2015 American Politics Thread: The 114th Congress Is in the House!

This might more properly go in the "seems like it's from the Onion" thread:

http://host.madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/walker-strikes-truth-human-condition-from-wisconsin-idea-adds-workforce/article_a4ca4220-7211-5fc8-b2b9-0ab5313c6937.html

Shit. I guess it just wouldn't do for those college kids to be getting any big ideas now, would it?

Only if "the workforce" needs them.

aka "die Arbeitskräfte"

most current GOP members of Congress are there to raise their speaking fees, score book deals, and live in talk radio land. They're not there to legislate, but no one can say so.

so it's just continuing resolutions from here till the end of time I guess, could be worse.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2015_02/judis_recalibrates053978.php#

excerpt from analysis

But you can forgive John Judis for wanting to make it clear he thinks any Democratic advantage is gone, since he was the co-author, with Ruy Teixeira, of the 2002 book, the Emerging Democratic Majority, that first explained many of the demographic trends that became fully manifest in the 2008 presidential election—including, most surprisingly, the Democratic comeback in states like Virginia and North Carolina with the right balance of minority, professional, transplant and “knowledge worker” voters.

So as his first article at his new venue, National Journal (he was one of the New Republican veterans who resigned recently), Judis has written a piece with the careful if evocative headline, “The Emerging Republican Advantage.”

Its most interesting feature is the suggestion that Democratic weakness among white-working class voters is beginning to be matched or even exceeded in importance with a new weakness among voters—especially but not exclusively white voters—with a college but no postgraduate education, and with middle incomes between $50,000 and $100,000 a year. This is a big problem for Democrats, says Judis, not just because these “middle-class Americans” are a growing percentage of the population (unlike the non-college educated white working class), but because they are at best lukewarm to the populist messages Democrats are beginning to deploy to stem the Republican tide among the white working class.

Judis’ biggest fear is that in retrospect the Democratic renaissance he and Teixeira wrote about in 2002 may been seen as an aberration in a long Republican tenure driven by the American middle class’ mistrust of government and anger at “incompetence” and “redistribution.”

I'm a little skeptical of that "redistribution" conclusion ... otherwise I don't consider "mistrust of government and anger at incompetence" to be partisan positions

All I ever see or hear from Republicans is mistrust of the federal government. Not just from politicians but from folks on Facebook and others irl.

that's only temporary

remember how much they mistrusted the gov't during the Bush years? oh right

It's been going on since Reagan. As long as Bush was using the federal government to deregulate and cut taxes (that is shrinking the federal government in certain areas) Republicans thought that was a step in the correct direction in reducing the footprint of the federal government they mistrust. The "mistrust" is never logical-- its why Senator Ernst can bash the federal government (on things she does not like) while her family received farm aid. The initial problems with the rollout of healthcare did not help though.

it's been going on since way before Reagan!

nah I'll give'em this: the GOP had many more sane members before 1980.

it gets tricky to chart because of how the parties' have historically switched places (Democrats originally the party of the south + farmers/rural communities, GOP the party of Lincoln + northeast + industrialists) but the right wing (ie the south + rural communities) has always conveniently excoriated the federal gov't ("states' rights!", "the New Deal is socialism!", anti-desegregation)... when they weren't in charge of it. the left has excoriated the federal gov't when they weren't in charge as well, although typically for things like being too laissez-faire and in the pocket of corporate capitalists or for lashing out militarily/acting like a police state

xp

well, farmers + rural communities have not always historically been 'right-wing.'

but "mistrust of the federal government" is really vague as a term. Does it mean mistrust of the EPA? Or mistrust of the President ordering drone strikes against American citizens? cuz those are very different things that bother very different people for different reasons, and the constituency that's bothered by both is pretty narrow and fringe.

xp

"rural communities + farmers" = Populists.

farmers + rural communities have not always historically been 'right-wing.'

yeah I was specifically referring to the Dems origins as the party of Jefferson there (agrarian and pro-slavery, and typically skeptical of federal power), which ... I dunno it's kinda meaningless to ascribe contemporary political affiliations to people living in that era, but those attitudes and demographics have evolved/been passed down to the modern day along lines that we have come to call right-wing in contemporary parlance.

xp

@ZaidJilani
6 House Democrats say they wont attend #Netanyahu's speech; 4 say they will attend. Most undecided #SkipTheSpeech

CHEERS USA GOOD LUCK

http://onpoint.wbur.org/2015/02/05/infrastructure-improvement-obama-tax-overseas-roads-bridges

quick question: remember the 2010 GSA scandal where they were caught having a big expensive extravagant 4-day conference/party in Las Vegas? and does the general public really remember that?

i just ask because there's a WashPo article on the ramifications of that scandal today. the consequences of GSA's party are well-known to federal workers - congress made it excruciatingly annoying, tedious, and difficult to do anything related to travel, training and conferences - but I didn't think that the general public, beyond a few tea partiers, cared or remembered.

Haven't read the whole article to see if there's a chance for a slghtly less stringent standard. Also, is keeping most conferences out of Vegas really making things that difficult for conference planners?

Maybe Hillary can put a workgroup together to address it, like this one:

With advice from more than 200 policy experts, Hillary Rodham Clinton is trying to answer what has emerged as a central question of her early presidential campaign strategy: how to address the anger about income inequality without overly vilifying the wealthy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/us/politics/economic-plan-is-a-quandary-for-hillary-clintons-campaign.html?_r=0

. Also, is keeping most conferences out of Vegas really making things that difficult for conference planners?

heh, they're definitely keeping them out of vegas, but it's more than that. it's all the little things that are agonizing.

for example, let's say you're planning a mandatory training session, in-house. it's not a conference - it's just a 2-hour session that could have been set up with a simple meeting invite once upon a time. but there's an employee from another city that's going to be coming. and some consultant is going to come in to lead the training. it's not a conference.

managers get involved. "...is this a conference?" - no it's not a conference "is there travel involved?" well yes an employee is traveling from a different city but he does that all of the - "We need to let the deputy know. this is going to need approval if it's a conference" - it's not a conf- "it doesn't matter if it's a conference, if it appears that it could be a conference we're going to have to jump through the hoops" - you know we could just do a webinar since it's not really important that- "we're going to need you to fill out Conference Request form 2321-rev2" - but it's not a conference - "and in the review chain make sure to note that it's not a conference, we just have to verify that it is in fact NOT a conference even though it has the appearance of-" it doesn't even have the appearance of a conference, it's - "Request form 2321 is being revised again, apparently, we better just make sure that upper management is aware of this situation, we can let them know when we brief them next Thursday" (time passes) "Oh, I'm sorry, we forgot to mention this important conference issue..." - it's not a conference - "...during the briefing, we'll have to draft up a quick memo to let them know that we're requesting to have a conf- IT'S NOT A GODDAMN CONFERENCE! LET'S JUST MAKE IT A GODDAMN WEBINAR. SHIT! SHIIIIIIIIT! *runs down the hall and crashes through the window*

and for god's sake, PLEASE refrain from bringing in coffee or bagels to this training session because that definitely sounds conference-y and you know we don't need to deal with that right now

not only must you avoid conference, you must avoid even the appearance of a conference

lol @ "inclusive capitalism"

xxxp

if only the fucking shell game was sophisticated enough to be Orwellian, instead of Idiocracian.

Mitch McConnell is upset about filibuster abuse.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/mitch-mcconnell-shutdown-conundrum-obama

"You'll have to ask the leader," Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, the vice chair of the Senate Republican Conference, told TPM on Thursday.

burn tbh

http://www.prospect.org/article/needless-default

The administration’s foreclosure relief program was designed to help bankers, not homeowners. That disgrace will haunt Democrats.

By
David Dayen

I think Krugman and some others have been writing about this for awhile, and this provides further details

GOP circular firing squad in the house! http://news.yahoo.com/mcconnell-senate-stuck-over-bill-funding-homeland-dept-193718285.html

. Also, is keeping most conferences out of Vegas really making things that difficult for conference planners?

heh, they're definitely keeping them out of vegas, but it's more than that. it's all the little things that are agonizing.

for example, let's say you're planning a mandatory training session, in-house. it's not a conference - it's just a 2-hour session that could have been set up with a simple meeting invite once upon a time. but there's an employee from another city that's going to be coming. and some consultant is going to come in to lead the training. it's not a conference.

managers get involved. "...is this a conference?" - no it's not a conference "is there travel involved?" well yes an employee is traveling from a different city but he does that all of the - "We need to let the deputy know. this is going to need approval if it's a conference" - it's not a conf- "it doesn't matter if it's a conference, if it appears that it could be a conference we're going to have to jump through the hoops" - you know we could just do a webinar since it's not really important that- "we're going to need you to fill out Conference Request form 2321-rev2" - but it's not a conference - "and in the review chain make sure to note that it's not a conference, we just have to verify that it is in fact NOT a conference even though it has the appearance of-" it doesn't even have the appearance of a conference, it's - "Request form 2321 is being revised again, apparently, we better just make sure that upper management is aware of this situation, we can let them know when we brief them next Thursday" (time passes) "Oh, I'm sorry, we forgot to mention this important conference issue..." - it's not a conference - "...during the briefing, we'll have to draft up a quick memo to let them know that we're requesting to have a conf- IT'S NOT A GODDAMN CONFERENCE! LET'S JUST MAKE IT A GODDAMN WEBINAR. SHIT! SHIIIIIIIIT! *runs down the hall and crashes through the window*

― Karl Malone, Monday, 9 February 2015 15:26 (Yesterday) Permalink

I work for the government and don't travel, but from what I hear from others who need to, Karl is OTM.

"anti-theist" arrested in murder of 3 Muslim students in Chapel Hill

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/chapel-hill-shooting-craig-stephen-hicks-condemned-all-religions-on-facebook-prior-to-muslim-massmurder-arrest-10038126.html

Possibly over a parking spot

An NRA koan: If those Muslims would have been armed, this never would have happened.

<3 TV's Frank:

Erick Erickson ‏@EWErickson 2h2 hours ago
Boy, had that guy in North Carolina been a tea party member or Christian instead of an atheist gay rights activist, twitter would be on fire

Frank Conniff @FrankConniff
.@EWErickson Twitter is on fire about this, douchebag.

But the women’s father, Dr. Mohammad Abu-Salha, who has a psychiatry practice in Clayton, said regardless of the precise trigger Tuesday night, Hicks’ underlying animosity toward Barakat and Abu-Salha was based on their religion and culture. Abu-Salha said police told him Hicks shot the three inside their apartment.

“It was execution style, a bullet in every head,” Abu-Salha said Wednesday morning. “This was not a dispute over a parking space; this was a hate crime. This man had picked on my daughter and her husband a couple of times before, and he talked with them with his gun in his belt. And they were uncomfortable with him, but they did not know he would go this far.”

Abu-Salha said his daughter who lived next door to Hicks wore a Muslim head scarf and told her family a week ago that she had “a hateful neighbor.”

“Honest to God, she said, ‘He hates us for what we are and how we look,’” he said.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2015/02/11/4547742_chapel-hill-police-arrest-man.html

President Barack Obama asked Congress Wednesday to formally authorize military force against the Islamic State group, arguing the militants could pose a threat to the U.S. homeland if their violent power grab goes unchecked and urging lawmakers to “show the world we are united in our resolve to counter the threat.” The president elected on a promise to end America’s wars is sending Congress a proposed joint resolution to authorize military force against the swift rise of Islamic State extremists...

sad that the pretext for war is so flimsy that the president has to deign to ask congress to use its constitutionally mandated authority to approve this shit

re: chapel hill, this is really horrible, the victims and I have some close mutual friends and this is a fucked up thing to have happen in our community

lolz w everyone's favorite oompa-loompa

"The House has done its job," Boehner declared during a Wednesday media briefing. "Why don't you go ask the Senate Democrats when they're going to get off their a-- and do something other than to vote no?"

Stay classy, GOP

boehner that takes brass to new levels

seems like there's something hypocritical about boehner's whinypants, but i can't put my finger on it

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/11/opinion/thomas-b-edsall-the-republican-discovery-of-the-poor.html

the mortgage tax break should be eliminated tbh, replace it with a 9000% excise tax on all single-family home construction

lol wtf gop

sadly 'I know you are but what am I' seems to be the baseline for political discourse these days