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

grade inflation

"taxpayers are paying over $60 for this wasteful website"

well, she WAS reading out the text of an amendment to a law. still.

that woman would earn a C in public speaking

― by another name (amateurist), Monday, 18 July 2011 06:32 (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

a C???????????

― J0rdan S., Monday, 18 July 2011 06:33 (4 hours ago) Bookmark

a ¢

there have been lots of times in history in which gauging the political climate and deciding to meet halfway with the dominant opinions would have been a shitty thing to do, and a poor second to finding a way to persuade rather than compromise.

Fire Dog Lake on Obama's lecture to college students:

While there’s talk of marrying principle to compromise, in this clip Obama does not define that principle. In the whole of his public life, actually, he has not fully defined that principle. He has, however, defined compromise as the necessary element of the most important thing a politician can do, which is to get something done. To “do big things,” as he has been saying throughout the debt limit fight. And you cannot separate the appearance of this last lecture, produced four months ago, on the heels of his efforts to engineer a grand bargain, a compromise that would include major cuts to the social safety net.

Obama gives the example of Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation to underline his belief in compromise:

"Abraham Lincoln. Here’s a guy who didn’t believe in slavery, but his first priority was keeping the union. I’ve got a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation in my office, and if you read through it, most of the document is those states and areas where emancipation doesn’t apply because those folks are allied with the union so they can keep their slaves.

Here’s a wartime President making a compromise around the greatest moral issue that the country ever faced, because he understood that his job was to win the war and maintain the union. Can you imagine how the Huffington Post would have reported on that? It would have been blistering. “Lincoln Sells Out Slaves.” There would be protests, and we’re going to run a third party guy."

This is the second time the Huffington Post, obviously a thorn in the side of the President, is mentioned in this video. The first time, he says that “if you read the Huffington Post, you’d think that I was some right-wing tool of Wall Street.” He is not the biggest fan of their business and political coverage, I gather.

I don’t think anyone would disagree that Obama deeply believes this in his core. The man who came to power on a message of hope is saying that there’s no real hope in implementing the full governing agenda in the American system. That’s true, apparently, even if you have a large majority in the House and 60 votes in the Senate, which Obama had for several months of his first term. That’s true, apparently, even if we’re talking about issues and policies where the President has full authority on his own, with HAMP being the best example.

and 60 votes in the Senate

Fire Dog Lake seems to have an equally selective memory as to who comprised those 60 votes and how useful they actually were.

I have 2 relatives who keep insisting that if I disagree with Obama's compromises that I am as extremist as the right-wingers. No, that's not correct.

Another fun week ahead planned for the House:

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ Bob Greenstein explained:

The “Cut, Cap, and Balance Act” that the House of Representatives will vote on (this) week stands out as one of the most ideologically extreme pieces of major budget legislation to come before Congress in years, if not decades. It would go a long way toward enshrining Grover Norquist’s version of America into law. It is so extreme that even the budget plan of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan would not fully satisfy its requirements — the Ryan plan’s budget cuts wouldn’t be severe enough.

The bill also would threaten the U.S. government with default and would likely cause the loss of roughly 700,000 jobs in the year ahead. In addition, the bill would target programs for the poor for cuts, while protecting tax breaks for the wealthy and powerful.

yup, that's their game

elizabeth warren should have been in 'the fighter' instead of mark wahlberg

all these months looking at this thread and i finally read this sentence ;_;

my wife has been sitting on the news re: Warren for a couple of weeks now; anyone want to move to Boston to be her faculty assistant?

Ezra Klein sez a deal is imminent. Of course, it's the last sentence of the following passage that galls: "If it passes, Republicans will have escaped these negotiations without making any significant policy or political concessions."

And Obama and much of the mainstream media will hail it as a compromise, because Dems will vote for it (and its not quite as extreme as the House Cut, Cap and Balance proposal).

one benefit for the administration here is that Elizabeth Warren might well run for Senate in Massachusetts next year

huh. interesting.

how does this affect president scott brown? is his term up or is it kerry's seat?

Brown's term

goddamn it

what happened

Bachman left her church

well, fuck. I went to google to check out the news but my previous search had been an image search, and that's how I landed on some bachmann photoshops that make a glass of mayonnaise sound appetizing

oof

btw I have no idea what Tracer was goddamning, that was just the first line item I saw on CNN.com

maybe he saw this

http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/07/18/palin.film/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

The director, Stephen K. Bannon, a conservative auteur in the mold of Michael Moore right down to the New Balance sneakers, attended the screening and told CNN that he hopes to expand to more screens, but that decision would have to be made by theaters and the distributor after returns from the current release are counted.

that is a very florid, back-handed way of saying "a fat nerd"

x-post re Tracer

Maybe he was aggravated that Obama never did a recess appointment of Warren, and instead is giving in and going with someone she supposedly recommended (whom the Republicans will oppose also).

But according to the Heritage Foundation and a Texas rep, Obama is just fixated on planning for himself the largest fundraising birthday party of all time, to occur in Chicago on August 3rd (conveniently they say, the day after he wants the debt limit resolved)

Apparently he plays golf too much. It gets in the way of the Republicans who like to think of the President as their own personal lawn jockey.

Obama could still win the election if he wasn't making crappy deals favoring republican ideology. He's pretty much a shoo-in imo

he's by far the best GOP candidate in decades.

US children living in poverty expected to reach 25%
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK_RnxYdrqU&feature=player_embedded

I have a couple of (liberal) lawyer friends who insist that while Obama may have failed when it comes to major policy changes (or, as I less tactfully put it, that he's done a poor job differentiating himself from Bush, at least when it comes to things like taxes, civil liberties and war in the middle east), that the many small changes he has made (the kinds of technical and procedural changes that, I suppose, resonate with liberal lawyers) are a big deal. But of course, those same changes that he's supposedly made, great or small, will no doubt be the easiest thing for any future Republican congress or president to undue with just as little fanfare.

Anyway, that's just as aside. More pertinent, perhaps: why can't this dude better and more forcefully convey that compromise can work the other way, too, and that as honorable and pragmatic as compromise may be, when it only shifts in one direction its value is sort of negated?

Supposedly the guy he nominated instead of Warren is somewhat in the mold of Warren, so that's kind of encouraging. Maybe he figured it would be easier to get someone through with similar politics but less visibility.

if the rumors are true its also cause tim geithner HATES e warren

does that even really matter? I can't imagine a scenario where she'd get through

That's okay. Everyone hate Tim Geithner.

Also, I'm really into the idea of her being a Senator.

why can't this dude better and more forcefully convey that compromise can work the other way, too

I don't understand how any theoretical Democratic president is supposed to do this. It cannot be done.

perhaps true . . . but how did that happen? it wasn't always so

if the rumors are true its also cause tim geithner HATES e warren

a very good thing ... "i welcome their hatred" and all that.

I don't understand how any theoretical Democratic president is supposed to do this. It cannot be done.

it's frustrating because it feels like it isn't even being tried though; it's like packer saying that he's forfeited the most powerful aspect of his position, which is rhetorical suasion, goddamn i love you the new yorker, suasion every week. there's a part in nigel hamilton's american caesars when he's talking about the reelection of truman, when he'd go off-script and become a blaring, swiping populist socking it to the other candidates. through the campaign i know it was a balancing act, to weigh the value of an outburst against the more sustained narrative of character. but now? i don't know that it would be possible to incite popular outrage, encourage civic responsibility re taxes and so on. what is it that's impossible, that there's a republican press & machine to fight back or?

The question is whether Obama will be such a pragmatic puss in his second term. I'd love to see more of a slash and burn 'Bama, a lame-duck who uses his status to fight back, rouse his base once again, and foster enough of a Dem groundswell to end on the note he began, with the congress (if not necessarily the presidency) more blue. Thus leading to another four+ years of bullshit deadlock pettiness, but still.

i am still p sure that second term obama is going to actually crossbow dissenting republicans in the house, limit senatorial health plan coverage to medicaid & stop the use of private cars in the USA

The question is whether Obama will be such a pragmatic puss in his second term

What is left to compromise on? Besides, a President's second term is a wheeze. It's how political parties scare you into voting ("Don't worry – he'll be 'progressive' if reelected").

And Obama keeps pushing this ridiculous notion that if he gets an amazing deficit deal that will clean the deck and magically allow him to have chits in order to push 2nd term programs that progressives like. I don't see that happening. The more likely scenario is that Republicans will feel even further emboldened by what they got now and will push back even harder against anything Obama wants to do in a 2nd term, and will push harder for what they want(with media support because Obama won't be using his bully pulpit and staying on message with Congressional dems on why the Republican ideas are wrong). Compromising now in the manner that he proposes (entitlement cuts, etc.) is not going to allow us to reach the promised land in the 2nd term no matter what he and his advisors think (who also though going with watered down Geithner economics would lower unemployment).

Ah, now I see Why J. Paul Oetken, of New York, got approved with a number of Republican votes to be United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York. Even though he's gay, he was a corporate attorney.

Corporate attorneys have been suitably pithed of any feelings for actual justice and are safe bets.

Watching the Republicans frog-marching the whole nation toward debt default has been interesting, but with Obama making so many frantic signals of his willingness to be rolled on a debt deal that it takes away some of the breathtaking drama. I plan to be so deep in the mountains when the deal is announced that I will miss the POTUS solemnly praising the heap of shit he is grasping to his bosom as a radical step forward to a better future. Thererfore I will be spared from many morbid thoughts.

I don't understand how any theoretical Democratic president is supposed to do this. It cannot be done.

I really don't even know what you're declaring here. That all Dems are now slo-mo Republicans? That's mostly true, and there are 2 solutions: Get different Democrats OR get a new party.

what about 'get people who would vote for different democrats'

They're around, and I find it cynical to assume otherwise.

Besides, a President's second term is a wheeze.

^^^yup. we're reaching the end of O's legislative accomplishments.

fwiw saying his foreign policy in the middle east is indistinguishable from Dubya's is just revisionism.

tom coburn in the parking lot, circling, screaming i don't give a fuck

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=138485866

The plan by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., is laced with politically perilous proposals like raising to 70 the age at which people can claim their full Social Security benefits. It would cut farm subsidies, Medicare, student aid, housing subsidies for the poor, and funding for community development grants. Coburn even takes on the powerful veterans' lobby by proposing that some veterans pay more for medical care and prescription drugs.

Coburn would also eliminate $1 trillion in tax breaks over the coming decade, earning him an immediate rebuke from Americans for Tax Reform, an anti-tax organization with which Coburn has had a running feud. He would block taxpayers from claiming the mortgage interest deduction on second homes and limit it to homes worth $500,000. He would also ease taxpayers into higher tax brackets more quickly by using a smaller measure of inflation to adjust the brackets.

haha i kind of love it, the "fuck everyone" plan