All-Purpose NuILX thread for American Politics

I expect Obama to make a big show of drawing down troops in Afghanistan within the next 12 months but imho Bin Laden's dead time to cut our losses

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 6 December 2011 22:49 (Yesterday) Bookmark Permalink

this terrible pedantic post is going to be awesome because i get to step into john mccain let's listen to our generals on the ground shoes for a lil minute, but: afghanistan is so complicated, & there are a p diverse range of pro- and anti- opinions re: continuing US involvement from people in afghanistan (or there were around a year ago, idk how things have changed), those being the people who we should be at the service of & considering our decisions based on, having already got so involved in fucking w/their country without a great plan, etc etc etc. i'm not even saying that we should or shouldn't pull out, but framing the decision wrt 'our losses' is nagl i think. like if the best thing - as in safest, I guess, rather than 'thing that inches us closest to something we can put a flag in & call victory' - was to be there in a five hundred year long agonising drawdown then that would be the thing to do.

― Never translate German (schlump), Tuesday, December 6, 2011 8:39 PM (19 minutes ago)

cool can we do this for free though?

we already know that America's not really run by the president, & indeed that's what "the founders" wanted. the president's a symbol & that's fine, that's all that person needs to be in a republic like ours. I think maybe that's where I differ from a lot of you, esp. Morbius, who expect more out of the Great Leader: I want a Great Government, but the presidency is just a small part of that.

― by (mennen), Tuesday, December 6, 2011 8:35 PM (24 minutes ago)

pretttttty sure he's got some important jobs dude, and btw the office of the presidency if you haven't noticed doesn't much resemble what "the founders wanted" these days

http://i.usatoday.net/news/gallery/2010/n100405_whegg/obama1pg-vertical.jpg

cool can we do this for free though?

― k3vin k., Wednesday, 7 December 2011 01:59 (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink

yeah but c'mon i just- like i am not practical with this but i sorta feel like our obligation began when we got involved, rather than expired when we had problems - obviously that's part of a larger conversation about how we need to work out what we need to pay for & then raise the appropriate funds, rather than just work out that we don't really wanna spend money and argue over what we're gonna cut, &c.

but yes, i feel like if i come & smash up your house then i am obliged to either split, if being there is just gonna annoy you further, or clear up what i did, having trashed the place. i am dumb w/this & not pragmatic but i just feel like the money issue is that it should have been financed not we can't finance it

sorry i feel like an asshole making this point, i know it isn't like either of y'all are looking for a satisfying exit, i just think it's a weird obligation thing. wasn't the us obliged to pay vietnam a gazillion dollars, after the war, only to renege a year later & be all 'we're not gonna do that', leaving it the poorest country on earth? we are invested there in a lot of ways, leaving and cutting ties just feels so unconscionable to me, like equal investment in rebuilding would ~morally~ be the appropriate coda to being engaged in warfare. but yeah i know that doesn't exactly fit with how things are

I'll give'em credit for this move.

re: payroll tax cut extension

House leaders are hoping to entice conservative support by packaging the payroll tax extension with other priorities, such as a provision that would make it more likely that construction would begin soon on a controversial oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast.

hahah oh fuck off you idiots

leaving and cutting ties just feels so unconscionable to me, like equal investment in rebuilding would ~morally~ be the appropriate coda to being engaged in warfare

the problem is no amount of imperial meddling is going to make Afghanistan a better to place to live. I dunno if you could even say we're leaving it WORSE off than it was before, it's pretty much the same as far as I can tell - riven with sectarian conflict and aggro nutjobs who want to fight among themselves indefinitely, with no interest in being anything resembling a modern nation.

Presidents often outlive us, study shows.

it's the socialist healthcare they get

They all need to eat more pretzels.

Adams lost teeth but not brains.

14 years for blogojevich.

14 years of explaining his complete innocence to the prison guards.

well, he said at sentencing that he was sorry for his "made terrible mistakes," but that he "never intended to break the law." the judge said, "the jury didn't believe you and neither do i."

a provision that would make it more likely that construction would begin soon on a controversial oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast.

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh, they're so transparently servants of the oil industry

Well, why not? Do you believe this climate change twaddle?

totally. it was in the 50s around here recently. you see? it's C-O-L-D-E-R than expected, not h-o-t-t-e-r.

with that alone, you can ignore what you hear from egghead "scientists."

when time magazine sums up the twenty first century it will just be the word scientists in sarcastic quote marks

I like the implication that TIME magazine is run by and written for cockroaches

TIME 2100: They blinded us with "Science."

Maybe it is!

http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/projects/hitler/sources/40s/414-141HitlerTime.jpg

dude! ugh.

blast from the past: 90s icon Mumia taken off death row

woah really, I thought he'd already been executed

blago's wife is my landlord -- thankfully my rent being four days late this month is prob the least of her worries now

haha that's awesome jord

I really need to figure out who's who in this here sandbox.

oh god:

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled the scientists at the Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday and refused to allow emergency contraceptives to be sold as freely as aspirin, setting up just the kind of clash between politics and science that President Obama had promised to avoid.

Under the law, Ms. Sebelius has the authority to overrule the agency, according to an F.D.A. spokeswoman, but no health secretary has ever done so before. Her decision continues a history of political meddling in the agency’s decisions regarding emergency contraceptives that tarnished the drug administration’s credibility during the Bush administration. Ms. Sibelius’s decision to overrule a recommendation by government scientists will also almost certainly reverberate in this presidential election season.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/08/health/policy/sebelius-overrules-fda-on-freer-sale-of-emergency-contraceptives.html?ref=politics

rust belt catholics, thumbs up to u

weak. i kinda haven't heard a lot about her since she's been in the admin but sorta remember feeling like she was one of the good guys, blarg

This is such bullshit, but it doesn't surprise me.

Catholic bishops for Obama 2012

wow what the fuck at that hhs ruling, fucking shameful

otoh mumia!

What devotees of sadomasochism do to their bodies is nothing compared to the torments that those addicted to the news and political commentary inflict on their minds almost every hour of the day.

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/dec/05/goodbye-serenity/

Just noticed these details on this...

The drug, Plan B One-Step, has been sold for several years over the counter to women age 17 and older, but girls under that age need a prescription.

“I have concluded that the data … do not conclusively establish that Plan B One-Step should be made available over the counter for all girls of reproductive age,”

loved that, kinda a perfect halfway between a newspaper letter & a sobering memoir
xp

btw

“Any effort to try to tie Keystone to the payroll tax cut, I will reject,” Obama said. “Everybody should be on notice. The reason is because the payroll tax cut is something House Republicans and Senate Republicans should want to do regardless of any other issues.

The tax cut “shouldn’t be held hostage to any other issues they may be concerned about,” Obama continued. “My warning is not just related to Keystone. Efforts to tie a bunch of other issues to something they should do anyway will be rejected — by me.”

mad ups to obama for this

I'm still worried that he'll just approve it 2013 but who knows...

re: payroll tax cut, he knows he's got the GOP backed into a corner so he can afford to be a dick about it

Backed into a corner... Reid and company keep watering down the Dems proposal and nobody mentions that the Republicans never insisted that the Bush tax cuts be paid for

nobody mentions that the Republicans never insisted that the Bush tax cuts be paid for

uh Obama and Reid have both said this iirc

also I don't know how it's been watered down...? Bill in the Senate sets the payroll tax cut even higher than it currently is now, unless I've misread something.

has this been posted? the boy boy young ratigan went ham

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=G4yDCUJJm_U

yeah that's relatively old i think - ratigan is pretty awesome

yeah i think that happened 2 or 3 months ago. i'm pretty bummed that it doesn't have 3 million views and my idiot facebook feed wasn't saturated with it for a solid week following

this plan b no longer OTC bullshit has me exactly as fucking pissed off as y'all might imagine

this kind of has to go here too btw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2fKmeFR_ko

this plan b no longer OTC bullshit has me exactly as fucking pissed off as y'all might imagine

― undervalued aerosmith tchotchkes sold in bulk, Wednesday, December 7, 2011 9:06 PM (5 minutes ago)

it still will be available w/o a prescription to 17+; nothing's changed, but the FDA had voted to make it available OTC for anyone

this woman: not a doctor, not a pharmacist, no background in medical or outcomes research i can find, no prior public health experience other than her work at the HHS. but she knew better than the scientists on the FDA panel. she does have a pretty strong pro-choice background though

this is complete bullshit, there is truly nothing else to be said