All-Purpose NuILX thread for American Politics

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

EPA abolished

eh, don't know about that one. it's very difficult to abolish a federal agency, despite the easy way that politicians bring it up on the campaign trail. even if you're johnny "mc-no-no" McCain. MCCAIN!

The sight of Ricardo reminds me: the performers who would be invited to a McCain white house would be of a different calibur.

dead?

Or as near as can be.

OBAMA BIDEN 2012
for superlative whitehouse in-house entertainment

I can think of better slogans, but not any that are grounded in reality.

Having spent the last few years studying the Supreme Court in my capacity as a non-lawyer, I've realized that the hot air breathed by whole sides -- if X wins he'll change the Court! -- has little to do with history. Even if eight conservatives sat on the court they would start to fracture in weird, unpredictable ways. Look at FDR's court! He appointed more justices than any since Washington, and no one expected Frankfurter, Reed, and Jackson to become the "conservative" bloc.

so there's a senate deal on the payroll tax extension. a key concession is that the review process for the keystone xl tar sands pipeline will be dramatically sped up - 60 days, rather than the 12+ months that was the previous timeline. i'm sympathizing with shakey's comment (this thread? another thread? don't want to look, sorry) that this could be a good thing for opposers of the pipeline. after all, since there's no way the state department's re-review will be complete in 60 days (and i don't even know if that counts the time for the Inspector General of the State Dept. to complete the review of the corruption-riddled initial review), obama could legitimately refuse to grant the permit on the grounds that the information he needs to make the decision isn't yet available. beyond that, though, this might end up being a good thing for enviros because it moves the deadline for decision from 12+months - after an election, when the momentum from the tar sands action movement would have mostly dissipated - to 2 months from now, when the momentum will only build. in fact, just now all the tar sands people were sent a fist-pumping LET'S FUCKING DO THIS alert, and with a more short-term target of 2 months, i think it's likely we'll be able to raise an even greater fuss than a few weeks ago when we surrounded the white house 5 people deep.

anyway, tl;dr but it's going to be fascinating to see how this plays out.

oh yeah, another key concession for the local DC area:

The bill would prohibit the District of Columbia from using federal or local tax money to pay for abortions for low-income women under Medicaid.

federal OR local tax money. WTF

No local taxes, because D.C. is actually administered by Congress, despite having a mayor and local police force, so they can make laws specific to D.C. if they're feeling pissy.

Having spent the last few years studying the Supreme Court in my capacity as a non-lawyer, I've realized that the hot air breathed by whole sides -- if X wins he'll change the Court! -- has little to do with history. Even if eight conservatives sat on the court they would start to fracture in weird, unpredictable ways. Look at FDR's court! He appointed more justices than any since Washington, and no one expected Frankfurter, Reed, and Jackson to become the "conservative" bloc.

you don't think things have fundamentally changed since then tho? in how we nominate people, in how they're vetted, in what kinds of judges can even make it?

He's an historian!

Having spent the last few years studying the Supreme Court in my capacity as a non-lawyer

Well then.

okay...I'm gonna switch sides just so I don't have to agree w/ gabnebb

you don't think things have fundamentally changed since then tho? in how we nominate people, in how they're vetted, in what kinds of judges can even make it?

Maybe before John Paul Stevens and David Souter die they can tell us how they "disappointed" their supporters (Ford wasn't though).

my point being that things have changed not just since fdr but since stevens and souter even

partly due to them

aw is it really you gabs?

Of course it's changed since FDR's time. It would be impossible for a sitting senator like Hugo Black to join the court; but I insist that no matter how closely nominees are examined they're not machines. It doesn't happen immediately; it may take several years.

you really think there's some chance alito or roberts are not solid conservatives 20 years from now?

Roberts and Alito are not the same kind of conservatives as, say, Thomas, or the Most Important Man in America.

But to answer your question more directly: I'm sure they'll be conservatives of a kind in twenty years, but who the fuck knows what conservatism looks like in twenty years, let alone what kind of country gabbneb or melting ice caps give us.

right but we're talking about a swing to the degree that the republican party would feel regret w/r/t that nomination. whereas I'm gonna say "I'm guessing they're gonna stay pretty content w/ those nominations"

...the Most Self-Important Man in America

fixed

this could be a good thing for opposers of the pipeline. after all, since there's no way the state department's re-review will be complete in 60 days (and i don't even know if that counts the time for the Inspector General of the State Dept. to complete the review of the corruption-riddled initial review), obama could legitimately refuse to grant the permit on the grounds that the information he needs to make the decision isn't yet available

I think it may be more about politics than policy for the other side. They want to point to something to suggest that Obama is standing in the way of job creation.

aw is it really you gabs?

Belay on.

lol tbh i don't get why some itt are so eager to distance themselves from gabbnebism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr_OL-vu-po

"Symmetry"

let's keep conservatives off the Supremes by reelecting the guy who just codified unlimited detention.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3057/2873125085_239aa74ba2.jpg

just in case C Dexter is gabbneb I'm quitting this sandbox thread.

Pundneb

http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/why-a-democracy-needs-uninformed-people-38398/

In experiments where a minority of fish was trained to swim toward a yellow target, and a majority toward a blue target, the minority swayed the whole group more than 80 percent of the time. Then the researchers added "uninformed" fish to the mix, and a curious thing happened. "Adding those individuals dramatically changes the outcome of group decision-making," [study author Iain Couzin] said. "They inhibit the minority and support the majority view, and this allows the majority to be heard and that view to dominate." ... "We thought, ‘Wow, that’s kind of interesting,'" Couzin said, "because you don’t normally think that adding uninformed individuals to decision-making processes would have that sort of democratizing effect."

Even if eight conservatives sat on the court they would start to fracture in weird, unpredictable ways. Look at FDR's court! He appointed more justices than any since Washington, and no one expected Frankfurter, Reed, and Jackson to become the "conservative" bloc.

― Lord Sotosyn, Friday, December 16, 2011 7:43 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Permalink

We seem to be on quite the streak of Presidents getting exactly what they expect out of their nominees, however. Perhaps times have changed?

It seems like Souter changed the game.

just in case C Dexter is gabbneb I'm quitting this sandbox thread.

― Dr Morbius, Saturday, December 17, 2011 7:25 AM (13 hours ago) Bookmark Permalink

I call 3 days.

i think Poppa Bush knew exactly what he was getting in Souter ... an old-school New England Republican (like himself, really). the only people who were unpleasantly surprised about him were the early 1990s-style Teabaggers.

Yeah, maybe. I guess I should say that since Souter the political parties have gotten what they wanted.

I don't think anyone was "surprised" about him, because no one really knew what to expect in the first place.

Boehner is such a shitty Speaker

can't count votes/control his caucus etc

We seem to be on quite the streak of Presidents getting exactly what they expect out of their nominees, however. Perhaps times have changed?

This often takes years to show itself, if it does at all.

it took what, 3 years to find out Souter would support Roe? I think we can conclude that Roberts and Alito are what we expected them to be.

lol: espn analyst craig james leaving the sports desk to run for congress as a republican.

Meanwhile Obama be havin' fun with drone rockets:

Many administration lawyers strongly disapprove of opinions written under President George W. Bush that justified detainee interrogation methods now widely regarded as torture. But they worry that Obama’s 2009 decision to make them public has set a precedent for the release of normally classified opinions.

The Defense Department’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which has carried out strikes in Yemen and Somalia, refuses to discuss drones or any other aspect of its secret counterterrorism operations.

Senior administration officials say they deserve to be trusted on drones, in part because Obama kept his pledge to do away with the CIA’s secret prisons and the use of harsh interrogation techniques.

House GOP to vote to raise taxes! ALLRIGHT!

just like in Braveheart!

They haven't voted yet but...

At the raucous, two-hour closed-door meeting, House Republicans compared themselves to the underdog, principled Scots in the movie “Braveheart” and, over takeout chicken sandwiches, promised to knock down the Senate bill.

We seem to be on quite the streak of Presidents getting exactly what they expect out of their nominees, however. Perhaps times have changed?

This often takes years to show itself, if it does at all.

― Lord Sotosyn, Monday, December 19, 2011

I think since Souter you have and will continue to see justices doing exactly what the Presidents who nominated them wanted.

Ok, now the House Republicans have voted down the 2 month payroll tax extension. Will they succeed in getting even more things added to a year long bill via Dems caving or will Dems actually stay strong(although they have already dropped the millionaires surcharge tax and agreed to the quicker pipeline decision)

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_12/gop_scuttles_bipartisan_deal_o034225.php