All-Purpose NuILX thread for American Politics

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

(in which case it would really be a vote AGAINST Gingrich

i guess the only reason why this seems unusual - voting as voting against, isn't there a lincoln quote about that? - is that it did kinda seem like you could be voting for the right guy last time

Obama is def preferable to McCain come on now

McCain is senile AND bonkers

what would be different?

we would MAYBE be at war with russia tbf

would've bombed Iran by now

Libya would have been an even bigger clusterfuck

don't ask/don't tell still in place

social security/medicare/medicaid totally gutted

7-3 majority of conservative assholes on the supreme court

no stimulus, no ARRA funding = even higher unemployment

probably would've fucked up the handling of the BP oil spill in the gulf somehow

EPA abolished

Bush tax cuts made permanent

Policy driven by intermittent rage.

war in Iraq still going on, probably even heavier presence in Afghanistan

Bin Laden still alive/Al Qaeda still functional

People everywhere prefacing everything they say with, "My friend..."

Sarah Palin in national office

osama bin laden somehow a member of GOP administration

We would never have really gotten to know Herman Cain.

planes do a 180 after take off & before landing, fly upside down in sky, you spend the whole flight only held in your seat by the seatbelt, can't go to bathroom, no peanuts &c

haha, questions not to ask liberals Part 567

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_V5SReiHuxbs/THLBcj7hmhI/AAAAAAAADgc/bSUQupA5MeI/s1600/4+fanta.jpg