All-Purpose NuILX thread for American Politics

Obama’s daughters Sasha and Malia picked up picture book Everyone Poops

aaaaaaahahahahahaha, right on

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obama_Republican

Support for Obama from writers afflicted with conservatism

obv belongs in the amazing wiki facts thread but i don't think there's a sandbox version

Ruth Marcus lectures the girl who said Brownback sucked.

I always get the impression that Ruth Marcus gets her news from CNN Headlines and then writes her pieces in one quick draft just before they are due.

It's a shame her editor doesn't shoot her every time.

marcus does sound "alarmingly crotchety here," and utterly wrong. attempting to invoke the limited rights of schools to restrain free-speech is utterly absurd in this instance. and, while i expect civility and propriety in my own 10 year-old daughter, i think it's good to see a teenager motivated enough to tweet about politics at all (even tho it would be better for her to actually discuss, or even participate in, politics).

“Just made mean comments at ruth marcs and told her she sucked, in person. #sheblowsalot.”

i would have spelled "marcus" correctly and in full, but i was just over the 140 character limit.

daniel otm

...and the term "potty-mouthed" is a nauseatingly priggish one, anyway, esp. in reference to two words mild enough to be used on US broadcast TV.

Reviewing Justice Kagan's performances so far.

Lithwick also agrees with "most legal" experts that SCOTUS will uphold the AHCA by " a 6-3 or a 7-2 margin."

― Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, November 29, 2011 4:30 PM (2 days ago)

i usually like lithwick but this kind of dumbed down, isn't it? there's not much analysis of whether kagan's style is, like, worth it, or effective. why is befriending conservative justices a plus, exactly? lithwick herself quotes that these are the "big leagues" and that kind of buttering up won't work here. and whom is she writing to with the second-person narrative? why is that a good thing? why is it necessary to make it easier for ME to read her opinions? the people actually making use of them are jurists and academics, not laypeople like us.

the pertinent cold water, at any rate:

But while Kagan is assuredly a liberal, and likely also a fan of the health-reform law, a close read of her tenure at the Supreme Court suggests that she is in fact the opposite of a progressive zealot. By the end of Kagan’s first term, conservatives like former Bush solicitor general Paul Clement (who will likely argue against the health-care law this coming spring) and Chief Justice John Roberts were giving Kagan high marks as a new justice precisely because she wasn’t a frothing ideologue. The pre-confirmation caricatures of her as a self-serving careerist and party hack are not borne out by her conduct at oral argument, her writing, and her interactions with her colleagues. In fact, if her first term and a half is any indication, she may well madden as many staunch liberals as conservatives in the coming years.

can I just

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oj6UX6OyXww&feature=player_embedded

That's some Double Impact special effect going on there, right?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/24/Double_impact.jpg

whoa, does van damme have a twin brother or something? that's amazing!!

i usually like lithwick but this kind of dumbed down, isn't it? there's not much analysis of whether kagan's style is, like, worth it, or effective. why is befriending conservative justices a plus, exactly?

I frowned at this too. I hadn't expected Lithwick to espouse the Beltway dictum that shitting on your own side guarantees immortality.

Senator Blobfish has ideas about stuff

About that repulsive terrorist detainee bill.

More on that bill. I wonder whether this is more shadowplay: the Senate Dems get to look like robust warriors to voters, while an Obama veto threat burnishes his liberal cred.

who were the dems who voted to defeat that amendment?

http://www.emptywheel.net/2011/11/29/udall-amendment-fails-37-61/

the official roll call is here:

https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=112&session=1&vote=00210

http://store.barackobama.com/accessories/dog-bandana.html

has timellison found the sandbox?

this could be awesome: http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2011/12/us_supreme_court_to_review_iss.html

Lindsey Graham is a repulsive piece of shit:

One of the proponents of making no exceptions for Americans, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said it would be “crazy” to exempt Qaeda suspects who are Americans and are arrested inside the country from battlefield-style detention. He argued that, to stop other attacks, they must be interrogated without the protections of the civilian criminal justice system.

Citizens who are suspected of joining Al Qaeda are opening themselves up “to imprisonment and death,” Mr. Graham said, adding, “And when they say, ‘I want my lawyer,’ you tell them: ‘Shut up. You don’t get a lawyer. You are an enemy combatant, and we are going to talk to you about why you joined Al Qaeda.

innocent until proven gu...what was it again? oh well!

Shut up!

-but I believe I'm entitled to a lawye-

this really isn't politics, but it's notable that the newest unemployment figures are much better. it's still a bad picture -- 8.6% unemployment -- but it's trending in the right direction, and since there's no shortage of coverage when the news is bad, it should be noted when the news is good.

also: what would the unemployment rate be today if the public-sector wasn't shedding jobs as the impact of stimulus-funds wear off?

xpost to self

SHUT UP!

JohnFugelsang -- The US added 120,000 last month, or 870,000 more jobs than George W Bush's last month in office....

be careful not to cherry pick data though - criticizing others when they do it (e.g., climate change deniers) means you have to be extra cautious not to do it yourself!

also not to be all negative nancy on the 'improving' unemployment rate, but isn't a lot of that driven by the peculiar way we calculate unemployment? as nyt says: "The jobless rate fell partly because more workers got jobs, but also because about 315,000 workers dropped out of the labor force, and the jobless rate counts only people who are actively looking for work. Even so, the country still has a backlog of more than 13 million unemployed workers, whose periods of unemployment averaged an all-time high of 40.9 weeks."

anyway, 8.6% is better than 9.6%

but your point is right. that's why i mentioned, in the initial post, that the overall picture still isn't good. not a counter to "cherry-picking," per se, but an acknowledgement that the data-points i mention aren't conversation-ending.

this really isn't politics, but it's notable that the newest unemployment figures are much better. it's still a bad picture -- 8.6% unemployment -- but it's trending in the right direction, and since there's no shortage of coverage when the news is bad, it should be noted when the news is good.

Lots of people have stopped looking for jobs too.

cross post

that's very true. in fact, analysts figure the rate will climb again next month, because drop-outs will again begin looking for jobs.

but still, it's positive news.

On a more positive note, the Labor Department revised upward the job growth in September and October by 72,000 jobs. Job creation in the last three months thus averaged 143,000 a month. That’s almost double the monthly average from May to August, but even at that pace, the unemployment rate won’t come down fast anytime soon.

The latest jobs report comes on the heels of other data suggesting a strengthening of the economy. Consumer spending, manufacturing and exports, and business investment and confidence all have edged higher since summer -- despite significant concerns about the European debt crisis, the still-moribund American housing market, government cutbacks and political paralysis in Washington.

Other indicators also show hints of improvement in the job market. The National Federation of Independent Business, a lobbying group for small firms, said its survey of members in November showed that the average number of workers per firm rose and that plans to create new jobs nearly doubled.

“Overall, the employment indicators delivered a significant positive signal, still at weak levels but a meaningful movement forward,” said William Dunkelberg, the group’s chief economist.

LAT.

and here's the answer to my earlier question

amsteinhp Sam Stein -- per @jonathanweisman, there has been 759,000 govt jobs lost since Nov 2010. That's 2,079 jobs lost every day over a year

that's a lot of jobs. haven't seen figures on what the unemployment rate would be if we hadn't lost those jobs.

I see three Facebook pals have already posted "Unemployment down! YES WE CAN!" type updates.

robot see, robot do

Republicans in the Senate rejected both the Democrat and Republican proposals on extending the payroll tax cut

zraklein Ezra Klein -- Bad news deep in the jobs report: most sectors down. The boost came from retail sales, so it might just be temp. holiday hiring.

In this Greenwald piece on the military detention bill, I was most struck by the Senate Dems' "rotating villain" tactic:

http://www.salon.com/2011/12/01/congress_endorsing_military_detention_a_new_aumf/singleton/

there's no sandbox New Yorker thread but george packer at the end of his (great) profile of libertarian billionaire peter thiel goes in on his subject

Yes, really enjoyed that piece.

Packer's been v. good lately -- see also his O.W.S. piece this week.

the end is almost fitzgeraldesque, honestly