All-Purpose NuILX thread for American Politics

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!

And it looks like Obama will sign this insane defense bill. awesome day.

I don't get the defense bill details myself

surprise surprise surprise

honestly i'm shocked given that he's specifically been calling out unacceptable portions of the bill as reasons for veto warnings from the beginning

also wasn't expecting it to cross his desk til sunday

i'm angry and disappointed

^ lines that effortlessly summarize the spirit of the Obama years

Promising a veto if a bill lands on your desk with certain objectionable provisions should always result in a veto if those provisons are present, or else you kind of suck as a president.

not particularly surprised, but i was kinda confused the whole time b/c it seemed like the portions Obama objected to weren't the ones the ACLU objected to, just the ones that limited his own power.

The Administration strongly objects to the military custody provision of section 1032, which would appear to mandate military custody for a certain class of terrorism suspects. This unnecessary, untested, and legally controversial restriction of the President's authority to defend
the Nation from terrorist threats would tie the hands of our intelligence and law enforcement professionals. Moreover, applying this military custody requirement to individuals inside the United States, as some Members of Congress have suggested is their intention, would raise
serious and unsettled legal questions and would be inconsistent with the fundamental American principle that our military does not patrol our streets.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/legislative/sap/112/saps1867s_20111117.pdf

like, yes, the argument is that it would "challenge or constrain the President's critical authorities to collect intelligence, incapacitate dangerous terrorists, and protect the Nation" by ~requiring~ federal custody for american citizens for such and such

thereby overloading the system

again not that i'm buying this, just relaying what's in the public record

OH MY GOD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdiSwV6calw

this is deeply disturbing
"It's Christmas in America!"

^that's a newly released Herman Cain video, forgot to mention

i'm watching it on mute listening to gabba

I had no idea until yesterday that Bam was calling "game over" in Iraq this week, probably bcz no one thinks anything is over, including him.

lol Morbs

if there's one soldier left it's still a "war" amirite

are you also angry about WWII and the Korean War still going on

speaking of war, here's Turley's column about Obama's chilling civil liberties record. Glad it appeared in Obamaland's newspaper of record too.

And, no surprise, Obama will sign the Levin-McCain indefinite detention bill.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/15/americans-face-guantanamo-detention-obama?CMP=twt_gu

sad that that column is totally hystrionic, obscures the legitimate points.

xp

The key paragraphs:

The Senate is expected to give final approval to the bill before the end of the week. It will then go to the president, who previously said he would block the legislation not on moral grounds but because it would "cause confusion" in the intelligence community and encroached on his own powers.

But on Wednesday the White House said Obama had lifted the threat of a veto after changes to the law giving the president greater discretion to prevent individuals from being handed to the military.

The veto threat wasn't to torpedo the bill -- it was to preserve executive control over incarceration.

And, no surprise, Obama will sign the Levin-McCain indefinite detention bill.

ugh this is really fucked up

the Korean War is, technically, still going on.

No Mo, the Iraq fuckup will just proceed with our diminishing presence a la Vietnam 1973-75.

Glad it appeared in Obamaland's newspaper of record too.

since when is the LA times Obamaland's paper