US POLITICS: underrated supreme court decisions that i have read

http://thetyrannyofevilmen.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/the-day-after-tomorrow-poster-2.jpg

would like to commend J0rdan for an outstanding politics thread title

would like to preemptively disagree with iatee about how awesome the president is

I just think it's a weird coincidence that you've hated every black president we've ever had, that's all

lol

me & k3vin & iatee just disagreein baout stuff

I'm off work in about five minutes so you better explain how kagan is god quick iats

I want to know the thread starter's answer before I venture any of my own. That's only fair, right?

oops...was away in a failed attempt to sleep.

so I guess for me what it comes down to is:

a. I'm willing to believe obama knows his shit when it comes to the SC and is not just acting on poor advice (as may be the case w/ say, lots of economic stuff)
b. I'm willing to believe that at his core he's a moderate-left dude w/ our country's best interests in mind.
c. I'm willing to believe that he knows a lot more about woods and kagan than we do.
d. while this may be a political decision on some level - that's to say ease of confirmation plays *some* role - I still really can't believe that he didn't go w/ the person who he honestly believed was better for the job. his criteria might have been different than yours.

so yeah I guess at the end of the day it comes down to me looking at the 'I got this' obama gif one too many times or something.

haha 'woods'

gnite

yeah in that ny times magazine story on the obama staffers in their 20s, it mentioned how obama had distributed copies of the new Woods album after it leaked onto what.cd

wonder if he would have gone for wood if he still had a 60 seat majority in the senate.

shame he couldn't go for wood last year and sotomayor this year.

Obama is our Harvard Law Review President, Kagan a Harvard Law Review choice. I was CR-CL, so screw 'em.

she's already said there's no “there is no federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage” so there goes any chance of the court legislating same-sex marriage when perry v schwarzenegger hits next year. ugh.

is a separate Kagan thread easier to manage?

I'm willing to believe

Words one should never use about any president.

lol

a. I'm willing to believe obama knows his shit when it comes to the SC and is not just acting on poor advice (as may be the case w/ say, lots of economic stuff)
b. I'm willing to believe that at his core he's a moderate-left dude w/ our country's best interests in mind.
c. I'm willing to believe that he knows a lot more about woods and kagan than we do.
d. while this may be a political decision on some level - that's to say ease of confirmation plays *some* role - I still really can't believe that he didn't go w/ the person who he honestly believed was better for the job. his criteria might have been different than yours.

so yeah I guess at the end of the day it comes down to me looking at the 'I got this' obama gif one too many times or something.

― iatee, Monday, May 10, 2010 2:10 AM (7 hours ago)

yeah man again what does "best for the job" mean? you don't seem to care

anyway this is on the news now, statement expected any moment

lol new thread :/

yup

Huge list of republicans (mostly Dick Cheney) saying "Luck has nothing to do with it." re: Bush's record of stopping attacks.

http://www.slate.com/id/2253480/?from=rss

Meanwhile, pobrecita:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/05/young-republican-fed-chair-resigns/56463/

very respectful

wait

is that, like the actual verbatim text of the letter?

because... holy shit, she's crazy

yeah srsly what is going on there

Meanwhile, in stuff that actually matters right now -- Obama & Holder go ballsless on Miranda rights:

http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2010/05/10/miran-duhhhhh/

aw they fixed it

I should have copied what was originally up there

ha it's just been corrected. a couple minutes ago it had "Respectfully Audra Shay" like six times

xps

meat of the Taibbi column:

The reason I really respect the Ron Paul people is that they’re consistent on all of these things. If they don’t want the government telling you you can’t buy a gun, they also don’t want the federal government telling you not to smoke weed or patronize a prostitute. Paul understands that you can’t make appeals on general principle unless you actually believe in that principle across the board....

The point is that this gesture by Eric Holder to drop to his knees and pray at the altar of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Sarah Palin is one of those things that both sides are going to end up seriously regretting.

For the Democrats, it will surely end up being one of the darker moments of the Obama presidency — not because it’s necessarily so terribly meaningful (at least compared to ending Too-Big-to-Fail), but because it represents a new low on the utter-lack-of-balls front. The only reason we’re even talking about this Miranda issue is because a bunch of morons on talk radio made a big fuss about it, and if our president is going to go sticking his thumbs into the constitution every time he can’t take a few days of getting reamed by a bunch of overpaid media shills whose job it is to hate him no matter what he does, then we’re all in a lot of trouble.

The reason I really respect the Ron Paul people

Good night.

yr mind is open, I can feel the draft from here.

I shouldn't say anything more, Matt'll hunt me down and fling coffee all over me and it will sting.

morbs not sure why you included the part about ron paul since it really has nothing to do w/ the issue at hand

also, ask the ron paul people about abortion sometime

^ this!

although they'd say they don't want the *federal* gov't to say you can't have one so to them it's consistent enough

Being principled doesn't actually matter if the principles you stick to are horrible.

About the only thing this reveals is that most people will backtrack, which is a real big fucking shock to me as I approach 40. Oh, actually it isn't.

yeah spencer ackerman took the same tack over the weekend

http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2010/05/09/eric-holders-lunch-money/

i don't really buy it. i don't think they're afraid of right wingers, i think holder/obama just genuinely think miranda needs more holes in it for national security stuff. the fear of the right is giving them too much credit, frankly.

yeah at a certain point, given the administration has fucked up about everything it's done, it's time to stop making excuses and realize we're in for a lot of centrist policy

given the administration has fucked up about everything it's done

what, like blowing up an oil rig?

it's time to stop making excuses and realize we're in for a lot of centrist policy

what are your excuses for not expecting this the day he was elected?

a lot of centrist policy

Would be happier if O tried harder to move the center away from the rightward-shift it's been stuck on since Ike was prez and Stalin was the big enemy, tbh.

his own promises?

jesus i feel like i'm threading the narrowest needle here.

xp

obama's first year has been a record of immense policy successes that only look bad held against more solidly left-liberal proposals that were DOA given the infuriating legislative situation we have. and then there is a whole other class of outright betrayals in keeping a lot of the bush legal architecture in place w/r/t exec power, transparency, and the war on terror

given the administration has fucked up about everything it's done

don't think this is even remotely true, sorry. withdrawing from Iraq = great. Stimulus bill/ARRA = great. HCR = okay, better than nothing. Bail-outs = eh, okay whatever (this country being owned/run by an oligarchy not a big surprise to me). SC noms = pretty good. Banning torture/closing Gitmo = pretty good, gettin there.

it's time to stop making excuses and realize we're in for a lot of centrist policy

this is always what we were in for, sorry you deluded yrself

goole OTM

given the administration has fucked up about everything it's done

http://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/suspect5es.gif

kev when you're 25 and still in school and you get into a car accident and have to go to the hospital and it gets covered by your mom's medical insurance, you might be able to look back and say "maybe they didn't fuck up... EVERYTHING"

'centrism' = mostly Bushism with nice talk

Being principled doesn't actually matter if the principles you stick to are horrible.

Don't start bringing morality into POLITICS.

Cicero, ladies and gentlemen.

xp wait, you're the one who posted the bit about ron paul supporters

oh yeah i forgot we withdrew from iraq

jord yeah that on parents insurance til 26 is pretty great in all honesty, at least for people who have insurance

kev when you're 25 and still in school and you get into a car accident and have to go to the hospital and it gets covered by your mom's medical insurance, you might be able to look back and say "maybe they didn't fuck up... EVERYTHING"

― J0rdan S

death panel will take care of this unbeliever

crazy meme of the moment -- obama doesn't give a shit about nashville, proof he hates white people, media complicit

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2010/05/even_if_you_don.php

See I was actually wondering when the hell that would start up!

John Roberts in his younger, more vulnerable years:

http://underneaththeirrobes.blogs.com/photos/uncategorized/roberts_scherer_lazarus.jpg

and then there is a whole other class of outright betrayals in keeping a lot of the bush legal architecture in place w/r/t exec power, transparency, and the war on terror

these aren't "centrist" btw - they are right wing - you can argue that the stuff he does that democrats-and-further-left ppl are disappointed by are "centrist," but on these questions, one prays nightly to the unlistening void that obama will move far enough left to be called "centrist"

would give younger john roberts a discount rate btw

I don't necessarily think the expansion of executive power, transparency, and prosecuting a war are "right" or "left" issues.

on the latter two ok, on expansion of the executive it's an implied part of the gop platform since nixon imo

...thanks to the presidencies of Wilson, FDR, Truman, and LBJ, aided and abetted by the rulings of Supreme Court justices.

yeah all right yr right, I want the republican ones to be worse than the democrat ones, you'd think I'd know better but I'm a santa-belivin' kid

lol, remember that fracas over the cross in the national park?

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/05/11/mojave.cross.stolen/index.html?hpt=T1

A war memorial shaped like a cross

what is the fucking point of this phrase

I'm going to start referring to it as a cross shaped like a war memorial.

lol

haha this is awesome

I don't necessarily think the expansion of executive power, transparency, and prosecuting a war are "right" or "left" issues

I think prosecuting these two phony wars that have zero chance of achieving their publicly stated aims are imperialist bullshit, however else you want to chalk-mark them. The other shit is rank authoritarianism.

An empire always needs a strong executive branch. There's currently damn little public support for giving up the empire, so our authoritarian executive grows apace, with very little friction to slow it down.

Jan Brewer sucks ass, yet again

Here's a new topic: Arizona Gov. Brewer has decided that ethnic studies [read: Mexican-American, Native American, and African-American] cultural literacy courses offered in Tucson promote resentment, and oppress the minority whites in the city. United Nations rights experts respond

yikes that article could use some editing but jan brewer u r a bad person

RIP Arizona GOP in a few years

^ yeah no shit. wtf are these guys thinking

Overheard on the Capitol Hill tram by a Fox News producer:

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER (D., PA.): "You better watch out Orrin, [former Club for Growth president and Specter challenger Pat] Toomey's coming to get you next."

SEN. ORRIN HATCH (R., UTAH): "What's that?"

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER (D., PA.): "The Club for Growth, they're coming for you just like they came for me."

SEN. ORRIN HATCH (R., UTAH): "Man, they really savaged Bob [Bennett (R., Utah)]. They're coming for Republicans."

America is a vast and terrifying place

"US POLITICS: America is a vast and terrifying place"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100512/ap_on_bi_ge/us_climate_bill

any thoughts on this bill? it is far from perfect but please please please pass this fucking thing

If it is very far from perfect, but at least it gets the ball rolling and could be improved later. I'm not optimistic about the chances of it passing, especially by mid-term elections. The anti-science disinformation campaign has already been in overdrive for years, and my stomach turns at the idea of the kind of bullshit that's going to pop up in the coming months. If it's going to have any chance at all, Obama is going to have to really, REALLY throw his weight behind it. Like, national television addresses, barnstorming, etc.

I'm not sure people really understand the extent to which we're totally fucked if this thing doesn't pass soon. Even if it passed today, the bill doesn't really kick in until the capping of the utility sector in 2013, with heavy industry entering the picture in 2016. Given how close we may be to activating irreversible climate feedback loops, that's a timeline I'm not comfortable with at all. And that's if everything goes right and it passes this year without being substantially weakened (even MORE weakened, I should say, because the Senate bill has already been castrated before it was even released today in an effort to gain some GOP support. But that's the reality of the Senate).

Kerry gave a pretty good explanation of his strategy in crafting the bill today at Grist.

And here's what I can tell you: A comprehensive climate bill written purely for you and me -- true believers -- can't pass the Senate no matter how hard or passionately I fight on it. No, it's got to be an effort that makes my colleagues -- and that has to include Republicans so we can get to 60 -- comfortable about the jobs we're going to create and the protection for consumers and the national security benefits -- and it has to address those pieces on their terms. The good news: I think we got that balance right.

has anyone posted the new mccain ad yet?? arguably one of the most laughable ads ever?

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/05/12/complete-the-danged.html

the fact that that ad is completely retarded doesn't rule out the possibility of it working w/ the base

yeah i'm saying that i think it's so transparently false-hearted and pandering that it oculd actually have a negative outcome for him

if this is the same GOP that was on the john kerry flip flopper bandwagon anyhow

what other choice does he have tho? it's *the* issue for the arizona GOP.

yeah i know

"you're one of us" -_-

x-post Am I wrong that the retarded Arizona immigration bill actually got a surprisingly good deal of local Latino support? Admittedly, by surprising I mean more than 0% - was it 12%? - but that may still mean maybe the GOP down there isn't doomed after all.

I think there's a certain segment of "I'm here already, sux to be u" types among Arizona Latinos.

I'm sure they'll be crowing that when they're carded for jaywalking.

very far from perfect, but at least it gets the ball rolling and could be improved later.
very far from perfect, but at least it gets the ball rolling and could be improved later.
very far from perfect, but at least it gets the ball rolling and could be improved later.

Use Your Illusion

Just curious about what your gameplan is if nothing gets passed this year. When would the next opportunity pop up to pass a good climate bill, and how that timing jive with what climate scientists tell us about global warming?

I guess we could wait until the Southwest is a dust bowl in 2045 and pass an outstanding bill

http://i42.tinypic.com/2im1469.jpg

"this new bill kicks ASS, so glad we rejected that one in 2010!"

There is no gameplan. This bill will do shit, is all. We have about 60 years to get off the planet.

WHERE WILL WE GO?

no air on the moon. there are scary aliens on mars. pluto seems cold.

There is no gameplan. This bill will do shit, is all. We have about 60 years to get off the planet.

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Thursday, May 13, 2010 3:26 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

In the meantime, there are great Perrin tweets.

You can argue about the mechanism (cap and trade), the details of the market (price collar, floor at $12, ceiling at $25 to start), the relatively low targets (17% below 2005 by 2020 is much too weak because we're already at 10% below 2005 levels due to the recession) the offsets, the giveaways to nuclear and the coal industry, and on and on, and there are plenty of things to criticize. But the fact is that this bill would finally establish a price signal for carbon. At the very bottom of all the whole fossil fuel debacle is the simple fact that the many negative impacts of fossil fuels are not reflected in the price. We've been getting a crazy distorted price on coal and oil since the Industrial Revolution. Putting a price on carbon is a fundamental measure to address that problem, and will provide a huge boost to clean energy.

The fact is, there is no plan B. If this doesn't pass, we're totally fucked. I don't know what else to tell people. You can attack the bill for not being strong enough, but even in it's weakened state it's not good enough for 99% of the GOP. So go shit in Inhofe's lawn

Altair IV

xxp

hm. this. planet. seems. promising.

http://photos.bravenet.com/272/478/925/3/C930A2884D.jpg

You can argue about the mechanism (cap and trade), the details of the market (price collar, floor at $12, ceiling at $25 to start), the relatively low targets (17% below 2005 by 2020 is much too weak because we're already at 10% below 2005 levels due to the recession) the offsets, the giveaways to nuclear and the coal industry, and on and on, and there are plenty of things to criticize. But the fact is that this bill would finally establish a price signal for carbon. At the very bottom of all the whole fossil fuel debacle is the simple fact that the many negative impacts of fossil fuels are not reflected in the price. We've been getting a crazy distorted price on coal and oil since the Industrial Revolution. Putting a price on carbon is a fundamental measure to address that problem, and will provide a huge boost to clean energy.

something i read recently about cap-and-trade (verses pollution taxes) is that it shift uncertainty to the polluter. in a pollution tax, the polluter knows how much it costs to pollute, but the gov't doesn't know how much pollution there will be (it's up to the private-sector actors to determine how much tax they're willing to pay). in a cap-and-trade model, the gov't know how much pollution will be tolerated, and it's the private-sector actors who don't know how the pollution warrants will be bartered and sold. anyway, not sure that addresses anything in your post directly, ZS, but your comments made me think of this article (by paul krugman, iirc).

DAVID BROWN IS ON ALTAIR IV

That's a great point, and it applies to one form of cap and trade, but not so much the version in this bill.

You're absolutely right to talk in terms of uncertainty of GHG emissions and allowance prices. With a carbon tax, as you mentioned, the price is certain but the effect on the environment is not. The idea is that if it is determined that not enough GHG emissions are being eliminated, then obviously raise the carbon tax. The counter-arguments to that argument are 1) from an environmentalist perspective, we don't have time to fuck up the price and make adjustments. We need certainty about reduced emissions, and 2) from a business perspective, the benefits of having a "certain" price on carbon are reduced if it turns out that price will be increased substantially later.

With cap-and-trade with only a floor price, which is the kind of cap-and-trade that most people have been talking about over the past couple decades, it's the opposite. Since you set a cap on GHG emissions and let the price fluctuate based off of that, the environmental benefit, in theory, is certain, while the price is uncertain. What is different with the current bill is that it uses a "price collar" (or "safety valve") mechanism, establishing both a price floor and a ceiling. The ceiling helps mitigate the uncertainty, and there's a "strategic reserve" of extra allowances that would be triggered if the price reaches the ceiling.

ZS just out of curiosity, say this bill is passed as-is & quickly implemented. how much time are you saying this buys us?

xpost
which, to finish the drunken thought, would help to reduce the uncertainty in price and, theoretically, satisfy almost everyone who is open to the idea of cap-and-trade.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIodlYafwcw&feature=related

xpost

Well, a few things about the impact of this bill if it's passed.

The first is that since it's a global problem, everyone has to get on board with reducing and eventually almost eliminating GHG emissions. The good news is that most of the world is ready to act and has been begging the U.S. to dig its head out of the sand on the issue. Not that it would be anything close to easy to come up with a sufficient global climate pact and enforce it, but until Congress acts it will be near-impossible. I mention all of this just to say that passing a meaningful climate bill in the U.S. is by no means sufficient by itself, but rather a vital prerequisite step towards global action that should have been taken forever ago.

The second thing is that I wouldn't look at climate legislation as "buying time" as much as decreasing the chances of the dreaded worst-case scenario. (skip this if you're not into bad news) Unfortunately there's a good chance that the GHGs that we've already emitted are already enough to push us over one or more climate tipping points. Repeating myself from the end of the USA thread, there's a roughly 30-year delay between the initial release of GHGs and their being absorbed into the atmosphere or ocean. That means that even if we somehow cut off all GHG emissions tonight, we would still continue to see increases in GHG atmospheric concentrations for another 30 years. If we trigger a tipping point feedback loop, like, say, the release of tons of methane due to the melting of permafrost, there's a chance that it won't matter WHAT we do after that - the process will be set in motion. James Hansen, the climate scientist famous for being the foremost person to bring climate change to the attention of the world/testifying prominently on global warming for Congress in 1988/publishing research arguing that 350 ppm is highest GHG concentration that is reasonably safe (we're at around 388 right now)/heading the Goddard Institute at NASA/leading anti-coal plant demonstrations, believes that we are already past the tipping point. He's worth paying attention to because he has been proven correct over and over in his assertions in the past.

Which isn't to say that acting now is meaningless, far from it. It means that acting 20 years ago would've been nice, 10 years ago would've been a good move, and acting today long, long overdue, but much better than doing nothing. It may be too late to avoid some bad consequences of our use of fossil fuels, but we can still do a world of good and avoid some awful scenarios if we take meaningful steps right now.

assuming the worst, are we just going to build giant levees around the major cities and let the other ones drown?

I presume Halliburton will build them.

Someone just needs to figure out a way to make purifying air & water an extremely profitable pursuit. It's our only hope.

I don't think "we're getting near the irreversible point" at all, I think all this is y2k-level paranoia and helps the oil industry just as much as the doomsday industry. Continuing on the fossil fuels trend, more people will get cancer and more birth defects, etc., but the world is adaptable. Humans aren't.

The good news (for the earth) is that if we do nothing, those living in the US will just be left behind in the 20th century while the rest of the world goes ahead into a green 21st century.

Most of Europe has woken up in regards to turning around their energy policies. As long as there is a strong pro-capitalist/anti-socialist philosophy driving American gov't & business, I don't see it happening for the US. It takes a desire to want to care for your common man, something that is more often than not discouraged these days, sadly.

same planet, same air. And China is inclined to do even more of nothing than we are.

Rand Paul, ladies and gentlemen:

http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2010/05/12/PH2010051204164.jpg

I saw that photo on the cover of the Washington Post which had the caption that he was coming from his son's soccer game to appear on a local Fox News show.

Possibly soon to be Senator R. Paul, pushing his Dad's libertarian ideas and his own clothing style. Oh boy.

how hard is it to find a pair of pants?

okay ppl, of all the things to get mad/dismissive about

^^^ secret ron paul follower

Makes me think of the college senior photos where the graduation gown doesn't even reach the belt.

let he who is presently not without pants cast the first stone

hot damn my big moment

The Pantsless Irishman.

you guys are reading the negatives wrong I think

I mean how do you come up with 'irishman' as opposed to 'paddy', crimes against alliteration/headline tropes imo

looool

Hahaha

laugh it up, but that's the type of sloppiness that costs lives at this level

I don't think "we're getting near the irreversible point" at all, I think all this is y2k-level paranoia and helps the oil industry just as much as the doomsday industry.

Noted doomsday industrialists Hansen, et al., in "Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?", 2008:

Present policies, with continued construction of coal-fired power plants
without CO2 capture,
suggest that decision-makers do not appreciate the gravity of the
situation. We must begin to
move now toward the era beyond fossil fuels. Continued growth of
greenhouse gas emissions,
for just another decade, practically eliminates the possibility
of near-term return of atmospheric
composition beneath the tipping level for catastrophic effects.

Dammit, that took me like 45 minutes to put together on iPhone and I STILL screwed up!

z s coming correct on this thread

http://www.wivb.com/dpp/mobile/President-Obama-visits-Duffs

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) - President Obama visited Duff's Famous Wings, in Cheektowaga.

The president ordered ten wings medium, five regular and five extra crispy, french fries and onion rings.

Louann Haley of Chaffee greeted Obama with the words: "You're a hotttie, with a smokin' little body."

Obama's response, he hugged her.

About 100 people were at Duff's when the president arrived, and he greeted the surprised patrons with handshakes and hugs.

hotttie

this seems like a stupid thing to have dropped from the Senate bill imho

Kerry and Lieberman Proposal Scales Back Energy Efficiency Provisions, Raising Costs to Consumers

Washington, D.C. (May 12, 2010): The compromise Kerry-Lieberman proposal released today misses out on a key opportunity to address the cost of curbing climate change by including little on energy efficiency - the first, best, and least-cost carbon-reduction opportunity. The Kerry-Lieberman proposal does much less for energy efficiency than previous major climate change bills. Relative to the climate bills passed by the House and reported out by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, two major energy efficiency provisions have been dramatically reduced. These are provisions that provide emissions allowances to fund a variety of state energy efficiency programs and a requirement that gas utilities use a portion of their free emissions allowances to operate energy efficiency programs. On state programs, Kerry and Lieberman provide less than a quarter of the allowances provided in the House-passed energy and climate bill. On natural gas programs, Kerry and Lieberman have reduced the minimum share of allowances to energy efficiency from one-third to one-fifth. On the other hand, the Kerry-Lieberman proposal does include several useful transportation provisions and also a small short-term program for industrial efficiency.

"Our analysis of the House-passed climate bill found that consumer bill savings from energy efficiency offset the costs to consumers of greenhouse gas emissions limits, making the overall package affordable to consumers," stated Steven Nadel, Executive Director for the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). "The Kerry-Lieberman proposal will result in only limited energy savings, and without these savings, costs to consumers will be higher."

In addition to concerns about cuts to energy efficiency provisions, ACEEE also noted that by providing rebates to consumers through their energy bills, the Kerry-Lieberman proposal would also reduce the incentive for consumers to conserve energy on their own. "For the market for energy efficiency to work, consumers need to see the costs of inefficiency on their energy bills. While we support consumer rebates to offset costs, these rebates should be provided in other ways, rather than directly on energy bills," noted Nadel.

In remarks leading up to today's introduction, Senators Kerry and Lieberman have acknowledged the positive role energy efficiency can play, and have referred to the energy efficiency provisions in an energy bill reported out by the Senate Energy Committee. However, according to a previous analysis
by ACEEE, the majority of energy savings in the Senate Energy Committee bill requires funding that was expected to come from a climate bill, but such funding is missing from the Kerry-Lieberman bill.

"The bill does take important steps towards lowering transportation-sector emissions by requiring national goals for transportation reductions, as well as state and metro area targets. More federal dollars are available to help reach those targets than in previous bills, though acceptable uses for those funds could be better defined. In addition, the bill offers substantial assistance to auto manufacturers and suppliers for clean vehicle production, including plug-ins; unfortunately, vehicle efficiency performance requirements for this program are quite weak," stated ACEEE Transportation Program Director Therese Langer.

The previous ACEEE analysis on the House-passed energy and climate bill concluded that the energy efficiency provisions in the bill would save the average American household about $200 annually by 2020. These consumer savings would exceed the non-efficiency costs per household of the legislation, which the Congressional Budget Office estimated to be $175 in 2020. ACEEE also estimated the energy savings of the energy bill reported out by the Senate Energy Committee and found that this bill would save less than half the energy of the House-passed bill. Of the savings in the Senate Energy Committee bill, more than 60% of the savings are dependent on Congress providing funding for the provisions. Without this funding, savings from the Senate Energy Committee bill will be about one-quarter of the savings from the House-passed bill.

"We support the intent and efforts of Senators Kerry and Lieberman. However, in order to enact their proposal, they will need to make the case that it will not have adverse effects on consumers. Unfortunately, by gutting the energy efficiency provisions in their bill, they have created a huge impediment to make this case. They have pulled the plug on the most effective carbon-reduction strategy," concluded Nadel. "We urge the Senate to build upon the meager energy efficiency provisions in the Kerry-Lieberman bill in order to reduce the costs to consumers of addressing climate change."
• ACEEE's analysis of ACES: http://www.aceee.org/energy/national/houseenergyandclimate.htm
• ACEEE's analysis of ACELA (does not include amendment from 05/06/10): http://www.aceee.org/energy/national/senateenergy.htm

all sorts of things have been stupidly dropped from it

no reason to talk about it then i suppose

let's all just kill ourselves now

but seriously the reason I bring it up is because I'm not sure WHY it was dropped - energy efficiency is one of the most low-cost ways available to make this transition away from fossil fuels go smoothly

Yeah, I agree. It makes no sense, practically or politically. Only the most head-in-the-sand contrarians oppose energy efficiency. Weird.

like, who's opposed to it? what special interest group lobbied against that provision?

Energy efficiency creates economic winners and losers in the private sector. Obviously, the losers had more political muscle and headed it off before it could affect their profits. Never mind that it would be better for the country as a whole to promote efficiency.

shakey, energy efficiency is socialist codespeak - I'd guess whichever lobbyist got somebody to say "either this gets dropped or no vote from me" was just a sort of oppose-everything type

These are provisions that provide emissions allowances to fund a variety of state energy efficiency programs and a requirement that gas utilities use a portion of their free emissions allowances to operate energy efficiency programs.

let me guess, the utilities didn't like it?

Pacific Gas & Electric, the largest utility in the country, LOVES energy efficiency. It's their bread and butter. Because of the way the market is regulated, the less energy they sell, the more money they make.

for example, if you can keep energy demand and consumption flat, you don't have to invest billions of dollars in new plants. (there are lots of other mechanisms in play too, this is just an obvious one)

Yep. The fundamental barrier to energy efficiency iniatives is that utilities have an incentive to sell customers MORE electricity, not less. Pass legislation that flips the incentives so that utilities have a financial incentive to save customers energy, like California, and the potential of energy efficiency can actually be realized.

I'm not sure people realize how much could be accomplished by two steps: put a price on carbon that even comes close to reflecting its actual environmental impact and give utilities the incentive to save energy.

from SciAm: Not So Conservative When It Comes to Saving Energy

Costa and Kahn merged utility data from 80,000 homes with corresponding voter registration and donation records. The economists found that a Democratic household with green bona fides -- paying for electricity from renewable sources, donating to environmental groups and living in a neighborhood of fellow liberals -- will reduce its consumption by 3 percent in response to feedback.

Meanwhile, a Republican household that doesn't adhere to environmental behaviors will actually increase its consumption by 1 percent. The households that received home energy reports reduced their consumption by about 2 percent overall, but the Republican subset of this group reduced their energy use by 0.4 percent...

fucking Alaska

just secede already

http://twitter.com/SenBillNelson/status/13929631387

Murkowski is an abomination. Nothing she does surprises me anymore.

BP averaged $93 billion a DAY in profits during the first quarter of this year btw.

Million, not billion

BP makes 3729 trillion every 8.7 seconds btw

They posted £9bn (?) in profits one day before this all kicked off.

Democratic Party backs anti-choice stupak succssor, rip connie saltonstall

http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet/2010/05/13/saltonstall/index.html

Having grown up and lived a large part of my life in Stupak's district, the idea that a pro-choice woman - much less who makes abortion rights a major part of her campaign - would win an election there is total lunacy. She might as well have talked shit about hunting and snowmobiling.

Wow, Nancy.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703950804575242751142413016.html#mod=todays_us_nonsub_page_one

so irritated by the nat'l party on the saltonstall stuff

As opposed to the regional party?

Confused as to why the DNC/DSCC would stick up for Specter vs. Sestak. It looks like Joe is the better candidate anyway, and he's not a frail 80 year old who is barely a Democrat.

Perhaps they're worried about Specter as a 3rd party candidate?

As opposed to the regional party?

there's local democrats here &, on the word of a friend, in Atlanta, doing good stuff & fighting the good fight - for better public transportation, against local councils trying to limit abortion access, etc. the national party is the one who's backing the shitty anti-choice democrat on practicality grounds, so yeah - it's the national party I wish the most ill.

Confused as to why the DNC/DSCC would stick up for Specter vs. Sestak. It looks like Joe is the better candidate anyway, and he's not a frail 80 year old who is barely a Democrat.

Perhaps they're worried about Specter as a 3rd party candidate?

― Matt Armstrong, Friday, May 14, 2010 8:59 AM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

im sure they made a deal w/ specter before he crossed the aisle

x-post But its the Michigan Dem leadership that is not fighting the good fight

^^^^^

Democrats in Atlanta aren't really having much of an impact on Michigan primaries (unless my assumptions are wrong and Democrats also contribute directly to contentious state-level fights to the same degree as Republicans; fully aware that I may be talking shit here)

Tag clouds don't work in the physical world:

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/05/14/harlem_obama_trial_begins_pareene/md_horiz.jpg

Source: http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/05/14/harlem_obama_trial_begins_pareene/index.html

Stupak's district is only Democratic due to the residents having vague memories of their grandparents having been unionized miners or UAW workers in Detroit a generation or two ago and tradition is strong - it's like they haven't realized yet that those days are over and they really should be Republicans.

The town I lived in was relatively liberal, had a good sized university, and a Planned Parenthood clinic opened a couple of years ago that didn't even provide abortions - you still had to drive at least 200 miles to Green Bay or Minneapolis to get one. They just provided birth control and advice. As soon as it opened there were constant protests and threats and it closed down a year later.

If the national party want a "D" for that district there's absolutely no way an openly pro-choice candidate (much less a woman) could ever be the candidate. I'm not saying it's right but it's just how it is.

Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad (1886), in which the court reporter (former president of Newburgh and New York Railway), not the court itself, commented:

"The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does."

discussed at length circa recent SC ruling fyi

I cited this case in the last US politics thread. One of the best (and most chilling) books I've read in recent years devotes a whole chapter to the reporter's mistake:

http://www.amazon.com/Age-Betrayal-Triumph-America-1865-1900/dp/1400040280

this thread isn't literally about underrated supreme court decisions, by the way

Also, as to the queries above about the prospects for the climate change bill, legislative experts I follow have reduced the odds for it passing before the midterms from 10% to 1% following the Mississippi Canyon 252 oil leak. The Kerry-Lieberman included expansion of offshore drilling as a means of persuading a handful of Republicans to cross the aisle, and this would presently be a liability for Democrats.

lol harbl

"In an example of Republican obstructionism rendered beautiful by its simplicity, the GOP yesterday killed a House bill that would increase funding for scientific research and math and science education by forcing Democrats to vote in favor of federal employees viewing pornography. "

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/05/gop-kills-science-jobs-bill-by-forcing-dems-to-vote-for-porn.php?

lol

"In an example of Republican obstructionism rendered beautiful by its simplicity, the GOP yesterday killed a House bill that would increase funding for scientific research and math and science education by forcing Democrats to vote in favor of federal employees viewing pornography. "

ok now we're getting into some proper Dem spinelessness. 100% of the American public looks at porn online. the amount of traction you could get by "these guys like porn!" is entirely with people who are out there on the fringe (focus on the family types)...many of whose donors also look at porn. online. at work. this was a bluff. but to call a bluff, you gotta have some backbone. better luck next time, funding for science and math!

um I don't look at online porn at work and I'm pretty sure I'd be fired if I did. also public sector tends to have stricter rules about what can be done on the taxpayer's dime than private sector.

quit lyin shakey mo

yeah otm, my 'lol' was more http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l171/sicklesdawg/33cqarojpg.gif

xp

xp to jd

oh don't get me wrong I lol'd too, you gotta hand it to these guys...their balls, which they stroke while watching porn on computers paid for with tax dollars, are huge

^^slashfic

did you read my slashfic while posting from work shakey? tsk tsk

shakey unless i misunderstood the article, they were voting against the porn ban, not voting FOR porn. basically they could have said 'yeah this is cute but we'll worry about this later'

heh i didn't flesh this out, but my reason for pointing that out was not to piss on republicans one more time (although, why not), it's that in 99% of problems, the answer is, blame the american people.

dems are spineless as a general matter, but not stupid. they know they were looking into the teeth of an election season with a few more LOL THIS GUY VOTED FOR PORN!!! tv ads funded by Koch and the US Chamber that constituents are going to take very seriously, for some reason

Meanwhile poor Orrin Hatch worries whether Bob Bennett's fate is his too.

Would Ronald Reagan have wanted Bennett ousted? “Heavens no,” Hatch says. “He would have wanted Bennett in the Senate.”

“Reagan treated me like a son or a brother,” Hatch recalls. “I was the only member of Congress sitting with him in New Hampshire when he had to win. I sat with him and Nancy that whole night [in 1980]. He always said that Republicans shouldn’t attack fellow Republicans. Now, I think he’d look at what happened in Utah and realize it was an extraordinary situation, understanding the anger. At the same time, though, he’d understand the importance of having conservatives with experience, like me, to be in there, fighting.”

Part of me is scared, part appalled and part hopes the Republican party implodes in a giant tantrum of incohate frustration, racism, intellectual bad faith, and inability to adapt, leaving a hard rump of Bachmann/Palin clones who could be easily drowned in the oil slicks behind their houses or hunted from helicopters.

reagan was a socialist compared to some of these folk, is he even gonna be a hero figure for much longer?

With all my reading I still haven't figured out whether the Democrats were as arrogant as the GOP claim when the Dems controlled Congress for almost forty years. There definitely was a sense in which fossils like Walter Mondale thought GOP control over the Senate and the presidency was an aberration from the Way Things Oughta Be; but even when the Dems lost both houses in the nineties I don't remember this collective outrage, this genuine bitterness (true, Dems would rather squabble among themselves than organize).

can't link from phone but liu passed committee yesterday and will be up for a senate vote

hey yall i just spent the last 2 hours watching porn & masturbating at the dmv, any news happen today?

turns out elena kagan is a lesbian

or something; i havent paid much attention

Photos of Kagan and Justice Scalia exiting a lesbian titty bar were posted on Drudge.

PAT BUCHANAN TAKING A STAND

But while leaders in the black community may be upset, the folks who look more like the real targets of liberal bias are white Protestants and Catholics, who still constitute well over half of the U.S. population.

Not in living memory has a Democratic president nominated an Irish, Italian or Polish Catholic, though these ethnic communities once gave the party its greatest victories in the cities and states of the North.

What happened to the party of the Daleys, Rizzos and Rostenkowskis?

And not in nearly half a century has a Democratic president nominated a white Protestant or white Catholic man or woman.

I'm touched Pat cares so much about the electoral fortunes of Democrats.

reagan was a socialist compared to some of these folk, is he even gonna be a hero figure for much longer?

reagan is in no danger of losing his hero status. forget ideology (to some degree), the GOP is the "daddy party," and reagan is the daddiest of daddies.

he even called his wife Mommy!

yep

from the lefty petition dispensers CREDO Action:

We understand that passing legislation involves difficult compromise. If this legislation actually would eventually stop global warming, it would be worth many compromises. But this legislation does not....

The bill's targets are much too weak, falling far short of the greenhouse gas reductions that scientists say are necessary to credibly address climate change. And it explicitly guts measures that are strong enough to ensure progress — namely, key sections of the Clean Air Act and existing state laws, such as the California legislation already passed that calls for much deeper cuts in greenhouse gases.

We don't favor the massive tax incentives and loan guarantees that the bill plans to bestow on the nuclear power industry. If the bill must contain nukes in order to get the last two or three votes for passage in the Senate, tell us who those senators are and we'll go to work on them! If nukes are in the bill to appease Senator Graham, take them out — he has already walked away from the legislation. Even if it's inevitable that these subsidies be contained in the final legislation, why give it away before the real negotiating begins?

Even if it's inevitable that these subsidies be contained in the final legislation, why give it away before the real negotiating begins?
Even if it's inevitable that these subsidies be contained in the final legislation, why give it away before the real negotiating begins?
Even if it's inevitable that these subsidies be contained in the final legislation, why give it away before the real negotiating begins?
Even if it's inevitable that these subsidies be contained in the final legislation, why give it away before the real negotiating begins?

This I agree with, and it's the same mistake that was made on the offshore drilling concession over a month ago. Mindboggling.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bromwich/will-obama-hold-another-p_b_576546.html

more jobs may be created this year than bush's entire presidency****
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/nj_20100515_5237.php?mrefid=site_search

O_O

meanwhile, in alabama (apologies if these are already posted somewhere)...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU7fhIO7DG0&feature=player_embedded

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9ohsvJHkbY

that dale peterson ad runs like an snl parody - they can't be serious with those edits

i would str8 up vote for that guy

love the horse and the crucially timed rifle-totin'

Think about how much money will be saved by English-only drivers license tests...literally hundreds of dollars I'm sure

illegalsillegalsillegals

i would str8 up vote for that guy

this is why you have to take your "which is the best song on" whatever album poll votes seriously - first thing you're casting a lol vote for "Beats for the Listeners," next thing you know you're moving to Alabama and voting for Dale Peterson

anyone who's that deadly serious about alabama ag commissioner gets my vote

what has the world come to when a guy like dale peterson speaks at least somewhat knowledgeably about facebook rather than wanting to beat up nerds who use computers

thought he said "spacebook" at first

*pointless trivia* Spacebook is NASA's internal social networking application, for real

Obviously it's way too early to make predictions, but Krugman points to recent polling suggests that "November may not be quite the Republican blowout everyone is expecting."

http://i42.tinypic.com/6eixig.jpg

I post that not to argue that a Republic collapse is pending or anything of the sort, but just to counter the increasing common meme that a Republican blowout is inevitable this fall.

well--a blowout is inevitable, isnt it? the question is about the size of the blowout, and whether or not control of the legislature will change hands

not yanking off your glasses in every single shot? you don't want the republican nomination for alabama agriculture commissioner bad enough

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/05/17/scotus.sex.offenders/index.html?hpt=T1

I am not at all sure how I feel about this.

Good god Facebook is up in arms over the teacher's bailout. WTF.

fuckin cnn, who were the dissenters??

Not Facebook literally, but idiots on it.

I was about to become terrified of a self-aware Facebook

That might not be too far off.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37190594/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

ah here we go

Dissent by Thomas
Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, saying Congress can only pass laws that deal with the federal powers listed in the Constitution.

Nothing in the Constitution "expressly delegates to Congress the power to enact a civil commitment regime for sexually dangerous persons, nor does any other provision in the Constitution vest Congress or the other branches of the federal government with such a power," Thomas said.

Thomas was joined in part on his dissent by Justice Antonin Scalia.

Thomas feeling defensive?

thomas must have the easiest job in the world. gee, the constitution doesn't have the exact words "sexually dangerous persons" in it?? no shit?? ok, next question

the ctrl+f justice

seriously. i guess he agrees with the anti HCR people too - nowhere in the Constitution does it say the government can subsidize or regulate health insurance.

prolly should have excused himself from the case due to his personal history as a sexually dangerous person

he should probably step down from the supreme court since the constitution does not have his name in it, anywhere

otm

also he should obv only get 3/5th of a supreme court justice vote

the end point of the through-line of thomas' thought is to end up with not only a pre-FDR gov't but a pre-lincoln one. which is where it gets a little uncomfortable...

xp lol

prolly should have excused himself from the case due to his personal history as a sexually dangerous person

yeah this is what I was gettin at lol

altho I'm kinda disgusted to find myself agreeing with him and Scalia. how long anyone's eligible to be detained should be built into sentencing and be at the discretion of a judge.

Which is why I don't get why Thomas is still called a Scalia clone; the dude's an absolute literalist about the Constitution.

on another note...

http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2010/05/affirmative-action-in-beauty-contests

Yeah, I think I'm with the dissenters on this one. The shrewdness about "originalism" is that sooner or later the "originalists" will support something you like.

xpost

"News that Rima Fakih, 24, of Dearborn, Michigan, won the Miss USA beauty pageant today prompts me to recall some prior instances of Muslim women winning beauty contests in Western countries."

the provision against being held without charge in the Constitution is sacrosanct to me

Another decision, with an unusual group of dissenters.

http://www.scotuswiki.com/index.php?title=Abbott_v._Abbott

anyone who's that deadly serious about alabama ag commissioner gets my vote

absof--glutely. i mean, as ag comr., he'll carry a gun. to protect you!

i support dale petterson for ALABAMA AGRICULTURE COMMISSIONER.

some rare good news from the Senate

“I’m very concerned about the direction of the bill,” Gregg said Sunday on C-SPAN, citing Democratic votes against a proposal by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. “How can you take a bill up in the Senate and totally ignore that issue?”

I'm so fucking tired of this line of argument.

shakey otm, sounds like I wouldn't nec cosign the thomas/scalia dissent but that law is troublesome to me

Which is why I don't get why Thomas is still called a Scalia clone; the dude's an absolute literalist about the Constitution

Yea, I hear he wants to be counted as only 3/5 of a person just like when the Constitution was written.

why not – they're nice guys, like to drink, Scalia still smokes.

iatee made that joke KEEP UP IN THE BACK

xpost

puff away, nino

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_MfG3SuuAhOQ/ScladkV6SjI/AAAAAAAAA70/swJswHVe_50/s400/scalia+w.jpg

Oops on the joke. Just read it.

Thomas like Scalia found no problem in Bush v. Gore in adding whatever meaning to the words in the constitution that they wanted in order to get the result they desired. Thomas votes with SCalia 99% of the time and has only asked a question in oral proceedings like twice in all the years he's been on the court.

(Thomas) has only asked a question in oral proceedings like twice in all the years he's been on the court.

is that right? i did not know that! that's shocking.

Sticking with the original text of the Constitution is the most intellectually vacant of stances, but not asking questions during oral argument doesn't make him a fool. Besides, how can you keep up with Scalia?

yeah i've never really understood that whole dog and pony show. are the justices going to be convinced by some line of argument or another, or are they going to have their minds pretty much made up? *rolling my damn eyes*

The late Harry Blackmun and Ruth Bader Ginsberg say he's pretty sharp in conferences. According to the Toobin book, Thomas is careful with public appearances because (a) his thick regional dialect is still a problem, apparently (b) he still feels burned by what happened in '91.Thomas has a pretty big chip on his shoulder. He seems to resent that he only got nominated to the bench for the cynically political of reasons (i.e. "we need a black Republican on the court").

*most cynically political

ha they could have had a lot of black republicans on the court a hundred years ago, give or take. fuckin booth.

if black is a mindset though, Thomas acts less black than anyone else on the bench - he's like the most ardent anti-affirmative action on the bench.

he's easily the judge I like least on the court - Scalia is an asshole obviously, but I love how he plays up to it. He's pretty funny and really fucking smart even if his whole ideological stance is really wrong.

ha they could have had a lot of black republicans on the court a hundred years ago, give or take. fuckin booth.

this isn't really true - Lincoln wouldn't have appointed Frederick Douglas to the court or anything. he wasn't even down with granting blacks the right to vote.

"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And in as much as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race." - Honest Abe

Thanks Shakey for completely depressing the fuck out of me

.. You didn't know about that? That was like College Truthbomb #1 for me.

fwiw Douglas had the moral high ground on Lincoln and he knew it

but yeah it's funny how childhood illusions about the clear-cut morality of the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation can be so easily shattered. the narrative that the North were a bunch of up-standing moral do-gooders interested in equality for all and ending slavery on principle alone is just so woefully wrong and self-serving. history written by the victors and all that... (this is not to say that there were not a bunch of hardcore, admirable abolitionists - there were and god bless 'em - it's just that they were more likely to be fringe elements than occupying cabinet posts in the White House)

The Emacipation Proclamation had two real goals: to discourage France and Britain from siding with the South or calling for international mediation and to deprive rebel Southerners of their valuable property.

t's just that they were more likely to be fringe elements than occupying cabinet posts in the White House)

i dunno shakey, there was a hardcore abolitionist wing in the congress, always to lincoln's "left" -- the congressional proposals for re-introducing the southern states to the union were way more punitive and radical than what lincoln wanted to do

yeah maybe fringe is too strong - but you know what I mean, Lincoln was not one of them, he was (lol) the "centrist" on the issue (and nakedly opportunistic too)

In re: Thomas as ...an absolute literalist about the Constitution.

I wish this were true in all cases. For one thing, it would make him a First Amendment absolutist. And it would also require him to join a fairish number of liberal positions whenever a meddlesome federal law is at issue (like most drug war-related crap, for instance).

Alas, this does not seem to be the case. Like so many conservatives, Justice Thomas is only a literalist when it suits his purposes.

anyway, for whatever lincoln may have said about blacks (what year is that quote from, btw?) he depended on nascent republican parties made up of huge numbers of black voters in the south for his postwar, even though northern whites were not hot on the idea of black enfranchisement in their own states.

my point was that had lincoln lived, johnson not served, and grant not been such a terrible peacetime administrator, you could imagine a completely different political history of the US. black republican political power was a very real thing until the white southern establishment put it down by force.

yeah that quote is early, 1858

ha well that's not that early

lincoln on racial equality reminds me to some degree of obama on gay marriage. tho the stakes were obviously a lot higher in the 1850s.

xxpost

OK. Except the reason the white southern political establishment was given such a free hand to put down blacks is that, overall, the sentiment of the country was racist as f**k and siding with whites over blacks was the default position among most northern voters.

Alas, this does not seem to be the case. Like so many conservatives, Justice Thomas is only a literalist when it suits his purposes.

otm

can't say I really expected the Court to rule this way on this

I didn't expect Roberts to rule that way!

Lincoln even went so far as to call a leader of freedmen and black leaders to sound out a proposal about relocating all black men to Africa. They politely put up with it but never followed through.

Lincoln, who was probably our shrewdest president after Jefferson and FDR, finally came around to black suffrage in 1865 after Union victory was assured and he had a clear mandate from voters.

thomas-alito-scalia 4 life

scalia, aliton, thomas in dissent - quelle surprise.

but it is ridiculous to lock up a teen for life with no parole if they haven't murdered anyone.

grant not been such a terrible peacetime administrator

Not entirely true. He really broke the back of the KKK; it was his successors and the Supreme Court that gutted Reconstruction.

There have been law review articles about Thomas' silence during oral arguments. I have been to the Court twice for oral arguments and once, amazingly, was one of the times Thomas did speak. Most of the time he sat there in that leather highback chair rocking the chair slightly, with his eyes looking like he was about to fall asleep. Kinda like someone staying up late trying to watch a latenight tv program.

http://www.law.com/jsp/scm/PubArticleSCM.jsp?id=1202443940201&Does_Justice_Thomas_Silence_Thwart_Advocacy

According to the attached, he last asked a question in February 2006.

Scalia's probably a riot in oral argument.

Scalia's sarcastic, arrogant, and demonstrative. He moves around in his seat and shakes his head and rolls his eyes.

Here's a quote about Thomas from that article:

"He has something to say, and he should say it in court. Argument would be enriched by his perspective," Karp said in an interview last week. Currently clerking for a Florida federal judge, Karp wrote the article in his final year at the University of Florida Levin College of Law.

As one example, Karp noted that Thomas did not speak during the 2007 argument in Morse v. Frederick, the notorious "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" First Amendment case involving student speech. As a result of his silence, none of the lawyers got a chance to rebut or assess Thomas' latent view that students have no First Amendment rights in the first place. Thomas articulated that position in a separate concurrence in Morse.

"By removing himself from oral argument, Justice Thomas' opinions do not benefit from the full adjudicative process designed to test theories in open court," Karp wrote

Sticking with the original text of the Constitution is the most intellectually vacant of stances, but not asking questions during oral argument doesn't make him a fool.

it doesn't necessarily mark him as a fool; many people are bright and quiet. but that's a staggering lack of engagement in oral argument for someone who has been on the court as long as thomas. it suggests (although by no means proves) a lack of curiosity or capacity, which are traits you'd want in a justice.

It doesn't bother me; these people have been on the court so long that I doubt many minds are swayed by oral advocacy.

Seems to me more like he doesn't like being challenged, so he plays close to the vest so that no one can call him on his conclusions until it's too late.

maybe, but trust me, typically the judges are challening the attorney's positions, not the other way around.

sorry: challenging.

The judges don't challenge each other?

i haven't argued before the supreme court. at the circuit court levels (and in state appeals courts) most of the interaction is between the judge and the lawyer, not judge-to-judge.

Breyer and Scalia are constantly challenging each other.

must admit i don't understand how the law "works" in that regard -- all SC proceedings have some kind of legal value or weight, is that it? i know dissents do, that's the point. but oral arguments, too? those get referenced?

i still don't get why it's thomas's silence rather than his batshit opinions themselves that are problematic. it seems like some lawerly concern-trolling to me, oh clarence your opinions are so INTERESTING please enlighten us would you?

"As a result of his silence, none of the lawyers got a chance to rebut or assess Thomas' latent view that students have no First Amendment rights in the first place. Thomas articulated that position in a separate concurrence in Morse." like, what fuckin difference would it have made?

obviously, justices and judges do challenge each other in written opinions; one of the significant developments scalia brought to the court is a willingness to call out other justices in very direct ways in his opinions. but that's all carefully calibrated writing. in oral argument, the judges often ask questions pushing your legal theories to their logical extremes, offering permutations on the facts that may force you to defend untenable positions, and other lines of argument designed to crystallize and test legal theories and issues.

i still don't get why it's thomas's silence rather than his batshit opinions themselves that are problematic.

^^^ this

i'll defer to alfred on the interplay between scalia and bryer in oral argument.

his bats--t opinions are worse; i didn't mean to suggest otherwise.

For those of you who don't know, SCOTUS' website now publishes full transcripts of oral arguments.

Here's the Citizens United case: http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/08-205.pdf

yeah, that's a nice feature.

From what I've read, it's only in recent years that the discussion of cases has shifted from the justices' weekly conferences (which, depending on the CJ, could last hours and hours) to the oral arguments, during which the justices – veiled by parables and fictional scenarios – will rib each other about their jurisprudential idiosyncrasies. That's why a few lawyers are skeptical about Kagan's purportedly awesome persuasive powers. The days of William Brennan dropping by Stevens' offices to discuss a case are over. The Supreme Court runs like a law firm with nine partners these days.

that's interesting. i can tell you that after a number of oral arguments i've had (or observed) involving a panel of judges, there's very little direct interaction between the judges, except incidental comments, cross-talk, and courtesies. the overwhelming amount of the interplay is between the examining judge and the attorney. my experiences may be atypical, of course.

I was unclear. The justices don't address each other directly, but in their arguments with counsel they'll make digs at each other.

ohhhh. yes, they certainly do that, at all levels.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/16/texas-schools-rewrites-us-history

i can't even think about that shit for too long

meanwhile, are we gonna be rid of arlen specter??

I hope not. :(

?? why not, sestak could beat this toomey dude i think.

I wouldn't miss Spector, always kinda hated him tbh

andy mccarthy, he so crazy

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YWMwNTQwZjI4NTU1MDcxMDI5MDYxZDNjNmFjMmI3MTY=

Dan reports below that Justice Kennedy once again resorted to foreign law to support the Court's diktat that the Eighth Amendment now purportedly forbids life sentences for those 16 and younger who commit non-homicide felonies. "The United States," he said, "is the only Nation that imposes this type of sentence."

...

It would be nice if Justice Kennedy and the rest of the Court's transnational-progressives would come clean and admit that when they cite foreign law, they are selectively mining other countries and international tribunals for leftist standards that transnational-progressives find congenial. Quite apart from the impropriety of relying on foreign law to interpret America's Constitution, the thought that the justices are honestly, objectively seeking out some sort of universal consensus — rather than rationalizing the imposition of their own pieties — is farcical.

Specter is (or was) very popular in Philly for a long time

Justice Kennedy, leftist.

you think it would be hard to get hatred of the court decisions, hatred of transnationalism AND hatred for islam into one post, but nope!

dope use of "diktat" btw

Here in PA hoping that Specter is toast. Sestak would be a much much better senator.

Re: Supreme Court. This Comstock decision allowing the govt. to keep sex offenders in custody longer than their actual sentences seems like some kind of batshit right wing ruling, however Scalia and Thomas were the only dissenters.

c-span had a set of interviews last year where each justice discussed what oral argument means to them, among other things. i think i watched all 9 and they're probably online. they might have already made up their minds wrt what result they'll come to but i imagine it makes a big difference in what reasoning they decide on, which is pretty important. also you can listen to oral arguments here if reading transcripts is too boring http://www.oyez.org/

yeah here they are:

http://supremecourt.c-span.org/

there's 30 min interviews with all the justices + a ton of other interesting stuff. v. informative.

Scalia's probably a riot in oral argument.

― Filmmaker, Author, Radio Host Stephen Baldwin (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 17 May 2010 18:22 (3 hours ago)

Yes, he's funniest Justice. People make the mistake of thinking this means he's the smartest Justice.

You can listen to oral arguments at

http://www.oyez.org/

Thomas is totally engaging and articulate here:

http://supremecourt.c-span.org/Video/JusticeOwnWords/SC_Jus_Thomas.aspx

Breyer and Scalia both have that sort of indignant assholitude that kind of repulses me and engages me at the same time.

BTW who is the smartest Justice?

Breyer is a ham, but not an asshole.

The Rehnquist and Roberts courts are not known for intellect, honestly. I'm no lawyer, so my standards are immaterial. I expect sparkling opinions that acknowledge tension between Constitutional demands and a justice's personal opinion. I've assigned Oliver Wendell Holmes' opinions in my composition class because they're very brief, exceptionally written, and do a better job than, say, Clarence Thomas of balancing constitutional demands and the revulsion this might inspire. As a writer I admire paradox (which is probably not a good jurisprudential stance).

xp
It's kind of a silly thing to even debate since they're all so smart.

Stevens was rumored to be considered the smartest among the Justices themselves, but who knows.

I'll never forget the Rehnquist flag burning opinion that said it should receive a first amendment exception because of an "intangible quality" that the flag has.

WELL THEN. An intangible quality. No counter-argument for that!

In Lawrence v Texas, Thomas admitted that the Texas sodomy laws were "uncommonly silly" and were he a legislator he would have voted to abolish them, but he followed the Holmes tradition of letting legislators write stupid laws as long as they were constitutional. Holmes, however, at least acknowledged that personal preferences mattered.

― Matt Armstrong, Monday, May 17, 2010 8:03 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I'll never forget the Rehnquist flag burning opinion that said it should receive a first amendment exception because of an "intangible quality" that the flag has.

WELL THEN. An intangible quality. No counter-argument for that!

guess who voted to uphold the amendment? Stevens. The dissent? Scalia.

letting legislators write stupid laws as long as they were constitutional

What's the point of the Judicial branch again?

Ajudicating. Duh!

I guess I need to <sarcasm> in my HTML, huh Aimless.

Anyway, letting agencies write and enforce code as long as it's constitutional has a much more dubious history.

Also, headline of the day: "Candidate’s Words on Vietnam Service Differ From History"

Why can't they just say that the dumbass lied?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/nyregion/18blumenthal.html?hp

Probably because the guy's not so much a liar as an uber-fudger. I mean, my dad served during Vietnam and got some sort of pro forma medal, but he didn't serve in Vietnam and would never purport to be a Vietnam veteran. This doofus, on the other hand, likes to blur the lines between a cush post during wartime after a run of several deferment attempts and the real deal. Did he serve? Sort of. Barely. Close enough for government work.

Except that he said he served "in Vietnam."

Read the article. He is not only known "known as a brilliant lawyer who likes to argue cases in court and uses language with power and precision. He is also savvy about the news media, and attentive to how he is portrayed in the press."

Funny that he worked for Tricky Dick tho.

Oh, I read it. Not defending the weasel, but there's only one "in Vietnam" quote they cite, which lends credence to his otherwise dubious claim of a slip. The rest of the stuff is all pretty fishy, granted. "We" - collectively - returned, were mistreated, etc. "We" - me, here, and the other vets actually coming back from Vietnam. But that piece does only note the one instance of him actually saying he was there, and several where he stresses he was not.

On that note, I guess it's not surprising he worked for Tricky Dick.

went to a republican fundraiser thing tonight, andy card was the featured speaker, and he gave this long, involved retelling of sept. 11 and sept. 14 (the day where bush did his bullhorn-at-ground-zero thing). and all i could think was, you cheap slimy motherfucker, you will dine out on 3,000 deaths for the rest of yr life. it was creepy.

you went to a republican fundraiser

http://metroweekly.com/news/?ak=5208

haha this fuckin country

''The religious believer may see the hand of God, but both he and the rationalist must see a fact of Nature. The human body was not designed to share hypodermic needles, it was not designed to be promiscuous, and it was not designed to engage in homosexual acts. Engaging in such behavior is like riding a motorcycle on an icy road without a helmet,'' Katz wrote. ''It may be possible to get away with it for a while, and a few misguided souls may get a thrill out of doing so, but sooner or later (probably sooner) the consequences will be catastrophic. Lethal diseases spread rapidly among people who do such things.''

There must be some vicious epidemics in the lesbian community that I have no idea about.

Hume calls for caution against such inferences in the absence of any explanation of how the ought-statements follow from the is-statements. But how exactly can an "ought" be derived from an "is"? In other words, given knowledge of the way the world is, how can one know the way the world ought to be? The question, prompted by Hume's small paragraph, has become one of the central questions of ethical theory, and Hume is usually assigned the position that such a derivation is impossible.[2] This complete severing of "is" from "ought" has been given the graphic designation of Hume's Guillotine.[3]

lazy headline here

"Poll shows Republicans doing well in November as voting begins in three states"

Voters said they preferred Republicans over Democrats by 46% to 45%, according to a Gallup tracking poll released Tuesday.

According to my mother, dissatisfaction with Obama has awakened a 'sleeping giant' in America and this sleeping giant is going to vote him out in 2012.

sleeping giant is too lazy to get out of bed and vote

sleeping giant too fat to even wash itself with a rag on a stick

sleeping giant only marginally smarter awake than asleep

I actually wouldn't put it past the American public to allow dissatisfaction with Obama to turn into an excuse to elect someone much, much, much worse, like Palin.

"Screw making this guy do his job, let's put an incoherent magpie into office! That will make America great again!"

That's how Minnesota got Jesse Ventura (except Palin makes him look like some kind of laureate).

Well, my mother is an idiot because she sent me to Big Government for fact-checking materials and I had to explain to her what an Andrew Breitbart was. She also got really offended when I told her that Sarah Palin was Kate Gosselin with a John Birch Society subscription, like 'I bet you wish you looked like her'-level nasty. I mean, we have not invented the truthbomb that will silence my mother on certain subjects but it has got to be out there somewhere. HELP.

Her latest thing is that 80 per cent of babies born this year in the US were to 'illegals' - this is only fascinating because I'm trying to play Which Wingnut to figure out where her supply of this crap is from.

I'm guessing tipsy was covering a republican fundraiser? or putting laxative in the punchbowl.

The only reason to be civil to someone like that is if you're going to inherit money from them someday, amirite.
xp

Today is her birthday and she spent an hour lecturing me on immigration laws, the woman who won Miss USA, anchor babies, Obama sucking ("he does NOTHING") and finally I exploded in a rant that ended in something like 'and I do not expect some jumped-up loudmouth with a high-school diploma and NO PASSPORT to be much of a policy expert on anything OH WAIT THAT'S YOU' and then suddenly it was over and she was talking about where to get the best pastrami in the Twin Cities.

People ranting about Miss USA should be killed, IMO.

who will protect our beauty pageants from foreign invaders

isn't Miss USA the donald trump one?

Like, if your life is content-free enough to the point where the ethnicity of Miss USA is a grave concern for you, you have effectively signaled that you are doing nothing with your life and are volunteering to be culled.

Had to go look up "anchor babies." I had hoped it was a new prime-time series starring digitally synthesized preschool versions of Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, and Katie Couric, and let me tell you, people, I was disappointed.

guys:

on another note...

http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2010/05/affirmative-action-in-beauty-contests

― taylory dayne (goole), Monday, May 17, 2010 10:55 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

so where IS the best place to get pastrami in the TC

My family always went to Cecil's

Cecil's for kosher and Jerry's for everything else because it started as a butcher and has the best grocery meat counter, she says (attention the jews, this crazy gentile makes matzoh ball soup that outclasses yr bubbie's).

LOL, my mother is a pageant junkie: the amount of these I have observed her watching where it's like 'oh honey look at her, now SHE has poise' but the mental somersaults bigot types are doing over why the second-place woman didn't win are priceless. She did not say that the winner was bad, though, just that Miss OK got hosed by the 'questions section' or whatever. Re the political situation, my mother's social circle is white HS/state school college grads who are right-leaning but call themselves independent, so of course there's a feedback loop of Taking Back America going on there.

Daniel Pipes looks like Riker.

the current greenwald-yglesias spat is not really making greenwald look like a guy in full control of his rage

I have a pretty dim view of Yglesias, who often contorts his prose for the sake of accomadating.

*accommodating

links?

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2010/05/greenwald-on-obama-civil-liberties-and-public-opinion.php

dunno how much these guys are really worth paying attention to tbh

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/userfiles/outrage.jpg

don't forget to rim this, fuck that

I'm guessing tipsy was covering a republican fundraiser? or putting laxative in the punchbowl.

yeah i was sort-of covering it. (wrote a tiny blurb about it.)

also, an in-law had an extra ticket and offered it to me. then he took me around to everybody and introduced me as the family's token commie-pinko liberal. good times.

hey at least he didn't introduce you as the family's "anchor baby"

the current greenwald-yglesias spat is not really making greenwald look like a guy in full control of his rage

it's kind of ok to be a guy not in full control of your rage

beats the "blame Congress and/or the public, not the president!" milktoast stance imo

couldn't get past the part where Greenwald claim about O and the healthcare bill. guy is really not worth reading, even when I agree with him.

Obama fought for passage of a health care reform bill in the face of overwhelming public sentiment against it

^^^like, this isn't even remotely true

fear to tread:

http://www.debbieschlussel.com/category/home/

Fact Check: Meet the REAL 1st Arab-American Miss USA; Christians Don’t Count?

Hezbollah’s American Sharmuta: Tired of Pole Dancing? Try Miss USA

Donald Trump, Dhimmi: Miss Hezbollah Rima Fakih Wins Miss USA; Rigged for Muslima? Miss Oklahoma’s Arizona Immigration Answer

Miss USA Pageant Sponsor Attacked “Whites,” Bragged About Dad’s Massacre of Jews, is 9/11 Truther, Anti-Israel

Confirmed: Islamic Terrorist Financed Miss USA Contestant

You Stay Classy: Muslim Miss USA Contestant Has “High-Class” Supporters; More “Islamic Modesty”

Weekend Box Office: “Letters to Juliet,” “Robin Hood,” “Just Wright,” “Exit Throught Gift Shop”

Had Enough?: USA Today Whines Over Muslim Boxer’s Visa to US

Reason #883,254 Not to Eat @ Muslim-Owned Falafel Shops

When Your Doctor is a Muslim, #455,246: The Medical Jihad on America Continues

Weekend Box Office: “Letters to Juliet,” “Robin Hood,” “Just Wright,” “Exit Throught Gift Shop”

hmm one of these things is not like the other

couldn't get past the part where Greenwald claim about O and the healthcare bill. guy is really not worth reading, even when I agree with him.

Oh come on, Shakey. Greenwald picked on Obama and the Democrats without mercy for months for dropping the public option. He's making a generalization to prove a point, which is unarguable: "health care reform," whatever that term means or meant, was unpopular by the time Obama got around to endorsing something.

1) Obama did not fight hard for anything in the healthcare bill
2) public opinion polling about it was hopelessly muddled. You had many people approving of the individual provisions within the bill but hating the compromises made, people who were disappointed that it didn't go far enough, people who didn't understand what was even in it, and people who opposed it entirely on principle alone. None of these groups was an "overwhelming majority".

"health care reform," whatever that term means or meant, was unpopular by the time Obama got around to endorsing something.

and I don't think even this modest claim is true either iirc. polling was close to 50/50 by the time of passage.

I think you're missing Greenwald's larger point, and why he chose to compress a year's worth of columns into generalization.

I don't remember where the lol-conservatives thread is, or what it's called, so I'll post this here. Worthwhile reading imo. It's ostensibly a book review of Palin's memoir, but touches on issues of transmission of affect and authenticity in American culture + politics; http://americanreviewmag.com/Books-Ideas

current favorite lol-conservative: http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2010/05/jefferson_county_geometry_teac.html

*whew* I was worried that was my old stomping ground of Jefferson County, Idaho. Glad the birthplace of television is clear on this front!

Kinda confused about the whole teaching-geometry-to-seniors thing. Isn't that a freshman/soph level class?

welcome to alabama

In my school AP math students did geometry in 9th grade and everyone else bar the Special Ed cases did algebra. LOLabama.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-agl0pOQfs

It's part of the curriculum.

fuckin Alabama, how does it work?

Permalink

so where IS the best place to get pastrami in the TC

― gbx, Tuesday, May 18, 2010 6:06 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

My family always went to Cecil's

― i✧✧@hyperr✧✧✧.o✧✧ (lukas), Tuesday, May 18, 2010 6:09 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Cecil's for kosher and Jerry's for everything else because it started as a butcher and has the best grocery meat counter, she says (attention the jews, this crazy gentile makes matzoh ball soup that outclasses yr bubbie's).

Cecil's is nice, old school

But the game done changed...Be'wiched on Washington (across from Bunkers) cures there own pastrami on site....TC pastrami hounds owe it to yrself to try that. Better than Cecil's IMO

bold claim!

Is this hipster pastrami? I will bear it in mind, but when my family wants corned beef etc. they tend to go for proper old-school Jewish places. LOL St. Louis Park, where even the gentiles have opinions about this shit. Also, Crossroads Deli!

Got some lovely pastrami at an Italian deli here in LDN and it is $5/lb (guess what prompted me and my mom to talk about it).

more quality insights about offshore oil drilling from Michael Steele

man that stretch of washington is just jammed with delicious food huh

rand paul!

damn

Mr Paul arrived at the country club to the booming sounds of the Rush song he often quotes at rallies — the Canadian band, like Mr Paul and his father, is known for its libertarian view.

On the trail, he quoted a line from the song: “Glittering prizes and endless compromises shatter the illusion of integrity” saying equating the prizes and compromises to earmarks and backroom deals in Washington.

Rand Paul is a treasure.

I think you guys can worry about somebody besides Caribou Barbie in '12

From the NYT election night blog thing (http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/blogging-the-primaries/?hp ), btw

yes, how could a man who proposes getting rid of social security and medicare possibly lose a presidential election?

Didn't say he wouldn't lose, or even that he'd be nominated. Just worry, it's what you do best.

haha

haha he does kinda resemble carcetti, the arc would be similar

michael steele's brand of politics always reminds me of your typical member of the college republicans

Michael Steele's brand of politics always reminds me of your typical member of student government.

conservative alma mater alfred?

hells yeah

lol rand's voice sounds just like daddy's

sestak is going to win

rand paul is an awesome name. i hear it wasn't intended to honor ayn rand, which makes it even better.

Sestak wins, thank goodness.

it seems reallllly unlikely that it wasn't intended to honor ayn rand

^

^^^

http://z.about.com/d/tvdramas/1/0/Q/U/madmen-robmorse.jpg

"As Howard Roark would have said, to the victor belongs the spoils..."

what ron paul doesn't want you to know is that he used to do deep covert ops for RAND CORP, but the doofus went and named his son rand, completely blowing his cover. so then he had to remake himself as a libertarian objectivist to re-cover.

or it's short for randal.

http://i46.tinypic.com/nqz81g.jpg

"The odds of Ron Paul's son being named Rand having nothing to do with Ayn Rand are approximately 35,230,234,232 to 1, captain"

http://i48.tinypic.com/2nl4y0x.jpg

"Never tell me the odds!"

http://i49.tinypic.com/34q73pt.jpg

"This homegrown bud is gooooood shit, dood"

cable news host just brought up that rand paul had announced his candidacy on their show.
that host was.. rachel maddow!

or it's short for randal

...or for krugerrand.

Specter lost.

hooray!

http://netdwellers.com/1001/hosting/users/cinesecrets/images/SW/Yoda/YodaBackpack.jpg

"name him rand, you must."

dccc on a 7 for 7 winning streak in special elections. good night for the dems.

TPM:

Tomorrow and for a while now, Republicans and especially Democrats are going to be taking a very close look at what happened in the special election to replace the late Rep. Jack Murtha, where the Democrat Critz (a longtime aide to Murtha) beat the Republican Burns by a substantial though not overwhelming margin. We've had a lot of special elections over the last couple years but most have been in district's heavily weighted toward one party or another. But this is a genuine swing district.

Though Murtha held it for like forever, it was the only district in the country that went for John Kerry in 2004 and John McCain in 2008. (Right? What's that about?) So it's a district that can go both ways.

Now there are a lot of caveats here. Critz ran away from the president on Health Care Reform and he was definitely not wedding himself to the national party. And since a Democrat had held it for more than a generation, you can't say it's a slamming victory for the Dems. But Dems are going to be happy right now with a lot less than slamming victories. But what it does show is that even a swing district, with a culturally conservative electorate, a Dem can win.

There are a lot people in Washington today who think any Dem who's not in a really safe seat isn't safe. And they may be right. But a lot of Dems are going to look at this and say, okay, this guy managed to do it. And Republicans will look at the same result and realize that even with the wave, the candidate still has to win it. It's not automatic.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/05/19/us/19primaries3_337-395/19primaries3_337-395-popup.jpg

is that rand's kid in the button-down? keep that kid far away from politics

keep him far away from animals

hey daria!

wild night out there, damn

Shouldn't that pic go into the "jazz hands" thread?

abanana, I thanka you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD-R_OeP6tU&feature=player_embedded#at=105

(not named after ayn rand; but "always enjoyed her novels": credits her with turning him on to dostoevsky)

wow that pic of the pauls is kinda scary & iconic-feeling

LOL dude is wearing scrubs: to the moratorium thread with you, Rand Paul!

Meanwhile Chris Dodd was watering down the financial reform bill 3 minutes before a deadline:

Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and the main sponsor of the regulatory bill, put forward an amendment hoping to broker a compromise over a controversial provision that would force the biggest Wall Street banks to spin off their lucrative derivatives business.

Under Mr. Dodd’s proposal the new restrictions on derivatives trading would be delayed for two years until after they have been studied by a council of federal regulators. The council would probably kill the provision, and Senator Blanche Lincoln, Democrat of Arkansas, the author of the rules, said that she would fight efforts to weaken them. from the NY Times

another bank loophole also remains in:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/18/AR2010051802207.html?waporef=obinsite

current favorite lol-conservative: http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2010/05/jefferson_county_geometry_teac.html

― Billy Crystals (another al3x), Tuesday, May 18, 2010 8:11 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

to be fair I had high school teachers who would have done this sort of lol-example with Bush if they had taught geometry and not history

Critz won by 8 points, pretty decisive imho

like I've been saying, potential Republican gains in Nov are being way overestimated

But they have a 1% lead in the generic ballot in May.

1%. Think about it...

Makes you think.

catch the GOP wave. . .

huh, so rand is an ophthalmologist apparently

suzy,

it's not hipster pastrami unless you know someone that works there

Randal Howard "Rand" Paul (born January 7, 1963)

y'mighta noticed that RON Paul's ideology isn't hugely like Ayn Rand's, so he wouldn't name a kid after her.

(iatee really on a losing streak)

wait what are the major differences again? he likes god?

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Wednesday said that "secular socialism" has "infiltrated" the nation's courts, the Congress, academia, the bureaucracy, Hollywood and the news media and is "even more
disturbing than the threats from foreign terrorists."

can't wait for his '12 run

"secular socialism"? this is like, just throwing the word "secular" in 'cause it's red meat for the base. really shameless.

did you know that in the 20th century America defeated Nazism AND fascism AND imperialism AND communism? It's true! Newt says so.

I'm more into satanic socialism personally

newt's gonna be pissed when he realizes it's the socialistic secularists behind everything oh ho ho

did you know that in the 20th century America defeated Nazism AND fascism AND imperialism AND communism? It's true! Newt says so.

imperialism and communis(t imperialism) beat nazism, then both went broke, leaving the US last standing. fascism never really went anywhere. now you know, newt!

bagism fagism

http://s-ak.buzzfed.com/static/imagebuzz/web02/2009/1/26/15/billy-joel-we-didnt-start-the-7023-1233002619-0.jpg

it's just one of those statements that doesn't really make any sense - like, okay Newt, you've already singled out Nazism, so what other fascist regimes did the US "defeat" in the 20th century that you could possibly be referring to. Franco? Mussolini? The Perons? Tito? And, really there's no more fascism or imperialism? we did away with all that? *whew* what a relief.

America defeated:

Nazism (w/extensive help from many, many allies and a rather saliently Communist one)

fascism (in Italy and other axis powers but few other places)

imperialism (I wouldn't really bring this one up, much, though tbf, we did kind of fuck the Brits and French at Suez)

communism (you can claim that Marxist 'scientific socialist' command economies are inherently doomed and that we helped push them in that direction but to say that 'we' did it and did it alone is preposterous)

"Newt Gingrich has not defeated me!"

http://oneworldnews.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/image.jpeg

I just think its kinda weird to act like America ever had any interest (much less success) in "defeating" fascism and imperialism. we were totally cool with both as long as they didn't interfere with our interests.

yup, the americans most interested in defeating fascism before pearl harbor were... communists. or 'secular socialists' at any rate. life, like marriage, is complicated, eh newt

oh man

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Coming This Fall: A New Tea-Party Senate Nucleus [Larry Kudlow]

After last night’s primary elections, a pipedream came to me: A new tea-party center is forming in the Republican Senate caucus. It will be the first Reagan nucleus in many years, one that will give the GOP a strong limited-government, cut-spending, low-tax-rate, stop-government-controls, and end-Bailout Nation message that will have clarity and gusto and will reverberate throughout the country.

Here’s how it’s going to work: Rand Paul will grab the Senate seat in Kentucky. Marco Rubio will take Florida. Mike Lee will win in Utah. Pat Toomey will finally prevail in Pennsylvania. And Carly Fiorina will knock off Barbara Boxer in California.

Yup. That’s how I see it. And this new tea-party Senate nucleus will join free-market stalwarts like Jim DeMint, Tom Coburn, Jon Kyl, Richard Shelby, Jeff Sessions, and John Thune. I’m probably leaving somebody out in the Senate, and I apologize in advance. But that’s what I’m thinking. It’s a pity Judd Gregg is retiring; he could be part of that group also.

This will be a reformist nucleus, tackling spending, taxes, and even monetary and currency policy. It will unabashedly propose free-market reforms to replace the Obama welfare state and to finally curb the avalanche of debt creation.

It looks to me like the GOP can in fact capture the Senate, by the way. But even if they don’t, this new group will revolutionize politics.

05/19 04:12 PMShare

"a strong limited-government"

lol

Here’s how it’s going to work: Rand Paul will grab the Senate seat in Kentucky. Marco Rubio will take Florida. Mike Lee will win in Utah. Pat Toomey will finally prevail in Pennsylvania. And Carly Fiorina will knock off Barbara Boxer in California.

Yup. That’s how I see it.

Kudlow back on his cocaine, then?

THIS NEW GROUP WILL REVOLUTIONIZE POLITICS

take that, saddo liberals.

yeah, the one thing really need to do to Congress to make it better is to Bachmannize it

"a strong limited-government"

like a professional wrestler in handcuffs

kudlow is one of those guys that has a whole career of being exactly, perfectly, wrong about everything (see also: victor davis hanson), so i count this as a point of hope in all those elections.

Rand Paul will grab the Senate seat in Kentucky sure
Marco Rubio will take Florida maybe
Mike Lee will win in Utah of course
Pat Toomey will finally prevail in Pennsylvaniadoubtful
And Carly Fiorina will knock off Barbara Boxer in California. never in a million fucking years

It's not even clear Fiorina's going to be the candidate.

imperialism (I wouldn't really bring this one up, much, though tbf, we did kind of fuck the Brits and French at Suez)

woodrow wilson's 14 points were a strike against imperialism altho the us didn't follow up with them

Well, Wilsonian imperialism was "democracy for everyone else, empire for us."

to be fair that's still how the USA acts. also "austerity measures for everyone else, counter-cyclical deficit spending for us." although that's not quite as catchy.

Candidate Douglas R. Hughes knows how we can create an island more demented than the one on Lost.

http://www.hughes4governor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=47&Itemid=53

As governor I will introduce legislation to impose mandatory expulsion of convicted pedophiles from the State of California as a condition of release from prison.

Pedophiles in the State of California will have three (3) choices:

1. Leave our State of California permanently;

2. Live on Santa Rosa Island (a self supporting community for pedophiles and sexual offenders);

3. Remain in prison for life;

THE ISLAND SOCIETY

The first of pedophiles to go to the island would be a lead team for “their society” such as police, fire personnel, judges, fish and game agents, forest rangers, ranchers, farmers, building contractors, surveyors, and the like to establish the “Island” community. This lead team will be responsible for creating a master plan for the “Island. The “Island’s” master plan will include the construction of city hall, a medical facility, water department, police and fire departments, as well as provide for the farm, ranch and housing areas. All construction will be completed by the pedophiles assigned to the “Island”. The first order of business will be to establish temporary housing, the farm, and the ranch. The “Island” pedophiles will write their own “Island” constitution. The constitution will be reviewed for any improvements by a State of California department to be formed to oversee the “Island”. This will all occur until enough pedophiles have moved to the “Island” making the “Island” community self-sufficient. This “Island” will represent a way of life that has long since been forgotten: one in which our forefathers came to this land with a wagon, some animals, seed, and tools, looking for water and land to build their lives around. These men will be provided these things so that they may keep themselves busy and build their own lives while staying out of trouble. Life on the “Island” will include certain restrictions such as they may never leave the “Island”, and they may never bring children to the “Island”. If they don’t want to live this way they should have left the state. However, once they choose the island that will be their home for the duration of their life. I don’t want them on California’s mainland! And Mom’s and Dads’ don’t want them here either!

http://i49.tinypic.com/2rx7fch.jpg

They can have their own festivals and culture on the Island. Nothing could go wrong with moving all the sex offenders into our little island

http://i49.tinypic.com/30lm742.jpg

GOD FORGIVE US WE MADE A HUGE MISTAKE BY GIVING THEM THEIR OWN ISLAND

Lost explained.

wait what are the major differences again? he likes god?

I think Ron Paul's differences w/ Ayn Rand are bigger than Obama's with Dubya.

and bigger than Obama's w/ Mussolini too, right?

lol iatee nice try, Morbius is otm - care to re-gloss over the Bush-era policies Obama's continued that you're fond of pretending somebody forced him to continue, just to keep in practice?

"Under Bush, we detained people without charge. Under Obama, it would be impractical to free or try such people, but hey, that's not his fault, you impractical cynics"

but Obama's black, graceful, and elegant, so it's ok.

what can I say, you guys got me, they're exactly the same dude and I can't understand why anyone would think otherwise

which of the Bush policies that Obama has continued are your favorites? just curious.

the pissing you off policy

that's the spirit, now you sound like a proper partisan - it doesn't matter what our candidates do, what matters is that they're ours! rah, &c

Ah, I think I may have identified the source of confusion! You see, iatee believes there are substantive policy differences between Bush and Obama, whereas you apparently do not. Perhaps by discussing specific policy differences iatee sees, this discussion could move forward in a productive way. I know both of you are pained not to have found common ground.

Obama's recent words about how Wall Street mega-bonus recipient is "very talented" -- very Randian!

People like to accuse me of admiring "insane" ideologues, but Bam/W orthodoxies are the insane stuff that our governing class simply marches in lockstep on.

Well, if iatee wanted an unflappable centrist when voting for Obama in 2008 he's getting one, cuz if I'm ruthless with myself I'll admit that Obama's behaving exactly as "progressive" as I expected then -- which is to say, not at all.

You see, iatee believes there are substantive policy differences between Bush and Obama, whereas you apparently do not.

no - iatee believes that Obama continues some of the most destructive policies of the Bush era only because he has to, and we mustn't criticize him for it. he has also evidently been successful in convincing at least one person that be ever mindful of which Bush policies Obama has explicitly continued is somehow the same as believing there are no substantive policy differences between the two admins. It's a neat trick, and a good way of avoiding a subject, but it's not true.

and bigger than Obama's w/ Mussolini too, right?

remember folx, speak ill of the Rockstar = Tea Party fiend

"Bush instituted a policy of torture, and Obama has declined to prosecute anyone for torture; the actions of both are heinous and shameful."
"You crazy person, you have compared Obama to a WWII dictator"

yeah I don't remember morb's initial comment being so eloquent

I hate Obama's expansion of the police state as much as anyone, but Morbs seems to be arguing that Obama is in no important way different than Bush, and I don't believe that's true.

morbs you are one hell of a troll i will give you that

I'm arguing that anyone besides tried-n-true Democrats get tarred as undistinguishable lunatics by many of y'all

I knew if I talked enough shit about Obama max would stop by, how the hell you been max

I have no more idea what "troll" means than I do "progressive" (or "important" as lukas used it)

I have no more idea what "troll" means than I do "progressive" (or "important" as lukas used it)

if tuomas and morbs had a baby, this is how it would troll

man iatee smacktalking about tuomas when the two share a Not Addressing The Issue gene is trolling that people like Dr Morbius can only dream of

dontcha understand, Bam is as good as it gets and thou shalt not speak against him! CHANGE, it is a Worship Word!

(did J0hn D change his name?)

but for your edification Morbs, a troll is a person who speaks ill of a Democratic president without first saying how terrific it is to have a Democratic president, and without appending to his complaint that he knows it'd be worse if there were a Republican in office, and that the Democrat is surely doing the best that can be expected of him, and besides, it's your fault anyway for not having faith, you crazy conspiracy theorist you

xpost Morbs you know this already

in which we apologize for apologizing for Obama.

if you see the name "aerosmith" and the poster is whining incessantly about how fucked we are under the one true holy & apostolic two-party system then yeah it's me

srsly these threads ain't no fun without J0hn, max, Morbs, Shakey, and a Chris Matthews-type whippersnapper.

they aint no fun with us either

lol

Here's the fun:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/20/business/20regulate.html?hp

hahahahaha

obviously not laughing at the fact that harry reid wont let the senate vote on cantwells glass-steagall act

srsly these threads ain't no fun without J0hn, max, Morbs, Shakey, and a Chris Matthews-type whippersnapper.

You homosocial perverts.

rand paul everybody:

It took less than 18 hours for Rand Paul to come down to earth. Thanks to the apt prodding of new Democratic Senate nominee Jack Conway's campaign, the political world spent the day studying Paul's series of remarks on the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It didn't help matters that Paul had defended hosting his election night soiree at a country club. Conway spent the day talking about "standing up for Kentucky," and Paul spent the day talking about the Tea Party.

A side note: Democrats Dan Mongiardo and Conway EACH got more votes than Rand Paul did. There is something stirring among Democrats in Kentucky.

From the Louisville Courier Journal, here's video of Paul describing his opposition to AFDC and, seemingly, parts of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Q: You want to be a senator from Kentucky, which is a relatively poor and unhealthy state. What do you propose to do to enrich the lives of Kentuckians, if you are elected senator?

A: Well, I think Kentucky would do better, and we all would do better, if we sent less money to Washington. So I'm for keeping more money at home, and spending less in Washington. It's more efficiently spent, and makes us better as a people and a country. I think that there are certain pockets of poverty in our state and it amazes me how long this has been going on. ... I think in some ways the culture of dependency on government destroys people's spirits. Maybe we lift people up in eastern Kentucky by giving them a tax holiday for a year, you know. You have to have jobs coming from businessmen and women. And maybe have no taxes in counties that have fifteen percent unemployment. See if you can get people working again. But also maybe welfare should have a local person, a man or woman who sits down across the counter from them and says "What are you doing to find work?" and gives them some tough love and says "Go to work!" It can work, you know. We've tried the other way, just cobbling people and giving people everything. Why don't we try just getting them to work?

Q: Would you have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

A: I like the Civil Rights Act in the sense that in ended discrimination in all public domains, and I'm all in favor of that.

Q: But?

A: Ha ha ha. You had to ask me the "but." I don't like the idea of telling private business owners. I abhor racism. I think it's a bad business decision to ever exclude anybody from your restaurant. But at the same time I do believe in private ownership. But I think that there should be absolutely no discrimination in anything that gets any public funding and that's most of what the Civil Rights Act was about, to my mind.

(from ambinder)

saying a word against the civil rights act (rather than just "the 60s" in general) certainly makes him pretty different from your run of the mill GOPer. plus he mentions the tea party every other damn sentence, he's not riding the tiger, he is the thing itself.

gonna be a pretty wild year

I imagine that's going to be the tip of the iceberg w/ this dude.

love this part of his wikipedia article:

On August 20, 2009, Rand Paul's grassroots planned a moneybomb to kick off his campaign for United States Senate. The official campaign took in $433,509 in 24 hours.[38] According to Paul,[39] this set a new record in Kentucky's political fundraising history in a 24 hour period.

A second moneybomb was held on September 23, 2009, to counter a D.C. fundraiser being held for primary opponent Trey Grayson, by 23 Republican United States Senators, 17 of whom voted for the bailout.[40] The theme was a UFC "fight" between Rand Paul and "We the People" vs. Trey Grayson and the "D.C. Insiders."[41] The money bomb ended up raising $186,276 for Rand Paul in 24 hours on September 23rd;[42] bringing Paul's Senate campaign's total raised since its start to over one million. On December 16, 2009, Rand Paul's grassroots held their third major money bomb for Rand Paul, with the theme reflecting the 236th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.[43] The money bomb raised more than $240,000 for Rand Paul in 24 hours.[44] According to Paul, at that time, this was the second biggest fundraising day for a Kentucky primary candidate in a 24 hour period; with the first being the over $433,000 Paul raised on August 20th.[45] This has since been surpassed by another money bomb for Rand Paul on March 23rd.
On March 23, 2010, Rand Paul's grassroots held a first fiscal quarter money bomb and their fourth major one for Rand Paul to date. The theme was the anniversary of the "Give me Liberty, or give me Death!" speech by Patrick Henry on March 23, 1775.[46] The money bomb ended up raising over $261,000 for Rand Paul's campaign in 24 hours on March 23rd,[47] making it the second largest online fundraising day in Kentucky political history for a candidate in a primary. On April 19, 2010, a final primary money bomb was held, that raised over $100,000 in 24 hours bringing the four primary money bomb totals to just over 1,000,000 dollars 1/3 of Paul's total fund raising contributions.

the other detail is that grayson's supporters apparently hate his guts. but i don't remember where i read that. other than that, it probably doesn't matter what kind of a fanatic asshole he is, these people elected jim bunning.

yay for Cantwell!

wait what are the major differences again? he likes god?

I think Ron Paul's differences w/ Ayn Rand are bigger than Obama's with Dubya.

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Thursday, May 20, 2010 1:24 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

Morbs, why don't you just answer his question? I don't really think you troll the politics threads (other threads, like the Conan O'Brien thread, are a different matter), but refusing to answer direct questions is pretty troll-y.

PAUL: I think at one time people used to think of golf and golf courses and golf clubs as being exclusive. But I think in recent years now you see a lot of people playing golf. I think Tiger Woods has helped to broaden that in the sense that he’s brought golf to a lot of the cities and to city youth, and so no, I don’t think it’s nearly as exclusive as people once considered it to be.

City youth.

NPR interviewed Paul yesterday, and similar results ensued. Paul insisted that he hated "institutional racism" but had problems with the Civil Rights Act. "But I would have marched with Marin Luther King, Jr.," he said.

NPR: Uh, so wait, you have marched with MLK but would have supported Barry Goldwater, one of the few people who didn't vote for the Civil Rights Act.

PAUL: Yeah, the Civil Rights Act is so long: it's got parts I don't like. It's so long that I admit I haven't read it all the way through.

Thing is, you couldn't ask for a better example of white entitlement than a candidate for major office who hasn't felt it necessary to be familiar with our most important documents, legislation, etc.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126985068

let a hundred goldwaters bloom!

And maybe have no taxes in counties that have fifteen percent unemployment. See if you can get people working again.

And at least they won't be doing anything useful like fixing roads or educating children or policing the streets, what with that no taxes thing.

The fact that people have no concept of what taxes are actually supposed to be used for frightens me to death.

they're to punish workers, right?

destroy the spirit of the productive, tbh

they pay for useless wars?

People who moan about 'all their taxes' going to the undeserving poor as if they are handing over zillions of dollars at gunpoint are never working as hard as they say they are.

hey Matt, how'bout iatee just looks up the diff btwn objectivism and libertarianism? That's one less 3000-word essay among the ones you ppl have demanded I write.

Tax bills in 2009 at lowest level since 1950.

that's only 100 30 word snarks though!

that's like the difference between "folgers" and "coffee"

xposts

Yeah, I mean in a thread where we talk about whiteguy entitlement, dude wants an essay and a) expects it will be provided while b) nobody suggests how entitled that is? For the sake of argument I'd expect Morbs maybe to give a short example or link, and maybe not do the hyperbolic comparison stuff because it reads like a hard-left version of Fox and he is better/smarter than that.

what set of expectations about morbs are you operating under there

wd totally read a morb 3000 word essay, so it's not like it'd be wasted effort or anything

I find it hard to believe that morbs realllllly cares about the (hair-splitting) differences between objectivism and libertarianism

BUT DO YOU REALLY CARE ABOUT THE HAIR SPLITTING DIFFS BTW SHRUB AND THEE O??!?

eh forget i said anything, i'm not in this argument

shifting the subject slightly - someone I know in high school who calls himself a libertarian and whose favorite author is ayn rand just wrote a huge note on fb - he's teaching english in south korea and broke a bone. wrote a 10 paragraph long essay on how bad the medical system in korea is:

It is this situation, of knowing there is a better way, and being powerless to choose it, that is the inevitable result of government regulation of industry. Any industry. Education, medicine, energy, anything. I also understand that the disgusting psychology exhibited this doctor is an INEVITABILITY of government coercion of professionals, and it is all the more grave the more specialized, and difficult the work that needs to be performed. I witnessed, at more than one hospital, people with amazingly specialized skills, people who should rightfully take pride (and care) in their work, reduced to psychological parity with your average DMV worker. I was furious at being the victim of these bad ideas, and also angry at myself for being too paralyzed with fear to say “Yo doc, you're doing wrong. Please use disinfectant.”

I have reached a milestone in my post-operation recovery, and am at a point where I can do nothing but wish. I wish that the consequences of my injury, and treatment, are not very severe. I am also confronted by the ironic reality that had this injury occurred in America, as an uninsured person, treatment would likely have been many times more expensive. For many people, prohibitively so (making orthopedist #2's non-surgical recommendation much more subjectively appealing). The final cost of my surgery and treatment in Korea (across the 3 hospitals I visited) will probably be around $3700. I don't really have a way to estimate what the cost would have been in America, but I bet it would have stung more financially, and that the care I received would have been higher quality. Whether or not the care would have been a better *value,* I suppose I will learn as complications in my recovery arise, or don't.

I am also confronted by the ironic reality that had this injury occurred in America, as an uninsured person, treatment would likely have been many times more expensive.

Has your friend discovered that Santa Claus isn't real yet?

I did not say friend

Excuse me -- 'entity that for some reason you are reading on Facebook.'

?? what happened to the guy, did he get an infection or something?

can anyone here estimate what the cost of this:

I suffered two fractures in my fibula on April 19th (from an impact-type injury while playing soccer) one of which was sightly displaced. I eventually underwent a titanium plate-fixation surgery on May 3rd at Seoul National University Hospital (SNUH), supposedly the best in Korea. (On a side note, I believe the rubberized artificial turf playing surface was absolutely a factor which contributed to my injury, but that's hardly the most important example of compromised standards I've encountered here). After the initial ER visit, my research of how to proceed with treatment involved going to 3 hospitals, and getting 3 local opinions on how to proceed. I also was able to email xrays and get additional opinions from an orthopedist uncle of mine back in America.

would be for an uninsured person in america?

he's teaching english in south korea and broke a bone.

the two are related.

dude also has only dated asian girls his entire life btw

invite to ilx y/n

is it a widespread theory that guys who exclusively date Asian women are gay or is that something my friends made up?

gay in the schoolyard sense

lol

On a side note, I believe the rubberized artificial turf playing surface was absolutely a factor which contributed to my injury, but that's hardly the most important example of compromised standards I've encountered here).

oh I forgot to post the part where he is angry at korean doctors for not speaking his language:

It was even less reassuring that orthopedist #2 came to an entirely opposite conclusion from #1, saying “surgery is unnecessary” and that he did not recommend it. This left me about a week after my accident with a slowly healing, crooked fibula. Unsatisfied to literally lie there and take it, I got in touch with SNU Hospital which was listed on the American embassy website. SNU Hospital has a much greater reputation that either of the first two hospitals, but what really sold me was the fact that I was able to be connected to a polite, knowledgeable nurse-receptionist who spoke to me in fluent English. Later she even accompanied me to the first consultation. Throughout all of this, my wonderful girlfriend has been acting as driver and interpreter, but the language skills exhibited by (some of) the staff at SNU Hospital was a large part of my decision to receive surgery under their care.

(a self supporting community for pedophiles and sexual offenders)

^^^^ can we make this the ILE board description?

People who moan about 'all their taxes' going to the undeserving poor as if they are handing over zillions of dollars at gunpoint are never working as hard as they say they are.

There is a huge difference between working 'hard' and working at something awful and depressing - I always feel like ppl complain about taxes to 'undeserving' ppl are really (as we all do to some degree) justifying the grimness of having-a-boss etc as "being a productive member of society" & lashing out at ppl they see as escaping the trap of 9-6ing? Maybe that isn't true, idk.

iatee, has dude not considered that maybe some of these doctors hated him

entitled expats are the worst

iatee, $3700 is like an ER visit over here---forget about surgery

yeah this guy acts pretty entitled even when he's busy being an unemployed, uninsured american who spends his time posting fb links about the virtues of the free market - can't even imagine how awful it would be to be a foreigner who had to deal w/ him xp

Most expats I know would serve him a can of STFU. Some of us enjoy the challenge of loophole pursuit in bureaucracy, so what a great thing it is to have the NHS to play with. Free at the point of use, and EDUCATIONAL.

Gravel, I'm talking about the whiny self-justification that goes hand in hand with denying that others deserve help when it is needed. So you don't need help? Congratulations, and stop stigmatizing others who may, particularly if they don't look or sound just like you. Most American wage slaves are two paychecks away from some kind of economic problem and there are better ways to process that angst than hating on someone who has less than you by characterizing them as somehow getting 'more' out of being non-productive.

I've had medical care in Sweden, Australia, Holland, New Zealand and England (as vs. in the US where I'm from), and I used to work in health care. Nobody can pretend that US medical care if you have the scratch isn't the best in the world - 'cause it is; that's just the plain truth, not patriotism - but people who get all "socialized care sucks!" are fucking idiots imo. Sweden in particular, we should be so blessed as to have hospitals & doctors as mellow & awesome as they have in Stockholm & Vaxjo. there are a lot of things that go into quality of care, and while the rubber-meeting-road is "who has the best doctors?" (we do; they come from all over the world to work here), we will also fleece patients to within an inch of their lives, and prioritize their health care needs according to a lot of really insane criteria. fuck us health care priorities imo, it's this weird best health care/least patient-friendly system

Nobody can pretend that US medical care if you have the scratch isn't the best in the world

read this as 'if you have a scratch' and was sorta confused

american scratch care - #1 worldwide

You can be caught in a loop of snipe-hunting for some things on the NHS and sometimes you go for a test and they lose the results, but overall I've been able to get what I need from them, when I need it. That I will never have a conversation with an insurer's representative over something that is life/death for me but numbers to the headset jockey I'm speaking to is worth a few extra bits of red tape here and there IMO.

My mom was saying a few days ago that even though the US has the world's best health care she still had to fight like a bitch from Hell to get it to give me a fighting chance at life. Her attitude was basically 'medical professionals, hate me all you want right now but I will be happy to apologize for being forthright when my daughter is in remission'.

xpost we sit on the world's deepest benadryl reserves

High wages result in a quality product. Who knew?

God, these frigging people. Sometimes they don't even try to hide it.

Tonight on On the Record, Greta Van Susteren wanted to know why President Obama only took two questions during his joint press conference with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, and she decided to ask someone who's intimately familiar with the White House Press Corps.

Unfortunately, she picked Dana Perino instead. Perino declared that Obama's actions showed his "disdain for the press," adding that if "Obama had taken questions from the American press it probably would not have been on immigration ... but that's the breaks."

Contrary to Perino's suggestion, Obama did take a question from the American press. He took one from Univision, which -- as their spokesperson reminded The Hill today -- is a member of the American press:

In a statement to The Hill, a Univision spokeswoman said: "Not only is Univision a U.S. based company -- we are headquartered in New York City -- but we are one of the top five networks in the country regardless of language.

a hard-left version of Fox

Potential screen name!

I've said American politics is a pile of shit and a totally lost cause 100x. Ask me to write about baseball.

no because you're a Yankees fan, we hear from quite enough of them thanks

<3 just funnin Morbs

geez man keep it social ffs, let's not say things we can't take back

oh wow just looked at FB, he's a Mets man? I do not know why I have unjustly tarred him as a Yankee-lover in my mind for years

sorry Morbs!

all your ppl who continually distort Morbs's position can now follow my good example

go yankees

you should never say that, not even in jest

I have smoked one out of his hole

take that to the webcam thread

Another occasional Twins fan, here to say Yankees suck.

the only teams in baseball I dislike more are Atlanta and Boston

pro sports are gay

fyi

I actually have picked up the mets as my 2nd team since moving to queens, I will one day try and make peace w/ morbs on the mets thread

hi, im a yankees fan, born and raised

spawned and raised

oh max, I didn't know you were evil personified ;_;

Oh great. Another fucking Mets/Yankees thread.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I just would like to point out that Mordy is the one trying to make this into slashfic

US POLITICS: underrated sup-- fuckin' A-Rod.

hi, im a yankees fan, born and raised

I always knew your politics were awful

max is the kind of baseball troll who will take and wear a Mets ski cap if it's free.

Also, I may break if I have to see this team pitch and field in the late innings anymore.

arod the sup-fucker

I had a brief period of "hey, the Yankees aren't that bad!" dementia that was mostly fueled by living in Boston in the 00s

seriously guys take it somewhere else

you guys, shakey is feeling left out

let's at least talk about police brutality at sports games

loooooooooool

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/right-now/2010/05/celebrating_draw_muhammad_day.html

guys it's draw muhammad day!

oh good, the dumbest day in the world

wow, that coincides neatly with Sprain Your Eyes From Rolling Them So Damned Hard Day!

Hopefully a Yankee will die today so Shakey can comment on the RIP thread.

can I start a "draw Jesus on an upside-down cross day"

will people participate in that & more importantly will they get stoked about freedom of speech when I do

lol I wonder what management would have to say about my great new idea

Hopefully a Yankee will die today so Shakey can comment on the RIP thread.

wouldn't hurt to inform the team that today is draw muhammad day

http://www.richardhellergallery.com/dynamic/images/detail/44_19_ONSPORTS5P.jpg

that's crap

the 3rd and 4th pages are even better (covering the relationship psychology between fans and pro athletes) but I can't find them anywhere

why do you like homophobic cartoons so much

i just do ok

list of headlines on the tpmdc site is hilair/smh

KY Rep: Rand Paul Has 'Embarrassed Kentuckians In The Eyes Of The World'
Rand Who? Cornyn Silent On Paul's Extreme Civil Rights Act Views
Rand Paul: 'I Will Not Support Any Efforts To Repeal The Civil Rights Act'
Paul: Opposing Civil Rights Act Is 'The Hard Part About Believing In Freedom' (VIDEO)
Rand Paul: 'Loony Left' Unleashed By Civil Rights Act Discussion (Audio)
Rand Paul On NPR: Disabilities Act Goes Too Far
What Did Rand Paul Really Say On Maddow Last Night?
Poll: Rand Paul Leads Jack Conway By 25 Points

why do you like homophobic cartoons so much

think yr missing the point a bit

plz explain to me the point - not getting much out of that beyond "sports are gay" - which seems like some sort of holy grail discovery for a nerdy jr high kid who's looking for a killer insult to use on the athletic kids.

sports + GAY...oh man...they're in for it...

iatee otm

on the politics thread, of all places for iatee to suddenly be otm

I wish I could find the other two pages - the point of the cartoon is to provide an over-the-top breakdown of all the sexual metaphors (both homo and hetero) embedded in pro sports and explain all the weird, often unexamined psychological undercurrents within those terms.

the upshot, for me anyway, is that I invariably can't watch sporting events without thinking how ridiculous they are.

like the fact that you are posting that and expecting us to all act OWNED is just kinda hilarious

Gosh, I wish sports were gay – that way I could have fucked all my guy friends.

it's also a funny kind of parody of academia's penchant for over-intellectualized analysis, a POV getting taken to rhetorical extremes, etc.

xp

like the fact that you are posting that and expecting us to all act OWNED is just kinda hilarious

eh I was expecting some people to laugh, I don't really care about pwning any of you for your baseball obsession