2012: Obama's America - General Post Election/US Politics Thread

Jumping off from here:
The Choice of a New Denigration: the US Election Day 2012 Thread

this surprised many

haha

so, the social cataclysm that conservatives predicted would happen in the last four years... that's going to happen in the next four, now, right?

can't decide if i'm annoyed by fork's boring thread title or relieved that he didn't try out a pun

when will it be legal to start up my all-gay satanic daycare center?

should've worked Butterschotts into the thread title somehow

xp

i know this is the post-election thread but these guys -

http://www.workingamerica.org/

did incredible work for the obama campaign, they deserve some in-thread big ups

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/09/opinion/krugman-lets-not-make-a-deal.html

This seems to me the new left-wing consensus and it makes a lot of sense to me. Tax break repeal for wealthy, no cuts to social services, or we go over the cliff. And if we do go over the cliff, reintroduce the tax breaks + payroll vacation for the middle class and dare House Republicans to not pass them. I think it's really brilliant tbh. I don't ever write letters to the WH (tho I write letters to my asshole local Republicans all the time) but I wrote them today to push them to follow this strategy.

someone please fix the thread title

this thousand year long election cycle made me forget how much I fucking hate john boehner

So...Petraeus.

how can you hate an oompa-loompa

xp

Haha:

http://www.salon.com/2012/11/09/weekly_standard_republicans_must_play_white_identity_politics_better_next_time/

I enjoy these silly things far more than I should (sorry if it was posted on the previous thread).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLIJc7YE_jw

It's still a pun if it's just a number-pun!

He BETRAYED US alright

Some kid just zipped by on his bike chanting ”Obama won!” Then he mocked Mitt as ” Romney noodle.”

probably thought u were mad cuz u white

So: what's the over/under on whether a Grand Bargain is struck by Christmas?

xpost Wasn't chanting at me or in any particular direction, he was just generally chanting with pride and happiness.

I kind of agree with Krugman, but man.

no grand bargain i hope

some dude (not that one) down the block has had his windows plastered with homemade 'fire obama the liar'/'i don't believe the msm' etc. signs. they are written out in the same font that calvin's bully moe used to speak in.

anyway, where can i find an enormous poster of obamacellphonesmirk.jpg?

yeah i'm not one to put too much faith in dems standing ground, esp congressional dems, but they did manage to resist watering down defense cuts when EVERYONE (and obv republicans, probably why they agreed to it in first place) assumed they would buckle and w/ no imminent election and a triumphant moment and the wind at their back i'd hope they'd be even more aggressive. whatever grand bargin does emerge it'll be nowhere near as favorable to gop as what was on the table in aug 2011, thank god.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_md8gabRTEH1qltl50o1_500.jpg

haha

this guy hosts a radio show:
https://www.facebook.com/roger.fredinburg/posts/4188394302242

Nice

I kinda wanna know who this guy is so I can friend him

A big reason to avoid Papa John's.

So what is the response to this? Conservative guy on my fb posted the story about the Georgia guy and was all "See what happens when you elect Obama"

Modify legislation so that businesses that transform full time into part time jobs to evade the mandate get fined.

Do we have links/articles about how all of this works? I thought there were tax break proposals for small businesses to make up for Obamacare costs?

But that's the rub: Papa John's isn't a small business.

oh yeah, for Papa John's, but what about these other bozos, like that guy in Georgia who fired staff that he suspected of voting for Obama to get down to under 50 employees?

The guy who runs the coal mine?

The story on that Georgia guy -- the radio show caller? -- omitted his name and occupation.

Yeah. Not the coal mine guy, the guy who omitted his name and occupation.

kinda lol but mostly sad that employers are using this as an excuse to pull some walmart shit

http://nymag.com/news/politics/elections-2012/obama-romney-economic-plans-2012-10/index2.html

Here is how it will happen. On the morning of November 7, a reelected President Obama will do … nothing. For the next 53 days, nothing. And then, on January 1, 2013, we will all awake to a different, substantially more liberal country. The Bush tax cuts will have disappeared, restoring Clinton-era tax rates and flooding government coffers with revenue to fund its current operations for years to come. The military will be facing dire budget cuts that shake the military-industrial complex to its core. It will be a real-world approximation of the old liberal bumper-sticker fantasy in which schools have all the money they require and the Pentagon needs to hold a bake sale.

All this can come to pass because, while Obama has spent the last two years surrendering short-term policy concessions, he has been quietly hoarding a fortune in the equivalent of a political trust fund that comes due on the first of the year. At that point, he will reside in a political world he finds at most mildly uncomfortable and the Republicans consider a hellish dystopia. Then he’ll be ready to make a deal.

Leading up to the New Year, there will be a concerted effort to preempt this policy shift, by bringing the two parties together to consummate a version of the endlessly touted (but little-understood) Bowles-Simpson agreement that GOP House members rejected. This is already under way, and is being described in the press as a noble bipartisan effort to avoid something terrible. But it is more accurately understood to be a conservative attempt to avoid a massive shift in leverage in Obama’s favor. Some Democrats get this. (Charles Schumer is one of the few willing to take a hard-ass line against Bowles-Simpson). I also believe that, despite his silence on the matter, Obama gets it, too.

So the pizza will no doubt have that 14 cent increase and now he's cutting hours too? Sounds like PJ shareholders are gonna have one hell of a fiscal year!

That's lovely enough to get us liberals masturbating but we righly mocked Peggy Noonan for believing in signs and signals and vibrations.

on the other hand David Brooks understood the consequences of a suddenly recalcitrant Obama in today's NPR segment. If I were a Democrat, he said, I'd let the tax cuts expire too -- suddenly the government will have all the revenue it needs.

it's a really great idea and makes total sense for obama for pursue. if you read further chait lays out the case in even more compelling detail. obv i'm not totally convinced, i wasn't sure obama would win until returns came in for florida, but it seems very reasonable and maybe stands an okay chance of happening??

But if Obama allows taxes to go up, he'll never be elected again! Oh, wait. I mean, whoever runs as a Republican next election will campaign on lowering taxes, plus constricting social freedoms! Oh, wait. That already happens.

So, yeah, let's go over this fiscal bump and see what happens. Maybe will our military budget morally wounded, Iran will finally spring its trap and invade!

Like Chait admits at the end, we have to believe Obama could summon every ounce of his everybody-chill-the-fuck-out side to resist a unanimous howl of protest from both parties, editorial writers, Beltway commentariat, donors, and potential '16 nominees if he lets those cuts expire.

....and I don't believe it.

our military is so big at this point that even w/ the spending cuts iran is no threat to the united states. the only threats that iran represents (nuclear weapons, regional hegemony, control of the strait of hormuz) we can either handle already, or no amount of military spending can impact.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRzulF_7kHz20ez8ZXcUeZGoRD77xg0dgJ2IZhO0lXl75yXptPI

Also, I was kidding about Iran.

Republicans sulking, left without voting on $60 billion in hurricane relief.

Yeah, I just watched that play out. Boehner is such a fucking asshole.

Or maybe...

Ryan Lizza ‏@RyanLizza
!!!!! @jbendery: Boehner aide refers questions about Sandy aid bill to Cantor's office.

Well now!

shiiit!

haha that's great

Much to be written on this vote tonight. But for starters, Majority Leader Cantor and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy voted no. That’s just stunning. It is almost as though Cantor is plotting or hatching or just purchasing his coup on layaway.

An amazing moment

Josh Marshall

Charles Pierce:

The moment came yesterday afternoon, when Eric Cantor, John Boehner's personal Cassius, came out against the deal that the Senate had sent to the House -- something, it should be recalled, that Boehner insisted the Senate do when he decided that the House, under his barely distinguishable leadership, would abandon its constitutional budgetary obligations. This entirely predictable development set folks agog, both on Capitol Hill, and within the courtier press. That's because the essential character of the Republican caucus in Boehner's House never had been fully explained to the American people. There was the squid-ink of "false equivalence" and intellectual cowardice clouding everything. It is impolitic -- and severely damaging to one's social schedule -- to point out that one half of the national legislature is controlled by a political party afflicted by self-inflicted dementia. In this context, "compromise" becomes less a goal than it does an anesthetic, lest the rest of us wake up and realize what has become of our self-governing republic. Watch, though, if the feral children send this back to the Senate with poison-pill "amendments," at least one prominently "objective" reporter will find "room for compromise" in one or more of those amendments. (Luke Russert? White courtesy phone, please.) Then, as Ms. Parker would have put it, I will fwow up.

The president and the Democrats have given all they can be expected to give, and more. The president has proven himself willing to make a lie of the central economic promise that got him re-elected. The vice-president spent two days pretending Mitch McConnell was a national leader. They all had to know this was futile. (McConnell, especially, had to know it, since the same bats flying around the House belfry are flying around Kentucky right now, threatening to primary his withered hindquarters.) Did they really think that Boehner, who couldn't muster a majority to pass his own stunt-bill a week ago, would risk his speakership by forcing a vote he could only win by enlisting more Democrats than he'd spoken to in two years? Were there mushrooms in the egg nog this year?

i just checked the list of votes and every representative from PA, R or D, voted aye.

Michelle Malkin ‏@michellemalkin

Paul Ryan says the 41-to-1 tax hikes to spending cuts crapwich "reflects conservative values." Stop it.

ryan's vote prob needs to be put in context of how he wants to come across in 2016

http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2013/01/fiscal_cliff_deal_house_republicans_don_t_like_the_senate_s_agreement_but/158618189.jpg.CROP.rectangle3-large.jpg

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.mandatory.com/media/2012/10/romney-son-soon-6.jpg

No way am I bookmarking THAT.

It's already bookmarked you.

mitt's actually kind of a handsome guy, what the shit happened to Tagg?

THe ones who take after Mommy all have that look.

So is this shit over

For a sportsfan, Raymond, u sure miss some of the basics.

so the only Dem senator who voted against this 'from the left' was Harkin.

Harkin 2016

House Speaker John Boehner couldn’t hold back when he spotted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the White House lobby last Friday.

It was only a few days before the nation would go over the fiscal cliff, no bipartisan agreement was in sight, and Reid had just publicly accused Boehner of running a “dictatorship” in the House and caring more about holding onto his gavel than striking a deal.
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“Go f— yourself,” Boehner sniped as he pointed his finger at Reid, according to multiple sources present.

Reid, a bit startled, replied: “What are you talking about?”

Boehner repeated: “Go f— yourself.”

lollllll Boehner goin off the rails. 2013 is gonna rule so hard

But Obama warned again that he would not negotiate with Republicans over the $16.4 trillion debt limit, which must be raised in the coming weeks. “While I will negotiate over many things,” he said, “I will not have another debate with this Congress over whether they will pay the bills they’ve already racked up.”

reid is a pretty good troll

Nice photo.

http://i1059.photobucket.com/albums/t427/sayhey1/cliff_zpsc9e9b90a.jpg

Don't know which I'd rather see: the word bubble on the right, or the three thought bubbles on the left.

"how does my dick taste in your mouth?"

bohner: "i don't know, pretty good i guess"

“Go f— yourself,” Boehner sniped as he pointed his finger at Reid, according to multiple sources present.

Reid, a bit startled, replied: “What are you talking about?”

Boehner repeated: “Go f— yourself.”

This kinda confirms my theory that Boehner is either perpetually hung over or at least two beers into the day.

you hear these stories about how some medieval kings would pray for literally two or three hours every day, in solitude, that's how i imagine boehner, always on his knees, silently asking god to forgive american liberals for being meddling godless ninnies etc, standing up, fortified, ready to do battle again

I dunno, I think I'm with Nicole's theory; see Boehner drinking 2-3 hours a day, not praying.

yeah tracer that seems way off to me

so, the payroll tax holiday is over. fuck.

I'd tell Harry Reid to go fuck himself too.

2013 is gonna rule so hard

Counterpoint:

http://www.salon.com/2013/01/01/why_2013_is_going_to_be_awful/

(excellent note on which to start 2013 thread. Plz leave Robot POTUS's name out of title.)

We should close this thread, yes.

A new year. Symmetry requires it.

American Politics 2013: Let's Talk About Hillary Clinton

“Go f— yourself,” Boehner sniped as he pointed his finger at Reid, according to multiple sources present.

Reid, a bit startled, replied: “What are you talking about?”

Boehner repeated: “Go f— yourself.”

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, January 2, 2013 8:23 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha

“What are you talking about?”

I imagine Boehner preening in the mirror and seeing a much younger, more virile crooner in his imagination, a figment that can only persist as long as he's on at least his third highball of the morning.

American Politics 2013: What are you talking about?

American Politics 2013: Go Fuck Yourself

What are you talking about?

yessssssssss xp

wait -- no dirty thread titles at work, goddammit

Boehner has turned into Dick Cheney, i see (at least as far as having a potty mouth).

American Politics Thread 2013: Bangs, Whimpers and Filibusters

American Politics Q1 2013: Speaker of the House Al Swearingen

the same bats flying around the House belfry are flying around Kentucky right now, threatening to primary his withered hindquarters

this sentence is a thing of beauty fyi

xxxxp

oh fuck, I would so prefer Swearingen as president to the last five or six.

Would have supported "Politics 2013: Now On Bloodthinners"

yeah that's good

American Politics 2013: It's Not a Cave, Its What they Believe

Biggest O and Dem cave so far: keeping first $5 m exempt from estate tax.--tweet from Robert Reich, who was Clinton's Secretary of Labor