All-Purpose NuILX thread for American Politics

uh the neo-con wing of the GOP is mostly gone/discredited because of Iraq FYI

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, December 9, 2011 4:47 PM (17 minutes ago)

idk dude, like maybe the "intellectual" (lol) neocon wing is less visible but have you seen these debates?

i mean tbf i have not seen these debates but i have READ about these debates and they all sound pretty crazy/neoconny!

In my experience reading comments left on right wing blogs and sites, I've concluded that there's an abyss between the GOP foreign policy establishment and Regular People; the latter are practically isolationist -- except, of course, when it comes to Israel.

idk the 'base' seems schizophrenic, they want a hyperstrong military but no foreign entanglements; no discursive give and take with any other people, but a president who can still make the world obey.

so they kind of seem like idiots, is what you're saying

"kind of"

in other news, I don't know why I just subjected myself to another Washington Post column by Charles Krauthammer

DOCTOR Krauthammer.

Kraut, if you're feelin' nasty.

contains so many weird mischaracterizations (the stimulus was a "giveaway" to teachers and unions? federal investment has never built successful industries? zuh?)

someone should remind Kraut every Friday when he's smirking on FOX that he worked for Mondale.

I just... the airline industry (actually the entire aerospace industry)? the internet? the oil industry?

also don't understand how Obamacare is an "entitlement"

Health care is not a right, Shakey. We have an oligation as a society to ensure that sick people don't become leeches on our system.

but Obamacare doesn't say you have the "right" to healthcare - in fact it obligates you to pay for it! and the gov't isn't paying out money to people from Obamacare, unless I'm forgetting something...?

sarcasm alert btw

well it expands medicaid eligibility, for one thing

xp

I know I know my sarcasm detector is working don't worry

xp

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2011/12/09/barack_obama_s_loser_liberalism.html

Shakey and I are bros.

Shakey thinks GOP winning presidency is "ridiculously improbable"

not a Nate Silver fan^

Obama will hurl his $1 billion on top of the GOP nominee and crush him (assuming Michele Bachman continues to be Michele Bachman and therefore she loses). This will not prevent the GOP from sweeping the southern tier of the USA, apart from Florida and possibly New Mexico. Obama will flood the Midwest with money, until it is so bloated with campaign cash that it waddles.

here's an interesting take:

"Big Government Is Bad for Democracy"
http://bigthink.com/ideas/41078

"bureaucracies in fact are subject to very little effective democratic oversight. However, corporate and other special interests are profoundly affected by regulatory and other rulings issued by bureaucrats, which creates a strong incentive to either "capture" or otherwise influence these decisions."

not sure what the remedy would be, outside of tightening up the lax oversight that has allowed/ encouraged regulatory capture. and of course regulating the regulators is a fool's errand without a complete overhaul of campaign finance (lol right)

(caveat: Wilkinson is, if I'm not mistaken, a self-proclaimed "liberaltarian", but he's usually pretty thoughtful and not terribly far off-the-mark - even if he doesn't offer any specific solutions here)

supreme court is gonna hear the SB 1070 case

sans kagan

nice to know we'll finally have the SCOTUS position on Suggest Bans

wait is this the part where i throw a hissy fit about being followed from thread to thread?

i hope not. making a joke, man. relax.

so was i cuz

"oh my SB 1070
uh oh
oh my SB 1070"

http://www.sohobluesgallery.com/mm5/graphics/00000001/David_Bowie_MSG.jpg

Re: Wilkinson

He's otm about the eventual capture of regulatory agencies by their regulated industries. It's an easily observed phenomenon.

Democratic oversight and correction of bureaucracies is admittedly difficult, but that is just the nature of representative democracy. Getting large numbers of voters organized around ANY issue is difficult, and without voter interest in an issue, representatives have small incentive to pursue it, unless they take a personal interest in it.

But Wilkinson's apparent implication - that it might be better to abandon regulatory atempts and falling back to laissez faire - is totally unsupported by evidence and relies merely on inverse logic. If all he was doing was pointing out the general existance of the problem, with no idea of a solution, then he's being both unoriginal and unhelpful.

But Wilkinson's apparent implication - that it might be better to abandon regulatory atempts and falling back to laissez faire

i can't say for sure (which is one of the weaknesses of the piece), but i would assume that's what he's implying. and as such, your assessment is very much otm.

But Wilkinson's apparent implication - that it might be better to abandon regulatory atempts and falling back to laissez faire

as nonsensical as it may seem to non-conservatives, but sadly i know plenty of conservatives/libertarians/whatevahs who have concluded that the answer to regulatory capture is to just eliminate regulatory bodies altogether. best i can figure out, is that their view is based mostly on theology or pop-psychology (i.e., original sin so why bother?) when it isn't based on self-interest or slavering fawning on those who are/would be regulated.

Seems more like the fallacy of thinking that if doing something one way is flawed, then doing its opposite must fix the problem.

short of electing better people who will hopefully appoint better bureaucrats, what are workable options in dealing with regulatory capture?

(& I obv agree, just "getting rid of big government" in order to deal with corrupt or ineffectual regulatory agencies is beyond daft)

As I see it, the workable solution is to emphasize the problem, not the bureaucracy. Get people worked up about bankers who screw the public, not SEC doesn't do its job. When enough people demand that the problem get fixed, then the SEC will be forced to respond, because their politician overlords will start demanding it, in responese to the people's outrage.

Politically speaking, my experience is that you don't get results by going all policy wonk on the public. You get results by defining what's wrong in basic, concrete terms, such as: companies are breaking the law and no one is being held accountable for it. That way the only acceptaqble solution becomes: holding people accountable. No need to get messy about what ought to be the means to that end; just demand that what's wrong be set right.

policy wonks/technocrats are invaluable when fixing problems, but useless on the campaign trail (Bill Clinton being the only exception i can really think of in our times). i'd like to think that politicians don't put the problem in non-policy wonk terms b/c they don't WANT to but i really suspect that most elected "wonks" are of the Newt Gingrich variety (i.e., not really wonks but morons think they are cause they use $5 words, proclaim themselves to be geniuses and are overly fond of their own oral flatulence).

another intractable problem is the fact that the private sector pays so much more than the public sector. there are just as many ... if not more ... folks who get government jobs in hopes of cashing in later than there are "true believers." the SEC is never gonna pay more than some random BigLaw firm or hedge fund looking for a one-time insider.

after the awlaki killing i was 'joking' with some friends that it would be ~5 years before an american citizen is killed on american soil by a drone

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-drone-arrest-20111211,0,72624,full.story

we're getting closer, it seems

The drones belong to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which operates eight Predators on the country's northern and southwestern borders to search for illegal immigrants and smugglers. The previously unreported use of its drones to assist local, state and federal law enforcement has occurred without any public acknowledgment or debate.

Congress first authorized Customs and Border Protection to buy unarmed Predators in 2005. Officials in charge of the fleet cite broad authority to work with police from budget requests to Congress that cite "interior law enforcement support" as part of their mission.

In an interview, Michael C. Kostelnik, a retired Air Force general who heads the office that supervises the drones, said Predators are flown "in many areas around the country, not only for federal operators, but also for state and local law enforcement and emergency responders in times of crisis."

+ jane harman saying sensible stuff, what a world

Reporting from Washington— Armed with a search warrant, Nelson County Sheriff Kelly Janke went looking for six missing cows on the Brossart family farm in the early evening of June 23. Three men brandishing rifles chased him off, he said.

Janke knew the gunmen could be anywhere on the 3,000-acre spread in eastern North Dakota. Fearful of an armed standoff, he called in reinforcements from the state Highway Patrol, a regional SWAT team, a bomb squad, ambulances and deputy sheriffs from three other counties.

He also called in a Predator B drone.

As the unmanned aircraft circled 2 miles overhead the next morning, sophisticated sensors under the nose helped pinpoint the three suspects and showed they were unarmed. Police rushed in and made the first known arrests of U.S. citizens with help from a Predator, the spy drone that has helped revolutionize modern warfare.

But that was just the start. Local police say they have used two unarmed Predators based at Grand Forks Air Force Base to fly at least two dozen surveillance flights since June. The FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have used Predators for other domestic investigations, officials said.

they used a predator drone to capture dudes who stole 6 cows? wtf

they did run the sheriff off with rifles, so there was some pretense of escalation

mordy otm

I for one welcome our new predator drone overlords

I remember the "Cosby Show" episode where Denise said she wanted to go to the University of North Dakota in Bismark because "none" of her friends applied.

redditor drone overlords xp

six cows are worth one hell of a lot of money, depending on their condition

http://img810.imageshack.us/img810/4216/snapshot20100729105702.jpg

At 7 a.m. the next day, the Predator launched again and flew back to the farm. The drone crew was determined to help avoid a bloody confrontation. No one wanted another Ruby Ridge, the 1992 shootout between the FBI and a family in rural Idaho that killed a 14-year-old boy, a woman and a deputy U.S. marshal.

This time, Janke watched the live Predator feed from his office computer, using a password-protected government website called Big Pipe.

brian bennett getting novelistic

Democrats bluff called yet again!

gotta love how they are basically enacting the GOP's agenda for them now - tax cuts AND gov't spending cuts! huzzah!