All-Purpose NuILX thread for American Politics

You forgot:

• P--O--W--E--R

SECOND TERM INITIATIVES (RECENT HISTORY)

• bush II: social security reform; energy policy act of 2005
• clinton: state children's health insurance program; adoption and safe families act; foster care independence act
• reagan: war-on-drugs; negotiations with gorbachev; immigration reform and control act of 1985 (not sure if reagan promoted this, or merely signed it)
• nixon: not sure

social security reform

this didn't pass btw

Nixon's: destroy everyone. (Before he stumbled over the great revelation that then you destroy yourself.)

Nixon: getting himself in deeper shit

i know. the point isn't what passed, but what was promoted.

reagan: war-on-drug

a marvelous achievement this is

I was thinking Nixon created the EPA in his second term, but it was his first.

reagan: war-on-drug

__________________

a marvelous achievement this is

― Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, December 27, 2011

alfred speaks like a man holding a whole sheet of lsd drops on wax-paper.

clinton: state children's health insurance program; adoption and safe families act; foster care independence act

this is pretty pathetic next to the far-reaching implications of previous term's successes: telecomm act, welfare reform, changing FDA rules, NAFTA, reversing the Glass-Steagall act, Commodity Futures Modernization Act Family Medical Leave Act, DOMA...

this is reminding me how much I kind of hate Clinton

xp

Bush II wasn't a "20th century president" btw

this is pretty pathetic next to the far-reaching implications of previous term's successes: telecomm act, welfare reform, changing FDA rules, NAFTA, reversing the Glass-Steagall act, Commodity Futures Modernization Act Family Medical Leave Act, DOMA..

...raising the top rate by nearly 9 points, EITC expansion, community block grants...

there you go.

Noam Scheiber @noamscheiber -- What I appreciate about Ben Nelson: He spent lots of time making Dem policies crappier to aid re-election to a seat he's giving up. Thanks!

sounds about right

That's certainly a fair characterization of what actually happened. But I might suggest that his intent was to make Dem policies sufficiently politically palatable for his and perhaps others' reelection, and that he/Obama ultimately failed in that regard. Not knowing him personally, I can't say.

Public support of HCR has turned up now that it's beginning to kick in, but it's too little too late for many in Congress, which is why they feel abandoned by the WH.

The WH should have fought back against the Tea Party attacks on health care better, but the DNC and others should have also. Nelson and others who changed it in an alleged effort to make it more politically palatable and then failed to stand up for it themselves did not help in the gaining public support realm

Public support of HCR has turned up now that it's beginning to kick in

lol how is this remotely true, this is counter to all the polling data I've seen reported as recently as last week

53% support repeal of HCR

Nelson and others who changed it in an alleged effort to make it more politically palatable and then failed to stand up for it themselves did not help in the gaining public support realm

yes but they helped themselves in the "cravenly begging for support" realm.

a second-term obama can aim high, since he doesn't have to worry about re-election. i'm not saying he will, but it's certainly possible

Jesus God Almighty, you people are literally posting my old jokes.

Nixon term 2: "Peace with honor" in Vietnam; detente w/ USSR; save my phony-baloney job

(xpost) If you track the numbers on that chart going back a year, when they often showed repeal up in the high-50 and into the 60% range, there does seem to be some improvement. I also assume there's some overstatement in general, being a Rasmussen poll.

Jesus God Almighty, you people are literally posting my old jokes.

this is a dirty lie.

got this one from dennis perrin.

The WH should have fought back against the Tea Party attacks on health care better, but the DNC and others should have also.

One and the same, really, but you're right on both scores.

The problem with selling HCR to the public is that the one provision that everyone knows about and thinks they understand is the requirement to be covered, which most people perceive as negative. The only positive provision that most people know about and understand is the elimination of exclsusions for pre-existing conditions.

As far as I can tell, the other 98% of the bill is too technical for most people to understand or too marginal for them to care about - so that even when they hear about those parts they forget about them an hour later.

The problem with selling HCR to the public is quite possibly that the administration hasn't spent much time doing it, or doing it well. That's understandable from the perspective that they had other agenda items to work on, but less so, perhaps, from a political perspective.

does dennis perrin know he's a meme on ilx?

I always forget that obama passed "universal health care" lol

I just looked at his site for--yes--the very first time, and what do you know, I've read his book on Michael O'Donoghue.

I always forget that if Obama had just been a cagier negotiator--if he'd started out by demanding an outright ban on guns, dismantling of the Pentagon, and free gay marriage for everyone--he could have then worked his way back to a much better deal.

c'mon clemenza - gabbnab is back. u can just be the wild gossipy political horserace fiend you've always wanted to be and leave the obama apologetics to him.

Duly shamed, I shall skulk away.

And to think, I defended you on that thread about which words were permissible and which weren't...I want a refund!

:(

Maddow really "killing it" tonight.

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/culture/5519/top_2011_religion_stories_that_weren%E2%80%99t

all pretty interesting in a political sense

6 is the most directly worrying, 3 is the most scary to me personally, based on where i grew up, and i had absolutely no cognizance of 2!

we should poll the five points

i guess total depravity is kind of the clear winner

we have enough metal poll threads i think

hehee

2. Judaism and Real Estate

No one to my knowledge has written authoritatively in mainstream publications lately on the intensity of internal conversations about the essence of Judaism at a time when more and more Jewish leaders appear willing to follow the ultra-Orthodox in sacralizing the possession of land. There's an argument going back decades—back at least to Richard Rubenstein’s 1966 After Auschwitz—on the theological/ethical problems relating to land possession. Mainstream media show us the fanatics, of course, but they don’t show us the extent of Jewish unease with land mania.

I don't think this is real, unless he is trying to obliquely refer to settlements in Israel w/out explicitly discussing it.

yeah i wondered. i really doubt a writer for this magazine would use the phrase "land mania" to stand in obliquely for (settler) zionism, but who knows. has there been a real estate crisis in israel as well? those protests in the summer were about the stagnant economy but like i said i am unaware of anything like this at all.

It's also kinda weird to talk about Jews + the ultra-Orthodox w/out saying that you're referring to Israel. Huge communities in the United States + France that this seems to have nothing to do with. Unless you see Kiryas Yoel as somehow being related to this theme (and maybe it is? it's certainly the only example of this I can think of outside Israel).

my landlord is jewish

i am kiryas yoel

Maddow really "killing it" tonight.

oh, I bet. Clooney-style clucking about what a "success" Bam has been?

do you think gabbneb painted his torso the night Obama slayed Osama?

http://robertreich.org/post/14932718385

I'm Bill Clinton, and I approved this message.

oh, I bet. Clooney-style clucking about what a "success" Bam has been?

Hello?