All-Purpose NuILX thread for American Politics

If you want a single issue to turn you against Obama, I don't know why you would pick the one that affects a small handful of individuals who in all likelihood are "combatants," rather than one that affects millions like the various political choices being made about legislative priorities and the regulatory pipeline. Precedent and perhaps principle are certainly problems with things like this, but the biggest one under Bush was simply the all-around obtuse stupidity in application. While that certainly may not have been eliminated in less visible corners of the government, things have undeniably changed.

Yes, Obama is governing as far too much of a "moderate" (and in many respects at least temperamentally a "conservative," which he sort of warned us about with "no drama") from a policy standpoint. That may be suited to the country's desires, as well as the administration's desire to do more in a second term, but not exactly what the other side sought and sometimes did with far less of a mandate. But I see a health care bill and renewable energy standard and some financial reform efforts, and no welfare reform or don't ask don't tell or major troop presence in Iraq, so by some measures things are better than they've been in quite a long time.

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/4228/picard2pf1.jpg

The Return of Nü-Gabbnebism

as well as the administration's desire to do more in a second term

this candle is still burnin i see

i think "just wait for the progressive second term!" is about as credible as "just wait for him to whip out martial law & strip us of our guns in the second term"

"rigid consistency"? having humane principles?

srsly, off to prison w/ Bam now. Impeach.

A nominal "police state" is apparently considered the price you pay to avoid a fifth Roberts on the court, an end to social security, and a "carbon bomb" of a trans-American pipeline. I prefer to avoid those things.

deck chairs

peanut gallery

you know the real C.K. Dexter was a lot more fun after Katherine Hepburn divorced him.

i was going to say something about how the universe/history/brahman/whatev never gives you what you really want, ever, but then this argument happened and i'm not so sure

and a "carbon bomb" of a trans-American pipeline

http://www.theonion.com/articles/report-global-warming-may-be-irreversible-by-2006,26808/

(from last week)

you (and the onion) are correct that it's almost certainly too late to avoid a century full of climate change-related calamities, morbs, but that doesn't mean that there aren't degrees of misery. exploiting every last drop of fossil fuels like an addict will put us into deeper circles of hell, so it's still very much worth fighting things like the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

degrees of misery

US politics in a nutshell

i should be an inspirational speaker for 7th graders:

"hey kids, it's true that you're in for decades of suffering! but only YOU can make the decisions that might slightly reduce the amount of suffering!"

now let's get out there and barely mitigate!!

If you want a single issue to turn you against Obama, I don't know why you would pick the one that affects a small handful of individuals who in all likelihood are "combatants,"

ha. rope and chains '12

yo, we should just start a who will you vote for poll and let ppl run wild talking about whether they will/should/can vote for obama or not

When they came for the declared-to-be-combatants-by-the-president, I said nothing.

Sure, but honestly? That's the (third-to) last war. It's pretty far from the scariest threat around right now, if you're looking at the big picture.

"global-warming-may-be-irreversible-by-2006"

As Z S (who sounds like he's doing good work in the area) said, there are degrees involved, and a good bit of scientific uncertainty, synergistic with our present emissions, about what to expect over a certain baseline of unavoidable climate change (global warming of at least 2 degrees celsius and perhaps closer to 3). Also as he said, it's pretty important to do what's possible to mitigate that change to avoid what may be potentially catastrophic results (perhaps in the 4 degree neighborhood, almost certainly above that), which will affect a great many more people (no comparison, really), and probably far more severely, than our detention policy. Ignoring the issue is not only potentially suicidal in the long run, but privileges present (and, to an extent, American) people over future (and primarily non-American) ones.

Not that it's right, necessarily, to present it as an either-or, but I think that is in fact the case if this is your single issue on whether to vote for Obama, and one issue is unquestionably more important than the other imo.

http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2011/12/14/reinventing-debtors-prisons-for-the-21st-century/

In many jurisdictions, bail posted to get out of being jailed for contempt of the discovery process is used to pay creditors. Besides being a great deal for creditors — as noted above, people often pay a huge economic penalty to get out of jail — it functions as a de facto debtors’ prison. As law professor Alan White described this process, “If, in effect, people are being incarcerated until they pay bail, and bail is being used to pay their debts, then they’re being incarcerated to pay their debts.” As the FTC noted, debtors being jailed for nonappearance “may be willing to pay the bail (and indirectly the judgement) using assets (such as Social Security payments) the law prohibits creditors from garnishing or otherwise obtaining to satisfy a judgement.”

this payroll tax cut thing is so amazingly stupid. seems bizarre that Boehner wants to make such a big deal out of killing the Keystone pipeline - which is what will happen if his stupid amendment passes.

Not that it's right, necessarily, to present it as an either-or, but I think that is in fact the case if this is your single issue on whether to vote for Obama, and one issue is unquestionably more important than the other imo.

I think it's def the more important issue - otoh Obama's been totally shitty w/regard to addressing energy policy and climate change too so uh, what's yr point

and don't get me wrong I have no doubt the GOP crowd would be exponentially worse on this issue

i've given up hope of any u.s. president doing the right thing on energy/climate policy. at this point i think only civil disobedience in the u.s. on a large scale will accomplish anything.

i think you'd have to see an american city seriously threatened by rising waters. i think even venice could disappear (let alone dhaka) and it would mean little here.

otoh if that happened, we'd be in a place where global crop yields would be haywire. if the food system gets threatened i think americans would definitely respond.

though again, as with all things in US governance, we would have had waxman's carbon bill be the law of the land if not for the current internal rules and practices of the US senate

you'd have to see an american city seriously threatened by rising waters

too bad New Orleans wasn't really an American city. never calvinist enough for that.

otoh if that happened, we'd be in a place where global crop yields would be haywire.

this is pretty much guaranteed to happen. of course, the right wing denialists will insist on some other unscientific explanation (END TIMES! probably lol)

i think in that case it will turn into something like the memory of the civil rights movement -- conservatives will completely forget they were on the wrong side at the time. liberals will turn out to be the "real anti-conservationists" or something, by 2040

Libertards, conservaturds, they're all sheep!

don't you mean to say "sheeple"?

btw as much as i was trying to troll upthread i promise i do not agree w/ c.k. dexter holland

wow. no payroll tax agreement unless we agree to destroy our future

Regarding that legislation, Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell emails me with the following statement: “The Leader will not support any bill without the Keystone XL language as part of the agreement.”

it boggles the mind

a REPUBLICAN is refusing to lower taxes for people, that's crazy enough
unless we address our oil addiction by exploiting disgusting, last resort veins. fuck.

the weird thing that I don't get is that, paradoxically, if that amendment is approved it will essentially kill the project altogether - all the agencies involved have said they can't approve it in so short a timeframe, which means they will just reject it outright.

Boehner & McConnell must be aware of this, which would seem to indicate this is just a deeply cynical PR maneuver (ie "you can't make it look like we're against tax cuts unless we get to make it look like you are destroying jobs")

I guess I do get it, really

that being the case I guess I wouldn't be surprised if Obama retracts his veto threat and lets the bill go through as soon as he can receive guarantees that the pipeline project will be killed anyway

Boehner & McConnell must be aware of this, which would seem to indicate this is just a deeply cynical PR maneuver

HAI DERE

my mom, who voted for palin (decidedly not for mccain) in 08, just overheard me say i wasn't gonna vote for O in '12. response: GOOD! IT'S ABOUT TIME YOU WOKE UP!

my condolences

the ongoing agony of being multifacted in a binary world

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3645&utm_campaign=CBPPTwitter

Dem Ron Wyden teams up with Paul Ryan for Medicare plan. Why????

Wyden really likes to cut bipartisan deals. It is part of his modus operandi as a senator. Wyden also has built his career on good constituent service for the aged, so I expect that his staff's analysis of the proposal's effects differed from that provided in the linked article.

If you want a single issue to turn you against Obama, I don't know why you would pick the one that affects a small handful of individuals who in all likelihood are "combatants,"

sorry, i got off the Obama boat the second he started to seriously talk about "reforming" Social Security. everything since then has been noise, and i will only vote for Obama again in the increasingly unlikely scenario of Gingrich winning the GOP nomination (in which case it would really be a vote AGAINST Gingrich and yes if Romney or [God forbid} Ron Paul win i'm not voting for Obama again).

sorry, i got off the Obama boat the second he started to seriously talk about "reforming" Social Security.

lol don't even remember this. SS has been basically untouched in his presidency, this seems like weird thing to get het up about.

it was during the debt ceiling fiasco this summer.

and it isn't so weird a thing to get het up about if (like me) you see fighting for SS (and Medicare and Medicaid) to be quintessentially progressive issues.

well I think both programs are worth fighting for but a) neither party wants to fuck with either, and to-date neither has been able to and b) actual legislation/policy that Obama has implemented have been much worse