they're going to need to convince some people to sign on who don't agree w/ john bolton

Majority Leader Bolton

and if a veto-proof majority of congress supports the bill, and it's legal within the framework of the constitution, then what's the complaint exactly? we're upset that the executive branch doesn't have more unilateral legal power than it already does?

or is this just more creepy liberalism. democracy for me but not for thee?

sanctions have nothing to do w/ terror support + threats!

terror support and threats are not mentioned/addressed in the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010

how does that not mean - incentives for abandoning nuclear program, support for terror, and threats to Israel, ratcheting up pressure for refusing those things?

I know you know what "including" and "and" mean. that statement does not specify any direct relationship between any of the items listed - it's vague as befits a campaign statement. (and frankly I don't think it's worth parsing the semantics of campaign speeches when it comes down to how policy actually gets done)

xxp

i think yr doing some serious gymnastics to explain how obama didn't mean what he obviously meant. but whatever, obv you have a stake in defending him on this issue.

"including" doesn't even come into the part of the sentence you think you're parsing. " If you abandon your dangerous nuclear program, support for terror, and threats to Israel, there will be meaningful incentives... If you refuse, we will ratchet up the pressure." The including is the kind of meaningful incentives there will be. He wasn't saying that if the things they agree to include abandoning etc. this is basic reading skills you're deliberately fucking up on to make a silly argument.

unless we're just done w/ this whole separation of power thing and the executive is going to be in charge of all decisions from now on

― Mordy, Tuesday, April 14, 2015 5:44 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

congress has gleefully been ceding authority to the executive for a couple decades now

using "including" to preface the "meaningful incentives" listed oh why do I bother

"Instead, we will present a clear choice:" You can choose between the following two things.
"If you abandon your dangerous nuclear program, support for terror, and threats to Israel, there will be meaningful incentives." If you do these three things, A, B, and (not 'or') C, there will be meaningful incentives.
"— including the lifting of sanctions, and political and economic integration with the international community." The kinds of meaningful incentives include lifting sanctions, political and economic integration.
"If you refuse," to do the things we listed above
"we will ratchet up the pressure."

i don't know why you bother tbh. just say that obama was lying to get elected and he never really believed it. stop w/ the innovative syntactical interpretation.

I read that statement to indicate "you do some of these things = you get some of these things" but it doesn't get any more specific than that i.e. if Iran does a subset of the former the implication is they'll get a subset of the latter, it's not an all-or-nothing statement.

anyway I'm done with this let's move on...

btw, ratchetting up the sanctions in lieu of a deal that contains these provisions is also bibi's position. bibi today + obama in 2008 agree!

fwiw I don't think he was lying there really (altho everyone lies to get elected) as much as he was laying out a general strategy and not something that could reasonably be interpreted as a specific, firm commitment

xxp

But if someone in 2015 agrees with 2008 Obama are they dishonest liars trying to jettison any deal? Whose position has evolved here exactly

I didn't call anyone a dishonest liar

GOP is v clear that they don't want a deal

(altho yeah I wouldn't hesitate to call Bibi a dishonest liar, cf his pre-re-election comments)

In the end it's probably just a sideshow. If State can't even get agreement from Iran for the framework deal provisions that they supposedly had a breakthrough on what's the chance a final deal will happen?

They don't even have a framework deal.

More likely Iran installs the Russian missile defense system and then tells O to fuck off

we are the dishonest truthtellers! goodnight bowling green!

If anything I feel like congress is giving political cover to Obama for when shit falls through bc then he can blame them

Obama saying he will sign this bipartisan deal = yeah you are probably right

blech

although I kinda doubt that was Corker's intention lol

But if they get a deal and Dems had backed O, this is what he had wanted constitutionally, without needing Congressional approval

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/03/10/executive-agreements-and-senate-disagreements/

treaties serve as a tiny fraction of international agreements. From the vantage of the White House, this makes perfect sense: Achieving a 2/3 vote authorizing ratification has become increasingly implausible no matter what treaty is under discussion. ....

more than 18,500 executive agreements have been entered into since 1789: more than 17,000 of them from 1939 on. By the mid-1920s, the number of executive agreements had started to outpace the number of treaties, a trend vastly accelerated by World War II; between 1953 and 1972, more than three-quarters of significant military commitments abroad were conducted via executive agreement rather than by treaty. These included, in the mid-1960s, major commitments to the defense of such nations as Ethiopia, Thailand and Spain. In the last case, the U.S. pledged to protect Spain (which did not join NATO until 1982) against attack in exchange for the right to use Spanish soil for military bases.

iran agreeing to reduce threats to israel isn't the same thing as agreeing to recognize israel

what is the 'reduced threat to israel' going to mean anyway, beyond curtailing the nuclear program itself? like, that's what the whole thing is for. reducing support for assad? or hamas? why not demand they bring the shah back while we're at it.

if you want to get a deal in place it's probably better to not mention israel at all. the iranians won't even admit the program is for war anyway, right? or if they want nuclear power, it's purely defensive? demanding they say 'israel is a legitimate state' is not only a few bridges too far it seems kind of pointless.

shakey otm, an attempt to include language of recognition is an attempt to torpedo the whole thing.

frankly i don't see why hawks aren't ok with putting some dumb deal in place; given what they think of the iranians, it won't take long before they are found breaking the deal and then presto, we have a more legit casus belli (because they are fanatics and paranoids is why not)

oh my god

http://hillaryis44.com/

this blog is still going

and it is REALLY going

motherfucker is just flying right now

a quote from a Hillary hating article from a Hillary Hater at the Hillary Hating All White Republic:

so much hatin

Inspired by Clinton’s “pragmatic centrism”

lol I can't think of many things less inspiring than the phrase "pragmatic centrism"

dogmatic censusism

"George W. Bush"

"18-1/2 months more of this shit"

don't expect an improvement in month 19

my historical memory is shorter than others, or maybe it's experiencing more of this thru twitter this time around, but i feel like the level of already-sick-of-this-shit cynicism is remarkable

don't u feel like already-sick-of-this-shit cynicism is an eternal condition?

hey guys, the cynics are the ppl putting on the fucking circus.

The right wingnuts have a few wingnut-pandering candidates to excite them. Everyone to the left of the right wingnuts has a big bowl of lukewarm gruel to look forward to.

i suspect that historically we [the public], and more of us, probably have more input into the political process than almost any other time in history. maybe there's a relationship between a low level of participation in politics and cynicism - bc if you have no participation, there's no reason to get hopeful in the first place. but a little bit is enough for you to believe politics should be serving you, and become cynical + disappointed when it doesn't. or maybe historically political cynicism always existed. "death & taxes" dates at least back to 18th century and has a bit of that cynical resigned tone in it.

all i really know is that hagar the horrible complains about his local governance a lot