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

What country is the same or better off than it was in 2004?

We're all fucked.

i'm thinking more along the lines of a country where my grasp of the language is so tenuous that i cant really follow the news

^^^ me watching cable news

lol

What country is the same or better off than it was in 2004?

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, June 9, 2011 10:29 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

tunisia! egypt!

thats about it though

how's Argentina these days?

A President Palin is the only thing that could truly get me to jump ship, but that won't happen, thank goodness (though her constant implicit campaigning makes me neurotic). Also, it's really hard to move to another country.

Australia's doing OK, isn't it?

i just want to be warm and relatively safe

well, the warm part will be pretty easy

What country is the same or better off than it was in 2004?

Cleveland Indians Nation

^^^ Buy this man a beer, someone

Cleveland Indians Nation

hmmm, not in the last 10 days

we pretty much have President Palin in slo-mo, not that I can destroy your goddamn liberal meme if I was fueled by designer speed for the next 2 years.

can we please put "President Palin" into one of those instant-image doohickeys?

Wheeeeeeee! http://jezebel.com/5810266/anti+abortion-extremist-is-running-for-president

Randall Terry, an anti-choice extremist even Operation Rescue, the group he founded, finds too crazy, is running for president as a Democrat. The goal: To get as much anti-abortion propaganda on television as possible, maybe even the Super Bowl.

The Daily Caller casually notes that Terry's "running mate is effectively a dead fetus," and that's a pretty accurate characterization. (Incidentally, John Boehner's chief of staff didn't find Terry too extreme, granting him an in-person meeting earlier this year).

uh

well there's a candidate who could handle veep duties on a par w/ Biden

The Daily Caller casually notes that Terry's "running mate is effectively a dead fetus," and that's a pretty accurate characterization.

that's a pretty mean thing to call Bob Bird

we pretty much have President Palin in slo-mo

Recognizing the bad form in even recognizing a politics Morbs post but, really, this is too fucking ridiculous to ignore. Though, I suppose it puts some of the other bullshit he spouts in perspective.

it's not like people haven't known about this forever but as long as most people have enough to eat the government can do whatever it wants, period, forever, anywhere, in any country, imo

^^^most OTM thing said in any US politics thread ever

romney/palin 2012 subtext

Rush is mad at Romney for implying that climate change might be real.

hey jon, IT DOESNT MUCH MATTER WHO'S PRESIDENT. Eat my bullshit with a spork.

so, anybody hear the one about senator paul ryan (r-fiscal conservative) okaying debt default?

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/06/09/240638/paul-ryan-calls-for-default/

"If a bondholder misses a payment for a day or two or three or four — what is more important is you are putting the government in a materially better position to better pay its bills going forward."

on wisconsin!

i mean, representative paul ryan. sorry paul

house budget committee chairman?

the honorable house budget committee chairman paul ryan, ltd.

hey jon, IT DOESNT MUCH MATTER WHO'S PRESIDENT.

Well saying this is a completely different than saying we already have a "president palin".

Morbz is already President FYI

we are all president iirc

Morbz is a concept by which we measure our pain.

You're my defense secretary, Shakes. We went through this.

bombing yemen brb

awlaki & co in yemen were responsible for 9/11?

― positive rapper (k3vin k.), Thursday, 9 June 2011 12:55 (4 hours ago)

everyone east of europe was responsible for 9/11 do keep up

http://twitter.com/#!/Reuters/status/78933076864012288

FLASH: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seeking World Bank presidency, sources say

Jake Tapper said a little while ago the rumor was crap.

The Daily Caller casually notes that Terry's "running mate is effectively a dead fetus"

lol'd

Hillary denied she was going to be SoS too.

huh ok. makes you wonder tho.

Hillary denied she was going to be SoS too.

was running for prez at the time iirc tho

and now she has different reasons to not want to look like she's job hunting

Trying to fill Robert MacNamara's shoes, eh? Not a bad move for her, No more elections, doesn't have to share power with 99 other prissy millionaires, could still show up on Sunday morning political shows and dispense words of wisdom. What they used to call a sinecure.

she hasn't killed quite as many ppl as McNamara, but give her a year and a half.

Does the World Ban have a quota?

Suggest World Ban

ty sir

Glad to see the Drake whistleblower prosecution largely fall apart.

Here's part of the NY Times take on the plea bargain:

A former spy agency employee agreed late Thursday to plead guilty to a minor charge in a highly publicized leak prosecution, undercutting the Obama administration’s unusual campaign to prosecute government officials who disclose classified information to the press.

The National Security Agency official, Thomas A. Drake, had faced a possible 35 years in prison if convicted on felony charges under the Espionage Act. Instead, he agreed to admit to a misdemeanor of misusing the agency’s computer system by providing “official N.S.A. information” to an unauthorized person, a reporter for The Baltimore Sun. Prosecutors said in the written plea agreement that they would not oppose a sentence under which Mr. Drake would serve no time.

A formal plea hearing was set for Friday morning in Baltimore. The presiding judge, Richard D. Bennett of the district court, could impose a sentence of up to a year in prison. But legal experts said it would be highly unusual to impose a prison term when the Justice Department was not seeking incarceration.

The deal represented the almost complete collapse of the government’s effort to make an example of Mr. Drake, who was charged last year in a 10-count indictment that accused him of obstructing justice and lying to investigators. It is uncertain whether the outcome will influence the handling of three pending leak cases or others still under investigation.

The case against Mr. Drake is among five such prosecutions for disclosures to the news media brought since President Obama took office in 2009: one each against defendants from the National Security Agency, the C.I.A., the F.B.I., the military and the State Department. In the past, such prosecutions have been extremely rare — three or four in history, depending on how they are counted, and never more than one under any other president.

Officials say they have been prompted by a bipartisan belief in Congress and in both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations that leaks were getting out of hand.

The flurry of criminal cases has led to both praise and criticism for Mr. Obama, who entered office promising unprecedented transparency but in less than three years in office has far outdone the security-minded Bush administration in pursuing leaks. Some political analysts say Mr. Obama’s liberal credentials may give him political cover for the crackdown.

The Drake case was seen as a test of the tougher line against unauthorized disclosures. But news media coverage of the charges against Mr. Drake, 54, an introspective computer specialist, has highlighted his motivation for sharing information about N.S.A. technology with a reporter for The Baltimore Sun in 2006 and 2007: the agency was rejecting a $3 million in-house program called ThinThread in favor of a $1-billion-plus contractor-run program called Trailblazer. His supporters have portrayed him as a diligent public servant who was trying to save taxpayers’ money and strengthen national security, not damage it.

Jane Mayer, who broke the original news.

More Republican hardball hostage-taking:

From the Washington Post

An aide to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Thursday that the lawmaker stands by his vow to block any candidate. Late last month, McConnell led 44 senators in a letter to the White House calling for structural changes to the bureau. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) has accused GOP opponents of discriminating against Warren because she is female, but McConnell’s complaints are much broader.

“It’s not sexist. It’s not Elizabeth Warren-specific,” McConnell spokesman Donald Stewart said. “It’s any nominee.

That's regarding the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau