2015 American Politics Thread: The 114th Congress Is in the House!

You can't see that the Iran deal is good coming out of an administration whose Libya/drone policy is terrible.

that's a new one! xp

someone on my friend's FB feed literally said the next Dem president would bring on the extinction event more slowly

i don't want to go to war with iran. not sure about greenwald

you don't want to go to war with greenwald

‏@ggreenwald
Everything about Chuck Schumer's career should make this Iran Deal moment utterly unsurprising: amazing Dem pick to be next Majority Leader.

I'm disgusted but not surprised. In exchange he's supposedly not persuading other Dems to follow suit (which is why Gillibrand went on record supporting the deal a couple weeks ago)

yes, they are NY's very own calculated Good Cop Bad Cop.

http://national.suntimes.com/national-world-news/7/72/1582384/deez-nuts-running-president-polling-8-percent

nuts u can believe in

https://i.gyazo.com/d115aebea935ac4c2727eb5993839f57.png

former ilxor does well for himself

http://data.whicdn.com/images/68810376/large.jpg

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/250559-state-rep-planned-to-accuse-himself-of-gay-sex-scandal-to-hide

i think this is progress?

LOL

i kinda thought that's what Gov McGreevey did

Charles Pierce: "I am willing to believe that Senator Chuck Schumer bailed on the Iran deal because he knows that the deal is safe and, therefore, had a free one as regards to a contentious constituent issue. But it also does mean that he shouldn't be allowed within 20 yards of the Democratic Senate leadership."

So maybe you saw that Governor Bentley of Alabama made a big deal about pulling the state's funding of Planned Parenthood because that seems like the thing to do this month. Now it's been revealed that the state was only giving $5,000 to PP in the first place. Not a typo.

That's some stand you're taking, Bentley!

Have we posted much itt about Scott Walker's campaign finance corruption case? That decision that the WI Supreme Court just handed down is such garbage.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/10/us-no-fly-list-predictive-assessments?CMP=edit_2221

oh

“If the Government were required to provide full notice of its reasons for placing an individual on the No Fly List and to turn over all evidence (both incriminating and exculpatory) supporting the No Fly determination, the No Fly redress process would place highly sensitive national security information directly in the hands of terrorist organizations and other adversaries,” the assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, Michael Steinbach, wrote in a declaration to Brown.

Terrorist organizations would have “every incentive” to manipulate the Department of Homeland Security’s procedures for challenging no-fly list inclusion, Steinbach argued, “in order to discover whether they or their members are subject to investigation or intelligence operations, what sources and methods the Government employs to obtain information or what type of intelligence information is sufficient to trigger an investigation in the first place”.

Sounds very reasonable, until you realize that there is no evidence that any of these 'predictive intelligence methods' have any proved connection to any desired outcome. It appears the government is just profiling on a huge scale and using the no-fly list to intimidate large numbers of people by signaling to them they are under active suspicion.

a friend of a friend of mine got sent back from NYC via heathrow because he was allegedly on the no fly list.. unfortunately he was born in saudi arabia and is an engineer. think he has a scottish passport too.

@ggreenwald Glenn Greenwald retweeted David Frum
Same people who justified this now scampering to find justifications for the huge exception about to be made...

Obama and leakers: Who are the eight charged under the Espionage Act?

Obama has prosecuted more people under the 100-year-old act than any other president

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/12/5/obama-and-leakerswhoaretheeightchargedunderespionageact.html

btw p good article about the Kansas GOP budget circus in the NYT mAG last weekend.

Planning the post-presidency.. The best part:

"his drink of choice at the gatherings is an extra-dry Grey Goose martini"

I used to like Obama but that is an abhorrent drink to order

Bob Menendez also against Iran deal

should be blasted into deep space with Schumer

this article makes my eyes bleed

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-obama-lawsuit-20150820-story.html

In May, U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer voiced exasperation when a Justice Department lawyer tried to explain why the Obama administration was entitled to spend the money without the approval of Congress. Why is that "not an insult to the Constitution?" Collyer asked.

US DC Judge Collyer is a George W. Bush appointee and was appointed by John Roberts to be a judge on the FISA court. A real impartial judge.

claire mccaskill kicks scott brown in the balls

http://nymag.com/thecut/2015/08/drinking-beer-with-senator-claire-mccaskill.html

I'm about to ask her what she thinks of Scott Walker, but McCaskill has a question of her own. "What's Scott Brown up to these days?" I tell her that the last I heard he was appearing as a guest on a celebrity cruise and pushing diet pills.

"No! Who goes on a celebrity cruise ship to see Scott Brown?" she scoffs. "Do people even know who he is? Wow. He will do anything to show his body. It was so surreal, all of the women in the Senate used to talk about how he would figure out some way, every time he had a conversation, to work in something about his body. Like, 'I was on the treadmill in the gym this morning and I saw you on MSNBC,' or 'You know, I was running at lunch today and' — and he did it to all of us! We all compared notes."

Scott Walker and Scott Brown are two different people I am confused

former US president Scott Brown

pink leather hotpants Scott Brown?

McCaskill is feeling herself in the most delightful way

Have we posted much itt about Scott Walker's campaign finance corruption case? That decision that the WI Supreme Court just handed down is such garbage.

I for one want to hear more about this, I haven't managed to try to read this opinion yet.

side out, Donald

http://qz.com/484342/locals-are-using-the-us-mexico-border-fence-as-a-giant-volleyball-net/

Kevin Drum's list of Obama's lame duck accomplishments. Impressive for progressivism with the glaring, awful exception of TPP.

1. Normalized relations with Cuba.

2. Signed a climate deal with China.

3. Issued new EPA ozone rules.

4. Successfully argued in favor of same-sex marriage before the Supreme Court.

5. Put in place economic sanctions on Russia that have Vladimir Putin reeling.

6. Pressured the FCC to approve net neutrality rules.

7. Issued new EPA coal regulations.

8. Issued an executive order on immigration.

9. Got fast track authority for TPP and seems poised to pass it.

10. Signed a nuclear deal with Iran and appears on track to get it passed.

11. Won yet another Supreme Court case keeping Obamacare intact.

12. Issued new rules that increase the number of “managers” who qualify for overtime pay.

13. Presided over the birth of twin giant panda babies at Washington, D.C.’s, National Zoo.

don't forget all those lovely sunsets

and Arctic drilling!

With little fanfare, the Obama administration has been pursuing an aggressive campaign to restore protections for workers that have been eroded by business activism, conservative governance and the evolution of the economy in recent decades.

In the last two months alone, the administration has introduced a series of regulatory changes. Among them: a rule that would make millions more Americans eligible for extra overtime pay, and a guidance suggesting that many employers are misclassifying workers as contractors and therefore depriving them of basic workplace protections. That is an issue central to the growth of so-called gig economy companies like Uber.

A little more than a week ago, a federal appeals panel affirmed an earlier regulation granting nearly 2 million previously exempted home care workers minimum wage and overtime protections. And on Thursday, President Obama’s appointees to the National Labor Relations Board issued an important ruling that makes it easier for employees of contractors and franchises to bargain collectively with the corporations that have sway over their operations.

“These moves constitute the most impressive and, in my view, laudable attempt to update labor and employment law in many decades,” said Benjamin I. Sachs, a professor at Harvard Law School and a former assistant general counsel for the Service Employees International Union. The goal, he said, is to “keep pace with changes in the structure of the labor market and the way work is organized. That’s a theme that runs through all of this.”

In one sense, Mr. Obama foreshadowed these efforts as a candidate in 2008, when he famously suggested that, if elected, he would aim to be a Democratic version of Ronald Reagan. “Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not,” he told a newspaper editorial board in Nevada. “He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/01/business/economy/as-his-term-wanes-obama-restores-workers-rights.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

giving Mt McKinley its old native name oughta be really popular with the loudest people

"Sounds like a Kenyan name to me..."

Yep, no surprise its getting lots of attention. I did not realize that Alaska Republicans want to call it Denali though.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mt-mckinley-becomes-the-newest-conservative-molehill/2015/08/31/057ae37e-5014-11e5-933e-7d06c647a395_story.html

Laura Ingraham's Website: 'McKinley Assassinated Again' By Obama Decision about an hour ago

i read that as Laura Ingalls

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb1fWW17bnY

hilarious that all these OH politicians (OH is birthplace of mckinley) are talking about denali rename being a "insulting to all ohioans"........it's in fucking alaska dudes, nobody in ohio gives a shit, that mountain is thousands of miles away from ohio

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/denali-obama-mckinley-ohio

the Brietbart.com take on Denali was particularly foul

When the issue is entirely symbolic, they must ratchet up the rhetoric to the boiling point, because no one cares about lukewarm symbolism.

"Sounds like a Kenyan name to me..."

Not sure if you thought of that yourself, but this meme hit my facebook today:

https://sp.yimg.com/ib/th?id=HR.148689519967&pid=15.1&P=0&w=300&h=300

living in denali

lol at this flap

The Alaska Board of Geographic Names changed the name of the mountain to Denali in 1975, which is how it is called locally.[6][26] However, a request in 1975 from the Alaska state legislature to the United States Board on Geographic Names to do the same at the federal level was blocked by Ohio congressman Ralph Regula, whose district included McKinley's hometown of Canton.[27]

BLACK POWER

and, inevitably (though fast):

Donald Trump, apparently assuming he will secure the White House, tweeted on Monday evening that he would reverse the decision announced by President Obama to change the name of Alaska's Mount McKinley back to the traditional name Denali, saying it is an affront to the Buckeye State.

"President Obama wants to change the name of Mt. McKinley to Denali after more than 100 years. Great insult to Ohio. I will change back!" read the tweet, issued from the account of the real estate mogul.

tbh you'd think Ohio would be glad to start to shed associations with at least one of the half-dozen or so terrible presidents they've bequeathed to the union. if there's anything still named after harding, grant, and either of the harrisons, i hope obama jumps on those too.

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3263/3151733223_b4dfb62716_z.jpg

also it's high time somebody took bold action on butter mount rushmore

apparently turd blossom karl rove is writing a book about mckinley, whose career he wanted gwb to emulate so fucking hard

i don't know if he cared about dubya being mckinley as long as he got to be mark hanna