US Politics Thread |OT| THE DARKEST TIMELINE

[Great Rumbler]

The same 30% who will still vote for them no matter what.

[DCharlieJP]

I assume the long term battle plan is to just keep pushing religion, keep people who support them being stupid and make sure they :tsk at condom usage so they are pushing out more stupid voters by the dozen

Its a long all game but ultimately one, in all seriousness, they could potentially win. Meanwhile in China the sound of hysterical laughter will be unbearable

[Phoenix Dark]

I assume the long term battle plan is to just keep pushing religion, keep people who support them being stupid and make sure they :tsk at condom usage so they are pushing out more stupid voters by the dozen

Its a long all game but ultimately one, in all seriousness, they could potentially win. Meanwhile in China the sound of hysterical laughter will be unbearable

Gotta say I doubt it, based on demographics. The country is getting browner every year, and the white vote decreases every four years. Also that generation of 60-70yo whites is dying off, while their grand kids become more liberal. I don't think conservatism is dead, but barring another economic disaster I believe we're about to see demographics ensure near one party rule for the next decade or two (similar to what happened between 1968-1992).

The current republican party is doomed to become a regional party - ie the south and heartland states of the Midwest. I'm sure they'll evolve and become competitive eventually, but I don't see that happening anytime soon based off how ugly this immigration debate has gotten.

[DCharlieJP]

I have to say that in recent times i've been stunned by how many vocal extreme right wing people i've come across that are American and, in even greater numbers, Brits - especially southerners

Fear is a powerful thing

[Great Rumbler]

I have to say that in recent times i've been stunned by how many vocal extreme right wing people i've come across that are American and, in even greater numbers, Brits - especially southerners

Fear is a powerful thing

The grand age of whitey is coming to an end.

[Boogie]

I have to say that in recent times i've been stunned by how many vocal extreme right wing people i've come across that are American and, in even greater numbers, Brits - especially southerners

Fear is a powerful thing

The grand age of whitey is coming to an end.

hey, it's not like white people aren't scared for a reason.

[Phoenix Dark]

Can't wait until I'm like 70 years old. I'll start crossdressing just so I can clutch my purse and cross the street when I see a young white male walking my way

[TakingBackSunday]

CNN...you could've worded this better



 

[DCharlieJP]

Oh - Obama is Myanmar - surely nothing to call for impeachment there then?

Oh, my mistake :

"He dun called Myanmar "Myanmar" when we officially still calls it Burma... IMPEACH!"
"He dun said he wants to do things without congressional approval.... IMPEACH!"
"He dun said he responsible for the military therefore guilty for Bengazhi... IMPEACH!"

[Phoenix Dark]

patiently awaiting the birth of the "Obama caused the OKC hurricane to raise his poll numbers/change the topic from Benghazi/IRS" conspiracies

[Human Snorenado]

I'm just waiting for Senators that almost certainly voted against Sandy aid to explain why big daddy federal gubmint needs to bail them out now.

[Mandark]

"If Kevin Durant were clutch, he could have stopped this.  MJ would never have let a natural disaster hit Illinois."

:themuchlamentedskip

[Rufus]

I'm just waiting for Senators that almost certainly voted against Sandy aid to explain why big daddy federal gubmint needs to bail them out now.

Wait, there was a vote? I had always assumed that it was just a fuck-up or something... Who the fuck votes against disaster relief? Has the small government bullshit gone that far?

[Joe Molotov]

I'm just waiting for Senators that almost certainly voted against Sandy aid to explain why big daddy federal gubmint needs to bail them out now.

Wait, there was a vote? I had always assumed that it was just a fuck-up or something... Who the fuck votes against disaster relief? Has the small government bullshit gone that far?

Darrell Issa, the GOP's current hatchet man against Obama, opposed 9/11 aid.

"It's very simple: I can't vote for additional money for New York if I can't see why it would be appropriate to do this every single time a similar situation happens, which quite frankly includes any urban terrorist. It doesn't have to be somebody from al Qaeda. It can be someone who decides that they don't like animal testing at one of our pharmaceutical facilities."

Issa said the destruction of the World Trade Center did not involve a dirty bomb or a chemical weapon designed to make people sick.

"It simply was an aircraft, residue of the aircraft and residue of the materials used to build this building," Issa said.

[Rufus]

Wow. That's the stupidest argument against providing aid... How can anyone say this shit with a straight face?

[Great Rumbler]

Wow. That's the stupidest argument against providing aid... How can anyone say this shit with a straight face?

But what if people flew airplanes into buildings EVERY DAY? America would be drowning in debt in no time at all!

[Human Snorenado]

[DCharlieJP]

The self parody continues with the news that Obama declares major national disaster....

You already know what the responses are.... 

[Dickie Dee]

(Image removed from quote.)

Too perfect

[Joe Molotov]

I'm just waiting for Senators that almost certainly voted against Sandy aid to explain why big daddy federal gubmint needs to bail them out now.

Well, you have to give Tom Coburn credit for his consistency (no credit for being an idiot, though):
http://americablog.com/2013/05/oklahoma-senator-coburn-says-no-tornado-aid-unless-cost-is-offset.html

[Rufus]

I'm coming around on the whole reptile people conspiracy.

[Great Rumbler]

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/poll-hillarys-numbers-remain-strong-despite-benghazi-investigation

Keep beating that drum, Right Wing, maybe people will eventually start listening to you if you scream a little louder!

[DCharlieJP]

This is a joke - "we will take aid but the money has to come out of left wing spending plans" i bet you if the cut to pay for OK was to come from defense spending or clawing back some of those tasty upper end tax relief clauses they'd object to that as well.

So this amounts to "we will grant you the privilage of helping the people of OK as long as you cut YOUR plans to pay for it and we wont budge until you agree" - this is borderline criminal.

[Phoenix Dark]

They should take the money from any fed $ appropriated to OK this year. Or they can, you know, pass an aide bill the way it was done until Obama became president.

I'll give Coburn credit for being consistent, but ultimately the bill won't be paid for - and he knows it. This is probably just a stunt to prove his credentials. When the aide bill comes to the floor, with no offsets, he'll complain but ultimately vote for it.

[Phoenix Dark]

http://keller.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/bring-back-ken-starr/?smid=tw-share

we're reaching critical mass where I can no longer tell trolling from concern trolling

[Phoenix Dark]

triple post don't ask me how

The Republican nominee for lieutenant governor in Virginia has called the Constitution’s original clause to count blacks as three-fifths of a person an “anti-slavery amendment.”

In an April 28, 2011 statement while he was a Senate candidate, conservative minister and lawyer E.W. Jackson held up the three-fifths clause as an “anti-slavery” measure. The context of his statement was to attack President Obama after a pastor at a church service he attended referred to the three-fifths clause as a historical marker of racism.

“Rev. [Charles Wallace] Smith must not have understood the 3/5ths clause was an anti-slavery amendment. Its purpose was to limit the voting power of slave holding states,” Jackson, an African-American, said in his statement.

This is a deeply misleading telling of American constitutional history.

The clause was demanded by Southern proponents of slavery as a way of enhancing their congressional representation. They wanted slaves to be counted as full persons but settled on three-fifths. People of African descent would have had no real rights either way. The inclusion of the clause greatly enhanced the South’s political power and made it harder to abolish slavery. The clause was effectively eliminated after the Civil War by the Thirteenth Amendment.

“Some of the compromises we can look back and be proud of; some of those compromises we can’t be very proud of. The three-fifths compromise, by which slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person, is not something any of us would applaud them for today,” said University of Pennsylvania historian Richard Beeman in a 2011 interview.

Jackson, who was nominated over the weekend, has since taken a beating in the press for his many outside-the-mainstream positions and remarks. He also argued in 2011 that it was inappropriate for Obama to sit in a church where a pastor would bring up slavery.

“This is 2011. The issue of slavery was settled 146 years ago,” Jackson said in the same statement. “For the President of the United States to sit in yet another church where the Pastor dredges up the past as if nothing has changed demonstrates either tremendously poor judgment or that Mr. Obama shares this sentiment. Either way, it is divisive and destructive, and the President should be above such associations.”

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/05/ew-jackson-three-fifths-clause-slavery.php?ref=fpa


odds on him running for president in 2016?

[Great Rumbler]

Can't wait for the Jackson/Palin ticket in 2016! With Rand Paul as treasury secretary.

[Phoenix Dark]

I wonder how prevalent that argument is on the right; actually never mind, I don't feel like being depressed today. The 3/5s compromise is one of the many reasons I laugh at libertarians who believe slavery would have ended "eventually" without a civil war. Why would the south willingly halt their driving economic force anytime soon, without preparing for a post-slavery future (who knows how long that would have taken, assuming slavery continued. They'd be making bank and heavily influencing the House of Representatives, perhaps into the 20th century.

[Human Snorenado]

I used to like The Jackson 3/5 back in the day

[Eric P]

oh

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/21/correspondents-association-concerned-government-too-aggressive-in-tracking/

Newly uncovered court documents reveal the Justice Department seized records of several Fox News phone lines as part of a leak investigation -- even listing a number that, according to one source, matches the home phone number of a reporter's parents.

The seizure was ordered in addition to a court-approved search warrant for Fox News correspondent James Rosen's personal emails. In the affidavit seeking that warrant, an FBI agent called Rosen a likely criminal "co-conspirator," citing a wartime law called the Espionage Act.

but yes, this is hilarious.

"now when we were advocating for all of this stuff we certainly didn't mean for it to affect US!"

[Brehvolution]

Rosen was in contact with a person now being held a best Korean spy. That should be part of the context.

[Phoenix Dark]

Jochum: Iowa Legislature reaches agreement on health care

Iowa will accept federal funding to expand health care to low-income residents under a compromise reached between statehouse Democrats and Republican Gov. Terry Branstad, Senate President Pam Jochum says.

Jochum, D-Dubuque, said an agreement was reached late Tuesday evening on an issue that has dominated the 2013 legislative session. Jochum said the compromise will be included in the Department of Human Services bill, which will be voted on Wednesday afternoon.

The legislation will be called the Iowa Health and Wellness Plan. Jochum said the state will accept federal funding from Medicaid expansion to cover approximately 150,000 new enrollees.

“It was a big breakthrough,” Jochum told the TH today. “A lot of people thought we’d never reach agreement, and we did.”

Residents up to 100 percent of the federal poverty line — $11,490 for an individual or $19,530 for a family of three, for example — will receive the same benefits as state employees, and those premiums will be paid for entirely by federal Medicaid dollars.

Residents between 101 percent and 138 percent of the poverty line will receive insurance from exchanges created by the new federal health care law. Those residents’ premiums will be paid for with Medicaid funds in the first year, and also in ensuing years provided they accomplish physicians’ directives such as wellness check-ups and diet counseling. If a person does not accomplish those objectives, he or she must pay a portion of the premium up to 2 percent of household income.

Branstad had been resistant to accepting expanded Medicaid funding, citing concerns with the federal government’s ability to deliver on the funds. Branstad instead developed his own plan, an expansion of IowaCare, the state’s current plan for low-income residents. That plan covered only residents up to 100 percent of the poverty line.

Democrats meanwhile have pushed for Medicaid expansion, which was optional to states under the federal Affordable Care Act, to serve residents up to 138 percent of the poverty line.

Jochum said she had been working on the compromise since Friday with Democratic Sen. Amanda Ragan and Republican House Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer. Jochum said the governor's office got involved Tuesday, and an agreement was reached late Tuesday evening.

A spokesperson for Branstad said the governor supports the compromise and commends legislators in both parties and both chambers for their work on the bill.

"The governor was clear from the onset that two things needed to happen with regard to health care reform. First, taxpayers needed to be protected in the event the federal government did not come through on its funding promises. Second, the governor wanted to ensure we were focused on health outcomes and making Iowans healthier," Branstad spokesperson Tim Albrecht said. "This requirement was met in both cases under the Iowa Health and Wellness Plan. ... This is a modernization of Medicaid and will serve both patients and taxpayers at a superior level."

Per the federal health care law, the federal government will pay for the lion's share of Medicaid expansion: 100 percent in the first three years, reducing gradually over 10 years to 90 percent.

http://www.thonline.com/news/breaking/article_f6f5e3e4-c311-11e2-9b15-001a4bcf6878.html

What's this, state democrats and republicans working together to the benefit of their citizens? Impressive.

meanwhile in Michigan

[Great Rumbler]

Obama will use the speech to announce new restrictions on unmanned drones, an announcement that comes on the heels of the U.S. government's admission that it has killed four American citizens with drone strikes.

According to the New York Times, the policy changes signed by Obama include a reduction of the "instances when unmanned aircraft can be used to attack in places that are not overt war zones, countries like Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia." The new rules will also establish "the same standard for strikes on foreign enemies now used only for American citizens deemed to be terrorists," the Times reported.

[Human Snorenado]

Nevermind all that shit, a new scandal appears!

http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/23/time-exclusive-obamas-1979-prom-photos/

[Phoenix Dark]

Time has the full story on that magical (okay, largely banal) night, courtesy of Obama’s high school best friend’s date, Kelli Allman. As an added bonus, she throws in his inscription from her 1979 yearbook: “It has been so nice getting to know you this year. You are extremely sweet and foxy . . . I hope we can keep in touch this summer, even though Greg will be gone. Call me up and I’ll buy you lunch. . . Good luck in everything you do and stay happy. Your friend, Love, Barry Obama.”

Translation: Greg's heading out of state...let's fuck

Obama got game

[Broseidon]

 

[Human Snorenado]

If they seriously do start impeachment hearings, he should grow that fro back to fuck with them.

[Phoenix Dark]

fuck the fro, he should grow a beard. His true heritage will be exposed for all to see

[Joe Molotov]

I guess everybody's got their own:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6af_1369341311

[AdmiralViscen]

Jon Husted has finally won his crusade against fraudulent voters

http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2013/05/investigations_recommend_135_c.html#incart_river%23incart_m-rpt-2

135 out of 5.6 million

[Phoenix Dark]

Jon Husted has finally won his crusade against fraudulent voters

http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2013/05/investigations_recommend_135_c.html#incart_river%23incart_m-rpt-2

135 out of 5.6 million

Yup Josh Marshall has a write up on it.
http://editors.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/05/this_is_important_give_it_a_read.php?ref=fpblg

I agree that Husted deserves some credit for admitting the voter fraud obsession was over hyped but it's worth noting that the voting supression movement could have impacted a tight election; fortunately for Obama he pretty much blew Romney out the water in the large urban areas, to a point where there was no way to pull a fast one (as Karl Rove found out).

[Great Rumbler]

“It’s clear to anybody that can do any kind of statistical analysis that Barack Obama wouldn’t be president of the United States without Ronald Reagan’s 1986 amnesty act,” King said during a speech on the House floor.

[Phoenix Dark]

So does that mean Reagan ruined America?
 

[Great Rumbler]

I was thinking the same thing.

[Great Rumbler]

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/24/to-salute-or-not-obamas-handshake-sparks-debate

 

[Phoenix Dark]

No mention that Obama, you know, almost always salutes? And he exited the chopper, shook the guy's hand, and apologized for not seeing him.

[brawndolicious]

This is one of the things I hate about meeting older family members who always expect you to shake their hands, "DID YOU SHAKE MY HAND BOY?"

Why do we still salute? What's the point of saluting even? I might understand it when somebody is in active duty and at risk of getting killed but a marine that's guarding the helicopter or some national monument should probably feel silly if anyone saluted him out of some sense of obligation.

[Yeti]

Republican state senator in Kansas: cutting tax on food will cause poor to buy too much.

Not an Onion article.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/24/kansas-lawmaker-opposes-encouraging-the-behavior-of-purchasing-food-with-lower-food-taxes/

[Great Rumbler]

modernrepublicanparty.txt

[Joe Molotov]

First poor people are able to buy food, then what? They're able to buy a car, buy a home? Gotta nip this in the bud.

[brawndolicious]

I just can't understand that logic. Food is something that you have to buy, I would think that a republican would be happy to have lower taxes on it so that people can spend their money on other goods.

[Great Rumbler]

There's no real logic going on there. If the price of food decreases, that essentially means disposable income increases. As disposable income increases, the relative proportion spent on food decreases.* People won't buy MORE food, they'll buy more things that AREN'T food!

*Engel's Law

[Joe Molotov]

Engel sounds pretty gay. Also probably a communist.

[Great Rumbler]

You have no doubt heard the on-going saga of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford. Though the video has never been publicly shown, three reporters have allegedly seen video of Ford smoking what appears to be crack cocaine with a group of Somali immigrant drug dealers. They appear to be the ones who are shopping the video of Ford smoking said crack. For the last week or more he’s been dodging the press and clearly unwilling and presumably unable to deny the videos existence or authenticity. Yesterday he emerged to give a classic non-denial denial of his apparent drug use.

Looking at this from the outside, setting aside that it’s problematic to have a serving mayor caught on tape doing drugs, I’ve had to ask: how does the sitting Mayor end up carousing with Somali crack dealers and smoking crack? Well, we may have an answer. The Globe and Mail has just published a lengthy, very lengthy look at the Ford family. And basically all Ford’s siblings have substantial past ties to the drug trade.

It starts with Doug Ford, who isn’t just the Mayor’s brother, but also sits on the city council. Back in the 80s, according to the article, Doug was a pretty major hashish dealer. Now, when I first read this I was thinking, how much does this really matter. Lots of people sold drugs to friends when they were young and then went on to perfectly normal, even establishmentarian lives. That’s part of what this was. Doug’s dealing apparently ran from when he was 15 to 22. So pretty young.

But it’s a bit more than that. He wasn’t just dealing to friends. He was the guy who supplied street level dealers. So it was a pretty big operation. And bear in mind, these kids weren’t growing up in rough inner city poverty. They came from a very wealthy family and lived in an exclusive neighborhood.

So way back when current city councilor and brother Doug Ford was a dealer. Apparently Randy Ford, another brother was too. But he was the crazy one. Let’s discuss Marco Orlando. He was allegedly one of the guy’s Doug supplied and was himself a dealer. Only he fell behind on what he owed Doug.

So this happened …

He was also supplied a lot of drugs on credit but was notoriously unreliable when it came to paying for them. Among his suppliers, the suspicion was that Marco was sharing his illicit proceeds with his parents and feigning poverty. So two weeks before Christmas, they hatched a plan, said “Tom,” a drug dealer who said he was involved in the scheme.
On a Tuesday night, with the usual throng of young adults outside the Bank of Montreal at the Royal York Plaza, Marco was jumped, beaten and thrown into a car. He was driven more than 30 kilometres to a basement in Bolton, where someone called his parents, demanding they hand over the money. For 10 hours, Mr. Orlando was captive, but his parents didn’t panic. Instead, they called the police. Within three days, all three men allegedly involved in the plot were under arrest.

Randy Ford was one of those arrested for the kidnapping. The guy who represented Randy, Dennis Morris, is the same lawyer represented the current Mayor in the crack situation.

Then there’s the sister Kathy.

Last year, her long time boyfriend, who’s also a convicted crack and hash dealer, was charged with threatening the Mayor’s (i.e., her brother’s life). But it was probably clear that Scott MacIntyre wasn’t a great guy back in 2005 when he and a friend were charged with shooting Kathy in the face. (She survived.)

And she’d had relationship problems before - like when her drug addict ex-husband shot and killed her then-current boyfriend. And there’s a whole other part of the story which is that the boyfriend who was killed was a big white supremacist and apparently Kathy was too. But it’s notable that her associates in the white supremacist world were apparently also major drug dealers.

Now the big stuff appears to be relatively far in the past. And the article is clear that Rob Ford, the Mayor, who was a couple years younger, does not seem to have been actively involved in the brothers’ drug business himself. But what the article also notes is that a lot of people from the Fords’ drug dealing days - people who were in the business themselves - are part of the Mayor’s current entourage.

It is, to put it mildly, a really weird story. It’s also important to note that the big stuff happened when all these guys were younger. To get the full feel for it, read the article. But after reading it, you’ll be a whole lot less surprised that the Mayor was off smoking crack with some Somali crack dealers.

 

[Joe Molotov]

“Fires of Siberia,” a bodice-ripper starring a Michele Bachmann-like figure goes on sale June 1. “Presidential candidate Danielle Powers, full of firebrand pluck and red state sex appeal, has the country in a tizzy. But on an international tour to beef up her foreign policy experience, disaster ensues—her plane explodes over Siberia. Miraculously, Danielle survives, along with one other passenger—a mysterious stranger named Steadman Bass. Trapped in a wilderness of snow and ice, the two begin a journey that pushes Danielle to the brink. There she must confront her deepest self and choose between civilization and a wild, primitive ecstasy,” says the description.

 

[Boogie]

Hey!  That's not American politics, Rumbler! 

[Phoenix Dark]

wait, if his family is involved in drugs...how come he had to go to a crack house to smoke some? Why not have it sent to his house discreetly.

[Boogie]

wait, if his family is involved in drugs...how come he had to go to a crack house to smoke some? Why not have it sent to his house discreetly.

Because

A)  Doug dealt drugs 30 years ago, not now.

and

B)  Presumably, Rob Ford's wife isn't on board with the whole "my husband the mayor smokes rocks" thing, and because the Toronto Police already regularly attend their house responding to domestics, he probably thought it safer to indulge his habit outside of the home.

[Phoenix Dark]

wait, if his family is involved in drugs...how come he had to go to a crack house to smoke some? Why not have it sent to his house discreetly.

Because

A)  Doug dealt drugs 30 years ago, not now.

and

B)  Presumably, Rob Ford's wife isn't on board with the whole "my husband the mayor smokes rocks" thing, and because the Toronto Police already regularly attend their house responding to domestics, he probably thought it safer to indulge his habit outside of the home.

I seriously doubt they go to his house on such a frequency that he couldn't discreetly smoke crack in his house without being caught; that's ridiculous. The story just doesn't make sense to me. Marion Barry got caught in a hotel; he had been doing it for years, and was only caught due to a sting operation. Ford (allegedly) smoked crack in some weird location and took pictures with drug dealers...he has to be the stupidest mayor alive.

Get a hotel bro

[Boogie]

he has to be the stupidest mayor alive.

Yes?