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

Walker should be Mitt's running mate to really troll America

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57447954-503544/wisconsin-recall-walker-opens-slight-lead-as-votes-are-counted/

With 56 percent of the expected vote in, Walker led Barrett 57 percent to 42 percent.

obama could not have moved this needle

one thing that has always been under-remarked upon is that plenty of ppl in WI are against walker but were not comfortable with the idea of a recall. call it typical quish liberal squeamishness about hardball or extraordinary steps but it's a very real sentiment. if your pitch is that you want everything to go back to normal, how do you mount a challenge like this?

How do you go back to normal, without a challenge when Walker was never interested in normal. Combine the fiscal advantage with the squeamishness and you get this result. Plus with the economy bad, some folks are gonna resent unionized employees more.

how the fuck should i know

you wait it out and try to unseat him in a normal fashion i guess. or you try a recall and lose!

if this loss is about liberal squeamishness about hardball/extraordinary steps, then us libs need to get over it.

Oh Tim Geithner

Kevin Drum quoting and adding to an Ezra Klein piece.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/06/no-healthcare-reform-was-not-mistake

Although Obama didn't have the leverage to get more stimulus spending even if he'd wanted it, he could have done more on the housing front. A full-court press on cramdown would have been a good start, and serious pressure on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to support principal reductions would have made a difference too.

...

But even here, this was a plain and simple mistake, not something that slipped through the cracks because they were spending too much time on healthcare. Tim Geithner just didn't like the idea of pressing harder on the mortgage relief front, and Obama went along.

Peter King & Bam -- no light betweem 'em on The War on Terrah...
"Drones aren't evil, people are evil":

http://www.salon.com/2012/06/10/obama_defender_rep_peter_king/singleton/

[url=http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/06/why-obama-caved-national-security]Kevin Drum has excerpts from Daniel Klaidman's Kill or Capture, depicting Obama's national security policies. On closing Guantanamo:

The administration officials nearly got their heads taken off, as anxious senators demanded to know how the White House planned to manage the exploding politics of terrorism. "Where's your plan?" they shouted over and over again. Among the most agitated were liberals like Barbara Boxer and Barbara Mikulski, who were up for reelection. These were the same representatives who had pilloried the Bush administration for its fear-mongering tactics in the war on terror, but behind the grand doors of the LBJ Room, all politics were local. We're going to get clobbered back home, the Democrats protested.

An adviser to [David] Ogden, watching the drubbing unfold in horror, handed a note to Ronald Weich, the Justice Department's assistant attorney general in charge of congressional relations. It simply read, "I fear for our Democracy." Weich, who knew the Hill as well as anybody in Washington, turned the piece of paper over and scrawled on the other side: "Welcome to my world."

Drum wants to excuse Obama in part because even the liberal Congresspeople turned on him regarding Gitmo. But isn't that only because Boxer and Mikulski were dealing with an atmosphere where the media was listening to rightwing fear-mongering on Guantanomo, and the White House and the DNC and others were not out in front countering that argument and strongly pushing a detailed plan of their own. I also recall someone suggesting that the Dems should have made their own macho arguments on the point--we are tough Americans who are not afraid to try accused terrorists right here in the US of A---those wimpy Republicans are too scared to do so.

that's very disappointing news about Mikulski and Boxer, kind of surprising really. but yeah I totally blame Congressional cowardice/NIMBYism for Gitmo remaining open.

I also recall someone suggesting that the Dems should have made their own macho arguments on the point--we are tough Americans who are not afraid to try accused terrorists right here in the US of A---those wimpy Republicans are too scared to do so.

Barney Frank may have; my memory's fuzzy.

yeah, it seems like such an obvious rhetorical tack to take

when you're not a bunch of lifelong chickenshit corporate asshole liberals.

well there's that

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/06/did-supreme-court-just-gut-habeas

So much for detainees using the courts to appeal

and there's this re whistleblowers and leakers:

http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2012/06/12/the-bipartisan-witch-hunt-for-leakers-in-the-obama-administration/

The politicians gunning for someone within the Obama administration to hold responsible for leaks want nothing less than someone they can use to justify increased secrecy in government. They want an official they can use to call for a further clampdown on disclosures on national security issues to reporters. Understanding that, unlike President George W. Bush, Obama does not merely retaliate against whistleblowers but also prosecutes them, Republicans like McCain and King see this as an opportunity to make political points in an election year. Having successfully forced the administration into refusing to try terror suspects at Guantanamo in civil ccourts, having prevented the administration from closing Guantanamo and having inspired the administration to expand the US covert drone war so there would be no question that Obama was fiercely fighting the “war on terrorism,” this is the next area of national security policy in which Obama is vulnerable.

Feinstein, Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss, Rogers and Democratic Representative Dutch Ruppersberger are all plotting legislative action in response to the leak of public information. The lawmakers say it will be aimed at “preventing future leaks.”

Yemeni democracy activist in NYT op-ed:

Drone strikes are causing more and more Yemenis to hate America and join radical militants; they are not driven by ideology but rather by a sense of revenge and despair. Robert Grenier, the former head of the C.I.A.’s counterterrorism center, has warned that the American drone program in Yemen risks turning the country into a safe haven for Al Qaeda like the tribal areas of Pakistan — “the Arabian equivalent of Waziristan.”

Anti-Americanism is far less prevalent in Yemen than in Pakistan. But rather than winning the hearts and minds of Yemeni civilians, America is alienating them by killing their relatives and friends. Indeed, the drone program is leading to the Talibanization of vast tribal areas and the radicalization of people who could otherwise be America’s allies in the fight against terrorism in Yemen.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/14/opinion/how-drones-help-al-qaeda.html?_r=1

Sally Quinn mourns the death of the DC she knew. Chait has a ball with it.

Washington writer Sally Quinn told of a 1950s reception where: “My mother and I headed for the buffet table. As we were reaching for the shrimp, both of us jumped and let out a shriek. Senator Strom Thurmond, grinning from ear to ear, had one hand on my behind and the other on my mother’s. As I recall, we were both quite flattered, and thought it terribly funny and wicked of Ol’ Strom.”

"Once Washington was a happy place where a girl and her mother could be groped simultaneously in good fun by a white supremacist. Sadly, it has all been ruined by Kim Kardashian and Ezra Klein."

ha i was just reading that

great tpm headlines: "Arizona Republican Spokesman Calls Criticism From Women A 'Bitch Session'"

how the Administration plans to keep the war machine running ... so many pies to thumb:

http://www.salon.com/2012/06/14/the_new_obama_doctrine_a_six_point_plan_for_global_war/singleton/

Republican infighting:

.@RoyBlunt Let me be blunt, Senator: On what planet is the slacker mandate a “common sense health care solution?”

— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) June 14, 2012

The "slacker mandate" is her term for the Health Care provision allowing someone to stay on their parents insurance until age 26

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_06/the_fleeting_chris_christie_mo037995.php

Willie Hortons in NJ under Christie?

New Christie theme song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2BqLlVHlWA

Discussed earlier, but this is a nice summation:

if it's good policy to affirm the right of loving couples to marry and allow blameless DREAMers to remain in the U.S. in June 2012, wasn't it good policy in June 2010 as well? If the Obama Administration is doing this in order to shore up base support for its own reelection bid, why did it not do likewise to preserve Democratic Congressional majorities in 2010?

There's another disturbing point here: all of these moves are carefully calculated based on polling and focus groups. In order for the President to feel comfortable taking these stands, one of two things (or both) must be true: either the LGBT and Latino base is furious enough with the President to cost him his election, and/or those all-important "moderates" in swing states like Ohio must not care that badly about deporting DREAMers or letting gays get married.

If the former, how is it that the President wasn't aware of this problem earlier? It's been brewing for years. If the latter, why take more centrist stands in the first place? And why not be unafraid to lead in any case?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2012/06/moving-to-left-for-general-election-by.html

i think the answer is that these are issues that divide the GOP (or at least romney from some of his bases) as much as democrats, if not moreso

Just wondering, was any legislation passed at all during that "Obama comes out for gay marriage" bit? Or was it just a nice TV sound bite?

nope.

electioneering

lol @ idea of legislation (about anything) passing

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2012/06/18/white-house-democrats-still-have-no-health-care-plan-b-for-supreme-court-decision/

So neither side has a plan.

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/06/chart-why-liberals-lose-primaries-more-often-conservatives

i.e. there are more wingnuts than faux-liberals

I have pointed this out 1000x times

there is only so much you can hope for when you share a democracy w/ tens of millions of insane people

the trendlines between "liberals" and "moderates" within the democrats were surprising to me tbh

Koch money and the vast right-wing echo chamber solidify support for their views, there is less money and less folks staying on message in the liberal political world

Depressing.

we don't like staying on message

what does a "liberal republican" even look like in 2012? bloomberg?

Mitt Romney

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/administration-official/ao_image/President_Official_Portrait_HiRes.jpg

i assume the people who identify as liberal republicans are part of the 3-5% noise in any survey that should be discounted (i.e., accidentally answered that way, actually a child who picked up the phone, stoners, total fools, etc)

oh, and barack obama

Al Franken

what do you have against Franken morbz

Ulysses S. Grant

(genuinely curious - he seems to have kept his head down in the Senate afaict?)

xp

you mean Horace Greeley, right, goole?

well today i bet they'd put their diffs behind them and get together with tip o'neill to craft a fine tax reform/let's not take over cuba by force bill