American politics 2016: Lawyers, Guns, and D-Money

Chief of Staff!

j/k god I hope not

i really can't see HRC giving two shits about her 'scandals'

esp when she's done such a nice job of running interference

She's so loathed by libs that the party's gonna keep her.

if Cory Booker wasn't considered such a comer he'd be tailor made for the part.

Murtaza Hussain
‏@MazMHussain
Military killed 150 people in one of the many countries it was bombing yesterday, we don't know who they are but luckily they were all bad.

"...the Obama administration on Monday announced that it will for the first time acknowledge the number of people it has killed in drone strikes outside of conventional war zones, including civilians. The report, administration officials said, will be released “in the coming weeks,” and will continue to be released annually. The news came as the Pentagon confirmed that it had carried out one of the largest airstrikes in the history of the war on terror.

Lisa Monaco, the president’s counterterrorism and homeland security adviser, described the plan in comments made during a talk at the Council on Foreign Relations. “We know that not only is greater transparency the right thing to do, it is the best way to maintain the legitimacy of our counterterrorism actions and the broad support of our allies,” Monaco said, adding that the operations described in the report would not cover areas of “active hostilities,” such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria."

https://theintercept.com/2016/03/07/drone-casualty-report-promised-as-u-s-airstrike-kills-150-al-shabaab-members/

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CdDVOO7W8AE4l7R.jpg

Oof.

was live for about 10 minutes

that can't be real

I mean come on

seriously, that's not real is it

ohmygod

that is simultaneously uforgivably horrible and the funniest fucking thing I've seen so far this yeat

ok it took me a minute, and then.... damn

giggling little assholes, what else do you even say

I think "giggling little assholes" about covers it

to be clear, I am laughing at the galling stupidity that leads someone to think that posting this is a good idea

either they're incredibly uninformed about who they're attacking, or they're gleefully cruel

both pretty damning

and they say the party won't fall in line behind trump?

New documents obtained through Freedom of the Press Foundation’s lawsuit against the Justice Department reveal that the Obama administration - the self described “most transparent administration ever” - aggressively lobbied behind the scenes in 2014 to kill modest Freedom of Information Act reform that had virtually unanimous support in Congress....

Today, we are publishing a detailed memo authored by the Justice Department that strongly objected to almost every aspect of FOIA reform put forth by the House of Representatives at the time....

(From the proposed bill:)

An agency may not withhold information under this subsection unless such agency reasonably foresees that disclosure would cause specific identifiable harm to an interest protected by an exemption [in the FOIA], or if disclosure is prohibited by law.

Doesn’t sound controversial at all, right? While the DOJ noted it was “seemingly analogous to the Attorney General’s ‘foreseeable harm’ standard contained in his 2009 FOIA Guidelines,” it referred to this language as “particularly pernicious.” They claimed a slight word change from the DOJ’s own policy would dramatically expand current policy; yet critically, they stated that they would be against it even if the language was exactly the same as their own stated policy. From the memo:

To be clear, we do not believe that this is fixable by amending the language, because any codification of a foreseeable-harm standard would undermine proper FOIA administration by requiring judges to determine on a document-by-document, subjective basis whether withholding is proper.

Imagine that: giving judges the power to be able to determine whether the government was lying!

https://freedom.press/blog/2016/03/new-documents-show-obama-admin-aggressively-lobbied-kill-transparency-reform-congress

Lawmakers Chug Raw Milk to Celebrate Legalizing Raw Milk, Are Mysteriously Overcome With Stomach Illness

#freedom

i know it's shocking that debbie wasserman schultz would be involved in this, but

In a bizarre display of bipartisan cooperation, a handful of Democratic lawmakers have joined Republicans in trying to cripple the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The question is: Why?

Most notably, Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who also serves as chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, is co-sponsoring the deceptively titled Consumer Protection and Choice Act, which would undermine the watchdog agency's pending efforts to rein in predatory lending.

The bill would delay federal regulations for payday lenders by two years. It also would allow states to adopt more lenient rules for the industry.

Wasserman Schultz is joined by eight other Democrats in co-sponsoring the legislation alongside twice as many Republicans.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lazarus-20160308-column.html

Rep. Patrick Murphy is our party's choice to fill Marquito's Florida seat.

Ned brought my attention to this cover story.

Obama, unlike liberal interventionists, is an admirer of the foreign-policy realism of President George H. W. Bush and, in particular, of Bush’s national-security adviser, Brent Scowcroft (“I love that guy,” Obama once told me). Bush and Scowcroft removed Saddam Hussein’s army from Kuwait in 1991, and they deftly managed the disintegration of the Soviet Union; Scowcroft also, on Bush’s behalf, toasted the leaders of China shortly after the slaughter in Tiananmen Square. As Obama was writing his campaign manifesto, The Audacity of Hope, in 2006, Susan Rice, then an informal adviser, felt it necessary to remind him to include at least one line of praise for the foreign policy of President Bill Clinton, to partially balance the praise he showered on Bush and Scowcroft.

whatta Nobel guy

"I love that guy"

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

i can't stop watching this

it's always been uncanny how much she looks like my beloved first-grade teacher but maybe it's that way for everyone

beloved and feared

explaining how 'kleptocracy' starts with a short e

treeship otm btw i can't stop thinking about this and idk it feels much less And Hello To Liberal Facebook! than yr average 21c harangue to an empty senate chamber because she is just so so so otm in it and the people she is haranguing are literally in the apparently helpless act of destroying the sixth party system

Holy shit, that speech is pure fire. In tears over here. When does she get to be president?

I hope she's in the Senate for years, inspiring good men and women to run for president.

serving well on committees, too

this cycle of exaggerating the ability of a president to affect change followed by electing complete blockading idiots on off-years to actual legislative power needs to change, but I have no idea how that starts

It starts with a voting population that's massively more engaged than what we currently have, which Obama attempted to do and failed miserably at, partially through his own efforts and partially because people in his own party ran away from him and his policies during midterm elections.

^^^

Yup exactly

She belongs in the senate, as has been argued repeatedly

i think she'll be potus eventually

when she's 80

maybe in 2024 - she'll be 75

there's always the special election in 2018 when Trump abdicates.

there's always the special election in 2018 when Trump abdicates. is assasinated by Putin

nah, they're besties!

Putin offered high praise for the billionaire businessman-turned-Republican presidential front-runner on Thursday during an annual news conference with reporters.

"He is a bright and talented person without any doubt," Putin said, adding that Trump is "an outstanding and talented personality."

And in remarks closely mirroring Trump's assessment of the campaign, the Russian leader called Trump "the absolute leader of the presidential race," according to the Russian TASS news agency.

gangster sees a mark

...and knows how to influence (and upset) the GOP commentariat

i think putin prefers working with authoritarians bc it's much easier to figure out what their interests are

gangster sees a mark

^^^

I was just making a joke about Putin murdering former associates guys

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/freedom-caucus-budget_us_56e76241e4b0860f99da2cb3?

Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus said Monday night they would not support the federal budget deal proposed by House Republican leadership, putting the spending plan — and the entire appropriations process for the year — in serious jeopardy.

From the basement of a Capitol Hill restaurant, Tortilla Coast, Freedom Caucus members took an official position against the $1.07 trillion budget that’s scheduled for a committee vote on Wednesday. The conservatives took issue with the top-line spending number, arguing that Republicans should go back to the $1.04 trillion level under automatic spending cuts known as sequestration that were set in 2011.

At least 30 members of the roughly 40-member Freedom Caucus voted to formally oppose the budget. Those 30-some members are vital for the Republican budget. Without their support, the document would lack a majority of House votes, since the spending blueprint typically gets no Democratic backers.

But the votes are not there for what they want:

The fiscal blueprint, released Tuesday by Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price, R-Ga., relies on eliminating health care subsidies and other coverage provided by Obama's health care law, sharp cuts to Medicaid, and reprises a plan devised by Ryan years ago that would transform Medicare into a voucher-like program for future retirees. A deteriorating fiscal picture required Price to propose deeper cuts than ever before...

Many conservatives oppose the additional $46 billion or so in higher spending that the deal with Obama permits for the upcoming round of appropriations bills for the 2017 fiscal year starting Oct. 1; it comes on top of about $66 billion in higher spending for the ongoing budget year.

In sum, conservatives are tired that sweeping budget cuts are never implemented while Obama prevails on more money for agency operating budgets. A plan to advance real spending cuts along with the nonbinding budget targets didn't win over many tea party converts, in part because it's plain the cuts wouldn't make it through the Senate

http://news.yahoo.com/conservatives-block-budget-ryan-cites-anxiety-among-voters-150836916--politics.html

nobody could have predicted

http://fourcolors.blogs.pressdemocrat.com/files/2012/01/Peanuts-Football.jpg

lol