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

start the new year right: with a signing statement that overlooks the long-term historical effect of the signature

lol I'd forgotten this last screenname, it's a personal favorite

heil Bam heil, baby

are the usual commentator cheerleaders doing their thing w/this or is everybody just too depressed about it? I know Greenwald went off about it, and elsewhere 1 person responded to some of my anger about it with "he had to sign it or they would have overridden the veto," which - I mean for a person to adopt that line of thought is deeply pathetic. The signing statement says several lovely things and then enshrines into law a truly horrifying thing which future presidents will be able to lean on to enact a genuinely, not-actually-hyperbole-at-all fascist policy.

I been mad abt some shit before but this is like...find the assailant from the left making the most outrageous claims about the party & this admin, and I bet even he'll be like "wow...worse than I thought"

all otm this shit is legitimately you-couldn't-write-it ridiculous

the day the rhetorical value of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY died

sad lol otm

And statements like this anger me even more:

I want to clarify that my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a Nation. My Administration will interpret section 1021 in a manner that ensures that any detention it authorizes complies with the Constitution, the laws of war, and all other applicable law

What a relief! I was so worried President Romney wouldn't be as altruistic.

nobody cares. come Armageddon, etc

Alex Cockburn on the defense/detention bill and contractor immunity in his year-end review:

Mindful that the votes of liberals can be useful, even vital in presidential elections, pro-Obama supporters of the bill claim that it doesn’t codify “indefinite detention.” But indeed it does. The bill explicitly authorizes “detention under the law of war until the end of hostilities.”

Will the bill hurt Obama? Probably not too much, if at all. Liberals are never very energetic in protecting constitutional rights. That’s more the province of libertarians and other wackos like Ron Paul actually prepared to draw lines in the sand in matters of principle.

Simultaneous to the looming shadow of indefinite internment by the military for naysayers, we have what appears to be immunity from prosecution for private military contractors retained by the US government, another extremely sinister development. The corporations involved are now arguing in court that they should be exempt from any investigation into the allegations against them because, among other reasons, the US government’s interests in executing wars would be at stake if corporate contractors can be sued. They are also invoking a new, sweeping defense. The new rule is termed ‘battlefield preemption’ and aims to eliminate any civil lawsuits against contractors that take place on any ‘battlefield’.

You’ve guessed it. As with “associated forces”, an elastic concept discussed above, in the Great War on Terror the entire world is a “battlefield”.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/30/goodbye-to-2011-year-of-the-rabbit-welcome-2012-year-of-the-dragon/

the entire world is a “battlefield”.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vCNEsRjrN6s/ScJGgqcl1QI/AAAAAAAABKQ/rZXKbNDGAdc/s1600/Pat_Benatar_-_Love_is_a_Battlefield.jpg

pro-Obama supporters of the bill claim that it doesn’t codify “indefinite detention.”

literally nobody can claim this with a straight face

yeah what does 'codify' mean there?

affirms as law the right to indefinitely detain

we can use a diff. word than codify if that's a sticking point. "allows." "enshrines." "affirms." it doesn't really matter. the bill makes bad policy law. "codify" means "to arrange rules or laws into a systematic code."

i wasn't defending it. i was wondering ironically what defenders of the law meant by "doesn't codify 'indefinite detention'".

oh yeah I don't know - I think that's sort of a word that just crept into the discourse here, it's kinda weird actually - it sounds more active than "allows" or "permits" and is less awkward and bald than "makes (x) legal"

well we're going off one sentence of cockburn's anyway! i wonder if defenders of the law would say it doesn't "codify" x

Have there been any prominent defenses of the bill itself from Obama supporters, or just defenses of Obama's response to it?

there are many people for whom there is no distinction between the two

On this board we'd murderize them.

Adam Serwer sorta disagrees with the concerns in his Mother Jones piece

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/12/defense-bill-passed-so-what-does-it-do-ndaa

and Obama's nearly alway right supporter Steve Benen at Washington Monthly earlier said this about signing statements:

As has been well documented, signing statements are not a new presidential tool, and while usage has varied throughout administrations, this power is nearly as old as the presidency itself.

But regardless of party, there’s cause for concern — this is a practice that’s easily abused. Ideally, Congress would pass legislation and if a president (any president) has significant enough concerns about the scope of its provisions, he or she would have to decide between signing the bill and vetoing it. Signing statements can quickly turn into an effort to find a third category: the president likes the bulk of the bill, but can issue a signing statement to note some language within legislation that doesn’t quite work for him or her.

Bush took these abuses to levels unseen in American history. Obama’s not in his predecessor’s league — many of his signing statements relate to Congress exceeding its authority over the executive branch — though criticism that he took a different line on signing statements before taking office seems more than fair.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_12/the_omnibus_gets_a_signing_sta034306.php

It’s snugged into the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act.

Isn't the repeal of DADT in this also? Ha, Obama did not want to veto that! Alright i don't buy that argument either.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/01/03/white-house-concludes-it-can-appoint-cordray/tab/print/

http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-QW328_Cordra_D_20111205113456.jpg

holy shit never seen a picture of Cordray/Kenneth the Page before

but yes finally jesus just make some recess appointments

Taibbi brings some perspective (no point in putting this in the Rotisserie Caucus thread):

This widespread and growing movement against the twin corrupting influences of money on our politics and state patronage on big business is going on everywhere – on the streets, in these courthouses, in the homes of people refusing to move after foreclosure, even in the antitax movements and the campaigns against state pensions.

The only place we can be absolutely sure this battle will not be found is in any national presidential race between Barack Obama and someone like Mitt Romney.

The campaign is still a gigantic ritual and it will still be attended by all the usual pomp and spectacle, but it’s empty. In fact, because it’s really a contest between 1%-approved candidates, it’s worse than empty – it’s obnoxious.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/iowa-the-meaningless-sideshow-begins-20120103

But the ugly reality, as Dylan Ratigan continually points out, is that the candidate who raises the most money wins an astonishing 94% of the time in America.

that is a handy stat that i will likely use to annoy people for the next several years.

otm i learned that from my ran-for-city-council-on-the-libertarian-party-ticket gov teacher in high school

...and have never forgotten it, is how that sentence was supposed to end

ha your civics class was taught by a libertarian? how was that?

ehhh that stat doesn't prove that elections can be bought (although they can)

it just proves that people give more money to people who are gonna win

"people"

yeah, i think the fact that most congressional elections are effectively non-contested kinda proves iatee's argument ... who's gonna give money to a sacrificial lamb?!?

me?

ever the martyr, you.

Zac that Ratigan interview is very odd, whats with the random end bit of "oh hey you're into surfing lets talk about that instead of WORLD DOOM for a bit ok yeah".

i didn't even watch the clip tbh, i was just keeping the link from the original taibbi article that the quote was from.

yeah, i think the fact that most congressional elections are effectively non-contested kinda proves iatee's argument ... who's gonna give money to a sacrificial lamb?!?

― Gay Andy Taffel (Eisbaer), Wednesday, January 4, 2012 4:50 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

whole lotta hat hanging on the word "effectively" there

most congresspeople are popular within their district so even when they're seriously contested, spending more money isn't enough. this isn't an argument that money doesn't matter, just that it buys influence more than it wins election.

s

and why are they non-contested? because the gerrymandering is done by the two corporatist parties? High rate of incumbent return is another result from the same game-fixing.

xxp

also cause most voters are happy w/ their shitty congressperson as long as they bring home a project or two and don't have a sex scandal

"happy" implies that they're actively satisfied. the truth is they don't really give a fuck.

and why are they non-contested? because the gerrymandering is done by the two corporatist parties?

short answer: no

It's complicated, but I'd say gerrymandering done by the two corporatist parties is a factor along with zoning rules, the history of residential segregation, various other political and economic issues, and more.

YES Cordray appointed

FYI

disgust with the NDAA not overwhelming enough to keep me from lol'ing at Republicans getting endrun on the Cordray appt

did he end up going with Rob or Nate

@natecordray
Nate Cordray
X Games party tonight at the Conga room
31 Jul via Twitter for Android Favorite Retweet Reply

I wanted really badly to post that as an image but am too dumb :(

Recess appointments for the NLRB too...

MITT ROMNEY IS ANGRY!

“President Obama’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is perhaps the most powerful and unaccountable bureaucracy in the history of our nation, headed by a powerful and unaccountable bureaucrat with unprecedented authority over the economy. Instead of working with Congress to fix the flaws in this new bureaucracy, the President is declaring that he ‘refuses to take no for an answer’ and circumventing Congress to appoint a new administrator. This action represents Chicago-style politics at its worst and is precisely what then-Senator Obama claimed would be ‘the wrong thing to do.’ Sadly, instead of focusing on economic growth, he is once again focusing on creating more regulation, more government, and more Washington gridlock. As President, I will focus on turning around our economy so that America can once again lead the world in job creation.”

commenters on speaker.gov demand impeachment!

no one knows what they're talking about!

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/recess-graph.png

on twitter: "Romney, if recess appointments are 'Chicago-style politics, then Reagan is Al fucking Capone."

To be fair, doing it the way Obama has is pretty unprecendented...but I'm sure he'd be willing to promise to do it again in return for an up-or-down vote on the rest of his slate...

"not to do it again"

not unprecedented

unprecedented in the sense that the Senate is not technically in recess due to ridiculous GOP antics

the resistance in the senate is totally unprecedented too

xps

^^^^^^^^^^^^

unprecedented in the sense that the Senate is not technically in recess due to ridiculous GOP antics

^^^ I had misgivings too until I remembered the reindeer games Senate GOP has played the last three weeks.

Recess appointments....

recess appointment = getting high with the choom gang

Password case reframes Fifth Amendment rights in context of digital world

i'm a little skeptical that ramona fricosu was such an advanced user of encryption that the prosecution can't break her password (did they try "password"?) but it's interesting

Another proud moment in Obamaland

In a crushing blow to the healthcare community, President Obama is expected to sign new legislation that prohibits federal funding on needle exchange programs both domestically and abroad -- a federally funded program that he himself signed into effect in 2009.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/04/needle-exchange-programs-san-francisco_n_1184420.html

click link, find out it's a poison pill in a much larger bill.

wow that fuckin sucks

then that's just fucking fine, Matt. Goddamn you all to hell.

fuck

fuck this fucking guy

I can't even from the degree of assholism necessary to oppose needle exchange programs. That is just next-level asshole

saying

like there's "oh this will affect people a few-levels-removed down the bueraucratic chain" and then there's "actual irl people will get fucked the fuck up thanks to this particular thing"

Thre's actually people in the huffpo thread saying this is a good thing, they should be left to die because its their choice to do needle drugs. I mean... I just...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/a-telling-sign-scott-brown-comes-out-in-support-of-cordray-recess-appointment/2012/01/04/gIQA8r68aP_blog.html

too bad the rest of the country isn't massachusetts

only w/r/t politics obv

I get in arguments with Dems who, clawing for reasons to defend Obama, say "politics is the art of the possible." Jay Rosen interviewed by Greenwald:

I think it’s crippling sometimes to our own sense of efficacy in politics and media, if we assume that the media has all of the power to frame the debate and decide what consensus is, and consign things to deviant status. That’s not really true. That’s true under conditions of political immobilization, leadership default, a range for normalcy, but in ordinary political life, leaders, by talking about things, make them legitimate. Parties, by pushing for things, make them part of the sphere of debate. Important and visible people can question consensus, and all of the sudden break it. These spheres are malleable; if the conversation of democracy is alive and if you make your leaders talk about things, it becomes valid to talk about them.

And I really do think there’s a self-victimization that sometimes goes on, but... there’s something else going on, which is the ability to infect us with notions of what’s realistic is one of the most potent powers press and political elites have. Whenever we make that kind of decision — “well it’s pragmatic, let’s be realistic” — what we’re really doing is we’re speculating about other Americans, our fellow citizens, and what they’re likely to accept or what works on them or what stimuli they respond to. And that way of seeing other Americans, fellow citizens, is in fact something the media has taught us; that is one of the deepest lessons we’ve learned from the media even if we are skeptics of the MSM.

And one of the things I see on the left that really bothers me is the ease with which people skeptical of the media will talk about what the masses believe and how the masses will be led and moved in this way that shows me that the mass media tutors them on how to see their fellow citizens. And here the ‘Net again has at least some potential - because we don’t have to guess what those other Americans think. We can encounter them ourselves, and thereby reshape our sense of what they think. I think every time people make that judgment about what’s realistic, what they’re really doing is they’re imagining what the rest of the country would accept, and how other people think, and they get those ideas from the media.

http://ggdrafts.blogspot.com/2012/01/jay-rosen-on-political-possibility.html

click link, find out it's a poison pill in a much larger bill.

I've seen far worse rhymes.

too bad the rest of the country isn't massachusetts

thank god it isn't. brown's just triangulating his position b/c of warren, who came out crowing about the wonderfulness of the appointment that she really deserved. i've said it befor and i'll say it again, scott brown is a really nice dude but he is just so fundamentally ... opportunistic that it makes me question everything about his careeer.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/january_february_2012/features/what_if_he_loses034501.php

more on the needle exchange funding ban

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2011/December/21/needle-exchange-federal-funding.aspx

x-post

Will have to read this whole What if He Loses series later, but Lithwick's court piece leads with this:

For anyone considering the 2012 election’s importance to the future of the American judiciary, one fact stands out: next November, Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be seventy-nine years old. If a Republican wins the presidential election, he or she may have an opportunity to seat Ginsburg’s successor, replacing the Supreme Court’s most reliably liberal jurist with a conservative.

obama? seems like this is what happens when you elect a republican house majority.

the ban stood for 21 years, was lifted in 2008, now reimposed. what do you think happened in that time?

xp

the excuses just never end

for what, your high blood pressure?

For anyone considering the XXXX election’s importance to the future of the American judiciary, one fact stands out...

just fill this out every 4 years, DNC, and your work is done.

The current administration has not done much to restore the ideological balance of the federal appeals courts. For one thing, this was never Obama’s priority the way it was for Bush, his father, and Ronald Reagan. Obama, like Bill Clinton before him, has selected lower court judges more notable for their racial and gender diversity than their hard-left judicial orientation. And he also has failed to seat them in numbers comparable to the Bush record. Republicans have used Senate rules so effectively to block Obama judges that the judicial vacancy rate currently stands at eighty-four vacancies, with thirty of those designated “judicial emergencies” based on courts’ inability to manage caseloads. Filibusters, holds, and other arcane Senate rules have brought the system to the point where civil litigants may wait years to get into court. And the unprecedented waste of time that results from GOP obstruction of Obama judges has led some of the most interesting and thoughtful jurists, most famously California’s Goodwin Liu, to withdraw their names from contention.

Why have the Republicans been so much more effective at dragging the judicial branch rightward than Democrats have been in yanking it back? Focus, mainly. Since the Meese revolution of the mid-1980s, the GOP has been better at constitutional messaging, better at mobilizing the electorate, and better at laying out a judicial vision than liberals, who still seem to believe that unless the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade (or perhaps the Affordable Care Act), judges are not really a voting issue.

Libs need to wake the fuck up: they're as embattled now as when Ed Meese took over the Justice depts and saw post-New Deal judges everywhere.

Points off for none of these posts using the word "sheeple."

And yes the Dems filbustered a few Republican judicial nominees way back when and voted down at least 1 other, but when they were in the minority the bipartisan gang of 14 or something agreed to let votes on many Republican nominees go ahead. Surprise surprise, no current such agreement exists in the Senate.

And Obama will likely pick a moderate Dem to replace liberal Ginsburg, but at least that's slightly better than a right-wing Federalist Society type that a Republican will choose and get on the court.

nice mischaracterization of sound & impassioned opposition, Phil, it'll serve you well for making excuses when the Republicans are in power again

I was referring to Alfred.

SO THERE.

only "sheep" use "sheeple."

http://mediabreach.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Sheep-the-Man.jpg

Ram tough.

LOL

as i've said before there are plenty of legitimate reasons to want obama to win re-election; i'm suspicious of anyone who doesn't at least acknowledge that he's a monster

some very ugly Wisconsin-style "fuck it, we just do what we want" Republican hijinx last night in North Carolina

that's a terrible article btw but it's the one I got in the action alert mailing. what happened was, when they released three key Democrats were in the hospital, the NC GOP declared an emergency session for one a.m.. they called this session 90 minutes beforehand, refusing to say what it was going to be about, and then voted to override a veto they didn't like.

Greenwald responds to the Digby drone:

I can say this rather definitively: I wrote primarily about (war and civil liberties) issues during the Bush years and I never once heard any progressive — literally never once — say or even imply that these issues were receiving too much attention, that too much importance was being placed on them, that what really mattered was how Americans are treated economically and not those obscure foreigners or all this academic chatter about “due process” and checks on presidential power. But now, if you believe these issues are important, you’re some sort of fringe figure with strange, obscure boutique interests (or, to use this same liberal blogger’s phrase applied to me: you’re guilty of “civil-liberties-above-all-else” mania (is that an upgrade from what Joe Klein used to call me: “civil liberties extremist”?)). We learn from that same liberal writer (who is actually a Democratic Party operative) that “Liberalism is and has always been about intervention” (emphasis in original). Did anyone hear anything about that requirement from 2001 through 2008? My how times have changed.

But this is a necessary psychological tactic in order to reconcile steadfast support for a President who tramples upon values that one once claimed to find so critical: oh, those issues? War, due process, civil liberties, transparency, restraints on executive power. Eh – they aren’t that important. Someone who insists that the only legitimate means of political expression is to march behind President Obama and the Democratic Party is forced into that radical rearranging of priorities....

I actually don’t believe that the progressive reaction to this discussion is about Ron Paul. The same anger would be provoked by favorably comparing any political figure outside of the Democratic Party to President Obama on important issues, especially in an election year.... That, as I suggested in my first article, is viewed as the supreme sin, the one that must trigger oceans of denunciation and attack in order to deter similar acts of heresy.

http://www.salon.com/2012/01/05/democratic_party_priorities/singleton/

that whole argument was stupid. the matt stoller defenses of ron paul were historically pretty half-assed and a little insidery to boot ("he's a nice guy when doing house business!"), and that particular counter-argument about liberalism = intervention was just monumentally stupid. both of them managed to get the civil war totally wrong in different ways.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/01/04/397520/new-hampshire-gop-bill-mandates-that-laws-find-their-origin-in-1215-english-magna-carta/

This is strange

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

loooooooooooooooooooool

trolling surely

Hell, it's still more recent than trying to fit laws into the 10 commandments and so forth.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/06/news/economy/jobs_report_unemployment/index.htm?hpt=hp_t3

sorry, too lazy to find the economy thread, although I am interested in implications for the election if this trend continues

By all historical precedent, if employment improves significantly, Obama will wipe the floor w/any of these clowns

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/06/winner-of-iowa-caucus-still-in-doubt/

I don't think it will improve "significantly' by November: it will improve modestly, which is still good news for Bamster.

The voter, Edward True, signed an affidavit which stated that he had helped to count the vote after the caucus at the Garrett Memorial Library in Moulton.

... at this time he has declined to make any further statements, instead directing interested parties to his attorney, Justin Case.

By all historical precedent, if employment improves significantly, Obama will wipe the floor w/any of these clowns

otm

not that he couldn't beat them anyway, this is an historically terrible GOP field.

none of the candidates really seem as genuinely evil and crazy as giuliani but the 'pathetic' factor is definitely higher for this crop of candidates than '08.

haha okay I think Santorum, Paul, Gingrich, Bachmann and Perry can definitely compete with Giuliani in the "evil and crazy" stakes

Gingrich is a totally nasty dude

Perry actually executed an innocent man. Giuliani only WISHES he could.

IDK Guliani seemed like a genuine fascist-at-heart; most of these candidates are just jerks and bullies.

paul and bachmann are much crazier than rudy

haha okay I think Santorum, Paul, Gingrich, Bachmann and Perry can definitely compete with Giuliani in the "evil and crazy" stakes

i don't exactly disagree with this but rudy just brought this particular brand of genuine 'banana republic caudillo' craziness that made him seem like w's natural successor in '08. gingrich comes closest to that.

betting on a close election, but as Taibbi says it's the least consequential in our history, can't give a fuck.

You are as predictable as me saying that this is a consequential election because the Prez will nominate Supreme Court and other Federal judges

iirc our last least consequential election in history was 2000

iirc our last least consequential election in history was 2000

i'm getting very curmugeony about hearing about gabby giffords

if i was in her district i would be wondering when we were going to get adequate representation back.

yeah srsly. She may be an example of A Remarkable Recovery but the Diane Sawyers interview six or seven weeks ago had all kinds of trick editing and cuts which was bait for a skeptic like me.

she'll still be able to cast pro-NRA votes, I figure.

curmudgeon: the Democratic Voter Doll has one hand holding its nose and squeals "the Supreme Court" when you squeeze it.

XP Goole - I am in her district and I think that all the time... Like, why was there not an appointment? I mean I'm glad she's doing OK but everytime I feel the urge to call my rep. I remember, "oh that's not going to do much... even less than usual."

whoa, Daley is stepping down as Chief of Staff?

wan't that announced months in advance?

In November, he handed off some day-to-day management duties to Peter Rouse, a senior adviser to the president. I thought he had left in November, but now he's leaving permanently.

Jacob Lew, from OMB (and previously in the Clinton administration ) will be the new chief of staff.

Jacob Lew, is not a Goldman Sachs alumnus. No, he’s a former hedge fund manager who also worked with Citigroup (from whom he received a mammoth payout before he left in 2009).
http://www.rooseveltinstitute.org/new-roosevelt/skip-my-lew-no-more-president-obama

she'll still be able to cast pro-NRA votes, I figure.

as a former intern for GG who took calls from her constituents on a daily basis (half of which tended to be extremist 'border' talk) i can attest that GG is as liberal a rep as this district will ever elect.

not going to doubt that

x-post -

Ezra Klein with the inside the beltway take on Jacob Jack Lew:

In Congress, Lew’s stock is unusually high. He has emerged as one of the members of the Obama administration Republicans prefer working with. Earlier this year, Ben Smith, then at Politico, profiled Lew under the headline: “Lew: A liberal GOP says it trusts.” The piece included an admiring comment from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/the-difference-between-jack-lew-and-bill-daley/2011/08/25/gIQAtts3lP_blog.html?hpid=z1

Reading the chapter on Obamacare in Taibbi's Griftopia this morning was such a depressing, enervating experience that I sought comfort in Coriolanus.

He has emerged as one of the members of the Obama administration Republicans prefer working with.

well sayonara to that then

really like this "megabank rotation" we're setting up here, makes the process smoother

Reading the chapter on Obamacare in Taibbi's Griftopia this morning was such a depressing, enervating experience that I sought comfort in Coriolanus.

― lumber up, limbaugh down (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 9 January 2012 20:36 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

brutal. how are both of these btw? coriolanus sounds good but has some awful 2002 heavy rock song on its trailer*

*btw i'm assuming you mean the film, i feel like a philistine if you were flipping pages of the play

the play. Lots of germane speeches.

but no gerard butler

Here's the big story of the day (Tim Burton and Johnny Depp's secret involvement in the 2009 White House Halloween party) !:

A variety of conservative media outlets, including Fox News, the New York Post, and the Daily Caller, are worked up this week about a newly-discovered White House outrage: a 2009 Halloween party.

It’s tough pinpoint exactly what it is the right is upset about, but it seems to boil down to two main complaints: the White House (1) threw a lavish Halloween party during a recession; and (2) kept the event “secret.”

that's from: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/

While the Washington Post's Reliable Source gossip page says:

If Johnny Depp and Tim Burton came to your party, think you might mention it?

Of course you would — heck, you’d probably tweet the minute they walked in the door. But the White House didn’t say a word, which explains the tempest in a teapot over the 2009 “Alice in Wonderland” Halloween party.

In her new book “The Obamas,” author Jodi Kantor describes the first family’s trick-or-treat extravaganza in Washington: More than 2,000 military kids and local students received treats from the president and Michelle Obama (fetchingly dressed as a leopard) while dancers and acrobats roamed the North Lawn. Inside, there was an invitation-only party for about 200 people — mostly military families and White House staffers. “Star Wars” characters mingled with the crowd, and the State Dining room was decorated like a crazy tea party by Burton, whose “Alice in Wonderland” was a few months from release. His star, Depp, greeted the guests in his Mad Hatter costume.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/reliable-source/post/why-was-white-house-mum-on-johnny-depp-at-alice-in-wonderland-party/2012/01/09/gIQAHkNVmP_blog.html

Tim Burton decorated (His Alice in Wonderland movie was about to come out) and Johnny Depp attended as the mad hatter. Really.

On Monday, the White House hit back, saying the party was anything but secret, citing extensive media coverage of the trick-or-treaters on the North Portico.

“This was an event for military children and their families inside the White House, where the press came, photographs were taken,” said press secretary Jay Carney, who called Kantor’s account “an example of the kind of hype and sensationalizing that books like this do.”

“We may not have alerted folks that Johnny Depp was coming,” another White House spokesman, Eric Schultz, told us, “but we didn’t announce Chewbacca was coming either.

ha

When Chewbacca comes, you do not need to announce the fact.

there is an image from the rip nsfws thread that would be so perfect here

If it shows anything, it shows a bunch of assholes who will pull at any cockamamie straw they can find to justify their irrational hatred of the President.

Bush derangement syndrome, anybody?

ya no kidding

If this had happened under Bush, Fox would be apoplectic about ppl trying to score political points for something meant to benefit military children.

god, the WaPo is unreadable, isn't it.

Yeah, it was so secret that if I go to Getty Images and type in "2009 White House halloween," I get 81 image results.

I assume Tim and Johnny were just there to officiate the Illuminati Black Mass of Samhain and that's why it went unmentioned... or maybe Presidents meet celebrities all the time and its not really newsworthy. I'll take my meds before I come to any conclusions...

Dear These People: Fuck You with a Chainsaw

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1xlVoPf5UO4/Twuh_J1UpEI/AAAAAAAAC-U/2muX5d_5yi8/s1600/492869594.jpg

weird I thought Robert E. Lee was from Virginia

Oh, he was, but his birthday is celebrated as a holiday by several former members of the Confederacy.

I thought Robert Byrd was the last one to die? (ba dum bum)

Moveon.org is requesting folks on its mailing list like me to sign petitions and host events asking President Obama to "hold Wall Street banks accountable by fully investigating the Big Bank fraud that caused the housing crisis." Next Thursday, January 19, we'll deliver these petitions to local Obama campaign offices so that he uses his power to make Wall Street pay.

President Obama has a choice to make: Let the banks off the hook or order a full federal investigation into bank practices during the housing crisis. President Obama has referenced FDR's famous quote before: "You've convinced me. Now go out and make me do it." Can you help "make him do it" by hosting an event in front of your local OFA campaign office?

Can you host a "Yes He Can?" event to ask the president to use his power to make Wall Street pay?

It's pretty sad that this type of action is necessary to try to get a White House Dem to move, and it probably won't even work (Att. General Holder or someone will insist they are looking into it, but nothing will happen or they will just push for settlements).

hey what kind of cash do you guys have on you

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204257504577153041166480680.html

The owners of the New Republic, long a fixture in political journalism, are exploring a possible sale of the publication and have hired a financial adviser, people familiar with the matter said.

Blackstone Group is expected to reach out to various media companies, such as Bloomberg LP and News Corp. to gauge their interest in buying the magazine, which is known for its clout among ...

In the chapter dealing with the AHCA in Taibbi's Griftopia, there's a revolting scene of MoveOn.org getting its marching orders from the White House.

oh man ILX should totally buy TNR

murdoch owning TNR would be hilaaaarious

isn't Rupey to the left of Peretz on Israel?

along with most of the netanyahu cabinet

eh TNR good riddance

In the chapter dealing with the AHCA in Taibbi's Griftopia, there's a revolting scene of MoveOn.org getting its marching orders from the White House.

― lumber up, limbaugh down (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, January 10, 2012 9:55 PM (Yesterday

They seem to now, per my above posting, be politely differing with him and urging him to do stuff.

I'n sure that will work.

Ha

lol

jonathan bernstein found this, about the house member introducing a resolution to disapprove of obama's recess appointments:

http://black.house.gov/press-release/black-introduces-resolution-disapproving-obama%E2%80%99s-recent-presidential-appointments

It’s astounding to me that the president is claiming these are recess appointments and within his authority, when Congress was not in fact in recess,” said Black. “These appointments are an affront to the Constitution. No matter how you look at this, it doesn’t pass the smell test. I hope the House considers my resolution as soon as we return to Washington so we can send a message to President Obama.

uhhh

lol

an affronting smell

I love that the party that has put radical partisan obstructionism ahead of the national welfare for the last two years and stalled on more judges and appointments than any congress ever are up in arms about this.

yeah but tbf no other congress had a muslim trying to wrest control of the country from them

socialist muslim, be fair

socialist atheist muslim

iirc

is there any other type rly

Russ Feingold's Progressives United group is joining with moveon.org to uh pressure the Prez with petitions:

If Wall Street gets investigated for the misdeeds that led to our financial collapse, they're very worried about what we'll find.

That's why they're eager for a sweetheart settlement deal that would give them broad immunity without an investigation. Thanks in part to the pressure thousands of fellow progressives put on state attorneys general, that deal is on hold.

But we don't just need to stop a deal that will cut off an investigation -- we need President Obama to take the lead and launch the investigation. That's why we're joining with our friends at MoveOn to petition the president to investigate Wall Street now.

Hope there's a big Occupy/secular left turnout to protest at the DNC next September in Charlotte, cuz the religious right is a-comin:

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/religious-right-activists-plan-protests-democratic-national-convention

yeah there's one planned

I wonder which group will absorb most of the pepper spray?

there's one for mythbusters

Would watch

Hopefully it turns out better than their stunt with the cannon

http://news.yahoo.com/court-oklahoma-cant-enforce-sharia-law-ban-011240179.html

"At some point we have to decide whether this is a country of, by and for the judges, or of, by and for the people."

Um, did you just move here or were you dropped on your head a lot as a child?

lol I did not really get the context of the legal argument until the very last sentence of the article

i feel like, on efficiency grounds, a progressive organisation should be threatening a response to the lack of action regarding wall st, rather than impotently pushing for a so not gonna happen long-belated enquiry into it. like surely they would get more traction saying "fuck you you should have investigated we're not voting" or w/e, over "let's keep the flame a burnin re: you suddenly 180-ing on resolving that shit three years after the fact"

By the way, today's anniversary makes the thread title true!

yep

libs never threaten Democrats, ever. they don't want to be Naderized by their neighbors.

I thought this framework from a Weekly Sift article, The Four Flavors of Republican, was an interesting way to think about members of a party with very different priorities:

http://weeklysift.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/gopstructure.jpg?w=530&h=397

The article goes on to define the four archetypes, talk about areas of agreement and disagreement among them, and then closes with:

Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush unified the four flavors, but this year no candidate does. NeoCons can’t support Ron Paul, Libertarians can’t support Rick Santorum, and Theocrats can’t support Mitt Romney. That’s why Republican insiders keep having fantasies about some new candidate — it’s basically the same fantasy they had about Rick Perry before he turned out to be an idiot: a tough-talking, pro-business, Christian Reconstructionist who wants to abolish the EPA.

Each non-fantasy candidate exposes a different fault line, so expect Obama to run differently depending on who the Republican nominee is. His increasing economic populism of late is evidence that he expects to run against Romney.

keep it real America!

obama is having a 30k plate fundraiser 100 ft down the street from my boyfriend's building tonight, which dr. morbius nickname for bam should i use when i derisively heckle the attendees?

Buffet always bringin the lolz

which dr. morbius nickname for bam should i use when i derisively heckle the attendees?

Obamao

baroque o-bomber

bam will be there after he wraps one of his other private fundraisers w/ an ex-bear stearns exec

obama is having a 30k plate fundraiser 100 ft down the street from my boyfriend's building tonight, which dr. morbius nickname for bam should i use when i derisively heckle the attendees?

Obamoneybags

his other private fundraisers w/ an ex-bear stearns exec

this is more delicious than the dinner!

Obamoneybags

― lumber up, limbaugh down (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, January 11, 2012 7:06 PM (36 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

might have to paint this on a sheet and hang it from the balcony

keep it real America!

this really depressed the shit out of me.

^ :(

was already feeling really low cause of this

http://nymag.com/news/features/danny-chen-2012-1/

but now, man

looking forward to asking my in-law (currently on TOD w State Dept in Afghanistan) about this

NOBAMNEY

btw you can tell those are Taliban cuz they're corpses, just like Vietcong

Greenwald on the assassinations of Iranian physics professors.

Is it just ME who didn't realize that 5 or 6 of these dudes have been MYSTERIOUSLY blown up or gunned down in the last 2 years?!? Does it not seem completely bonkers?

The NYT finally deigned to publish a story on the front page.

assassinations are totally predictable imho. what did you expect Israel to do.

they're pretty well determined to be the only nuclear power in the area, and they have the means and the backing to make it happen

I disagree w/Greenwald and Sullivan. I thunk terrorism should be more strictly defined and not bandied about recklessly. It is an attempt to sway a government's policy or to bring about recognition for a cause or organization by means of terror. These are targeted assassinations that attempt less, I think, to sway the government of Iran than simply to kill important scientists who may be working at obtaining nuclear weapons. It's less terrorism than low-level acts of war.

It's less terrorism than low-level acts of war.

But Greenwald has said this.

Even the NYT story included a quote admitting as such.

assassinations are totally predictable imho. what did you expect Israel to do.

I can't tell how seriously to take this?

Shakey's next post puts it in context.

I don't think Shakey is providing moral justification so much as (perhaps) pointing out that there's a long history of assasination in the region both by and against Israel.

And that it's the kind of think one would expect Israel to do to achieve its goals

What do people think are the chances of US involvement?

wd be unsurprising October Surprise by President Hope.

What do people think are the chances of US involvement?

The chance that we weren't involved is about as low as Obama's second term being the liberal one.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2012/01/201211244648837585.html

US officials have denied any role in the apparent killing of an Iranian nuclear scientist, and condemned the bomb attack which Tehran said was linked to Washington and Israel.

"I want to categorically deny any United States involvement in any kind of act of violence inside Iran," Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, told reporters on Wednesday when asked about Iranian allegations over the attack.

Tommy Vietor, a National Security Council spokesman, added: "The United States had absolutely nothing to do with this. We strongly condemn all acts of violence, including acts of violence like this."

ha ha ha.

Dennis Perrin tweet!

Israel is the 1972 Miami Dolphins of nuclear weapons. No one else in the region can match its record.

ANTI ISRAEL OBAMA CONDEMNS ISRAELI ACT OF SELF DEFENSE PROFESSOR ASSASSINATION

IDK, the US being involved on some level or not being involved on some level seem like equal possibilities to me. I could see Israel doing it with the nod from Washington, Israel doing it on its own without a nod from anyone, someone else doing it with the nod from Washington, etc.

To be clear, I would be surprised if neither Israel nor the US is invovled, I just don't think both necessarily were.

i don't think the US could have pulled something like this off. it involved a certain degree of knowing what the fuck is up in iran which we seem not to have

And if Israel could do it on its own, they likely wouldn't ask for a nod. They know we'd say yes, and not asking would give us deniability.

don't think anyone has said we were directly involved; it's more like like the Israeli general or whatever's reaction on Facebook yesterday: "I won't shed a tear."

does the level of direct involvement really matter? US's complicity in Israel's policies - since Israel wouldn't survive a day without the US - should be taken as a given.

I'm sure Israel does some things that irritate the US gov't, but none of it really matters - we either agree to look the other way, issue an empty/half-hearted condemnation, or actively support them. In any event, Israel does what it wants.

http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/01/12/thomas-perrelli-doj-point-person-on-foreclosure-fraud-settlement-stepping-down-by-march/

This appears to be good news. DOJ attorney who was in charge of trying to push through the weak settlement agreement on mortgage robo-signing is leaving the Justice Dept.

We strongly condemn all acts of violence, including acts of violence like this.

Really? You can't be bothered to write 'unjustified' or 'senseless'? We just today droned 5 'militants' on the Pakistani border.

that was a humane targeting

I don't know how they targeted them or what I think of it but it was definitely an act of violence

those guys jumped in front of those missiles

gotta break a few eggs to keep SOME CRAZY REPUBLICAN from being elected

zogby poll of iraqi public opinion & US, ME opinion about iraq

http://aai.3cdn.net/2212d2d41f760d327e_fxm6vtlg7.pdf

this part is most interesting at first glance:

3. What Has Improved, What Has Not
Question: Since U.S. forces entered Iraq, how do you feel the following areas of life have been
impacted?

unsummarizable, but the US responses are broken down by partisan affiliation. the only iraqi demographic thinks any aspect of life has been improved since the entry of US forces is the kurds. american democrats have beliefs closer to arab iraqis but still quite a bit more optimistic. republicans think it all turned out pretty good, but often by small pluralities

Greenwald after quoting liberal bete noire Santorum on the wonderfulness of assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists:

We better hope and pray Rick Santorum never becomes President or else the legal prohibitions against assassinations will simply be ignored and that will become standard American policy — oh, wait. ...

lol that is ridiculous. we love assassinating people, just took a breather there for a decade or two.

Or did we?

well it was official policy not to for a little while anyway

Frank Church RIP

He was from Idaho! Idaho's one big claim to not being a complete GOP shill-state.

I went to college with his grandson.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/us-marines-urinating-video-identified-charges/story?id=15353762#.TxBT_PlkinA

on a completely different note: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-to-propose-combining-agencies-to-shrink-federal-government/2012/01/13/gIQAHsLqvP_story.html?tid=pm_politics_pop

Instead of beefing up and straightening out the SEC and increasing the staffing for Justice's white-collar unit (to go after Wall Street), Obama proposes a tiny little merger that he naively thinks will appease Republicans and make him look like a bipartisan pragmatist who wants to make life easier for businesses

Obama will propose combining the functions and staff of six trade- and commerce-related agencies and offices: the Small Business Administration; the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative; the Export-Import Bank; the Overseas Private Investment Corporation; and the Trade and Development Agency. The move would ease the regulatory burden on businesses and save money by eliminating duplicative functions such as human resources, the White House official said

I really think / hope that Obama's done with the 'appease Republicans', at least until after we see the Tea Party reaping the results of their yammering in 2014.

One would wish that, but his actions do not yet fully demonstrate that.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/01/cnns-loesch-champions-urinating-marines-110743.html

Is Loesch still a CNN reporter?

moral relativism leads to barbarism, you know

I had a dream last night that I feel belongs in this thread:

I saw people from a corporation dumping toxic sludge into a river, so I needed to "lobby the EPA" about the issue. The EPA office was a door on a long corridor of doors. But when I opened the door, it was just a closet with a young man woman standing in it, statue-like, as though they were playing hide-and-seek.

I said "Uh, I'm here to lobby the EPA." And they were like "you can't do that," and I was like "what do you mean?" and they say "You can't lobby the EPA. The EPA is not an organization you're allowed to lobby."

And I got all incensed and started talking about my rights, when I looked at the wall and saw a small banner that read "Ron Paul Campaign Headquarters," and suddenly they started laughing, and I started laughing, and they said something to the effect of "you got punked!"

The EPA office was a door on a long corridor of doors. But when I opened the door, it was just a closet with a young man woman standing in it, statue-like, as though they were playing hide-and-seek.

if only you knew how eerily accurate this was, in an abstract way

loesch thing is just beyond words

It's typical of the kind of tone deaf, emotionally retarded ppl who prefer justifyingmach posturing to winning wars. It's is essentially puerile lack of discipline.

Come on people, this is a war. What do people think this is?"

That's kind of how I feel about this, only not in the way Loesch means it. Killing people = fine. Peeing on the people we kill = OUTRAGE

She not only does not get the ugliness of the actions, she does not get that this also potentially puts our remaining soldiers there in increased danger

new drinking game: Try to argue with a pseudoliberal that Obama is not the Last Best Hope of humanity. Within 2 minutes, you lose if you hear the word PERFECTION.

what happens if someone says 'don't let perfect be the enemy of the good"?

pour a bottle of Ripple down their throat

blast some burnt by the sun and mosh

who really thinks he's perfection?

think morbs meant the standard retort would be "what do you expect, perfection?"

ah right. well that's a fair point though.

yes truly thought-provoking

yes, for these folx, it's the only standard they can imagine him not meeting

I think such folx are few enough they should be dismissed as irrelevan, rather than made the crux of some kind of argument about political reality.

there must be at least a few of them left; greenwald spends half his twitter arguing with them.

haha otm

isn't Steve Benen stil an Obamastan?

Yes.

Washington Monthly's blog under Benen is fixated solely on Republican bad deeds.

http://dccc.org/pages/GOPonvacation

Benen linked to this--- nice photoshopped pics of Boehner and Cantor on vacation

think morbs meant the standard retort would be "what do you expect, perfection?"

I think such folx are few enough they should be dismissed as irrelevant, rather than made the crux of some kind of argument about political reality.

Come to a Park Slope bar, and I will introduce you to a slew of em.

Because of all the nasty hateful Tea Party-rooted and racist criticism Obama has received, I have read several African-American writers say that it is difficult for them to criticize Obama for legitimate reasons, because he engenders much sympathy because of the out-of-bounds attacks.

dunno where to put this

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/the-great-gatsby-curve/

doesn't surprise me a bit, and I think we need to start reading "constitutional purism" as code for "only white male landowners get to vote"

Probably warrants a separate thread:

http://dellioandwoods.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/newsweek-obama-cover.jpg

I hope none of you have especially high blood pressure.

Let me guess. His right wing critics are dumb because they insist that he's a socialist Kenyan Muslim who eats babies and pisses on the US Constitution. OK. I'd grant him that much. His liberal critics are dumb because no one could have done a better job than Obama has done, cuz, you know, be realistic. Yeah. Right.

The article itself is here:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/15/andrew-sullivan-how-obama-s-long-game-will-outsmart-his-critics.html

oh boy, the "long game" - this will be great

lolng game

As I read Sullivan, he basically says the critics on the right are mostly peddling nonsenscial crap. True enough. And like shooting fish in a barrel, once you look at the facts.

Then he goes on to Obama's critics on the left, agrees with a fair number of their criticisms on civil liberties issues, emphasizes the repeal of DADT at length (which his left wing critics are NOT criticizing, either), and ignores liberal criticisms of Obama's more conservative policies that he most likes, such as keeping all the Bush tax cuts in place. As a criticism of these critics, it is pretty thin stuff. But then, most op-ed is small beer.

And what have we seen? A recurring pattern. To use the terms Obama first employed in his inaugural address: the president begins by extending a hand to his opponents; when they respond by raising a fist, he demonstrates that they are the source of the problem; then, finally, he moves to his preferred position of moderate liberalism and fights for it without being effectively tarred as an ideologue or a divider. This kind of strategy takes time. And it means there are long stretches when Obama seems incapable of defending himself, or willing to let others to define him, or simply weak. I remember those stretches during the campaign against Hillary Clinton. I also remember whose strategy won out in the end.

This is OTM. My issue I have is that I want him to be to the left of some of the positions he champions. I agree with him enough to vote for him again without any regret.

Not surprisingly--something you should almost take as a given--Sullivan says on his site that the cover headline was not his.

sullivan's willingness to relegate civil liberties to a couple of sentences is baffling to me. under bush, the executive branch's power-tripping threatened the future of the country. under obama, pushing (for the most part) the exact same policies, it's a fringe issue that only a few 'unrealistic,' 'deluded' leftists care about.

it's almost like he trusts the motives of one over the other

right, it's the thought that counts.

When your only safeguard is the good will of the current president, you have no safeguards at all.

i'm just glad niall ferguson ended class warfare, that was going on for too long

fuckin hate that guy

what sort of warfare did he substitute in its place? a first person shooter, I hope

I wonder what schtick the GOP will pull to block this

sullivan's willingness to relegate civil liberties to a couple of sentences is baffling to me. under bush, the executive branch's power-tripping threatened the future of the country. under obama, pushing (for the most part) the exact same policies, it's a fringe issue that only a few 'unrealistic,' 'deluded' leftists care about.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, January 16, 2012 1:41 PM (2 hours ago)

as everyone here knows i think obama's done some truly evil and unforgivable things in this realm, but i've got bigger gripes with him than his civil liberties record. why sullivan's piece fails (as it was doomed to do) is because he tactfully elides these other parts of his record - when he's not agreeing with them

the 'radical middle' will find this to be a good essay, and it might even be useful to show the first half of it to some of the more noxious conservative blowhards we all know, but the entire thing is basically middlebrow nonsense, which is why it's in newsweek

the truly weird part is figuring out how sullivan squares his admiration for a president he sees as 'moderate' and 'pragmatic' with his wobbly on-and-off support of ron 'kill em all and let the states sort em out' paul.

http://www.bongsbay.com/weed_leaf.jpg

lolololol

hi, guys!! What'd I miss??

Under Obama, support for marriage equality and marijuana legalization has crested to record levels.

i'll have what this sullivan guy's smoking

I'll read the article tonight, but I can't fathom how any critic of Bush administration's civil liberties abuses and abuse of executive authority can now treat them as secondary because Obama is so cool. I would rather Sullivan just said, "Look, these things don't really matter much to me tbh."

Under Obama, support for marriage equality and marijuana legalization has crested to record levels.

i'll have what this sullivan guy's smoking

― river, Monday, January 16, 2012 5:23 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

um actually i wouldn't necessarily disagree with that claim

i have no idea what obama has done to make either of those things happen, though, particularly the latter. a strange point

well yeah i just mean that since Obama has been President, support for those two things have been bigger than they've ever been. I'd believe that.

when Calvin Coolidge was president, Scott Fitzgerald published his best novel.

well I mean yeah, though to imply that Mr. "The business of America is business" had nothing at all to do with The Great gatsby or its themes seems a little silly

Sully's statement is well-meaning gas though. How can Obama get credit for increased support for marijuana legalization?

those raids he authorizes hurt him more than they hurt us, you'll just never know

Yeah ok Sully's full of hot air. I wouldn't necessarily disagree with that claim.

Pretty sure pot busts have increased since Obama took office, and people still hate gays everywhere

Anyway, sullivan has untrustworthy facial hair

well, if he's going to have a Time Magazine cover let it be for his slavish devotion to obama's long game and not an impassioned defense of the bell curve

worse - newsweek :(

you know, i actually read the whole article earlier today. i just have trouble distinguishing between the two

i'm sure many dads will find enlightening the half of this they read while they wait in the dentist's office

Boy, I consider Ike the least dangerous of modern presidents but Sully's carrying his idolatry too far (i.e. Ike's not the prez to go to for enlightenment and patience re democratically elected foreign leaders, especially Iranian ones).

John Foster Dulles and Richard Nixon both graced Ike's administration.

Both kept on leashes, Nixon's a bit tighter.

i want to say that sully is the dumbest "public intellectual" but there is so much competition for that role that i'll just say he's a very very dim "public intellectual"

'I'm a conservative but I'm not 100% batshit insane' is the best way for some average shmoe to get a lot of attention

sully is kind of batshit insane tho

yeah but only like 94%

well, if he's going to have a Time Magazine cover let it be for his slavish devotion to obama's long game and not an impassioned defense of the bell curve

― Mordy, Monday, January 16, 2012 8:16 PM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"why are obama's critics so dumb?" vastly preferable to "why are black people so dumb?"

life's too short to read that guy, including his personal ads

'm just glad niall ferguson ended class warfare, that was going on for too long

― human trash (buzza), Monday, January 16, 2012 7:32 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Did I miss something he wrote recently? Dude is good for lolz. Though his ethnic warfare stuff is interesting.

It's time soon for this again(from tpm). Fun, fun, fun:

With Congress set to return to town this week, staff-level bipartisan discussions are underway over how to pay for extensions of the payroll tax cut, unemployment insurance and the so-called Medicare "doc fix" beyond the end of February, when they're set to expire. The private meetings are a continuation of the December showdown, which ended with two-month extensions of the three provisions and a guarantee that the House and Senate would negotiate a year-long measure.

Ike's not the prez to go to for enlightenment and patience re democratically elected foreign leaders, especially Iranian ones).

To his credit, he's posted readers pushing back on this.

Dem convention cut to 3 days! Bank of America Stadium lol

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/01/17/democrats-trim-convention-to-3-days/

Over 1m signatures to recall Walker in WI:

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01/wis-dems-make-it-official-one-million-signatures-collected-to-recall-walker.php

has this been posted:

Mrs. Santorum, 51, apparently wasn’t always committed to the cause. In fact, her live-in partner through most of her 20s was Tom Allen, a Pittsburgh obstetrician and abortion provider 40 years older than she, who remains an outspoken crusader for reproductive rights and liberal ideals. Dr. Allen has known Mrs. Santorum, born Karen Garver, her entire life: he delivered her in 1960.

there's a GOP thread

keystone dead?

http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/204807-obama-administration-keystone-pipeline-announcement-seen-as-imminent-

not totally dead, since Trans Canada will probably resubmit an application for a permit with a revised route through Nebraska, but dead for this year at least.

however, the political debate over it is alive and well, and that means we'll have to put up with garbage like this for the next year:

“President Obama is about to destroy tens of thousands of American jobs and sell American energy security to the Chinese. The President won’t stand up to his political base even to create American jobs,” Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck said in a statement.

even though even Trans Canada itself dramatically walked back their absurd job creation claims, and federal and independent analyses have pegged job creation in the U.S. at around a few hundred temporary jobs. but i guess holding politicians accountable for bogus "facts" isn't a job of the DC press corp these days.

as expected, GOP showboating amounts to nothing

http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/19/news/economy/unemployment_benefits/index.htm?hpt=hp_t2

Obama fan Benen at Washington Monthly seems very pleased-- good economic news and Obama at least delaying Keystone, while Mitt is busy with his own taxes and Newt

OH WHAT A COUNTRY

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guess-politician-and-follow-money

i love zerohedge

this has been brewing for a while, but good on obama to stand his ground on this one, this is great:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/21/health/policy/administration-rules-insurers-must-cover-contraceptives.html

OCs, plan b, sterilization procedures, etc covered free of copay or deductible as of august 1

Giffords to resign her House seat. Good decision.

I endured an argument with a self-described lib friend last night who says he still trusts his government to determine who's a terrorist (and he works for a newspaper). I had to explain the Obama administration's delight in drone attacks on American citizens, the president's signing of the NDAA, and the Justice Department's curious attitude towards whistleblowers.

Re the contraception decision: I want to punch every single religious speaker in that article in the mouth and nose at least 4 times.

http://www.wtoc.com/story/16571904/south-carolinas-attorney-general-detects-voter-fraud-for-primaries

hmm

953 ballots cast by voters listed as dead.

Chicago machine-style!

Re the contraception decision: I want to punch every single religious speaker in that article in the mouth and nose at least 4 times.

― It means why you gotta be a montague? (Laurel), Sunday, 22 January 2012 21:20 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

'we are unable to live with this' is v frustrating to hear

Yeah, I mean

But church groups said the exemption was so narrow that it was almost meaningless. A religious employer cannot qualify for the exemption if it employs or serves large numbers of people of a different faith, as many Catholic hospitals, universities and social service agencies do.

Yes, that's right. You DO stay in "business" by serving people other than practicing Catholics, because that is your chosen JOB.

have we talked about the lol irony of Rand Paul's TSA detention yet

cuz lol on way to pro-life rally, objects to gov't making invasive search of his body

Delicious ironing.

x-post

I endured an argument with a self-described lib friend last night who says he still trusts his government to determine who's a terrorist (and he works for a newspaper). I had to explain the Obama administration's delight in drone attacks on American citizens, the president's signing of the NDAA, and the Justice Department's curious attitude towards whistleblowers.

― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, January 22,

I know a number of Dems who trust the government to determine who is a terrorist and believe that using drones is preferable to sending in Americans on dangerous missions to kill alleged terrorists. While they regret the loss of innocent lives, they maintain that the goverment does their best with their use of drones, and that the deaths that result are at least, not intentional killings of innocents like those done by the Taliban and various other groups.

come come, Mr Bond, you enjoy killing just as much as I do.

Dems trust the government because one of them is in the White House.

^^^

that sort of myopia about civil rights is plenty irritating. altho I am more sympathetic to the "drone strikes = better than troops" argument

they maintain that the goverment does their best with their use of drones

not intentional killings of innocents like those done by the Taliban and various other groups.

better those mountain-dwelling Pakis than our boys

Yeah, what do these crazy idiots want us to do, risk our military on the battlefield?

there are no battlefields anymore

and frankly I prefer the targeted use of drones to, say, the carpet bombing of cities, as was commonly undertaken in previous wars

I mean I know this calculus is brutal and wrong, but 20 dead innocent civilians is a marginally better scenario than the firebombing of Tokyo, or the carpet bombing of Cambodia

Love is a battlefield.

no one can tell us we're wrong

You guys have read the stories about inaccurate targeting, right?

wait are you saying robots make mistakes

glibness aside, yes I am aware but I don't see how that alters the calculus described above

I suppose it's cool that our boys and girls aren't the ones dying but we're making families miffed.

and survivors have sought revenge.

I wouldn't call it "cool", exactly

Obama to break silence on Al Awlaki killing.

The legal memorandum, portions of which were described to The New York Times last October, asserted that it would be lawful to kill Awlaki as long as it was not feasible to capture him alive—and if it could be demonstrated that he represented a real threat to the American people. Further, administration officials contend, Awlaki was covered under the congressional grant of authority to wage war against al Qaeda in the wake of 9/11.

pretty much what I was expecting

although it isn't clear to me why they didn't just convict him of treason in absentia (this can be done, yes?), revoke his citizenship, and THEN kill him. seems like that would have been less legally questionable.

it's funny how much stuff about treason is in the constitution

man that is so much hassle

xp

yeah well new nation born in a war and all that

stop corrupting the blood

John Marshall's ruling in the Aaron Burr case made treason a next to impossible charge to stick.

at time of constitution's drafting some 1/3 of "americans" were loyalists of one kind or another right?

just seems to me like leaving the country and then advocating/actively working for its "destruction" is like the legal epitome of treason.

xp

John Marshall's ruling in the Aaron Burr case made treason a next to impossible charge to stick.

hmm I haven't read this, but I'll take your word for it. Burr was an interesting dude... Vidal's book about him is hilarious

"two admittedly regrettable but nevertheless distinguishable scenarios..."

http://www.retrohound.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/vlcsnap-2011-01-19-14h13m32s118.png

The question now to be decided has been argued in a manner worthy of its importance, and with an earnestness evincing the strong conviction felt by the counsel on each side that the law is with them. A degree of eloquence seldom displayed on any occasion has embellished a solidity of argument and a depth of research by which the court has been greatly aided in forming the opinion it is about to deliver. The testimony adduced on the part of the United States to prove the overt act laid in the indictment having shown, and the attorney for the United States having admitted, that the prisoner was not present when that act, whatever may be its character, was committed, and there being no reason to doubt but that he was at a great distance, and in a different state, it is objected to the testimony offered on the part of the United States to connect him with those who committed the overt act, that such testimony is totally irrelevant, and must, therefore, be rejected. The arguments in support of this motion respect in part the merits of the case as it may be supposed to stand independent of the pleadings, and in part as exhibited by the pleadings.
On the first division of the subject two points are made:

1st. That, conformably to the constitution of the United States, no man can be convicted of treason who was not present when the war was levied.

2d. That if this construction be erroneous, no testimony can be received to charge one man with the overt acts of others until those overt acts as laid in the indictment be proved to the satisfaction of the court.

although it isn't clear to me why they didn't just convict him of treason in absentia (this can be done, yes?), revoke his citizenship, and THEN kill him.

dude what?

freedom from trial in absentia is like one of the most basic and important procedural protections there are! let me dig up the relevant lit

guys, remember: Shakes is still lobbying to be the secretary of defense in a Soto administration.

i'm never sure what people get out of these "at least he's not..." arguments. i suppose i'm glad obama's not doing even worse shit than he already is, but an illegal assassination program isn't exactly the only alternative to carpet-bombing pakistan.

"volunteering for service in a foreign military" = grounds for revocation of citizenship

xpp

shakey: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/91-6194.ZS.html

buuut the gov't doesn't want to argue that al Q is an "army"

this whole scenario does beg the question - if dude could not be captured, what other course could the US gov't take against Awlaki?

xp

buuut the gov't doesn't want to argue that al Q is an "army"

yeah that's a whole other problem...

That's the trouble. The national security state hasn't reconciled Supreme Court opinions, Office of Legal Counsel decisions, and Oval Office urgency.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vance_v._Terrazas#Subsequent_developments

also relevant

this whole scenario does beg the question - if dude could not be captured, what other course could the US gov't take against Awlaki?

xp

― “How you like that, Mr. Hitler!” (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, January 23, 2012 1:28 PM (3 minutes ago)

it RAISES the question, and yeah i guess their only other option would be to kill him, which is what they did! doesn't mean it's grounded in law

That's the trouble. The national security state hasn't reconciled Supreme Court opinions, Office of Legal Counsel decisions, and Oval Office urgency.

yep, a huge mess with no end in sight.

color me naive but it's still amazing & creeped out to me that "secret opinions" are possible

no doubt there's a long ass history of these things throughout the cold war. or maybe not! i rly don't know.

doesn't mean it's grounded in law

shoot first, write law later lol

ha otm

thx for the legal links btw, thought there might be something unique aspect of treason charges/circumstances that would allow the in absentia thing but I guess not

although it isn't clear to me why they didn't just convict him of treason in absentia (this can be done, yes?), revoke his citizenship, and THEN kill him.

There's no trial by absentia in the US, also:

"volunteering for service in a foreign military" = grounds for revocation of citizenship

Only if we are currently belligerents with that foreign military, or you happen to be an officer or Non-Comm - you have to give that position up but you don't actually have to be discharged.

The New York Times has filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration under the Freedom of Information Act seeking the release of the Justice Department legal opinion in the Awlaki case. (The department has declined to provide the documents requested.)

color me naive but it's still amazing & creeped out to me that "secret opinions" are possible

no doubt there's a long ass history of these things throughout the cold war. or maybe not! i rly don't know.

― Critique of Pure Moods (goole), Monday, January 23, 2012 1:34 PM (54 seconds ago)

hey on the bright side people have the opportunity for definite acquittal, ostensible acquittal, and indefinite postponement

Oh and an XP to myself and clarification for shakes -- declaring yourself an enemy combatant through joining up with Al Qaeda or their All-Yemeni B-Team is enough (in my mind) to count as willfully giving up your citizenship. A judge might need a bit more convincing but probably not by much.

TBQH I also thought for a long time that for some of the high crimes like double murders and treason and stuff you could be tried in absentia, dunno why. I blame British television.

declaring yourself an enemy combatant through joining up with Al Qaeda or their All-Yemeni B-Team is enough (in my mind) to count as willfully giving up your citizenship

mm yeah no

damn Alfred you are right - renunciation of citizenship takes some official hoops I didn't realize one had to jump through: http://travel.state.gov/law/citizenship/citizenship_776.html

Think I'll take a break from this thread for a few more years...

Too late, we've ordered a drone strike on your location.

You might miss and take out one of the rest of us instead

and no army will defend our dead

http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/arkansas_democrat_childs_cat_killed_liberal_written_on_dead_body

jfc

what the FUCK

fuuuck

tho in mind of b-face self-scratcher girl and the suicide census worker with "fed" on him, i think i'd like to see more info discovered about this

I am pretty certain that was done by someone's idiot children

a banner day for weird shit:

An aide to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) resigned Monday after he was arrested for battery following a bizarre incident in which his wife alleged he rolled her up in a carpet, beat and kicked her.

that's the guy on the shortlist for vp nom right?

the aide would be a pretty good pick imo

That cat story is bad enough, then you get to the Republican pointing to his military service in his condemnation. I think you can chill with the talking points, bro.

Pelsoi: I'm going to be Speaker again.

where did you guys talk about the state of the union?

GOP primary thread, tho not much talk, really.

fitting

i had better use for the evening ... watching old Colin Baker-era doctor who episodes.

yeah i was getting drinks with friends, mercifully

I kinda watched it while writing something about music for my local alt-weekly. Just read the annoying Washington Post (likely Fred Hyatt written)take on the speech. They grumble that Obama's proposed tax changes would unfairly benefit manufacturers over other businesses; and that he won't propose a higher gas tax and other user fees in order to deficit. They liked Mitch Daniels rebuttal speech because he focussed on the debt, but then the W. Post acknowledged that the Republicans have not offered "responsible proposals to pay for the nation's needs." Oh brother.

I liked the Buffet Rule thing Obama said: those earning 1 million or more have to pay at least 30% in taxes, but that's mostly just reelection talk.

in order to cut the deficit

Washington Monthly blogger (and Obama cheerleader) Steve Benen is leaving that site to become a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show” and an MSNBC contributor.

just what MSNBC needs to blunt their skeptical edge

I liked the SOTU, and thought there was a lot of good substance in it, beyond the Buffett rule thing that the media focused on. For instance, reform of Senate rules to allow certain types of business to be conducted by majority vote, a shift in emphasis from deficit cutting to infrastructure investment, education reform ideas, immigration reform, and lots of other things.

Those ideas were nice and the speech was carefully crafted though to start off with the gung-ho America's military is the greatest stuff. Everything seemed carefully selected to respond to Republican candidates attacks.

If this moves us one step closer to beatdowns on the floor of the House and Senate, I am all over it:

In a heated hearing Wednesday on Capitol Hill, Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman called upon the billionaire Koch brothers to be subpoenaed over their alleged monetary interests in the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. Republican Congressman Ed Whitfield angrily cut off Waxman. “We’re not going to be subpoenaing the Koch brothers … because the Koch brothers have nothing to do with this project,” Whitfield snapped.

“Point of order!” Waxman exclaimed. “You cut me out in the middle of a sentence!”

“Your time was up, Mr. Waxman!” Whitfield shot back. “We are going to recess this hearing for ten minutes and then we’re going to come back.”

“Are you calling the Koch brothers during the recess?” Waxman sniped.

“If you want to talk about that, let’s talk about the millions of dollars the Obama administration gave companies like Solyndra and people like George Kaiser and other campaign bundlers,” Whitfield fumed.

“Why are you interrupting members and then you take unlimited time for yourself?” Waxman responded.

“I’m the chairman! And I’m telling you right now we’re going to recess for ten minutes!” Whitfield boomed, before storming out of the hearing.

Waxman is the shit

Some grade-A trolling by Waxman there.

solyndra thing was ok but whitfield shoulda gone "no i'm gonna call your mom"

“Are you calling the Koch brothers during the recess?” Waxman sniped.

boom, tough actin' tinactin.

the Koch brothers certainly DO have a financial interest in Keystone XL, of course, and i'm sure Whitfield knows that.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/01/25/blogs/obama-brewer/obama-brewer-blog480.jpg

sorry, here's some context:

PHOENIX — President Obama’s visit to Phoenix got off to a rough start on Wednesday afternoon when Air Force One was met by Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona — she of the book “Scorpions for Breakfast,” in which she accuses the Obama administration of turning a blind eye to illegal immigration because migrants will help Mr. Obama register more Democratic votes.

Mr. Obama stepped off the plane and was greeted by Ms. Brewer, who handed him a handwritten letter in an envelope that she later said was an invitation to discuss the “Arizona comeback.” The two had an intense exchange for several minutes; at one point Ms. Brewer pointed her finger at Mr. Obama.

...At one point, the two seemed to be talking at the same time, seemingly over each other. Mr. Obama appeared to walk away from Ms. Brewer while she was still talking.

are they... about to kiss

The rightwing take:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/thou-shalt-not-write-bad-things-about-obama_618603.html

Two Republican govs say Obama was mean to them in person (for things they wrote about him)

about to hurl
xp

Disappointed to find out Scorpions for Breakfast isn't a cookbook ;_;

I think you're looking for To Serve Scorpions.

One of my friends just posted the following on Facebook. RIP America:

I avoid politics on social media but I wanted to relate something to you. My son had an eighth grade history assignment in which they're studying how our government works. They were instructed to watch the State of The Union speech and write about two topics brought up in it.

He told me that some of the students brought letters from home saying they did not like Obama in their household and would not allow their child to participate in this homework assignment.

that's easy to fix: F's for non-participation

I mean, no one said they had to ENDORSE Obama, just write about what he talked about!

those kids should get Fs

lol xp

Those PARENTS should get Fs.

and so should their kids

valuable lessons will be learned all the way around

i wonder if that's the same kind of facebook nugget as someone posting that their friend's kid went into show & tell with an apple & was told they had to give a recital of verses from the quran! or whatever instead

are these the same parents I quoted in the Corner thread who thought FDR was a Republican

Reminds of when I was a junior in HS (1986) and one of my classmates left half of a biology test blank, because he refused to answer questions about evolution. This guy, who was otherwise a nearly straight-A student, took a big ol' F.

He told me that some of the students brought letters from home saying they did not like Obama trigonometry in their household and would not allow their child to participate in this homework assignment.

i was more amazed someone was charing $250 for one of those 'presidents playing poker' prints

xp 2 alfred

hmmm i wonder if those parents would be able to whip up enough frenzy to get Bill O'Reilly to publicly call for the teacher to lose his/her job xxxxp

their friend's kid went into show & tell with an apple & was told they had to give a recital of verses from the quran!

What kind of loser kid goes to show and tell with nothing more than an apple?

Well they don't like evolution or sex ed, either, so there's probably an angle from which this is just another thing about the world they don't want their kid/s exposed to and wish to pretend doesn't exist. School a la carte.

The possibility that a public educational system might have a responsibility to educate kids equally w/r/t reality no matter what their parents think doesn't seem to have registered with the lunatic middle.

i am not american, i figured you guys just picked something off the table on yr way out
xp

English homework?! You heathens! It's Ancient Greek and Hebrew or Aramaic or nothing - he can learn to speak in tongues.

Indeed:

Members of Tennessee tea parties presented state legislators with five priorities for action Wednesday, including “rejecting” the federal health reform act, establishing an elected “chief litigator” for the state and “educating students the truth about America.”

. . .

Regarding education, the material they distributed said, “Neglect and outright ill will have distorted the teaching of the history and character of the United States. We seek to compel the teaching of students in Tennessee the truth regarding the history of our nation and the nature of its government.”

That would include, the documents say, that “the Constitution created a Republic, not a Democracy.”

The material calls for lawmakers to amend state laws governing school curriculums, and for textbook selection criteria to say that “No portrayal of minority experience in the history which actually occurred shall obscure the experience or contributions of the Founding Fathers, or the majority of citizens, including those who reached positions of leadership.”

Fayette County attorney Hal Rounds, the group’s lead spokesman during the news conference, said the group wants to address “an awful lot of made-up criticism about, for instance, the founders intruding on the Indians or having slaves or being hypocrites in one way or another.

“The thing we need to focus on about the founders is that, given the social structure of their time, they were revolutionaries who brought liberty into a world where it hadn’t existed, to everybody — not all equally instantly — and it was their progress that we need to look at,” said Rounds, whose website identifies him as a Vietnam War veteran of the Air Force and FedEx retiree who became a lawyer in 1995.

It's nearly impossible to describe how much this garbage pisses me off.

"made-up criticism"?????????????????????????????????

it was just a little slavery

"not all equally instantly." I mean the fucking zen koan beauty of that is just . . .

"Look, the Indians weren't even USING that land, so how much of an intrusion was it, really?"

how does he reconcile equally instant equality with slavery

And as if on cue:

Veto override gives parents more control over what their kids are taught

CONCORD - The Legislature has passed a controversial bill that would give parents greater control over course materials taught in schools.

Both the House and Senate voted to override the governor's veto of HB 542, which requires school districts to adopt policies to allow "an exception to specific course material based on a parent's or legal guardian's determination that the material is objectionable."

The House failed in an attempt in to override the veto in its last session in November. But after voting to reconsider the measure, the House passed the override on Wednesday 255 to 122, meeting the two-thirds requirement.

The Senate then voted 17-5 to override the governor.

The bill was inspired by a controversy at Bedford High School, where parents of a student objected to the book, “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America.”

That's a great fucking book and should be required reading in every HS social science curriculum btw.

I frankly think of that as not only anti-social but it could lead to something akin to child-endangerment.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_xJWa77A8OSw/S-Cu-hNCliI/AAAAAAAAFnU/gPKnqDRjazA/s1600/calvinmath2.jpg

does this jan brewer finger pointing at elitist thin skinned petulant kenyan president work on anyone other than lizard brain gop folk?

no

I love that he's the divider.

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/01/obamas-strategic-tarmac-attack.html

President Obama’s people have portrayed his tarmac confrontation with Arizona's Jan Brewer as a kind of accidental blowup stemming from his pique that her book allegedly misrepresented a private conversation they had. If it’s an accident, though, it’s a pretty fortuitous one.

Arizona is one of the few states Obama lost in 2008 where his campaign thinks it can compete in 2012. He’s no longer running against a favorite son, and the fast-growing Latino population might give him a shot. But in Arizona, and elsewhere, Obama need to energize Latinos, who tend to vote at low rates.

The Republican strategy is sort of a miniature version of their broader legislative strategy. Republicans, along with a handful of conservative Democrats, blocked comprehensive immigration reform and then blocked even the modest DREAM Act, and their message is that Latinos should vote for them because Obama failed to carry out his campaign promise to pass those bills. It’s actually quite clever.

Since Obama can’t get anything passed through Congress, one option is to simply clarify that he opposes the GOP’s most draconian elements. So: A public shouting match with a governor who’s unpopular with Arizonans in general and despised by Latinos. (Her job approval with Arizona Latinos is minus 40.)

An accident? I doubt it.

(Her job approval with Arizona Latinos is minus 40.)

lolizona

stupid people tend to be conservative lol

altho I don't trust IQ tests as a measure of anything whatsoever and iirc not too many people here do

i was just about to post that, with a similar caution

3,710 comments

o_O

enh, afaik IQ tests are vastly different than the (funnily, in this case) racist/classist/etc tests of old

i had one recently as part of a neuropsych evaluation and it was a lot more about mensa-style problem solving and less about cultural literacy and the like

point being: i am quite happy to accept the relevance of IQ tests if it means i get to call conservatives stupid

Trolling my bro-in-law in the "conservatives are too stupid to make me a grilled cheese sandwich, much less govern a city, state or nation" is the only thing that manages to shake him from his usual calm. Which is obviously catnip to me.

My nephew was a senior in high school in North Carolina during the 2008 election season. They had a mock debate in his civcs class in which my nephew was assigned the role of Obama, another student was McCain, and the teacher was the moderator.

My nephew supported McCain/Palin and wound up voting for them (argh) but in the role of Obama, one of his arguments was that Palin lacked experience. His teacher - the moderator - cut him off and lectured the class about how scary it was that Obama, who was likely a Muslim, was willing to negotiate w/ terrorists and how Palin's experience as governor made her more qualified than BHO. When they resumed the debate, my nephew was instructed to make clear that he was saying only what the other side would probably say.

good luck usa

I suppose if we all get to call conservatives stupid based on that study, then we might have to swallow The Bell Curve, too. I prefer to call some of their ideas stupid based on the thought process by which they arrived at them and the arguments used to defend them. Much less of a mine field.

3,710 comments

over 24,000 now

mental!

Panetta confirms use of Stalinism vs "terrorism"

http://www.salon.com/2012/01/30/leon_panettas_explicitly_authoritarian_decree/singleton/

Another Congressional Democratic compromise

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/unions-set-to-blast-dems-for-selling-out-on-faa-reauthorization/2012/01/30/gIQAeH9pcQ_blog.html

oh no not a strongly worded letter!

Norquist probably won't have to resort to this:

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/01/29/414010/norquist-republicans-will-impeach-obama-if-he-doesnt-extend-bush-tax-cuts/?mobile=nc

lol they won't have the votes by then

Some fellow defends drone strikes.

Greenwald will be mocking that, if he has not already.

Big New Yorker piece based on internal White House memos and such on the failure of Obama's attempt to be "post-partisan"

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lizza?currentPage=all

4 out of 13 ain't bad i guess

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16806006

great news, everybody!

The nation's leading breast-cancer charity, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, is halting its partnerships with Planned Parenthood affiliates — creating a bitter rift, linked to the abortion debate, between two iconic organizations that have assisted millions of women.

The change will mean a cutoff of hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants, mainly for breast exams.

http://www.npr.org/2012/01/31/146160911/susan-g-komen-halts-grants-to-planned-parenthood

i need to read up on that, seems truly gross.

but on first glance "hundreds of thousands of dollars" doesn't seem like a whole lot of money

It's blowing up all over Twitter and the feminist blogs I read. And even beyond the money, it's the kowtowing to right-wing bullying that's pissing people off. It's going to be an absolute PR disaster for Komen, and why organizations insist on scoring own-goals like this for no legitimate reason whatsoever is a mystery.

Susan G Koman is such a fraud anyway.

http://www.naturalnews.com/033783_Komen_for_the_Cure_pinkwashing.html

http://www.marieclaire.com/world-reports/news/breast-cancer-business-scams

"How come no research into mega-dose IV vitamin C for cancer? There are studies proving its efficacy. Hey Komen, how come you haven't consulted with TV star Suzanne Somers about her breast cancer cure from European mistletoe extract injections? She wrote a bestseller about it."

?

i need to read up on that, seems truly gross.

but on first glance "hundreds of thousands of dollars" doesn't seem like a whole lot of money

Interesting, "gross" is how other FB and Twitter friends have described it. OTM description.

I didn't renown before today that Santorum claims that abortions cause breast cancer, which, what the fucking christ.

Oh yeah, that's been a huge - and, obvs, widely debunked - anti-choicer talking point for a few years now.

After the Komen news broke yesterday left blogger TBogg tweeted: "Tomorrow should see a wave of links to discredited studies asserting that abortion causes breast cancer. #justmakingshitup"

He also suggests:

We’ve  done this before, but you can make a donation to Planned Parenthood and request a thank you card be sent to

Karen Handel
Senior VP of Fail
c/o Susan G. Komen Foundation
P.O. Box 650309
Dallas, TX 75265-0309

(UPDATE) From a reader:

Hi TBogg,

Just made a donation of 50 clams, but I would have loved to have gifted it to Karen Handel as you suggested in your post. maybe you could update the post to let people know that they need to do it as an “Honorary Giving” rather than a “One Time Gift”, which doesn’t offer the choice to send a card

I didn't renown before today that Santorum claims that abortions cause breast cancer, which, what the fucking christ.

― garbage corn fan (Je55e), Wednesday, 1 February 2012 05:55 (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fwiw the backstory with this is that there are studies suggesting that while you're pregnant, your susceptibility to breast cancer decreases; therefore, in stopping being pregnant - having an abortion - your likelihood of getting cancer reverts to its pre-pregnancy norm. it was a cheap kinda conspiracy theory for quite a while but afaik had sorta fallen out of use; as well as obviously not being a causal thing, the key issue w/it is that it concerns the same 'risk' that one inherits by a) just not getting pregnant or b) having a baby

a spin on the new Obama task force that NY attorney General Schneiderman will be involved with, investigating fraudulent mortgage practices (Schneiderman, and the California and Delaware AGs had resisted the Obama effort to reach a quick settlement)

For three years, the Obama administration had not wished to pursue such a course. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner did not want to subject Wall Street to this kind of poking around through its records, much less to prosecutions that could compel major banks to be restructured. But over the past year, as Schneiderman hung tough, the political winds shifted.