US POLITICS: "I figured clueless was better than argumentative."

nu thread, still just as righteous

old thread:

http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=40&threadid=81891

inaugural article, courtesy Phil D.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/08/bob-inglis-tea-party-casualty

US Politics: Please forgive me. I'm just ignorant of these things.

still can't load that article, but now they want me to buy the Economist!

yeah i wanna read that too but no go!

"503 Service Temporarily Unavailable"

I wonder in what way 503 refers to the Federal Reserve?

?! the mother jones article isn't loading?

maybe the site is slammed, i have it up

"Barack Obama is a socialist, communist Marxist"

lol. not original, but gotta love the triple descriptor

man I'm sure Bob Inglis is a reactionary dick & whatever but this almost made me cry with its otm-ness:

I refused to use the word [socialist] because I have this view that the Ninth Commandment must mean something. I remember one year Bill Clinton—the guy I was out to get [when serving on the House judiciary committee in the 1990s]—at the National Prayer Breakfast said something that was one of the most profound things I've ever heard from anybody at a gathering like that. He said, "The most violated commandment in Washington, DC"—everybody leaned in; do tell, Mr. President—"is, 'Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor.'" I thought, "He's right. That is the most violated commandment in Washington." For me to go around saying that Barack Obama is a socialist is a violation of the Ninth Commandment. He is a liberal fellow. I'm conservative. We disagree...But I don't need to call him a socialist, and I hurt the country by doing so. The country has to come together to find a solution to these challenges or else we go over the cliff.

Do conservatives see Barack Obama as more 'socialist' than e.g. FDR or LBJ?

they see him as more "black" but aren't allowed to say so

Or Nixon?

x-post

does ILE see the other thread as more socialist than others?

Republicans move to block US citizenship for children of illegal aliens
Senators plan to halt 'invasion by birth canal' by overturning constitutional guarantee for anyone born on US soil

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/03/republicans-block-citizenship-illegal-aliens

Kenya stakes its reinvention on referendum

The new constitution hems in Kenya’s imperial-style presidency, devolves more power to local government, paves the way for land reform and gives Kenyans a bill of rights. Donor nations, especially the United States, are so eager to see it pass that they have pumped millions of dollars into voter drives and civic education campaigns.
The United States Embassy in Nairobi has been sharply criticized by several Republican members of Congress for taking sides and accused of breaking federal rules. The Republicans say the new Kenyan constitution would make it easier for women to get an abortion (a claim that constitutional scholars dispute) and that the embassy, by giving grants to Kenyan groups that openly support the constitution, has violated federal provisions prohibiting American diplomats from lobbying for or against abortion.
Johnnie Carson, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said Tuesday that “a very small percentage” of the civic education grants had gone to groups advocating for a “yes” vote but that this was “an accident and error.”
“We support a process, not an outcome,” he said, though recent statements from American officials have left little mystery as to which side the United States is on. At the same time, several American Christian groups have been working closely with Kenyan allies to mobilize people to defeat the constitution.

Ugh, I can understand the concern about choosing sides, but mobilizing to defeat the referendum because of…abortion? Ugh

Ugh, sorry for weird formatting (iPhone), ugh

this is what happens when you let zombies run bureaucratic processes

yup, k-lo is not happy. well, k-lo doesn't have an original thought in her head, the catholic hierarchy doesn't like it.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/242352/constituting-culture-death-tomorrows-vote-kenya-kathryn-jean-lopez

every single answer to those questions is nauseating. like a master class in tendentiousness and bad faith

Q: Why should a busy American care about the Kenyan constitution?
A: Because the Obama administration cares so much about it.

you have to remember, KLo is a moron

how many politics threads do we have now

is this the current one? cuz I'm still pissed I couldn't read the other one on the plane cuz I was sitting next to a nice old lady

Q: There is a lot of confusion about abortion and this constitution. Does it legalize abortion or not?
A: Quite clearly, it does. The problem with the final draft of the constitution is that, while it has an explicit clause that protects the right to life from conception, it provides for exceptions in the event that the health of the mother is in danger or where permitted by any other written law. In every place where a broad exception for the health of the mother has been allowed, abortion on demand has resulted.

xp k-lo isn't giving the answers here! sadly there are other morons at work in the world.

xp
ha, yeah this is the one. goole and I fought a duel

In every place where a broad exception for the health of the mother has been allowed, abortion on demand has resulted.

hmmmmmmm wonder why THAT could be

Because Satan is confusing people into making horrible personal decisions!

I was actually kind of serious, though this may have been discussed on other threads. What is the general perception of people like FDR or LBJ amongst the kind of people who consider Obama a socialist?

Commies. They're all commies. Except for Nixon, who the commies hated.

FDR was considered a socialist by a considerable portion of the population. If you think FOX News is toxic, you should hear radio shows from the mid thirties. He was loathed.

Ned OTM

republicans anti-FDR but he rarely comes up, LBJ never comes up. american politics before carter doesn't get a lot of attention in our political dialogue.

you should hear radio shows from the mid thirties

Link please? I'd love to hear some oldschool mudslinging, if only to explore the idea that things might not really be all that different in the field of political fearmongering.

Actually, this is one of my favorite FDR clips:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIqe4aeublo&feature=player_embedded

Startlingly contemporary.

Glenn Beck, the few times I've seen him, cultivates an aura of historical evidencey-ness, so he most decidedly does go after people like FDR and LBJ. The last time I caught him he was spinning an elaborate conspiracy web linking Valerie Jarret to Woodrow Wilson (who is evil fyi). I imagine some of that sensibility trickles down and FDR is considered a fascist.

they were also socialist! but it's really really hard to tell if the current right-wing frame of mind admits to any kind of degrees or continuums or modes of socialism...

honestly a better way to think of it is that there is a core of good people or a good "way of life" ("the real america") that has been beset at all times by enemies through history. all of these enemies have of course been working in concert, because being against the RA is their purpose. the nazis, the communists, foreign empires, the UN, the third world, the muslims, it hardly matters...

many xps

I do loathe Wilson though.

Reagan specifically campaigned on ending The Great Society.

LBJ never comes up

don't think this is strictly true but could be a result of him being loathed by BOTH sides - on the right for civil rights/expanding the "welfare state", and on the left for Vietnam

xp
yeah, the scary thing about his anti-Wilson ranting was that much of it was on point, it was the rest of the chalkboard that was deranged.

hmm. I saw that months ago, so let me amend that to "some of it was on point."

I see. That was helpful, thanks.

(I was actually kind of under the impression that there was some positive consensus around FDR. Not entirely sure why now.)

he was a nazi who fought nazis. strange, i know

This terrible book got a lot of traction in 2008 before the election. She's tickled by the discovery that most of FDR's answers for ending the Depression failed! It's like she hasn't written a new book in fifty years.

xp
I think there used to be; ten years ago I think you'd be fringey to go after him.

not only a Nazi but he appeased Stalin!

amity shlaes is a nutcase

*written = read

Great critique.

i have also read somewhere that shlaes has merely an undergrad degree in english. i like to think i understand econ to some degree, but come on

her name looks like it lost several vowels and consonants.

Shlaes graduated from Yale University magna cum laude[1] with a bachelor’s degree in English in 1982.[2]

Shlaes writes a syndicated column for Bloomberg News.[3] She is a senior fellow in economic history at the Council on Foreign Relations. Her many appearances on television and radio include commentary on public radio for Marketplace.

She wrote columns for the Financial Times for five years, until September, 2005, for which she won the International Policy Network's Bastiat Prize for Journalism in 2002.[4] Earlier, she worked at the Wall Street Journal, where she was a member of the editorial board. She has written for The New Yorker, The American Spectator, Commentary Magazine, Foreign Affairs, Forbes, National Review, and The New Republic, among others. Her obituary of Milton Friedman appeared in The New York Sun.[5]

She was awarded the 2007 Deadline Club award for Opinion writing,[6] and the Newswomen's Club of New York's Front Page Award for her Bloomberg columns.[7]

Miss Shlaes teaches an MBA course titled the Economics of the Great Depression at NYU/Stern School of Business.[8] She is the 2009 winner of the Hayek Prize awarded by the Manhattan Institute.

This is pretty famous:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9yoZHs6PsU

No -- that's "pulled by the head."

this administration's turnabout on torture after campaigning on hope was unforgivable. but not voting on principle doesn't really seem like a reasonable response in the current climate, it's less protest than desertion.

I read this reasonable post with much pain, but really, how is a vote anything but an endorsement of their actions? it can only be read as such. some people think letters to a representative or participation at the local level might somehow slow-game a less amoral party into existence, but I'm not so optimistic; if you want an author to stop writing, don't buy his books, is my belief

when i filled out my absentee ballot i kept telling myself: "this will be the most important election of your life"

xxxxp

I read this reasonable post with much pain, but really, how is a vote anything but an endorsement of their actions? it can only be read as such. some people think letters to a representative or participation at the local level might somehow slow-game a less amoral party into existence, but I'm not so optimistic; if you want an author to stop writing, don't buy his books, is my belief

at the price of a GOP-controlled house or maybe even senate?

aerosmith, the Dems are about to get repudiated for their actions, so it looks like you win!

oh for fuck's sake

I've spent my life living in a country controlled by the Tea Party or the purported opposition party living in fear of the Tea Party, so I'm not afraid of Speaker fucking Boehner.

if i'm honest i don't really mind the republicans winning the House.

Ha, well, I'm the opposite: the Senate's been useless. Pelosi's the only one who's gotten shit done.

I could give a good goddamn about Marco Rubio. Bill Nelson, Florida's senior senator, could show him how to be a non-descript hack.

i'm pretty scared of the idea of harry reid fucking john boehner

well, I like Pelosi so that would be a shame, but it seems likely they'll take the House is all.

i'm pretty scared of the idea of harry reid fucking john boehner

have you ever seen a desperate Mormon in heat?

aerosmith, the Dems are about to get repudiated for their actions, so it looks like you win!

no -- it looks like the Democrats win! they spent two years telling everybody who'd had any expectations whatsoever that they were naive assholes, selfish narcissistic children whose political passions weren't to be taken seriously under any circumstances. they made a concerted effort to alienate the very people whose donations and votes had put them into office; they made it clear that the left were useful for electoral purposes but were otherwise expendable. they got what they wanted: two years in the house & senate; they weren't interested in more than that. the votes they're losing would have been child's play to hold onto; they didn't gain any votes by writing off those of people who care about torture of prisoners & the right to privacy. this class of democrats wasn't going to do anything on behalf of the people whose lack of support they bemoan; they view that support as theirs by right of being not-as-evil. they should all go home to wherever in the hopes that the Democrats who replace them have something like an ethical center.

reid's a senator, jordy

"speaker-fucking" seems like it should be an urbandictionaryism by now, though

but like on the other hand that's just my opinion

That's so crude! Mormons prefer to refer to it as "estrous."

xxxp

they view that support as theirs by right of being not-as-evil. they should all go home to wherever in the hopes that the Democrats who replace them have something like an ethical center.

no such democrats -- or non-democrat progressives -- will fill that void. it will instead be filled by the GOP.

in the short term, at least. and i haven't heard much of a case that things will be different in the future, tho i hope i'm wrong.

reid's a senator, jordy

yeah i know, a horribly formed "joke"

How are they any different from the "Blue Dogs" that Emmanuel recruited in '06 and '08?

xpost

no such democrats -- or non-democrat progressives -- will fill that void. it will instead be filled by the GOP.

― Daniel, Esq., Tuesday, November 2, 2010 12:45 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

in the short term, at least. and i haven't heard much of a case that things will be different in the future, tho i hope i'm wrong.

― Daniel, Esq., Tuesday, November 2, 2010 12:45 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

in the short term is correct - if one reelects them, one can be 100% assured that things will not get any better. I mean this is simple behavioral reinforcement: you can't reward behavior and expect it to change.

daniel can you just appreciate that some people expect certain policies in return for their votes? politicians are smart about this shit - they'll position themselves as close to their opponent's left side as possible where they know they can count on getting a majority of the votes from the left and try to pick up some in the middle too. for some people that won't cut it - if you want my vote you have to actually fairly represent what i believe. it's just this game where the pol'll slide further & further right and be like "lol asshole, you're still voting for me tho right?" at a certain point it becomes - no, fuck you

It's delicious and totally appropriate that my representative, a GOP warmonger who's been in office since Claude Pepper died, has run to the left of every one of her opponents.

daniel can you just appreciate that some people expect certain policies in return for their votes?

yes, i can and do appreciate that.

I read this reasonable post with much pain, but really, how is a vote anything but an endorsement of their actions?

votes have been so close and contested recently, but still we're stuck conflating the vote with a popular mandate. bush used the term himself the week he won in 2004; obama did as much in the way he poured so much abstract idealism into his campaign & speeches. but it's always total fiction; obama did not win as much as mccain lost, and everyone who cast that vote with uneasiness have had their fears played like a violin in the two years since.

your moral abstention is not going to make the pitiful remnants of this party find the strength to fight harder. there's no way to make yourself heard through silence when everyone else is yelling -- abstention is basically just leaving your friends behind to fight. also, voting is probably not going to kill you

obama did not win as much as mccain lost,

for the record:

http://blog.4president.us/2008/2008ec.gif

so nuts to that.

just noticed that mccain carved a boner going up the country

dunno if i can trust 4president.us to give me accurate info

obama did not win as much as mccain lost

Maybe and maybe not, but if that's true it's doubly so in the House, where many Dem seats were won by narrow margins in strongly Republican districts, and many of those Congressmen couldn't reasonably have been expected to hang on to those seats for long no matter what else happened.

OK:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ElectoralCollege2008.svg

Politicians claim "mandates" all the time. The difference with Obama's victory is that he could legitimately claim one: the biggest Dem winner since LBJ.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ElectoralCollege2008.svg

voting is probably not going to kill you

Thanks for the opening, Milton. An Election Eve message from the dead:

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

<3

"I'm sure that once the election is over, your country will improve immediately."

I can't be quite as curmudgeonly as George, but I wouldn't want to get caught trying to debate him on those points.

i don't think 08 can be described as "obama did not win as much as mccain lost" -- whoever grabbed the dem nomination had it basically in the bag. forgive me milton but this sounds like the kind of thing victor davis hanson and michael barone tell themselves.

anyway, i appreciate principled non-voting, i really do. but i don't do it. i just don't think principled voting occurs. like, when i pull the lever, it's not a stamp of blanket moral approval of everything that the powerful do for the remainder of their term. it's hardly a statment at all, just rather weak indication of preference: i'd rather this person hold that seat rather than some other person likely to get a majority. i understand that i am to feel implicated in this, somehow, morally, but i don't feel this way at all. i pulled the lever, and whatever they do next is on them.

i'll put it blutly: i know exactly to what degree this 'regime' has been bunglers or blunderers or cowards or miscalculators or over-calculators or just outright killers, i read the papers. but i'm going to get up tomorrow morning and vote for everyone i can find with a D next to their name, without regret, or a second look back, as i probably will do for the rest of my life.

i'm sure this is probably just as an infuriating decision to some as people advocating quietism or dropping out. i don't begrudge anyone their decision to do or not do anything politically. except vote for haley barbour, that guy looks like boss hogg and sounds like it too, come on.

/ I admit to overstating my case; the ratio was huge and the enthusiasm for obama was not an illusion

still, we owe many of the undecided votes simply to a pragmatic unwillingness to vote for mccain, and it's those people who have been targeted by the Tea Party. they'll be voting from the heart this time; it's our turn to be pragmatic.

Fuck the heart, seriously.

btw u guys are missin a helluva ballgame

they'll be voting from the heart this time; it's our turn to be pragmatic.

This means nothing. "The heart"? It's more like -- no, EXACTLY like -- the "gut" that Colbert talks about. Call me elitist, but Tea Partiers don't understand a thing about what they're voting for.

hm. 3 -- 0 giants in 7th.

Morbs otm again. There's little point in this particular conversation.

For those of you not voting for Democrats, do you live in states with ballot measures? and are you voting for them? Just curious. Ballot measures and candidates have always seemed like totally separate things to me, yet they are conflated together as "voting".

e.g. the marijuana initiatives in California and Oregon.

I've got eight amendments to our state constitution on which we're voting.

My district is a safe socially liberal Republican seat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFSIcI0wmGw

for the record

For the record, Mo. went for McCain.

Tried to open all messages to read stuff from two hours ago and it practically crashed my browser (and, yes, I'm on a lame internet connection)

NEW THREAD, PLEASE

US POLITICS election/post-election edition: your country will improve immediately.