American Politics Thread 2013: I'm a cool Rodham grandma in the USA

yes, lets take the attention off of Obamacare and remind folks how bad we can be

be vv surprised if they carried through w all but a halfhearted attempt

yeah i thought the whole point of the budget deal was showing that the gop are grownups capable of governing and that stunts like the shutdown are in the past and weren't their fault anyway (hence all the 'the budget deal only got done cuz the tyrant obama wasn't involved' stories popping up)

heard someone on the radio describe michelle nunn as a typical liberal like her 'notoriously liberal' father which almost caused me to swerve off the road.

lol'd irl at this

Some good reading on Abscam, and the Church Committee, whether you were around in the '70s or not:

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/11/30/the-real-life-fbistingbehindamericanhustle.html

http://www.salon.com/2013/12/14/abscam_the_nsa_and_the_70s_the_real_american_hustle/

advocacy groups are pushing GOP leaders to make big demands

the leopards have not changed their spots

Good times in the press corps

Blah blah blah, DC is fake, Kentucky is real ....la dee dah...zzzzz

Marcy Wheeler: NSA review group a whitewash.

Probably you can't have a group of complete outsiders tell the national security teams how to run their business, unless you want a bunch of idealistic, utopian bullshit hopes-n-dreams recommendations.

Full employment. A higher inflation target to make monetary policy work better in these times, alongside government spending to ensure the Federal Reserve can do its job. Paired with a much more active role for the government in public investment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/18/opinion/edsall-is-the-safety-net-just-masking-tape.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=0&pagewanted=all

i want to marry Mike Konczal btw

ps dean baker & jared bernstein's short book getting back to full employment hits a lot of these points and is awesome and free to download at CEPR

Probably you can't have a group of complete outsiders tell the national security teams how to run their business, unless you want a bunch of idealistic, utopian bullshit hopes-n-dreams recommendations.

― Multiple Miggs (dandydonweiner), Thursday, December 19, 2013 3:39 PM (

The Guardian article makes clear you can't even have a few suggestions from former insiders considered.

konczal is awesome and so is that latest baker freebie (http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/books/getting-back-to-full-employment-a-better-bargain-for-working-people). the other freebie of baker's i read rules too (http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/books/the-end-of-loser-liberalism). i suppose baker's been too correct about scamerica for years now ever to be influential with the assholes who run the show, but it's good to know there are people consistently calling bullshit on those assholes

well and it amazed me that the other night i went to a thing where he was shilling the book and it was *packed*, i was like "wow this is a room full of people in expensive suits with gray hair who get it, i didn't know that was a thing"

that is awesome to hear. for spotting the housing bubble way ahead of time, dean baker should be chairman of the fed or at least secretary of the treasury afaic

sorry dude, rip

http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2540989

i

what

that's some great journalism there. that guy should be very proud of himself. not creepy at all.

non-celebrities who volunteer to participate in public service ads are the worst

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/conservatives-freak-over-pajama-boy

The conservatives are making this attack bcz they understand the role of symbols and irrational emotional reactions in politics. This is what reactionaries excel at.

Sarah Palin and the Duck Dynasty guy are palling around now

glad they found each other

Is this better or worse than another week of black Santa/black Jesus?

These things give us a chance to go ha ha; but meanwhile the budget stays at a level near what Paul Ryan wanted, unemployment insurance has not been extended, and the President rejected a proposed NSA change

less entertaining than ha ha

less ha ha than eat shit plebes

more samantha powers interventionism - http://bit.ly/1etlQpL

so why does the US obliterate so many Afghan/Yemeni weddings?

http://www.salon.com/2013/12/20/american_medias_deplorable_record_on_drone_war_coverage_partner/

"Fifteen Yemenis on their way to a wedding were killed by a US drone. But it wasn't a gay wedding, so Obama's off the hook." - DP

They hate us for our freedom. We hate them for their nuptials.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/12/a-sharp-progressive-joins-the-doj.html

this is excellent news, especially if it means obama is warming her up for a long-overdue appointment to the federal bench. i saw her speak at my school when i was an undergrad -- really smart and interesting lady

https://pic.twitter.com/UQ9cvGAONY

the intellectualizer in me wants to say that this stockman race will be interesting in showing just how strong The Crazy is vs an established (and very conservative!) pol in the gop, and how the rest of the party handles it.

but that's bullshit really it's just kind of entertaining.

This McCain feature in Sunday's NYT magazine is a treat.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/12/22/magazine/john-mccain.html?hpw=&rref=magazine

I couldn't believe an editor got away with assigning a cover out of it though

I saw the cover and thought do I really want to read more about McCain, and skipped it. So it really has stuff in it worth reading?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/edward-snowden-after-months-of-nsa-revelations-says-his-missions-accomplished/2013/12/23/49fc36de-6c1c-11e3-a523-fe73f0ff6b8d_story.html?hpid=z1

http://www.washingtonpost.com/todays_paper/updates/

Washington Post newsprint headline for their top of page A1 interview: Edward Snowden: 'I already won'

charles pierce is killing it

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Christmas_In_Two_Nations_Part_One

fuck you, republicans

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/christmas-serial-part-2-122413

eat shit, "conservatives"

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/christmas-serial-part-3-122413

charles pierce is forever awesome.

Except when he sneers at popular country music in a haughty manner and comes across as snotty as the Republicans he criticizes.

http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=21409580

Dude quits his Town Councilman position to run for Senate, writes resignation letter in Klingon.

Also, is running on the Constitution Party ticket, which makes this all that much more perfect.

Thought it was mandatory to know both Klingon and Vulcan to oint hat party? ~also Esperanto~

^join that party

Ooh, think my laptop battery is expanding, tres amusant, Apple....

charles pierce is killing it

got dayum

check out driftglass.blogspot.com
Charlie Pierce steals megastuff from there

While almost all working Americans will pay into Social Security through their paychecks throughout the year, the 900 wealthiest people in the country won’t. That’s because the highest-earning 0.0001 percent of the U.S. — many of them corporate CEOs — made $117,000 in the first two days of the year, which is the maximum annual income that is subject to Social Security taxes under federal law.

It’s tough to say for certain who will be a part of this group in 2014, since the most recent available data on Americans’ earnings is from 2012. In that year, 894 individuals nationwide made enough to qualify for membership in this club, according to the Los Angeles Times. Economist Teresa Ghilarducci came up with the calculation, and points out that Forbes data on top earners enables analysts and the public to see some of the members of this group. There were nearly 70 corporate CEOs who made enough to qualify in 2012, including the top officers at companies like Philip Morris, NewsCorp, Starbucks, ComCast, and Pfizer.

They get to live the year free from Social Security taxes because the law says that only the first $117,000 earned in a year can be taxed to fund the retirement program that kept more than 15 million people out of poverty in 2011. Democrats have pushed to raise the cap in recent years from $106,800 in 2009 to the current level. Eliminating the cap entirely could make the program solvent for the next 75 years without cutting a dime from anyone’s benefits — and doing so wouldn’t touch the earnings of 94.2 percent of all American workers.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/01/03/3118281/rich-social-security-taxes/

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2014_01/jesse_myerson_throws_down_five048479.php

It’s called “Five Economic Reforms Millennials Should Be Fighting For.” Myerson’s reforms are the following:

1. Guaranteed Work for Everybody
2. Social Security for All
3. Take Back The Land
4. Make Everything Owned by Everybody
5. A Public Bank in Every State
All right, settle down, these proposals are hardly as far-out as they may sound on first hearing. Number one is a public works program, number two is a universal basic income, the third is a land value tax, the fourth is collectivizing wealth ownership by having the government buy up private sector assets and paying a dividend to all citizens (Alaska has a program similar to this in place), and the fifth is pretty much what it says: i.e., a public bank that doesn’t rip off its customers or rape the country.

As Digby points out, the wingnuts are having a meltdown over Myerson’s article