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

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

ok sorry for the confusion, and thanx for the encouragement aero!

if a care provider/institution is comfortable using un-registered u/s techs to do all the OTHER things that u/s is used for, then requiring a registered tech for abortions is some bizarro special treatment. which is entirely the point, i imagine.

I guess there is a 3rd reading of the bill tomorrow. Not sure what weird thing reading & voting on a bill multiple times is about but if you are in TX contact your Senator no matter which way they voted and make your desires as a constituent clear, if you have a minute to do so. Even people who oppose abortion passionately should not sink so low as to be passing these bills that masquerade as concern for women's health when they allow their CPCs to basically play doctor for the furthering of their Xian Dominion agenda.

if a care provider/institution is comfortable using un-registered u/s techs to do all the OTHER things that u/s is used for, then requiring a registered tech for abortions is some bizarro special treatment. which is entirely the point, i imagine.

this is the thing - one of the objecting Democrats during the hearing pointed out that it's profoundly un-conservative to be telling private practices how to conduct their business, having bodies of people who aren't medical professionals actually writing the standards and determining which clinics have to belong to this nat'l registry and which don't (get this: CPC U/S techs need not belong to the registry...because they're volunteers! that is actually something they said.) - that this is big government for sure, isn't it? conservative response: no no, it's not, it's conservative. again this was basically their whole argument: "to the contrary, I see this bill as conservative."

how did I watch this hearing btw? using RealPlayer. I felt it worth noting, I fired up RealPlayer for this shit

ugh

@ realplayer, i mean

it's only for real playaz

that's why I use it man - QuickTime? what kind of RealPlayer would be caught calling himself QuickTime, c'mon

Having dealt forcefully with a Muslim terrorist and a blowhard Trump, Obama might hopefully be emboldened to deal forcefully without negotiation with Republican economic terrorists on debt limits and regressive/recession-extending budgets commenter on Washington Monthly

I would not count on this