Indefinite Detention? But I Have Soccer Practice at 4: U.S. Politics 2012

Have you guys talked about this podium:

http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/03/120307_POL_newtInSouth.jpg.CROP.rectangle3-large.jpg

omg

Bunch of those signs people were having had that on them as well. Quality lols.

In regards to that:

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

yeah yeah fox lols etc etc

so shamelessly stupid. what an amazing unbridled liar.

newt i mean

He was telling everyone to #250gas or something like that.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/neal-boortz-worms-7186415

It's amazing what you can hear when you listen to "conservative" talk radio in this country. Lately I've been listening to WSB here in Atlanta to keep up with the Georgia primary, and yesterday I heard "libertarian" Neal Boortz call poor people "worms." As in, more or less: "The situation in this country is like a dog with worms. You bring the dog to the vet to be dewormed, but the vet is Dr. Obama, and he says you can't get the dog dewormed because the worms have a vote. And that's the problem, folks: the worms have a vote." He repeats "the worms have a vote," several times, and then quotes, as I remember it, somebody who's emailed him: "I'm going to call my dog Section 8 because so many parasites live there." Big yuks, all around. So Rush is particularly loathsome. But he isn't the only one.

http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/images/item/twitter-20120201-boortz-poor.jpg

i mean if you're using neal boortz as a yardstick the "toenail fungus" line is pretty much canon

This popped up down the street from my house this week. Observe the characteristic misspelling associated with Tea Party signs.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/420301_3233794080440_1134308060_3242785_95967765_n.jpg

props for flexing an appetite for civil disobedience by using an upended chair instead of a lawn sign

also i think obama ordered name change to "guangzhao."

I have one of those chairs (in black) on my balcony!

They were on sale at Target last week: $20.99

There is a Target very near to where I took that picture. That's life in Comrad Obama's Soviet Amerika for you.

Comrad sounds like some alt-rock supergroup/off-project, like Probot.

ComRAD!

I've been zinging some of my more right wing acquaintances with a dry appreciatation of the fact that the would-be party of the free market has a candidate who thinks he can outguess the international oil and gas markets and who is touting one the most specific command-economy prescriptions I've heard since the days of the USSR.

^^^ I had that very same conversation with someone today!

also i think obama ordered name change to "guangzhao."

A+

guangdong if you want to be precise ;)

New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie is well known for his extroverted personality and outspoken nature. But his often confrontational approach that kept his name in presidential primary talks for months ended in a shouting match today with a student who is a also a former Navy Seal.

Fox News reports that during Friday morning's town hall press conference, Christie called on 34-year-old law student William Brown. The two got into a debate over a plan to rename Rutgers University, Rutgers Camden-Rowan. Brown, who is active in Democratic Party politics, says the merger and name change would negatively affect the university's reputation.

After Christie says that Brown and his fellow classmates who are already enrolled at the university will still receive a Rutgers diploma, Brown interrupts him, shouting back, "What about my son? What about my neighbors? What about my friends?"

Christie then appears to lose his temper, saying, "If you decide what you want to do is put on a show today, let me tell you, I can go back and forth with you as much as you want. And let me tell you something; after you graduate from law school, you conduct yourself like that in a courtroom, your rear end's going to get thrown in jail, idiot."

Christie then tried to explain his behavior to the receptive audience, saying, "I tried to be patient with the guy. Every time I tried to answer, he's like, yelling over me again." And he received applause for what may turn out to be a regrettable follow-up quip, when he said, "I mean, damn man, I'm governor, could you shut up for a second?"

so who was more boorish?

Saw that on TV yesterday. Some video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XShvglIJBE

Christie does seem to have a problem in this area.

The governor has a temper but the Dem guy interrupting him with irrelevant gotcha questions was a jerk.

I haven't seen the full thing, but you can't tell from that clip. Anyway, just as a practical matter, fair or unfair, a penchant for calling people idiots doesn't bode well for any ambitions he has nationally.

it doesn't even necessarily bode well for Christie here in NJ ... most of us are just bored with his boorish ways at this point.

http://prospect.org/article/race-baiting-continues

I think I'm glad I mostly ignored this Breitbart, Professor Bell and Obama story

Alfred alert: David Gregory, Peggy Noonan, and all your favourite people are about to debate "civility in politics" on Meet the Press.

Yay!

Noonan peddled the same stew on "This Week" last Sunday.

Not surprisingly, I thought E.J. Dionne quoting Nixon in his uncle's eulogy was funny. ("Uncle Ethan would always insist, 'I am not a crook...'")

good nyt editorial on awlaki, obama, and targeted killings: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/opinion/sunday/the-power-to-kill.html?_r=1&hp

A United States service member walked out of a military base in a rural district of southern Afghanistan on Sunday and opened fire on three nearby houses, killing at least 16 civilians, including several children, local villagers and provincial officials said.

Villagers in Belandi in the Panjwai District of Kandahar, where the shooting took place, said the service member had attacked three houses, killing at least 16 in total. Five other villagers were wounded, they said.

After the killings, villagers collected the bodies, and drove them to a nearby American military base to protest. Burn marks could be seen on some of the bodies, and the villagers said that five of the dead were young girls, age 6 or younger.

jesus.

Epithets fail me when describing this guy. Couldn't he just have committed suicide?

Don't think that's exactly what was motivating him tbh.

Strategizing--

The lunch invitation is striking because Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Obama are thought not to be particularly close — nor to have an especially warm relationship. But the White House seems intent on courting Mr. Bloomberg.

Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, said the lunch was part of a continuing dialogue that the president very much valued. Over the last two years, Mr. Obama has invited Mr. Bloomberg to play golf on Martha’s Vineyard and has dispatched Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to Gracie Mansion to seek the mayor’s views on the economy.

“They speak from time to time,” Mr. Carney said. “The president always enjoys an exchange of ideas and insights with Mayor Bloomberg and is appreciative of the mayor’s leadership on immigration, the economy and education, as well as his commitment to New York City.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/nyregion/at-a-private-lunch-bloomberg-and-obama-discuss-the-future.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120312

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/03/19/120319fa_fact_klein?currentPage=all

Prez speeches not that influential (article linked above) but current polls show people believe Prez can influence gas prices. Hmmmm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/the-morning-plum-how-rising-gas-prices-put-obama-at-risk/2012/03/12/gIQAjwAA7R_blog.html?hpid=z1

I can't remember if Kevin Drum is someone who gets quoted or ridiculed around here. Anyway, if you can look past the headline, I think this is fair--credit where credit is due, pointed criticism, some cognizance of circumstances.

http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/03/barack-obamas-had-pretty-damn-good-presidency

What we can glean from this is an understanding of why we are on the road that we are on. Again, it's based on what went into his thinking, being surrounded by radicals. You could hearken back to the days before the Civil War, when too many Americans believed that not all men were created equal. It was the Civil War that began the codification of the truth that here in America, yes, we are equal and we all have equal opportunities, not based on the color of our skin. You have equal opportunity to work hard and to succeed and to embrace the opportunities, the God-given opportunities, to develop resources and work extremely hard and as I say, to succeed. Now, it has taken all these years for many Americans to understand that the gravity, that mistake that took place before the Civil War and why the Civil War had to really start changing America. What Barack Obama seems to want to do is go back before those days when we were in different classes based on income, based on color of skin. Why are we allowing our country to move backwards instead of moving forward with the understanding that as our charters of liberty spell out for us, we are all created equally?

lmao is she talking about voldemort or something

what the

"that which must not be named"

the Drum piece relies on a level of ruthless pragmatism that is anathema to the progressive cause AFAICT; I think it's a convincing argument because it's the exact same one I would make, and this thread alone is a pretty good indicator of how well it will go over with progressive voices in this country

xpost is she playing that stupid Taboo game, where you are given a word and you have to describe it without saying it? WTF

x-post-- I will end up voting for Obama as a pragmatic step while likely counting myself as agreeing with some of the naysayers in this group of people that Drum describes:

Unless you're just bound and determined to sulk in your tent while insisting that healthcare was a sellout and the stimulus was too small and Dodd-Frank was feeble and the mini stimuli were more like micro stimuli, there's just no way around the fact that this is a historically colossal set of progressive accomplishments, especially in the face of a historically hostile political environment.

Regarding the 13 of the 50 accomplishments that Drum signals out for praise, while these two are accomplishments, I think even given the hostile environment, they could have been more progressive.

2. Passed the Stimulus
3. Passed Wall Street Reform

These folks however make me want to be a true blue Obama believer:

But: asked about the president’s religion, only 9% of evangelicals in both states agree Obama is a Christian (as opposed to 26% of non-evangelicals in Alabama and 19% in Mississippi). An actual majority (50% in AL, 54% in MS) of evangelicals think Obama is a Muslim, and the rest say they don’t know. It’s worth noting that the “don’t knows” probably include quite a few people who don’t think Obama is a Muslim, but also, like Rick Santorum, don’t much believe mainline Protestants are actually Christians.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_03/conservative_evangelical_world035994.php

It’s worth noting that the “don’t knows” probably include quite a few people who don’t think Obama is a Muslim, but also, like Rick Santorum, don’t much believe mainline Protestants are actually Christians.

ugh this is smug bullshit.

you'd probably find a ~few~ more ppl in the south who don't think santorum's catholics are really christians but don't give two thoughts to idk episcopalians or methodists. and even those numbers are probably pretty small these days.

I've always wondered how these polls would work out if it were like

"what is barack obama's religion? you get $100 if you answer correctly."

like how much is barack obama ~rhetorically~ a muslim for these people and how many people actually believe he practices islam?

I was told in the Covenant church that all other denoms, including Catholocism, were to be considered properly Christian as long as individual believers had made sincere conversions, but I do remember the teachers telling us that seemed to think it was a really big deal, shocking news, EVEN CATHOLICS DO U SEE??