US POLITICS SPRING 2011: Let's just call off this country.

Bbbbbbbut they perform abortions and that's taking a life so they must be punished!

Doesn't surprise me that Daniels would sign this based on his weasel-like answers defending his role in the Bush administration regarding the destrction of the surplus and the role of tax cuts for the rich and his incorrect calculations for the cost of 2 off the book wars.

So, the GOP hates abortions, contraception, cancer screening & prevention, social workers, outpatient procedures of many varieties and family planning information and pamphlets. I don't think even the Vatican is that hardline...

feel like trump thinks he's going bullworth, but deep down inside just wants beatty's hairline

http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/donald-talks-dirty-ladies-trump-laun

"you're not gonna raise that fucking price!"

what a scumbag!

Bbbbbbbut they perform abortions and that's taking a life so they must be punished!

Must be something else because significantly cutting defense spending is off the table.

https://secure.ppaction.org/site/SPageServer?pagename=pp_ppol_DonationFormOneTimeGift

FYI

(you can also click over to the monthly donation tab from there)

daniels to sign the anti-PP bill

He kind of had to if he wants to run for prez. Still a dick move, tho.

if the Planned Parenthood bill that only Jackie Speier spoke out against in the House (because it wasn't going to pass the Senate anyway, so why spend political capital on it) had been filibustered, we'd be looking at a different climate. Republicans know that almost nobody is willing to speak up for funding women's health. DJP otm: get out your pocketbooks and give PP money. Or vote in people who'll filibuster shit like H. Con. Res 36 instead of going with "well, it'll never pass the house so why fight it here?" --that kind of cowardice has real cost at the state level io

"io" is "imo" with the "m" reserved to call somebody a motherfucker with later

but i wanna call somebody a motherfucker NOW

here for you

wiiiiide open

eh, think i'm gonna save it for a guy who tries to legislate against women's health in a transparent bid for higher political office, you know any guys like that?

"I will sign HEA 1210 when it reaches my desk a week or so from now. I supported this bill from the outset, and the recent addition of language guarding against the spending of tax dollars to support abortions creates no reason to alter my position. The principle involved commands the support of an overwhelming majority of Hoosiers, as reflected in greater than 2:1 bipartisan votes in both legislative chambers.

bad form ILX, overwhelming majority support
depressing shit; you can only hope that it burnishes support etc but y'know

Losing my shit on fb, tbh.

righties hauling out all the Glenn Beck style "did you know Margaret Sanger was a eugenicist" stuff about this

I'm just trying not to think about it. thread subtitle otm along w/"good luck USA"

How liberal is Obama? Nate Silver crunches the numbers. According to his conclusions: Obama " rates as being slightly more conservative than Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy, but slightly more liberal than Lyndon Johnson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Harry Truman." Which makes no sense to me.

On the other hand, "the Republican platform has shifted significantly toward the right" in recent years.

I would have thought you'd seize on this:

"Nevertheless, there is some support for the notion that Democratic presidents take positions that--while still quite liberal--are at least somewhat more amenable to compromise. By contrast, Republican presidents push as hard as they can to the right and let the chips fall where they may. A lot of liberals advocate that Mr. Obama should take a page out of the Republican playbook..."

Anyway, while I agree that his conclusions are counter-intuitive, good for Silver. He comes out of the field of sabermetric baseball analysis, so he does one thing that I think some of you guys rarely do: he provides some context. Obama doesn't govern in a vacuum, and his context is worlds away from LBJ's. Saying Obama is this, that, or the other without accounting for that context is like saying Dante Bichette was a great power hitter because he once hit 40 home runs.

I spent a fun/sad night with colleagues last night & we talked about the ~state of the nation~. These are pretty lefty folks & I was stuck by how futile we're feeling it is to fight the plutocracy. All of us are sorta kinda maybe giving up on the USA as a good place for our children to make roots, because the ruling class wants the rest of us to be peasants & the electorate seems more or less willing to go along with that (at least wrt their votes). We're never going to be rich enough to pay for college & health care & retirement in this country, & we're all amongst the most educated of Americans, employed in good, steady jobs. I guess we chose badly by not going to Wall Street to work when we had the chance, but if that's the only way to make it in America now...that's what I mean about giving up on this place.

According to his conclusions: Obama " rates as being slightly more conservative than Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy, but slightly more liberal than Lyndon Johnson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Harry Truman." Which makes no sense to me.

How does that make no sense?

i guess it depends on what one values most in liberalism -- if you're onboard for traditional Democratic economics, then Obama clearly falls short of FDR, Truman and LBJ.

but these barely statistically significant numbers that are inherently flawed say otherwise!

silly article. i like his basketball writing tho

Silly because he comes to a conclusion you don't endorse. That's how the Baseball Digest mindset used to brush aside Bill James in the late '70s and early '80s.

I was going to answer in my own words, but I just read this comment on Silver's story:

What kind of political analysis system pays absolutely no attention to how an administration behaves on issues that don’t go to a congressional vote? How does DW-NOMINATE rate the treatment of Bradley Manning, the bait and switch about open government, the selling out of Americans to the pharmaceutical companies in a back room deal within days of being sworn in, the bait and switch about closing Guantanamo, continuing the draconian special rendition program, or his cabinet appointments like GE CEO, Immelt, to job czar after the man laid off 20% of his American workforce in order to allow GE to avoid ALL taxes, or Obama’s decision to extend those devastating tax cuts for billionaires

Forget its stridency. If we examine the problems which are exclusive to the executive branch, as this reader does, the DW-NOMINATE stuff crumbles a bit.

no, silly because he uses a bunch of made-up numbers that he admits aren't that accurate anyway xp

yeah but so do fdr and lbj

'obama had no racial internment camps = he is far more liberal than fdr'

You're working from the assumption that stuff that doesn't go to a vote has no bearing on stuff that does go to a vote--like the one does not impact the other. I don't mean that as a defense of specific decisions, but the two do not exist in separate worlds.

ha yeah xp iatee

soto tbf these statistics are only based on economic issues

The immensity of a cleanup effort that spans eight states provides first major challenge for Obama in responding to a natural disaster. Promising federal aid to help towns rebuild, he says, “We’re going to make sure you’re not forgotten.”

C'mon Washington Post, he's quicker than Bush on Katrina and faster than he himself was on BP in the Gulf.

In re: that --

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/us/01fema.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

'obama had no racial internment camps = he is far more liberal than fdr'

― iatee, Saturday, 30 April 2011 14:34 (1 hour ago)

have a vague memory of an ACORN-related conspiracy that would tip this balance btw

x-post from that NY Times article--"But with Alabama facing serious budget shortfalls, Mr. Bentley and Mr. Maddox made it clear that they would quickly require hundreds of millions of dollars in federal reconstruction aid.

Asked what his city most needed from the federal government, Mr. Maddox answered in one word. “Revenue.”

Good ol' Republicans they hate the Federal government but they want the financial assistance from the Feds

But... but... none other than Saint Ronald Reagan told us that the feds were the problem, not the solution. This is blasphemy!

I was thinking about that the other day when Rick Perry was looking for federal money to help with wildfire stuff - weren't you

Oops- weren't you talking about seceding not that long ago?

CORRECT

lol @ k3v & alfred on this thread

did you guys actually read what he wrote

i share extreme disappointment w/ you dudes at 'the state of the world' i just disagree w/ the notion that obama should be the target of our collective anger

or the primary target, i should say

yeah he was like here is a point someone else made i don't think that's right because here's some numbers but wait those numbers are dumb here's what i think anyway

xp what are you talking about, all i said was that the article was dumb, not that i hated obama. batsignal off

why are those numbers dumb

i agree w/ D-40 ... the entire Democratic Party has become a weak bag of piss, not just the President.

read the article he says so himself

Greenwald w/ some golden Dem quotes from when Bush appointed a soldier to head the CIA:

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/04/28/petraeus/index.html

lol @ k3v & alfred on this thread

You're welcome!

Obama at nerd prom aka White House correspondents dinner: "Now Trump can focus on issues that matter, like who faked the moon landing, what really happened in Roswell, and.. where are Biggie and Tupac?"

Seth Meyers: "I'm going to get a really pissed off voice mail from Ginny Thomas 19 years from now."

and.. where are Biggie and Tupac?"

― daria g, Sunday, May 1, 2011 2:37 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

ok he just got my vote back

the 'lion king' birth video was omg awesome