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

i've heard more about fucking flags in the past month than I have in my entire life

should make ISIS dildo flag the new flag of the nation

Why the presidency matters.

Plus Congress too

Now, with a push from President Obama, and perhaps even more significantly a nod from Speaker John A. Boehner, Congress seems poised to revise four decades of federal policy that greatly expanded the number of Americans — to roughly 750 per 100,000 — now incarcerated, by far the highest of any Western nation.

Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee who has long resisted changes to federal sentencing laws, said he expected to have a bipartisan bill ready before the August recess.

“It will be a bill that can have broad conservative support,” said Mr. Grassley, who as recently as this year praised the virtues of mandatory minimums on the Senate floor.

!

Just ain't the money in building prisons there usta be.

I hope those presidential appointments somehow overcome Waterworld, Alfred.

They probably won't — imo that's not a good enough reason to throw up your hands and say
http://www.big-t-shirts.com/ProdImages/big/who-gives-a-shit.jpg_1244.jpg

I was told immigration reform was all but assured too, but some unreasonable dickheads ruined everything

it's not ME who doesn't give a shit.

solitary posts that effortlessly sum up morbz' ilx persona

you need to be tied to a solitary post

btw Ted Cruz called O the leading state sponsor of terror? Stopped clock twice a day, huh?

In more mundane news, the Republican House and the Republican Senate are having trouble agreeing to a highway bill, with some of the Senate in favor of a "compromise" 6 year Senate bill, while the House just wants a 3 month extention to then later develop a longer bill. But Repubs can't agree on how to fund it, and won't listen to Dem proposals on how to do so

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/249598-senate-ends-debate-on-highway-bill

remember when mcconnell took credit for the economy improving because their congressional majority was about to git-er-done w/ legislation ? lawl

Capehart claims Mitch has got it: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2015/07/29/how-mitch-mcconnell-went-gangsta-on-ted-cruz-and-mike-lee/

okay lol at what he did to Mike Lee

don't fuck w the blobfish

Capehart is absolutely correct about McConnell's leadership vs. Boehner's. they're both shitbags, but McConnell knows how to run the game.

mcconnell seems genuinely interested in governing. what a concept.

all the jockeying over symbolic votes to overturn Obamacare are hilarious, like this is what they're wasting their time/energy/political capital on when there is absolutely zero hope that they will ever get the votes to override a veto

It's to avoid a primary fight at home. But at one point does a voter say, "OK, message received, you want my vote, stop trying and go get laid"?

my congressman was just indicted:
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/chaka-fattah-indicted-criminal-charges-philadelphia-mayor-campaign-120775.html

this is the second congressman i've voted for to be embroiled in an ethical scandal (i was living in washington heights when charlie rangel got in trouble)

It's amazing to me how cheaply these dudes get bought

there's a whole like political science theory about that

or maybe just daily kos memes idk

Phil Gramm has thoughts on the 5th anniversary of Dodd-Frank:

GRAMM: It’s the one form of bigotry that is still allowed in America, and that’s bigotry against the successful … My friend Ed Whitacre at AT&T, if there’s ever been an exploited worker, even though they made a big deal about him getting $75 million when he retired, the man added billions of dollars of value, he was exploited, it was an outrage!

(his exploited friend was actually given a $158 million retirement package, not $75)

an OUTRAGE

think of all the ivory backscratchers he was unjustly deprived of

the soft bigotry of high retirement packages

his wife was on the enron board I wonder what her severance was

bennies

otm

Forgot that when you retire you get to keep all the money you made your company.

The truly exploited people are the poor saps forced to use an AT&T service.

there is a funny kernel in Gramm's line of reasoning in that his argument is predicated on the (basically socialist) concept that shareholders have an ethical obligation to share their earnings with the workers that generated them. What's telling about Gramm's conception of the situation is that he takes it as a given that the CEOs working at the top are *actually doing the hardest work most deserving of compensation* - those farther down the ladder, their work is not as deserving/is less important. There's a basic, rock bottom elitism there.

so uh how bad is this Planned Parenthood blowup going to get?

(and is ilx talking about this somewhere else?)

Former president Jimmy Carter said Tuesday on the nationally syndicated radio show the Thom Hartmann Program that the United States is now an “oligarchy” in which “unlimited political bribery” has created “a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors.” Both Democrats and Republicans, Carter said, “look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves.”

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/07/30/jimmy-carter-u-s-oligarchy-unlimited-political-bribery/

Been that way since the beginning fwiw

i knew that was coming. Things are substantially worse than they were 40 years ago.

here is some amplification

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/feb/26/jimmy-carter/jimmy-carter-says-when-he-ran-against-gerald-ford-/

Been that way since the beginning fwiw

― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Friday, July 31, 2015 11:36 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i knew that was coming. Things are substantially worse than they were 40 years ago.

― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius),

did you guys switch identities?

lol

It is Friday.

Oh no, we both clicked on that link AT THE SAME TIME

ha

Will endear each of them to millions.

http://timedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/bush-clinton-cover.jpg?quality=65&strip=color&w=814

gross

why does Time Magazine still exist anyway

People wanna know what's happening in the world, week by week. The people who work during the day, and can read it small. And it's concise, and there's pictures in it. A certain class of people--it's a class of people that take the magazine seriously. I read it on the airplanes.