US POLITICS: AMERICANS, PLEASE WELCOME YOUR NEW PRESIDENT... SCOTT BROWN!

(whips out "enemies list")

What surpises me, Dan, is that he didn't get his ass kicked.

kind of sounds like he did...?

Yeah, maybe.

"leading to his arrest"

shakey that's a real game that nixon is 'shopped onto - nixon vs. kennedy. check it out at boardgame geek

that plea bargain is ridiculous

Breitbart is such an ass. I hope this seriously blows up in his face.

The guy in the 'Homeowners Fail to Refinance' ad on that page looks like a serial killer or worse.

it won't, don't get your hopes up

xp

oh man someone plz write this polisci rpg

you guys care to take sides in Dodd-Bam kerfuffle over bank-reg bill?

http://business.theatlantic.com/2010/02/dodds_resistance_to_volcker_plan_should_signal_its_death.php

did you guys get to the part where this dude calls a women's clinic and asks if he can earmark his abortion donation? fuck this fuckin dude til he dies imo

I got to that part but that didn't generate nearly the same levels of shameful horrified internal lols as a real, actual person karate-chopping a random passerby in the face.

you guys care to take sides in Dodd-Bam kerfuffle over bank-reg bill?

Um, they're both right? I think Dodd not wanting to go back to the drawing board right now is a valid position. There's a lot of useful stuff in the current legislation that makes it worth going ahead and passing it if he's got the votes to do it. People forget that it took a few years after the 1929 crash before Glass-Steagall was passed into law, and it's going to take another year or two before the regulatory ramifications of the latest crash are fully realized. Hopefully something like the Volcker rule will be passed into law eventually, because I do think it would help, but it's hardly a panacea, and a case could be made that a strong financial consumer protection agency would actually be more effective in the long run.

is reinstating most of Glass-Steagall a total fantasy for the foreseeable future?

(goddamn you Bubba Clinton)

"Fantasy" is too kind.

I doubt something like a reinstatement of Glass-Steagall is going to happen as a unilateral US-only rule, and I don't think Europe has any intention of moving in that direction. So, yes, it doesn't seem likely.

Speaking of bank regulation, I thought Krugman's recent column contrasting the Canadian banking system with the US was very good:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/opinion/01krugman.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo7HiQRM7BA

Barney Frank bringing the lolz on CSPAN at this very moment LIVE

WTF. Dave Reichert is reading a poem that his son wrote.

loling so hard

what the hell

Frank said what?

something about the right-wing smear machine

but let's not forget: McCain caved on torture.

― Inculcate a spirit of serfdom in children (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, February 3, 2010 4:39 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Yeah that was the moment (maybe a little late in the game, honestly) that I realized McCain was completely without principle.

I wish the media was making the Senators who suddenly don't support PAYGO answer for that. That was an incredibly craven political decision to all of a sudden vote against one of their favorite legislative ideas just because Obama supports it.

http://www.facebook.com/TebowSuperBowlAd

Join us in supporting Focus on the Family's right to Free Speech. CBS is doing the right thing by running the Tebow ad during the Super Bowl.

This is a joint project of Americans United for Life Action and LifeNews.com.

I'm not nearly as annoyed by the pro-life ad as much as I am that they wouldn't allow the gay dating site ad.

penizs==

xp did you see that gay dating ad? you wouldn't have wanted it to run

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/tea-party-fireworks-speaker-tom-tancredo-rips-mccain/story?id=9751718

The opening-night speaker at first ever National Tea Party Convention ripped into President Obama, Sen. John McCain and "the cult of multiculturalism," asserting that Obama was elected because "we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country."

"surprised" that the article doesnt mention the jim crow/voting rights act angle to tancredos line about 'civics, literacy test'

in more 'fuck the senate' news: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/02/report-shelby-blocks-all-obama-nominations-in-the-senate-over-al-earmarks.php?ref=fpblg

Al Franken continues to be my favorite freshman Senator. Wish he was from Ohio.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpQxXPFkb-I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpQxXPFkb-I

reading about Gillibrand & Harold Ford auctioning themselves off to the Tisches etc has steeled my resolve to skip that primary. Let me know when campaign financing is unfixed.

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/fords-challenge-to-gillibrand-splits-donors/

i'm having a hard believing anyone is taking harold ford seriously. wtf ny

i think its a combination of big wall street type donors + bored newspapers + no one gives a shit about gillibrand?

can't you just find someone named cuomo or something? what the hell, how can your bench be this weak

That SOB Mini-Mario is in a different tournament. I think I'm going to re-register as an independent and stay that way.

why is al franken questioning j0hn d

From the youtube comments, forthcoming "GOP 2k10 Cliff Notes":

"Left as in Liberal as in clueless as in pseudo intellectual as in bought and paid for by ACORN and the Unions as in murdering unwanted or inconvienient humans as in supporters of the joke that currently occupies the White House as in thiose whose thoughts are created by socialist educators and are too foolish to think for themselves as in demanding that government controls all as in supporters of a "nanny" state as in lies and deception as in Socialized healthcare as in..... "

Oh that Tea Party article made me smile:

Organizers said some 600 attendees have paid $549 for access to two full days of events that culminate Saturday evening in a keynote speech by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin at a banquet that reportedly will feature a lobster-and-steak dinner.
...
The high price of entry to an event that celebrates grass roots, open-air activism has offended many in the Tea Party tent.

In fact, some tea party factions are furious.

"When somebody steps up and says their purpose in putting on a convention like this is to make a profit, that's really the antithesis of a grass roots movement," said Mark Meckler, of the Tea Party Patriots faction.

In a mid-January post on his blog, "Riehl World View," Riehl questioned whether Phillips "wants to be a tea party millionaire."

"[Tea party activists] generally are not the type of people who would gravitate to some very expensive hotel to dine on lobster and steak and listen to someone speak," Riehl said in an interview Wednesday.

Convention spokesman Mark Skoda acknowledged Wednesday that Phillips and his wife, Sherry Phillips, founders of the for-profit Tea Party Nation Inc., will "make a few bucks" on the event. But Skoda questioned why that should be anyone's concern.

"Have we gone so far in the Obama-socialist view of the nation that 'profit' is a bad word -- in particular, if we're using it to advance the conservative cause?" Skoda asked.

I saw footage of the attendees, everyone was 50+.

it's like a pluggers cartoon come to life

I know you think I'm rough on you guys, but everytime I hear one of these droolers call Prez Capital a "socialist" I feel the need to swing a baseball bat with Emma Goldman's picture carved into it at their pumpkinheads.

Oh gee: Todd Palin really did run Alaska.

The highlights:

The governor coached her staff on how to disguise the amount of electrical work needed at the mansion to hook up her new tanning bed.
Palin and her staff stewed over the refusal of the state Public Safety Department to provide a plane so the children could fly to Todd's family's home in Dillingham; after all, they were going to attend a bill signing, so the travel requests could be justified. Sarah Palin called the decision "outrageous," and an aide said it provides "a great excuse to privatize" the governor's jet service.

The manager of the Palins' travel schedule searched for a public event to use as justification ("I just need one") to charge the state for an airplane flight for Palin's daughter, Willow, who made the trip but had missed the event given as its justification.

When Sarah Palin complained that the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner wrote a critical editorial after she did them the favor of meeting with the editorial board, Todd Palin advised the press chief to "take the news miner off the press release address list for a few days, see how long it takes them to realize their not on the list."

"Man, that gossip crap bugs me," Sarah Palin wrote after the Anchorage Daily News wrote about mansion repairs in its Alaska Ear political column. "Any time it has anything to do with home or family, it's irritating." A press aide apologized, saying the columnist did not to call check out stories before publishing. The residence director added, "Reminds me of junior high school, where hormonal teenagers are always looking for the drama. ... I'll do my best to avoid giving them any news nuggets."

Oh Democrats, you dont seem to learn

The senator who is shepherding the Obama administration’s package of Wall Street reforms through Congress said on Friday morning that talks with his Republican counterpart had broken down.

The senator, Christopher J. Dodd, indicated that Democrats would forge ahead with their own bill, following months of talks that had been aimed at reaching a bipartisan consensus.