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

Maybe k3vin's implying that some weird alternative electoral system has displaced the presidential election by popular vote that we all know to be enshrined in the Constitution, do you have a link or source for that though? because it flew under the radar for me.

So all the voters in solid blue states can just stay home that day. That'll work out fine!

yeah look i'd never tell anyone not to vote obviously. but the electoral college is dumb

Margin of victory (mandate) and victory are different things imho

dubya seemed to govern as he pleased despite a negative mandate in 2000. I think mandate stuff is overstated.

I mean the 'real mandate' is what congress looks like and on some level yr approval rating

fuck it, might as well get yourself elected on as close a margin as you can swing, then really stick it to your enemy constituencies.

disgusted by a liberal friend encouraging people not to vote because it isnt worth it. seriously furious atm

In the presidential election or in any election?

shes talking about the pres election, but she has "given up hope" and "questions the sanity and morality of anyone in politics"

this thread made me lol very hard several times.

i'm just so, so, so happily smug that i don't vote.

― for reasons of sass (the table is the table), Saturday, September 1, 2012 2:18 AM (1 week ago)

it's the 'so, so, so' that really puts it across for me

agreed; it makes tabes so, so, irresistible! :)

But the Obama administration has stopped mentioning the American Jobs Act. It didn’t appear in Obama’s convention speech, for instance. And the Romney campaign doesn’t have anything even like the American Jobs Act, even though Romney had a pretty substantial stimulus proposal in the 2008 campaign. So we’re in a situation where both campaigns know — or at least once knew — what the jobless problem is and what needs to be done about it, but neither wants to propose the policies that the economy needs, as opposed to the policies that voters want.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/09/11/the-politicians-are-failing-theory-of-unemployment/

Krugman in the NYT mentions the American Jobs Act too. I guess because of the way the Republicans have spun "stimulus", Obama made the political calculation to not even mention this plan.

Your FBI brings you the end of public anonymity:

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-fbis-nationwide-facial-recognition-system-2012-9

I see the Mother Jones link above; here's the clip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ-yPea2Lb8

Federal judge strikes down clauses in NDAA:

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2012/09/obamas_ndaa_law.php

Oh, the indefinite detention language. Excellent. Wow a 112 page ruling.

There's good reason to temper the elation, however. The government is almost certain to appeal the ruling. Indeed, the administration already has appealed the temporary injunction granted in May.

"That's all right," Hedges said Wednsday. "If they appeal, we'll fight them, and we'll keep fighting them, and we'll fight them until we win."

good news

until O's friends on the Supreme Court uphold it.

still time to drop a piano on Scalia before that happens...

wd be surprised if there were 3 votes against it.

still time to drop a piano on Scalia before that happens...

what makes you think the piano wouldn't bounce back?

Todd Akin’s Wife Compares GOP Abandonment to Rape, Tyranny

Lulli Akin said that efforts to push her husband out of the race threaten to replace elections “by the people and for the people” with “tyranny, a top-down approach.” She added, “Party bosses dictating who is allowed to advance through the party and make all the decisions—it’s just like 1776 in that way.”

She cited colonists who “rose up and said, ‘Not in my home, you don’t come and rape my daughters and my … wife. But that is where we are again. There has been a freedom of elections, not tyranny of selections since way back. Why are we going to roll over and let them steamroll us, be it Democrats or Republicans or whomever?”

Todd Akin said his wife’s comparisons to 1776 were “a little more grandiose than the way I would say it”

not-in-kansas-anymore.jpg

Akin family dinner:

Lulli: I ordered in Chinese for dinner, is that ok with you?
Todd: Sure thing hunbun. I could use a good meal. I was raped in the office today, absolutely raped.
Lulli: Same here. Gary came by with about the thousandth round of revisions on the interim strategy document and he raped me with his edits, it was brutal.
Todd: Can you pass the remote? I want to see if there are any shows about rape on.
*Telephone rings*
Todd: Hello?...What...? You gotta....you gotta be raping me. Unbelievable.
*Hangs up*
Todd: (muttering) you gotta be raping..this is...
Lulli: What is it?
Todd: That was the Chinese place. They're out of spring rolls.
Lulli: We're getting raped from every direction, similar to the American Revolution.
Todd: RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

seriously wtf is up with them

LOL ZS

You gotta....you gotta be raping me

And when their eloquence escapes me, their logic ties me up and rapes me.-Todd Aikin

Greenwald takes note:

Nothing is more consistent than war propaganda, especially the propaganda aimed at the citizenry of a nation at war by its leaders. It simply never changes, no matter the war or the leaders:

Associated Press, Tuesday:

"US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Monday that while he is very concerned about rogue Afghan troops and police turning their guns on US and allied forces, he sees the insider attacks as the 'last gasp' of a Taliban insurgency that has not been able to regain lost ground."

CNN, 20 June 2005:

"The insurgency in Iraq is 'in the last throes,' Vice-president Dick Cheney says … 'The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.'"

point would be better taken if "never changes" didn't mean "never changes over the course of seven years"

Can I finish? Can I finish? Can I finish?

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/09/25/3020058/ross-perot-memoir-coming-out-in.html

(I thought there'd be a Perot thread, although I'm not exactly sure why.)

Stanford/NYU study says of US spin on its drone warfare: "The narrative is false."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/25/study-obama-drone-deaths

Friedersdorf's blog post today worth a read on that front.

it's a strong post until he gets to the inevitable 'this is why i'm voting for gary johnson' part.

sorry, for sullivan, but: http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/09/killer-robots.html

it's a strong post until he gets to the inevitable 'this is why i'm voting for gary johnson' part.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, September 26, 2012 6:44 PM (27 minutes ago)

yup lol

i mean there's always going to be a 'ok, hold on...' moment when you read even the smartest, most reasonable libertarian, but he ought to at least acknowledge that a gary johnson presidency would have pretty serious consequences for a lot of ppl. a candidate who wants to can social security and medicare doesn't automatically become the savior of the republic just because he doesn't traffic in racist conspiracy theories like ron paul.

has this been posted yet? http://www.salon.com/2012/09/27/hey_left_wing_quit_griping/

Apparently, we are not allowed to celebrate the fact that the attorney general for 12% of all Americans is pretty cool in a few key ways or figure out where that could take us.

gave up reading at this point, does anybody edit anything at all anymore?

Also, hate to pull a Morbs but some of the stuff the left wing is agitated about is kind of "bigger picture" than she is willing to allow.

There is idealism somewhere under this pile of bile, the pernicious idealism that wants the world to be perfect and is disgruntled that it isn’t — and that it never will be.

i cannot roll my eyes hard enough

sooo fucking sick of those kinds of articles one way or another

Pile of Bile (or POB for short) is an American R&B-based horn section and band, originating in Oakland, California, that has been performing for over 44 years.[1] They are best known for their funky soul sound highlighted by a powerful horn section and precisely syncopated bass-guitar lines. There have been several lead vocalists, the most famous being Lenny Williams, who fronted the band between early 1973 and late 1974, the period of their greatest commercial success.

"pernicious idealism." Fuck you, Solnit. Commenter Mazer_Rackham otm.

Always amused by how assuaging one's "moral superiority" is the diagnosis of the non-Dem-lefty, not adhering to one's principles.

Harvey Milk was a politician. Citizens are not in the position to "give people hope" for a living.

http://crookedtimber.org/2010/11/01/on-not-being-obliged-to-vote-democrat/

The argument I want to establish here is that the decision about whether or not to vote Demcrat (versus the alternative of abstaining or voting for a minor party) is a serious one, which is up to the conscience of the individual voter to make, and which deserves respect from other people whether they agree with it or not. Obviously in making that argument, I’m going to have to venture into a number of unpalatable home truths about the Democrats as they are currently organised (abstract: ineffectual, cowardly, surprisingly warlike, soft-right, generally an obstacle to the development of social democratic politics), but let’s get this clear right up front - voting Democrat might often be the right thing to do in any given case, depending on local conditions; it might even usually be the right thing to do. What I’m not going to accept, however, is that it is always or definitionally the right thing to do.

OTM

Dear Allies,

Forgive me if I briefly take my eyes off the prize to brush away some flies, but the buzzing has gone on for some time.

i have a feeling i'm not going to like this article

here i thought the allies had already won WW2