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 "Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule." - Friedrich Nietzsche Welcome to the US politics thread! Our country is in shambles as the rich continue to pillage it and our generation is completely screwed no matter what your political beliefs are. Here we post to talk about the latest stunt and discuss the appropriate liquor to drink when they manage to further sabotage the country and the planet. Big Stuff in 2014: Military Spending: COLA cuts to pensions were partially reversed. After the Dems overcame a filibuster in the Senate, Boehner tried to get it through the House as part of the debt ceiling package and failed. He had to grab enough Dems to pass it. Pension cuts have been reversed if you are already retried, but remain in place if you are yet to retire. Sen Sanders (I-VT) and 10 Democrats entered a bill (SB1982) to reverse the rest of the cuts, expand intra-family transfers of the GI Bill, and increase funding for the VA for both health procedures and processing. It is currently filibustered by Sen Grahamn (R-SC). SecDef Hagel has proposed cutting the military's personnel while increasing military spending by $115 bln over 5 years with a focus on hardware. This is vigorously opposed as "gutting defense" by republicans and has them sneering that Obama would rather spend on food stamps than the military, going to show that up is down and left is right. Legalized marijuana: Colorado is reporting millions more in tax revenue that was originally anticipated, which has gotten a lot of attention from other states. Publicly it is at a majority for support. Same sex marriage: Or, you know, just "marriage". In the wake of last years ruling we have seen a huge number of state level bans struck down, including in Kentucky, Utah, and Texas. So far Appellate courts are upholding those rulings, typically citing Justice Scalia's contributions to the ruling (which is also what is cited in striking down the bans, in some cases quoting him word for word). Through his ruling Anthony Scalia has literally, not at all figuratively, done more to bring about marriage equality in this nation than any other individual. Thinking about that warms my heart. The Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge by the National Organization for Marriage to reinstate the ban in Oregon, so it stays there. Ryan Ideas: Ryan dropped a big pseudo-academic report that was a "summary" of government anti poverty programs and their effectiveness. He declared them ineffective citing studies. The authors of those studies came out and pointed out he was completely misrepresenting them to support his ideas. He got beat pretty heavily around the head with them so one month later when he released his budget which was supposed to lead the charge in reforming social welfare, that part was absent from the pitch. Good thing too, in order to achieve his goal of a balanced budget in 10 years with no tax reform and no changes to social security while expanding defense, he has to lay in deep cuts to the social safety net. ~86% of the costs in the Ryan budget would be born by the poor. gently caress this guy. Of course now he is back on his anti poverty train holding summer hearings on it. When the Dems tried to get actual poor people to testify he blocked them. When the poor people tried to sit in attendance they were shown the door by capital security. Irony is dead. Select Committee on Benghazi: Boehner caved and appointed a special committe, making it the 9th committee to hold hearings on the events at the American consulate in Benghazi, Lybia on 11 Sept 2012. The committee is headed by former prosecutor Trey Gowdy (R-SC) in case you had any doubts this was being whipped towards impeachment. The other members are Susan Brooks (R-IN), Jim Jordan (R-OH), Mike Pompeo (R-KS), Martha Roby (R-AL), Peter Roskam (R-IL) Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) Adam Smith (D-WA), Adam B. Schiff (D-CA.) Linda T. Sánchez (D-CA.) and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL.) First order of business was of course fundraising, with the NRCC sending out mailers asking for money so they can "expose the Benghazi coverup". Bowe Berghdahl: The story as is generally understood now is that in 2009 Bowe Bergdahl grew disillusioned with the Army while in Afghanistan and deserted. He ended up in Taliban custody, where he became a prisoner of war and was held for 5 years. President Obama recently traded 5 upper members of the Taliban for his release, keeping with long US policy to bringing everyone home from war. This has since become a major shitstorm. Firstly, the issue is that Bergdahl by all accounts deserted his unit. Rolling Stone reported on the emails exchanged with his family, the US Army investigation found his questions to superiors about what would happen if he left with equipment to be suggestive, his gear was found in a neatly folded pile, and his unit commander alleges he left a note saying he was deserting. Secondly, some members of his unit are claiming he was attempting to join the Taliban. This is at this time completely unconfirmed, and anyone even passingly familiar with the rumor mill of the enlisted should be skeptical. Third, all deaths in the region are now being attributed to being lost while they were looking for him. This number has escalated from 5 to 6 to now 8, growing as it is told. Cross referencing the Manning files with the military database has all attributed deaths to thus far be simply in the region rather than directly connected with the search. That said, lack of support because other units were positioned for the search is certainly a thing to be considered. Fourth, while Obama briefed Congress that he was going to negotiate a POW swap in 2012, for the actual swap he did not give the 30 days notice required by law. The administration cites exigent circumstances and health concerns as why they did not. Fifth, there exists a bipartisan (though largely conservative) wing that wishes to define Guantanamo prisoners as neither criminals awaiting trial or Prisoners of War, and so object to a POW swap on those grounds. They feel this is "negotiating with terrorists" and will embolden further attacks. Hamdem v Rumsfeld made it clear that there is no special "terrorist" category that allows for dodging existing laws, treaties, and customs, and there is a long history of POW swaps, going back to George Washington. Even if it were negotiating with terrorists, we have done that before as well, as in the case of Iran-Contra. Sixth people are unhappy about the terms of the deal, that 5 upper members of the Taliban were handed over. From what is available at this time it appears that all 5 were bureaucrats, albeit high ranking ones, rather than paramilitary. Further, the end of combat operations in August would trigger Article 75 of the Geneava Convention of 1929, requiring us to either prosecute them as criminals in a proper court or repatriate them. In all likelihood they were looking at imminent repatriation. This of course has lead to death threats, calls for impeachment, swift reversal of position, and the usual outrage machine kicking into high gear. Republican strategists and former Bush administration officials Brad Chase and Richard Grenell are arranging the media bookings for people to tar Bergdahl and attack Obama in line with the above listed points. So far Bergdahl's hometown has canceled a "Welcome Back Bowe" celebration citing public safety due to the threats they have received The DoD will be conducting a debriefing and investigation into the events surrounding Bergdahl's disappearance and his conduct while a POW. In terms of historical and legal precedent there is the case of Charles Robert Jenkins, who fled to avoid going to Vietnam, was captured and held but North Korea for 40 years. Upon his escape he was courts martial-ed, sentenced to 30 days confinement, and let go. However, the degree of political attention on this may guide the investigation and sentence. Colonel, a Malinois from a UK K-9 unit is still being held somewhere in Laghman. He remains a good boy. Veterans Affairs: Since 2005 the GAO has been reporting on the existence of a fake patient wait list that the administrators were using to fudge the numbers on wait times so they could get their bonuses without hitting the real metrics. 9 years and a lot of dead veterans later it finally boiled over into the main discourse. The scam involved a lot of collaboration from telephone operators taking the appointments and putting them on the fake list to the administrators altering scheduling software permissions so they wouldn't log who was doing the scheduling, and was basically done in the open through emails. Turning a blind eye to something that big for that long means the people in charge need to go, and they did - General Shinseki resigned as head of the Veterans Affairs. Unfortunately the person who replaces him as the new permanent head is extremely unlikely to have his perspective, experience, and dedication. Yes, dedication - even with all this we are talking about a guy who was the veteran of two tours of combat in the Vietnam War, was awarded three Bronze Stars for valor and a Purple Heart with an Oak Leaf Cluster when he lost part of his foot to a landmine. He oversaw a vast improvement in how the VA was run in most regards, got it more funding, reduced backlog, and genuinely cared about how veterans were treated. But he hosed up in not taking care of a known case of widespread malfeasance and needed to go. For those keeping score at home, the big 3 scandals right now are that Obama doesn't care about Americans in harms way, that Obama will bend over to get Americans home safely, and that Obama doesn't care about Americans who were in danger overseas. Yeah, I get whiplash on that too. Reproductive Rights: Let's just say being a woman is getting kinda rough right now. We are waiting to hear about the ruling on whether insurance must cover birth control. Meanwhile states are moving forward in banning types of birth control, including the safest and most effective ones like IUDs. Abortion access is being rolled back through the use of private harassment, vandalism and occasionally murder and bullshit "health, safety, and cleanliness" regulations conceived and put in place explicitly to shut down abortion clinics. Keeping with the usual "the only moral X is my X" loopholes are being left that allow for paying a several thousand dollar fine to allow individuals to have abortions so when the rich have an unplanned surprise they can take care of it. But the whole point is to strip autonomy from women, which is why you see things like proposed laws that would let relatives of the father object and put a halt on the procedure being performed. And don't forget poorly worded laws that define women as pregnant 2 weeks before they conceive. All this is underpinned by their newest bit of pseudoscience, claiming that science has proven life begins at conception (scientists don't agree to that at all, the closest they come is saying the fetal cycle begins at implantation). National Security Agency/Surveillance: In the aftermath of 9/11 the NSA started an expansion so it would start grabbing everything. In 2004 this first came to light, though the NYT sat on it so as not to influence the election. In 2005 it was public. In 2006 it was so public it was on the cover of Wired. In 2010 the Washington Post did a massive project documenting how much it had grown, with the total global ubiquitous surveillance project consuming 70 billion a year through several departments. But no one but privacy experts, scifi authors, and the ACLU really cared until 2013. In June of that year NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked a huge number of files to journalists and fled the country. This has had a huge number of aftershocks that are upending domestic and international politics. The dedicated thread for it is Here. Latest bit is that SWAT raided a Florida police department to seize materials documenting the stingray surveillance that a court had ordered be released. Drones: The second worst kept secret in the world (after your porn stash) is that America has been running a drone program of targeted killing for the past several years. It was initially an outgrowth of the Cheney commanded kill teams project, meaning it was run by the CIA rather than the military proper. Over the years as the program became more of an open secret it has seen "reforms" transferring control to the military, no longer using pattern matching to select targets and the like. It has been scaling down of late as well, there has not been a drone strike in Pakistan in 6 months. It is still a highly controversial program however, with numerous ethical difficulties that need to be reconciled, many of which we can't because so much of it is still secret. Here's something fun to consider - if you showed your child Terminator you would need to explain to the what a phone book is, but not a merciless untiring killer robot that will kill everyone with the same name and those connected to them to be thorough. Mass shootings: Memorial Day weekend saw 4 spree shootings in Santa Barbra (CA), Myrtle Beach (SC), Chicago (IL), and Clinton (LA). Most attention is being paid to the Santa Barbra shooter, Elliot Rogers. He was a well educated young man who suffered from depression, ended up in the MRA community where he got radicalized, started lashing out, and then killed 6 people. If that sounds like the same pattern that suicide bombers follow rather than your usual shooters, yep. Currently the big fight is over whether this is something to be addressed by mental health or combating misogyny, with the usual brutal leftist infighting because we can. No one is even remotely mentioning new gun control legislation, which has led the gun nuts to stop issuing death threats to new businesses in the gun manufacturing market and start howling that because he stabbed 3 people no one should say anything bad about their (Edit: I wrote this section at 1 am EST 5 June, there was another mass shooting at Seattle Pacific University at 3:35 pm on 5 June. This country man) Sgt. Tahmoorsessi: Marine currently being held in Mexico on weapons smuggling charges. His story is that he wasn't smuggling, he went to meet some friends in California with 3 guns in his trunk (an AR-15, .45 pistol and 12 gauge shotgun), took a wrong turn and ended up in Mexico where they are illegal. He is the current cause celebre for the right now that Obama got Bergdahl back and if Obama did it it must be bad. Pink Crow: Mississippi Senate passed it most recently, Kansas it passed the house and died in the senate, Arizona it got through the legislature and was vetoed by the governor, Tennessee, South Dakota, Georgia, Idaho, Arizona, and Kentucky are all pushing the bills as well. Identical bills written by the American Religious Freedom Program popped up everywhere. If that sounds like the model ALEC uses, it's because they are joined at the hip through the Ethics and Public Policy Center and Heritage Foundation, with people in all 4 of those organizations performing secondment to another. Anyways, while all the focus is on the attempt to bring back Jim Crow laws against LBGT people, the legalese they are really trying to slip through is a redefinition of what constitutes an organization's rights, and what constitutes government interference in those rights. Under these bills if a private individual took a discriminating agency to court, the fact that it was in court would constitute government interference and allow them to invoke constitutional protections. Yes, I am focusing more on the legal corporate bullshit of it than the horrible repressiveness of it because if I actually need to explain why that stuff is bad just get the hell out of the thread right now. Food Stamps: Finally got pushed through, with deep cuts (8 bln over 10 years). Millions suffering. Economy is worsening as aggregate demand slackens. Businesses cautiously complaining. Republicans defiant that their making GBS threads on the poor makes the poor better and they should be grateful for it. Debate is now about how much more to cut. Some states found away around the cuts but adjusting the levels of heating oil they give the poor, qualifying them for food stamps. Boehner is furious and looking for a way to reverse that and punish those states for "thwarting the will of Congress and the American People". State's Rights! (to poo poo on the poor) Unemployment Insurance: Millions suffering. Economy is worsening as aggregate demand slackens. Businesses cautiously complaining. This has finally got the Senate to move into action, and they have gotten together a deal to renew it. Boehner is strongly opposed to it, and won't get a hearing in the House, defiant that their making GBS threads on the poor makes the poor better and they should be grateful for it. Infrastructure: Obama has proposed $302 bln in new infrastructure spending to repair roads, bridges and the like. Even post stimulus out infrastructure is in huge need of repair after decades of neglect (thanks Reagan), and this winter really did a number on roads across the nation. Republicans are of course opposed to it. This is problematic because The Highway Trust Fund is almost broke Obama’s $302 bln plan is paid for largely through a $150 bln “pro-growth tax reform” tax hike on corporations rather than gas taxes or leaving them in disrepair. There’s basically no chance in hell the GOP is going to pass that, even if Obama wasn’t president. In all likelihood the solution will be a transfer from the General fund, but it is still an issue. Elections: Rough timeline, varies with state – Big Names for 2016: Chris Christie: His giving away of pensions to hedge funds turned out to run afoul of state anti corruption laws. His budget got ripped last month for being unworkable. David Samson is fighting his subpoena so he doesn’t have to testify against Christie. Scott Walker: Book flopped, snubbed by most of the money, still the Koch brother’s favorite son. James O'Keefe did a takedown of a Republican Michale Ellis because Ellis has been going after Walker's unworkable budget attempts and styming his agenda. Mike Pence: Making a lot of motions about it, speaking at conservative events, but with Daniel’s DoR shenanigans still hanging around Indianapolis we’ll see how far he goes. Ted Cruz: toured Iowa to meet with organizers and district chairs in March, signed a "MEGA book deal" and endorsed in primaries (and connected with organizers and district chairs) in April, stumping in New Hampshire in May, still meeting with his gang at Taco Cabana to jam up things in the house and senate. Has recently been claiming that a prosposed amendment to roll back Citizen's United is an attempt to repeal the first amendment. If you see someone with an avatar of his face, add them to your ignore list and be happier for it. Donald Trump: claiming he may decide to run for Governor of New York. This did not happen. Rick Perry: Moving to run again, trumpeting the “Texas miracle” that isn’t. Latest “triumph” was paying Toyota $40 million out of the state slush fund to get them to move ~4,000 jobs there. Jeb Bush: With Christie faltering he is the establishment’s man. Said he’ll announce at the end of this year. Ben Carson: Still out there being a conservative personality. The PAC people says he has isn’t actually his, it is run by the team that ran Newt’s campaign in 2012. Grifting, the never ending saga. Mitt Romney: Don’t laugh. He isn’t looking to be candidate again (for now), but he is acting as an establishment counter to Jim DeMint, arranging money and connections for the corporate side like how DeMint provides money and connections for the populist side. Bernie Sanders: Talking about running, won’t have money for it, will be ignored, unlikely to even shift the message on economic policy. Elizabeth Warren: Polls at #2 behind Clinton (behind by 23 points). She is adamant she isn’t running, and her book tour pointedly does not stop in Iowa or New Hampshire because she didn’t want to fuel speculation she is running. This has resulted in much speculation she is running. Martin O'Malley: Governor of Maryland, working to shore up liberal credentials Andrew Cuomo: Governor of New York, and the arch-typical corporate Dem. For a while it looked like he was going to be sunk in his re-election bid by having a liberal challenger, but he managed to placate the Working Families Party at the last minute, so he will be secure to run as the Democrat banker hack in 2016. Brian Schweitzer: ex Governor of Montana, has an interesting "liberaltarian" thing going where he wants to scrap the ACA for single payer, hates the NSA, hates addressing global warming, and is so pro gun he had a piece of legislature that exempted firearms made in Montana from federal law. Hillary Clinton: Basically hers for the taking. Of course, Monica Lewinsky just got a book deal. The 18 year olds eligible to vote in 2016 will have been 2 when that broke, so no one is really going to care. Latest riff is "she is too old" and "she has brain damage". Yeah, the next 10 years will be a lot of fun and not aggravating at all. Joe Biden: Wants it. Had the saddest look on his face when Obama talked about how Hillary was in a good position to win the nomination in front of him. It will be OK Joe. Executive Branch staffing changes: Veterans Affairs: Shinseki resigned, temporarily replaced by Sloan Gibson Housing and Urban Development: Shaun Donovan is moving to head OMB, San Antonio mayor Julian Castro nominated to replace him Office of Management and Budget: Sylvia Mathews Burwell is moving to head HHS, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan nominated to replace her Health and Human Services: Kathleen Sebelius is retiring, Sylvia Mathews Burwell nominated to replace, confirmed June 5th Press Secretary: Jay Carney retired to spend more time with his family (and learn to grow a decent beard), Josh Earnest is replacing him DoJ: In February Eric Holder announced plans to retire later this year. No reason was given, but shortly there after he was hospitalized so a health reason is plausible. If he does it after the GOP wins big expect them to claim they claimed a scalp rather than him following through with previously announced plans. No mention of possible replacements yet. Affordable Care Act: Over 8 million signups, 80-90% look to have made their payments, costs are following the expected “short surge, gradual drop” wave pattern that was expected, lowest rate of uninsured since they started tracking. It’s working, plain and simple. New challenge that the Feds can provide subsidies to plans bought through federal run exchanges instead of state exchanges was signed off by a Republican dominated Appellate court after being thrown out under the absurdity challenge by two previous courts, keep an eye on that. The latest bits of news are that, post expansion 1 in 5 Americans are now on Medicaid and the push to repeal the employer mandate is growing stronger. Dropping the employer mandate is one of those things that would hurt you politically (people would see a lot of disruption of companies then chse to end their program and individual plans cost more) but is theoretically useful policy (in that more people in the individual market would "make them aware" of health care costs and according to market theory they would consume less of it and costs would go down). I don't really buy the "consume less" theory; it isn't like people are going "gosh I was going to break my leg for kicks and giggles but I don't want those higher premiums". Physical pain is a stronger deterrent than economic pain and people aren't going to intentionally injure themselves so they can get more health care. Republican Health Care Plan: *crickets chirp* New EPA regulations: The EPA has announced new standards for carbon emissions by 2030. While termed a 30% reduction that is from where current projections put it for 2030, they are only a 15% reduction from where we are now. That's also not accurate because that is an aggregate estimate of where levels will fall to if the states meet the goals the EPA sets rather than saying "you will reduce it to this level". It will work by having the EPA is setting 49 different emission goals, state by state (Vermont DC have no fossil fuel powered plants). For each state the emission goal is calculated based off their emission rates and how much can reasonably be cut through making existing coal plants more efficient, running natural gas more often and at higher capacity, increasing energy efficiency of homes and businesses in the state, and boosting wind, solar, and nuclear usage. The states are free to choose how they will hit those goals (they can use the 4 measures the EPA uses to estimate the target or come up with another method). Should states refuse to comply (looking at you Texas) the EPA will step in and run the show, in keeping with the decision in EPA v. EME Homer City Generation that granted them the right to regulate based off cross state effects. This, combined with other steps the Obama administration has taken in the past 6 years are large a big deal in the fight against climate change. It still won't be enough to prevent major disruption but it is a big improvement. The Obama administration hoped that by taking unilateral action other countries would improve their own emissions as well. Which is what is happening, as the day after the EPA announcement China announced it would put carbon emissions control in their next 5 year plan. Deliciously that meant that the announcement came over the wire the same time people were reading ht e op-eds saying China wouldn't do anything. Net Neutrality: It’s dead. Pretty much a natural outgrowth of Bush’s decision to encourage monopolies instead of cracking open the market like they did in every other country. Currently the FCC is taking open comments from the public to "inform its decision". http://www.fcc.gov/comments is where you can make your voice heard. John Oliver does a fantastic and hilarious recap here Immigration: Speaker Boehner tried to cobble together a meaningless soundbyte of "principles" so they would have talking points that made it sound like they were the ones trying to get things done, and even empty platitudes and spin was a bridge too far. Tax Reform: Rep Camp (R-Midland, MI) is chair of the House Ways and Means Committee and he finally came out with something. Unlike Rep Ryan's empty bluster this is fully articulated policy. Rather than raising the burden on the middle class through hikes and lies about who would be paid how, this placed most of the burden on the upper crust by closing loopholes and impsong a tax on the banks. It has also led to him being ripped to shreds by his fellow Republicans for breaking their core vow to never do anything but direct more wealth to the rich, and from Wall Street which basically froze donations to all Republican groups as soon as this went public. It isn't a great plan, Patent Reform: Made it through the House 325 to 91 in December. Repeatedly pushed for by the President, civil liberty groups, and corporate interest groups. Sen Leahy (D-VT) has a bill to get it through the Senate, Sen Schumer (D-NY) had a similar bill with a few tweaks that are agreed would be even better but would need a return to the House. Leahy's bill had come to agreeable language with John Cornyn negotiating for the Republicans, then Harry Reid met with Leahy and Leahy spiked the bill. Yeah, the Dems have full blame here. State level shutdowns: After the amazing success that was the GOP shutting down the federal government over the ACA, they have decided to take the act on the road, with multiple state level governments looking at shutdown over the fight over the Medicaid expansion. Missouri and Virginia are the ones that will hit the brink first, but several other states are in a similar position. Wall Street: The DoJ has announced an investigation into the practices of High Frequency Trading. Michael Lewis has a new book out on this topic. The news coverage about HFT as a result of these two things has been met with eye rolling and stating it is old news by Wall Street, and shock by Main street. Which is pretty much why it is a problem. The banks have since started threatening that investigating the banks could crash the economy, so best not do it. Oh, and Bank of America just lost $2.7 bln due to sloppy accounting. Wall Street Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.: SCOTUS heard the arguments. Kennedy seemed receptive because he took it as a challenge to abortion. Really no way they can rule on this short of "No, obey the law or forgo the tax credits" that won't massively upend some precedent, so brace yourselves. SCOTUSBlog summary McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission: SCOTUS struck down personal caps on campaign donations, though caps remain for corporations and unions. Welcome to the reason why we drink. SCOTUSBlog summary Harris vs. Quinn: This case could basically eradicate public unions, and cut total union membership in half. Interestingly Scalia looks to be the swing vote and was sympathetic to the unions in his line of questioning. SCOTUSBlog summary Town of Greece v. Galloway: In a 5-4 decision SCOTUS said you can have prayer before meetings, made it much more difficult to challenge legislative prayers, kicked the establishment clause in the jimmy, and is notable for its split along court religious lines, and Alito’s mocking Kagan’s line of questioning in his concurrence. The cracks in the wall are really showing lately, with heavy sniping by Bush appointees at Obama appointees. China: Their latest economic reports apparently look ominously like the ones from America in the fall of 2007 when the collapse of the housing bubble spread to the banks. Specifically the cause of concern is their TED Spread which is the gap between two interest rates, and used as a marker of the financial strength of banks. TED stands for Treasury Eurodollar and is calculating subtracting the interest rate on treasury bills from the three-month dollar LIBOR. Brief note from Krugman on it and here is a Bloomberg piece on it. China imploding would be so bad it isn't really worth thinking about, much like it isn't worth thinking about if an dino-killer sized asteroid was falling towards Earth. There isn't anything you can do about it, so just pour a whiskey sour and hope the central bankers get it right this time. Ukraine: Russia annexed Crimea, the Ukraine is in a state of poo poo with various declared military groups, undeclared military groups, paramilitary groups, and armed political factions running around raising merry hell. The US is strengthening is military presence in the region to "reassure" world leaders. Israel & Palestine: Negotiations had previously broken down over the issue of settlements, and not even the offer of releasing Jonathan Pollard could keep Israel at the table. Palestine has just formed a new unity government between the PLO (dominated by the Fatah faction) and Hamas and now Israel really doesn't want to negotiate. Iran: Negotiations with the "P5+1" (the 5 members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) towards a comprehensive deal continue. Just committed to a 6 month deal with the US in addition to whatever they are continuing to negotiate with everyone. The House leadership has said they won't pass any new sanctions, so at least they aren't going to jam up foreign relations. Hatred of working with the Senate Dems to do anything overcame their hatred of Iran. Senate GOP is using it as cover to torpedo bills that would be problematic - officially the reason Sen Graham filibustered the veterans care bill was because it couldn't be amended to include sanctions against Iran. This is actually moving ahead now, at least on the US side because domestic attempts to jam it up have been delayed so far. However, the hardliners in Iran are trying to jam it up on their end, so we will see how it all shakes out. European Union: The European Central Bank is finally taking steps to correct the problems with its economy. It is cutting its main policy rate to 0.15% (which will expand the money supply and decrease the cost of borrowing) and is going to cut the deposit rate to -0.10% meaning that in effect banks will be charged for holding their excess reserves in the ECB rather than lending. The additional hope is this will boost the value of the euro and increase EU exports. The ECB is also looking into implementing their own quantitative easing as another means to get the economy going. Basically, the fact that people were upset that the dominant parties had no solutions for the problems of the past 6 years got them to turn to the far right parties, which scared the crap out of the leaders to finally start doing something about the mass unemployment, low wages, high prices, and the like. The EU does a LOT of trade with the US so them getting their economy back on track will help our economy. If that looks like a lot of critical stuff that is absolutely within the purview of the government but for some reason is getting no traction, welcome to the thread. Useful Reads:  America's class system across life cycle - in case you were under the misapprehension things might get better  Opinions of the 1%: Since they are the ones who matter, it is fun to compare what they think with what the general public thinks. Poll results by the Russell Sage Foundation. "Elites" are defined as at or near "the 1%" in wealth with an average income of $1M/yr or more. The perspectives of this group are compared to responses from other polls such as Pew and Gallup. Poll details here Election Models Washington Post's Election Lab This model is done by the team from http://themonkeycage.org/ At this point is is based off the fundamentals and does not yet incorporate early polling. Polling will be weighted and phased in later, they feel it is too inaccurate this far out The Upshot's Senate Forecast The New York Times built its own model based off what they still owned of Nate Silver's work after he left. This is based off weighted polling and does not incorporate the fundamentals Sabato's Crystal Ball This model is by political scientist Alan Abramowitz of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics FiveThirtyEight Nate Silver's new site. He has not yet deployed his election model beyond a few early blog post predictions. This is a placeholder for it. Why Senate Forecasting Models Differ - a more detailed breakdown of why these models have different results. Media: Watch Alpha House on Amazon. If you are a regular in this thread it is right up your alley. It has been renewed for a second season. Mitt on Netflix is a documentary of the Romneys during the campaigns, focusing on the family rather than the politics. Inequality for all is a documentary, now on netflix instant. Watch it House of Cards Season 2 came out February 14th, holy poo poo watch it. Threads is a BBC movie about nuclear war and its aftermath, watch it if your will to live has become too strong. The Battle of the Somme is on youtube, it was an early attempt at propaganda to get people to join the war effort and had the exact opposite effect. Do Not Ask What Good We Do by Robert Draper. Good summary of the insanity after the 2010 midterms Collision 2012 by Dan Balz covers the 2012 election (including some of the GOP primary) and written like it was a thread regular. Highly entertaining. Fiasco by Thomas Ricks. If you ever start to fade on how bad the naughty aughties were, here is a reminder of just one sliver of the gross malfeasance. I.O.U.: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay by John Lancaster. Decent explanation of securities, debt, finance, and why its all a mess. Mainly a decent fast reference for us if you get confused about how economics, finance, and politics move together. Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty. New book on wealth and economics making huge waves with people. Probably worth a look. The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap by Matt Taibbi. What it says on the tin. This is a comparison of the treatment of the rich and the poor by the justice system. Guaranteed to piss you off. Reporters: Ta-Nehis Coates Pronounced like Tallahassee but with an "N" instead of an "H". In America politics has been intertwined with race since the beginning, and as much as we may wish to deny it it is still a core part of who we are as a nation. There is no better writer on race in America than Ta-Nehisi Coates. He covers it all, from historical research to modern commentary. Read him if you want great insight to how things are and why. Robert Costa formerly of the National Review, newly of the Washington Post has amazing insider reports on dirt and action being done in congress. His op-eds are right wing, as to be expected, but his twitter is a play by play of the insider game, and a great source. Matt Taibbi Formerly of the Rolling Stone, currently attached to First Look Media as the editor for the digital magazine, but hasn't put out anything in a while. Going by his requests on twitter his next piece has something to do with small town corruption. Does have a new book out though, read it if you want to get pissed Andrew Sullivan Widely regarded as the most influential blogger, on the basis that he is read by most of the government (Obama says he reads his site nightly) and has been quoted three times as support in arguments before the Supreme Court. British immigrant and conservative puts him in line with the blue dogs of the current Democrats. Quite active in the marriage equality movement. He has an unpleasant fondness for believing scientific racism. David Corn If there is a video out there of a politician doing something they shouldn't, David Corn has it. Famously broke the 47% video at Mother Jones, has since broke a number of other videos embarassing high profile politicians. Vox Media Home to Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias Probably the best of the new "data journalism" sites, Vox is on target, fast to respond to breaking news, brief, and easy to understand. They are very new but so far very good. Thomas Friedman No. Other stuff IRC is in #poligoon on synirc Find us there during live streams of random poo poo. Go to this link and enter a username to get on the IRC channel: #PoliGoon on irc.synirc.net For the day to day “gently caress it all” stuff, this link will help Finally, I've been accused of having a liberal bias in the OP before, so I am providing space for a rebuttal: quote:
Fried Chicken fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Jun 6, 2014 |
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Jun 6, 2014 04:25
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to be clear, I grabbed the rebuttal out of the freep thread. I didn't write that
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Jun 6, 2014 04:49
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effectual posted:Did anything in it substatially change this month? Yeah I added enough to it that it is now 17 pages long.
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Jun 6, 2014 12:24
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Illuyankas posted:Hey Fried Chicken, I don't know if you know Threads is on youtube but this is the complete thing and the more people who get to Ah, the feel good movie of the century. Thank you, I'll update the OP tonight. There is some stuff I want to add to it, like Open Carry, data sources, and how to get involved that I cut because I just wanted to get the thing posted.
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Jun 6, 2014 13:57
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No details, but Naval Medical Center Portsmouth has issued an "Active Shooter" alert
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Jun 6, 2014 15:04
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forbidden lesbian posted:My point was an attempt to explain how it got so much material, I don't think he's ever trimmed it. I've trimmed and rewritten several sections as they get resolved, more information comes out, or they fall out of date. I've also added a lot of material to it, it's about 17 pages now. There's a reason it takes me several hours to put it together.
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Jun 6, 2014 17:09
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mcmagic posted:They will need more as demographics change. You will definitely see poll taxes/literacy tests and the like return to GOP state legislatures as demographics change more over the years. 24th amendment bars poll or other taxes preventing voting. Of course it only does that on the federal level, one of the states (Arizona I think?) was looking to split federal and state voting eligibility to being back proscribed restrictions
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Jun 6, 2014 17:16
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euphronius posted:I always thought it applied to all elections, but nope But remember, the decision in Bush v Gore only applied to that case and could not be used in precedent or any other case, per the ruling.
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Jun 6, 2014 17:49
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The CIA is now on twitter https://twitter.com/cia/status/474971393852182528
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Jun 6, 2014 19:16
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rkajdi posted:It effectly does. If you say that the only person you can have sex with is me, that's pretty drat controlling. Fix the actual problem in the relationship, rather than act like the cheater is the problem solely. Expecting trust and honesty will be reciprocated and people won't take actions to hurt their partner is a basic part of human interactions, not a form of control you insufferable goon
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Jun 6, 2014 20:08
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Setting aside the emotional pain of betraying your partners trust and the social humiliation they will suffer if your stepping out behind their back becomes public knowledge, the prevalence of STDs means you are actively putting their health at risk and they don't know to protect themselves from you. I'm what reality is that the more healthy, less controlling relationship than the one where you mutually agree to be faithful and treat each other with respect?
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Jun 6, 2014 20:23
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Go with Christ posted:What the gently caress? It's been a while since I've been a teenager, but back then we called it "being exclusive" rather than "going steady". Which is pretty explicitly a mutual agreement to not gently caress around on the side. I guess rkajdi has a different dictionary. Accretionist posted:All I'm getting from this is you're afraid of commitment and are resentful of the women who've dumped you for sleeping around.
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Jun 6, 2014 20:26
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Munkeymon posted:I would argue that the cultural expectation to only have sex with one person for decades is unhealthy for most people, actually, but oh man is this getting off-topic. Then terminate the relationship or discuss it with your partner and come to an agreement. But yeah, getting real E/N in here
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Jun 6, 2014 20:35
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Rhesus Pieces posted:I didn't realize anti-vaccine nonsense was a conservative plank with enough support to be included in a major state's GOP platform, but I guess you learn something new every day. Do you not remember the debate where they hammered Perry for being pro vaccine? If Bachmann hadn't drifted from "Parents Choice" -  into "Causes Autism!"-  in the interviews after the debate it probably would have been a national plank.Here is the ruling making Wisconsin #20 http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/WisconsinGayMarriage.pdf He cites Scalia twelve times
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Jun 6, 2014 23:59
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Rhesus Pieces posted:Wasn't that about the HPV vaccine in particular? I could be wrong but I thought that was more a part of the abortion/birth control mindset of never allowing young women to have sex without "consequences", rather than thinking that all vaccines are suspect. It was the HPV vaccine that Perry pushed but they attacked him for having it be the state push it rather than vaccines being a parental decision. Then Bachmann gave away the game with the autism bit
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Jun 7, 2014 01:28
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wixard posted:I've said it before, I wouldn't be surprised if the right co-opted marijuana legalization as an issue at this point. It's pretty easy to frame as states rights or smaller government, and best of all it would score them major points with the millenials and give them a "cool" platform to run on, which they've been whining about for a while now. Christie and Perry have both tested the waters and stated they support less incarceration or decriminalization over the last couple of years. If either party made a strong push from their leadership I bet they could drag their base along, even though neither side has overwhelming support for it. It's almost like it's not a divisive enough issue for anyone to be really interested, but if the budget numbers come back strong in Colorado and Washington after legalization I could see either side pushing harder for it. Christie aggressively attacked the idea of legalizing marijuana in New Jersey. http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/04/chris_christie_says_he_does_support_bill_to_legalize_marijuana_in_nj.html
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Jun 7, 2014 01:58
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Grope-A-Matic posted:I remember someone mentioning that the prisoners traded for Bergdahl would have been released later this year anyways. Am I remembering this correctly? Does someone have a link? I explain it in the OP.
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Jun 7, 2014 14:31
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Legit, reports on that dog are he wouldn't eat the usual trash the strays eat and wasn't sleeping while chained up in a back room, so the Taliban have been feeding him chicken kebabs and he sleeps on a pile of blankets in the main room
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Jun 7, 2014 15:08
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http://wthitv.com/2014/06/07/indiana-gop-keeps-marriage-language-in-platform/ Indiana GOP decides to keep fighting on marriage equality. When it says a minority of delegates from Marion County, well Indianapolis is in Marion County. So the biggest city of note in the state was fighting to at least stop making marriage equality and issue, and the rest wanted to keep it up. EDIT: Oh, and Richard Murdoch keeps saying stupid poo poo, this time comparing the US to Nazi Germany http://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2014/06/07/richard-mourdock-says-nation-going-way-hitlers-nazis/10165743/ Fried Chicken fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Jun 7, 2014 |
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Jun 7, 2014 18:37
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Edit: meant to quote this ^^^^^^computer parts posted:It's ignoring the fact that labor participation (what you're describing) peaked in about 2000 and has been falling ever since then. The decreased participation predates the recession by many years. Several theories, ranging from increased productivity allowing needs to be met by fewer people (which is an unlikely explanation for several reasons), to it being the start of the boomers leaving the workforce, to it being the result of shifting to a high churn service based market, to bad data collection. Fried Chicken fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Jun 7, 2014 |
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Jun 7, 2014 21:26
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This is from January, but I just found it now and he won the primary so it is relevant. A primer on Ben Sasse, Republican candidate for senate from Nebraska http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2014_01/the_true_believer048667.php quote:Political Animal
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Jun 7, 2014 23:43
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Bushe's Brain!
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Jun 8, 2014 01:09
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Jeb is doing nothing to court the base at all though. You can be as establishment as you want, but without base support you are going nowhere. Maybe it is just being local and that he is the new hotness on Robert COstra's feed, but Mike Pence is pretty establishment and is moving around to court the base.
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Jun 8, 2014 15:43
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Nate Silver has updated his Senate forecast http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/fivethirtyeight-senate-forecast-toss-up-or-tilt-gop/ Projection is for the GOP to gain 5.7 seats, which is it shifting 1/10th of a percent towards tossup. I think he is overselling Terry Land but he still projects Peters to win so that is a pointless quibble on whether and how much the race will tighten, not the outcome.
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Jun 8, 2014 17:48
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Generally I loathe Ross Douthat. He's reactionary, unthinking, and a giant bottle of "well you are going to hell for disagreeing with me" smug Today isn't hugely different, in that he is regurgitating a bunch of stuff I have seen elsewhere and been mulling over, but he puts it in one place saving me the trouble of running down the links http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/08/opinion/sunday/douthat-there-is-no-alternative.html?hp&rref=opinion Basically, by polling this far out, 65% of respondants want a change candidate and a break from Obama's policies. But the GOP still polls beneath the Dems and a continuation of Obama's policies even by those who want a change. When you think about it that's not too surprising - we did worse under the GOP, but things haven't really improved under Obama. Its the payoff of the absolute opposition strategy, nothing that really benefits most people has gotten through (even the ACA doesn't directly impact 80% of the population, and the stuff it does like lower health care costs is a long term indirect payoff). The stimulus was cramped and we haven't been able to get through anything to boost the economy since due to opposition. Things to help the middle class like mortgage relief or student loan reform are DOA.No huge policy triumphs, nothing that really cements the new generation ad Democrats beyond "gently caress no we don't trust the Republicans". And the Democratic coalition is really shakey, you see reflections of that in this thread alone, much less when you get into the general population. There hasn't been the big policy triumph to cement it, something that all the factions agree on. Closest you've got is the birth control mandate and gay marriage, neither of which is certain, neither of which can be directly linked to the democratic party, and neither of which is the huge rally round the flag type thing you'd get from economic recovery. I think a combination of Clinton and Castro could keep the coalition together, and I expect the GOP to keep loving it s football, but we need some major wins that improve peoples lives for political reasons in addition to the general "we like to live a decent life" thing
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Jun 8, 2014 18:22
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Mr Ice Cream Glove posted:War Criminal, Allen West claims to have a DELETED TWEET by the muslim jihadist father of the muslim jihad deserter The context for it is that his father felt the official channels were leaving his son behind, so he learned pashtun, grew his beard, started pushing for guantanamo releases, and was memorizing the koran so he could go and negotiate for his sons release himself. Its more than my dad would have done had I been captured, so I'm not really bothered by it
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Jun 8, 2014 22:35
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Boon posted:Oh so you're just pulling poo poo out of your rear end then. Self defense doesn't only apply to one-self, despite the term. Defense of others very much is their job. No, it isn't. Warren v District of Columbia (1981), DeShaney v. Winnebago County (1989), and Castle Rock v. Gonzales (2005) are all very clear on that. Police do not owe a specific duty to provide police services to the plaintiffs based on the public duty doctrine. Failure of a state government agency to prevent harm to you does not violate your right to liberty under the 14th amendment. And police cannot be sued for failing to enforce a legal order. Here's a summary from the 2005 case spelling it out. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/28scotus.html?_r=0
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Jun 9, 2014 03:44
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Boon posted:In the military it all falls under the category of self-defense, but in civil law it's called defense of others and sometimes alter ego defense I beleive. It is called the public duty doctrine, and no, they are not bound by it.
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Jun 9, 2014 03:46
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hobbesmaster posted:I suppose the secret service is a law enforcement agency and they have the unique expectation of giving their lives to protect a few individuals. They are a law enforcement agency. Specifically they enforce the laws against counterfeiting and currency fraud.
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Jun 9, 2014 14:03
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I should point out that none if the recent shootings will show up on those graphs of mass shootings over time. The FBI definition is 4 or more dead (not counting the perpetrators) committed at one public place at one time. So none of these in the past 2 weeks meet that criteria Also NPR morning Edition had an interesting segment on border patrol this morning. Those guys make Joe Arpaio look like a care-bear
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Jun 9, 2014 14:27
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Let's have some absurdity for lunch http://nytimes.com/2014/06/09/us/war-gear-flows-to-police-departments.html?hp&_r=1&referrer= quote:War Gear Flows to Police Departments Also a nice info graphic at the site
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Jun 9, 2014 16:59
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WhiskeyJuvenile posted:iirc, "in the 90s" was thanks to Biden Diamond Joe just wants to make America as much like Robocop as possible, what do you have against kickass films by Paul Verhoven? I actually have no idea who had what to do with this program
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Jun 9, 2014 18:30
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Reset the "Conservative days something terrible about rape" clock here is the latest George Will column in the Washington Post, "George Will: Colleges become the victims of progressivism" Also who the gently caress puts their name at the start of the headline in addition to the byline? If you don't want to give that poo poo page views, here is a response in Salon quote:George Will: Being a victim of sexual assault is a “coveted status that confers privileges”
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Jun 9, 2014 19:12
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The issue of how to restructure higher education spending to allow for greater access and better education at lower cost is so large as to merit its own thread. A lot of it comes down to funding priorities at the schools, skyrocketing construction and upkeep costs, pay structure, and purchasing power negotiation, which is a huge mess to be debated
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Jun 9, 2014 20:41
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Amergin posted:It's Yes. Rogoff and Reinhart's work was disproven as soon as they opened up to peer review. The perils of sloppy, politically motivated excel work are that a grad student can press Ctrl+~ and find where you hosed up the numbers to reach your politically motivated conclusion. Which really shouldn't surprise anyone not aiming for a politically motivated conclusion because basic accounting shows that the underlying premise is bullcrap. High debt to GDP isn't a problem because you don't measure debt against revenues, you measure debt against revenues plus assets. Assets = Liabilities + Capital, remember? The NPV of the fixed assets of a country are vastly in excess of its revenues, never mind projecting the future value of assets due to growth and back calculating it to the NPV. Comparing debt to GDP is an intentional misrepresentation of the financial situation for the purpose of propaganda. And if you won't accept that having the "evidence" disproven by review and basic accounting is enough there is recorded history, like Japan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Belgium in the 90s.
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Jun 9, 2014 22:03
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unnecessary
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amanasleep posted:Yes, it is unnecessary. Please explain why 90% Debt to GDP is a problem and be as specific as you can in citing evidence to support your assertions. He's burping out Reinhart & Rogoff's work which was taken as gospel during the time the Simpson Bowel commission and benefit cutting was in vogue. It has also since been disproven do to an excel error. Correct the error and you get the opposite of their conclusion
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Jun 9, 2014 22:05
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Amergin posted:I don't know man ask Detroit or the kids in here struggling to make ends meet after incurring tens of thousands of dollars of debt for their liberal arts degrees. Detroit, which is filling the hole by selling off its assets and suffering because the collapse of businesses has crashed the value of much of its long term assets; and the kids who are struggling with their debt because they don't have assets? Never mind that neither control their own monetary supply or have military protections like a sovereign government does Keep loving that chicken Fried Chicken fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Jun 9, 2014 |
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Jun 9, 2014 22:06
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Amergin posted:Actually I'm not because I'm not stupid enough to think there exists a magically "cliff" at 90% after which your economy goes to hell. So you aren't parroting R&Rs work, you are just claiming France needs austerity because they have hit the critical point that R&R claimed you need austerity after. Got it, makes perfect sense.
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Jun 9, 2014 22:12
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Amergin posted:I said austerity might not be "unnecessary" given the high levels of debt/deficit France is experiencing and... that's it. The R&R and cliff talk is all projections from y'all. So you agree with it, but you aren't basing your decision off it. Right. Amergin posted:Seriously, go to Google, type "France debt" and tell me what the big number that pops up says. I'll wait. Its smaller than the ones for the other countries I listed. And I still want to hear why it is a sufficiently big scary number if you aren't going from R&R
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Jun 10, 2014 00:41
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Joementum posted:Two things about Nate's "model": Teddybear posted:The fact that he accepted it initially might be enough to nail him on bribery, even though he didn't end up resigning. Likewise, those that offered can also be pursued. He did end up resigning, he just didn't take the position
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Jun 10, 2014 00:46
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