^^^
it’s all empty gestures. nobody’s going to attack Iran. (well, Israel might but I sort of doubt it)
If it’s Romney, I tend to agree with you—if it’s Newt, though, all bets are off.
Nope. Newt’s been Speaker of the House; he had access to intelligence. Don’t let his bombast fool you.
i know he is the first to say it, but newt gingrich really is a world-historical figure
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/gingrichs-unimpeachable-conservative-credential/
wrong thread i guess
Newt’s been Speaker of the House; he had access to intelligence.
And Michele Bachmann’s on the Intelligence Committee now. Having access to intelligence’s not the same as having intelligence.
Newt is smarter than Michele, come on now
low bar
Pat Buchanan:
With Newt appointing as America’s first diplomat an uber-hawk who makes Dick Cheney look like Gandhi, and Mitt Romney’s foreign policy team crawling with neocons primed for war with Iran, a vote for the GOP in 2012 looks more and more like a vote for war.
http://takimag.com/article/marco_rubio_vs_rand_paul/print#ixzz1g4c1zx3y
Pat prefers cultural warfare
An interesting tidbit in there too about Marco Rubio trying to fast-track Georgia into NATO.
yes that sage Pat Buchanan.
I wish I could share your serene confidence that all the ultra-hawkish campaign rhetoric is just rhetoric. Sometimes—not often, I know—politicians actually do what they say they are going to do. And nothing distracts Americans from a bad economy like a little old-fashioned armed combat.
well, yeah, look at the man in the Oval Office now.
I wish I could share your serene confidence that all the ultra-hawkish campaign rhetoric is just rhetoric
okay well two ridiculously improbably things have to happen for your fears to be warranted: 1) the GOP has to win the White House and 2) the GOP prez has to make the political calculation that a war within Iran really is a good idea and not just a great campaign promise.
well, yeah, look at the man in the Oval Office now.
well, Obama’s pretty much fulfilled all his campaign promises re: foreign policy
shorter pat buchanan: all of those virtuous young white soldiers need to be cranking out catholic babies at home, not doing the jews’ dirty work abroad
not that that sentence about the frontrunners’ foreign policy noises are wrong a priori...
the Bush presidency turned out worse than anyone expected, but something happened in 2001 which gave it ballast.
Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld were looking for an excuse to go after Saddam from day 1. The connection to 9–11 was tenuous at best. I imagine the neo-cons will be just as creative in their justifications this time around.
uh the neo-con wing of the GOP is mostly gone/discredited because of Iraq FYI
Look, we’re already firing drone rockets at American citizens abroad. Our foreign policy is already as bad as it can be.
Kristol’s praying for Rubio(?!), Frum’s basically disavowed the modern GOP, Cheney’s close to death, Dubya’s in hiding, Wolfowitz and Perle have disappeared afaict etc
xp
Our foreign policy is already as bad as it can be.
hmm I think perhaps you aren’t being imaginative enough here...
uh the neo-con wing of the GOP is mostly gone/discredited because of Iraq FYI
they moved on to posting under my name on ilx
Secretary of State John Bolton will smother the Iranian mullahs to death with his lethal mustache!
Our foreign policy is already as bad as it can be.
unwarranted optimism here
Kristol’s praying for Rubio(?!)
THE GOP’S ANSWER TO BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
Secretary of State John Bolton will smother the Iranian mullahs to death with his lethal mustache!
mustache rides of DEATH
Wolfowitz at least was last seen asking questions of the GOP field at the debate hosted by heritage and AEI. they’re not gone!
But how you believe something is as important as what you believe. It doesn’t matter if a person shares your overall philosophy. If that person doesn’t have the right temperament and character, stay away.
ugh, brooks trying to blow my mind in the last paragraph of his column today.
unwarranted optimism here
I’m pretty optimistic it will get worse.
how can it get worse if it’s already as bad as it can be
by the magic of it being Friday afternoon and need a cocktail.
Wolfowitz at least was last seen asking questions of the GOP field at the debate hosted by heritage and AEI
oh shit yr right! yeah that was a weird Q&A, so many hatable people coming out of the woodwork to ask questions/score points (didn’t Grover get one in?)
wait so cocktails are going to make something worse????
I think yr doing cocktails wrong
check, please!
yeah that was a weird Q&A
not as weird as the huckabee free publicity for GOP AGs debate.
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
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”
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
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
