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

Who knows, but either way, it wasn't worth the risk of trying.

tbh, i'm more concerned about immediates like rent money and why my cat always wants to be under the couch during daylight hours.

maybe this will change once you tell your cat the news about osama

I wouldn't go so far as "I don't care" but finding catharsis in his death is a bit hard. It's not going to bring anyone back nor is it going to help in Afghanistan, Pakistan or anywhere else the Al Quaeda Franchise operates. Genuine justice in the form of a trial would have been truly cathartic.

^^^^^^^

Also Morbius OTM ITT.

a trial would have been more cathartic but come on, this was the bogey man the bush administration divided the country over. "why are we invading iraq when bin laden's the one who bombed us?" not finding this a big deal is really . . . huh?

Has there been a President who achieved some nationally-desired military objective who didn't get re-elected?

Bush I...

well, but the "objective" in the mind of the public was "kill the evil villain hussein," not restore kuwait to sovereignty iirc. hussein remained in power = we didn't "get our man."

Yeah, I was thinking Bush I but I feel like the public never actually accepted the rationale for getting involved, so while it was successful I don't know if it was nationally desired.

(obv facts > feelings, unless of course I feel really really strongly about it)

Right at the conclusion of the Gulf War it was deemed a success, though; if I'm remembering correctly, Bush was about 90% public approval. And, as I said last night, just like Bush I don't think this will help Obama much at all come November.

By the way: I re-read your long post from last night about the fundamental difference in how people view Obama, aerosmith. Thanks--I think you sum up the two sides well.

Something this undeniably definitive will certainly help Obama. Whether he has the hubris to use it to his full advantage is another matter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gallup_Poll-Approval_Rating-George_H_W_Bush.png

lol the economy tanked him

"Settle down, Beavis. The guy got some good yuks at easy targets."

while he was taking out the biggest target. masterful. what he does now with gitmo is gonna be interesting. also, patriot act repeal? if those go down then a lot of the naysaying will seem _____ in retrospect

Absolutely the economy did in Bush; that's the parallel. "Gas is at $6 a gallon and unemployment's at 9%, but Bin Laden's dead" will be an impossible sell if the alternative is at all sane.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate

It's been trending down for the past 5 months. The big difference during Bush I's tenure is that unemployment was trending up immediately after the Gulf War; Obama doesn't need to be terrified unless things start bouncing worse.

okay obv this is euphoria driven and all but:

http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/02/markets/premarkets/index.htm?hpt=T2
http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/02/markets/oil_prices/index.htm?hpt=T2

euphoria indeed. love that he got taken on the eighth anniversary of "mission accomplished" and after the repeal of 'don't ask don't tell.' looking forward to the medal ceremony for these seals

Feel a little bad for the "Another Side of Tilapia, the Perfect Factory Fish" story on the Times right now.

What a disaster for tilapia.

Can't imagine Osama being tried, esp when taking in past Gitmo cases into account. He probably would just have infinite detention while Dems & Reps argue about where to try him until he dies of old age in prison.

i figure bin laden got no less than what was coming to him, but only in a value-neutral, basically mechanical sense.

Yeah, I mean, this is the way bad guys go out. This or like Saddam, I guess. I'm as anti-death-penalty as they come, but killers getting killed in shootouts doesn't really bother me. Put it this way, I'd rather have this than have him chilling out for years in exile, Idi Amin style.

yeah i never thought in a million years we'd get him alive, i'm sure he stayed strapped just in case something like this went down

this is gonna kill page views of my review of The Beaver

I LOLed

I can't really see you going for "The Beaver"

http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/romenesko/130485/claim-krugman-is-top-prognosticator-cal-thomas-is-the-worst/

A Hamilton College class and their public policy professor analyzed the predicts of 26 pundits — including Sunday morning TV talkers — and used a scale of 1 to 5 to rate their accuracy. After Paul Krugman, the most accurate pundits were Maureen Dowd, former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “The Bad” list includes Thomas Friedman, Clarence Page, and Bob Herbert.

cal thomas was the very worst lol

meanwhile:

leave it to Timmy Geithner to shit on the President's parade

live stream of debate in Texas senate over mandatory ultrasound bill, which somehow counts as conservative while mandating that people seeking one medical procedure undergo another

http://www.senate.state.tx.us/bin/live.php

Wishing ultrasound inventor wasn't dead; he would so be wailing on these people!

I've been watching for 5 minutes and I think I'm pretty much at my limit - the woman speaking/questioning is a hospital pharmacist saying "you have to make an exception for women who are being treated for cancer" and they're condescending to her & trying to table her amendment & it's so fucking grotesque

D:

at the same time I feel everybody should watch this and understand that 1) all they're doing now is trying to keep the bill that's going to pass from being as restrictive as the people who're going to pass it have written it, and 2) this battle has already been lost in Nebraska & Oklahoma etc etc - lack of vigilance on this has gotten us to the point where guys on the floor on the Texas house are saying "if we write this exception to our bill, how can we be sure that women won't claim gestational diabetes just as an excuse to get an abortion?" -- fucking revolting

I read that Geithner thing yesterday--- why can't he be one of the administration officials leaving the government for the private sector?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY_L_rafEs0

This just in: President Scott Brown is headed to Afghanistan

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/02/sen-scott-brown-to-serve-in-afghanistan/

stream went out just as they were getting to the end of the roll call on the tabling of the amendment. probably just as well for my nerves

UGH THESE GUYS ARE SERIOUSLY SO REVOLTING the bill includes this provision that the sonogram administrator be a member of this fairly obscure national registry of sonographers (about which the guys who wrote the provision are unable to answer questions, lots of "I do not know" in response to the heroes who are trying to introduce amendments) which is transparently, clearly there in order to limit the number of clinics and hospitals whose employees will be able to comply with the bill

just profoundly dishonest fuckin assholism

Larry King: "If you were president and knew that bin Laden was in Pakistan, you know where, would you have U.S. forces go in after him?"

John McCain: "Larry, I'm not going to go there and here's why: because Pakistan is a sovereign nation."

July 2008

Sen. José Rodríguez is the badass who's exposing the hypocrisy in this hearing on the Senate floor btw even though all the amendments are going down 19-12 along party lines

(TX Senate floor to be clear)

xxxp Yeah but when he says "I'm not going to go there" he doesn't mean "I'm not going to enter Pakistan", he means, "I'm not going to answer your question."

oh my fuckin God. so bear with me here. the bill requires a sonogram for every woman who gets an abortion in TX, and further requires that the sonographer be a member of the national sonographer registry (this is a really arcane requirement; one gets a cert to be a sonographer, you don't have to belong to a registry). Rodríguez points out that Crisis Pregnancy Centers (i.e. the born-again clinics that masquerade as women's health centers) are allowed by the TX Senate to conduct sonograms unimpeded - why are they not to be held to the same standard as hospitals and clinics that provide abortions? Author of the sonogram bill responds, well of course CPCs ("which we have honored on this floor") don't have to belong to the registry - they're trying to provide information, not abortions. GAHHHH the "hold CPCs to same standards as hospitals and clinics" sonogram bill is passing as I type this. not sure if I'm making clear the depths of dishonesty at work here.

another dark day for reproductive rights at the state level.

sorry - the "hold CPCs to same standards as hospitals and clinics" was tabled as I typed, the bill mandating U/S for women seeking abortion (and requiring membership in the national ultrasound registry by any health care professional doing the U/S) has passed

fuck these motherfuckers to Hell

actually aero I am in the last days of getting my EMT certification, and I will probably have to take the national registry test after I (hopefully) pass this class in order to work (if i choose to do so)

not to rain on your tirade

EMT is diff from U/S tech I think! congrats tho on being near the end, I took a state board test for psych tech an age ago, you'll kill it! not in a real "kill" sense tho yr job now is to help people

uh dude the national EMT registry is not the same thing as this nat'l u/s registry

and shit like this is why i donated to planned parenthood last week

like I'm pretty sure a nurse can be trained in U/S via a couple of inservices, or some CE courses

yeah i'd hazard a guess that most docs don't have any formal certification in U/S