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

also as we learned some time ago, gen mcchrystal is a fan of bud lite lime so

so, this huma abedin/bachmann story

http://audibleconnection.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/smiley-bangheadonwall-yellow.gifhttp://audibleconnection.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/smiley-bangheadonwall-yellow.gifhttp://audibleconnection.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/smiley-bangheadonwall-yellow.gif

man what the fuck

the fact that this shit is in letters rather than out of control vertigo medicine speech fragments is somehow the worst thing about it

The whole Sharia thing is farcical dogwhistling, though tbf, I preferred the McCarthyite commie enemy better.

Ugh and then I saw this:

Last week, she announced via Twitter that she had raised $1.7 million in three months against her ‘12 congressional opponent, Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party candidate Jim Graves. He has raised $400,000. Of that, $150,000 is his own money. Most of her contributions reportedly come from out-of-state.

And with the coffers filling, don’t expect Bachmann to quiet down any time soon.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/post/john-mccain-hasnt-slowed-michele-bachmann-who-stands-to-benefit-from-accusations/2012/07/19/gJQAsrbHwW_blog.html

i suppose the silver lining there is, let all the nutcases pay for a congressional seat somewhere. shame it has to be one ~20 miles from me.

Any chance she could lose?

i need to look into the redistricting etc but no probably not

Bachmann's career will end in scandal, like that idiot Bob Dornan.

oh man B-1 Booooooob

yr probably right

McCain was supported on Wednesday by Edward Rollins, a prominent Republican strategist who worked on Bachmann's primary campaign.

On the Fox News website, Rollins wrote that he was "fully aware that she sometimes has difficulty with her facts"

O RLY

surprised the GOP hasn't been taking more heat for blocking DISCLOSE act, or have i just missed it?

(ok, maybe "surprised" is a bit of a stretch...)

Have they ever gotten heat for blocking anything via filibuster?

only from people who don't like them anyway

Have they ever gotten heat for blocking anything via filibuster?

true, but this is one of those things that (i thought) kind of cut across party lines.

Republicans are trying to spin it across party lines by asserting that all folks like to make anonymous donations.

Btw, the Republicans also just filibustered the bill regarding tax breaks for those companies who outsource as well.

This will never get media attention-- The House progressive caucus alternative to Bowles-Simpson. It was mentioned here way back when and now they're trying to get attention for it again because of renewed grand bargain talk from inside the beltway pundits

http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2012072919/instead-bad-grand-bargain-lets-make-deal-all

so GOP kills Dems 'insourcing' bill that would give a 20 percent tax credit to companies that move production back to the US
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/sns-rt-us-usa-congress-jobsbre86i1lj-20120719,0,3028392.story

then defend their decision by pointing out that the bill would grow the deficit. wait wait wait, you're telling me that less taxes = less revenue??? GTFO GOP!!
http://rpc.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=latest-posts&ContentRecord_id=a675f1d5-301e-4036-8633-0582ba88d093

i can't even

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/07/ask-jane-mayer-anything-should-the-bush-administration-be-tried-for-war-crimes.html

The "Ask _____ anything" series has really been interesting, esp Veronique de Rugy's batshit insanity.

link?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/videos.html#ask-andrew-anything

7th through 11th clips at this link

I haven't linked to one of his in a while, but this one worth a read for how it rips apart a Dem talking point.

ehhh I think O did try to close Gitmo and then when he realized it was not going to happen, he turned tail and doubled down on Bushco policies

I'd be inclined to agree if he didn't already support warrantless wiretapping as senator

so that whole "my first act as President" thing was just for show...?

looks that way, according to the evidence

and the second act was gonna be marching on a picket line HA HA

obama never met an awful indefensible thing he couldn't say 'on the other hand...' about.

failure of imagination there

barbarism begins at home

IIRC, closing gitmo polled well and then people got all NIMBY about it and the polls weren't so positive anymore.

yeah, after congress (dems included) stalled on it

"What made Guantanamo controversial was not its physical location: that it was located in the Caribbean Sea rather than on American soil (that’s especially true since the Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that U.S. courts have jurisdiction over the camp)."

This is... not true. Being outside the US in some sort of legal grey area totally had something to do with why it was controversial.

I posted the Gitmo thing on one of the 6 Gitmo threads, dating from when it was Bush's Inferno and not another Democratic Shhhhhhh.

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/7-20-12-Drought-forecast.gif

hellooooo dustbowl

this dust was made by you and me

obama never met an awful indefensible thing he couldn't say 'on the other hand...' about.

I think Obama sees value in a strong state security function. Clinton did too. What that probably means in the long term - since the opposition, such as it is, favors even more permissive policies regarding violence and intrusion in the service of the state - is that the state security apparatus of the US will continue to resemble the types of federal or state police functions in "teh eurozone," meaning that DHS and CIA and FBI and your local cops are going to continue to collaborate more "fruitfully" until we all but have the functional equivalent of MI5 + MI6 + GCHQ all working together to fight "threats" as defined by the incumbent.

I will reiterate that it is extremely important for opponents of these types of policies and practices to fully understand the risk assessments and trade-offs that the state security folks are acting on. Writ across the community of practitioners, analysts and operators that do this stuff on a daily, there is NOT a desire to fuck with us. There IS discontent with the emergence of authority-blending that could enable the abuse of such power against citizens, but it is very hard to get individual civil servants to speak out unless they personally witness abuses and misconduct.

The importance of private citizens banding together to complain, bitch, whine and sue against the state security apparatus - and demanding more than bureaucratic "within 60 days of this memo, the agencies will name an ombudsman" non-answers to the problem - cannot be overstated.

BLUF: the best thing anybody can do right now about drone strikes and stuxnet shit is to put their weight behind existing advocacy groups and get organized. The political cost of supporting intelligence, counter-intelligence and defense encroachment on civil security needs to go up, and keep going up. If you really believe that black ops and robot ninja shit is distasteful, hone your message and cane that shit to the polls.

I can't believe I just used military middle management jargon in an ILX post after all these years. Jesus 30mm Christ. BLUF = "Bottom Line Up Front"

smdhbot

thanks, urban dictionary

it must be very hard to get individual civil servants to speak out when whistleblowers are getting bricked at a record pace.

tombot, always a man of the people

The importance of private citizens banding together to complain, bitch, whine and sue against the state security apparatus - and demanding more than bureaucratic "within 60 days of this memo, the agencies will name an ombudsman" non-answers to the problem - cannot be overstated.

the funny thing is, i'm sure obama would totally agree with this. then he'd sit down at his desk and OK the prosecution of yet another whistle-blower under the espionage act.

gets back to my point about increasing the political cost of such behavior.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/07/the-feds-violated-the-constitution-but-the-obama-administration-wont-say-how/260239/

This is a huge departure from what has traditionally been understood to be constitutionally permitted. We do not normally allow the government to indiscriminately make copies of everyone's private correspondence, so long as they promise not to read it without a warrant: The copying itself is supposed to require a warrant, except in extraordinary circumstances. It appears almost certain that a very different rule is in effect now, at least for the NSA.

The four star motherfucker who was and remains in charge of this overreaching, wasteful and illegal bullshit is speaking at DEFCON in Las Vegas this weekend. Overheard: "not sure where I'm gonna source the rotten tomatoes." That's not enough.

hehehe

http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/drone-court-advantage/