• Soon after I posted last month’s OP, Obama added a 14% tax on untaxed foreign earnings by US companies to his budget, which he presented later in the month.
  
• At the National Prayer Breakfast, Obama decided to mention that Christians were to blame for the Crusades. Naturally, Republicans jumped on him for having the audacity to say an objectively correct statement that conflicts with their world view that Christians are the best, most moral, people in the world.
  
• Oh, and mumbling about how Obama is such a pansy that he won’t say anything about ”Islamic terrorists” but instead wants to pass a jobs plan for ISIS.
  
• As for ISIS, Obama requested an AUMF to authorize attacking them, which means that Republicans are stuck between being their usual hawkish selves and opposing Obama.
  
• Perhaps in Obama’s biggest loss of the month, U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen issued an injunction, blocking his plans for executive amnesty two days before they were to go into effect. Obama is seeking to appeal, but the outcome is still uncertain.
  

• Small Government! The Small Business Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act passed the House.
  
• Nominations: Ashton Carter was easily confirmed as Secretary of Defense. Loretta Lynch, on the other hand, appears to have been slow-boated, only receiving approval from the Senate Judiciary Committee late in the month. This makes her nomination process one of the slowest in three decades. Meanwhile, Republican opposition continues to grow.
  
• Obamacare: The bill to repeal Obamacare mentioned in last month’s OP passed the House (unsurprisingly), but its filibuster-less passage in the Senate using an arcane rule is unlikely.
  
• Fiscal Cliff: After four attempts in the Senate to pass a DHS funding bill, DHS’s funding future remains in doubt (more on that later). In related news, the end of the debt ceiling moratorium is still due March 15, but no one in Congress has said a word about that with the debate about DHS funding taking precedent (It might not be an issue until October though.). Expect that to take the headlines soon. As for the FY2016 budget, Obama has presented his budget to Congress, where it was promptly declared DOA. Discussion on that front should continue next month, when Rep. Tom Price’s (R-GA) House Budget Committee announces and votes on their counter-proposal. There are, however, hints that the DHS funding battle is just a warmup. Oh, and Republicans have appointed a senior fellow from a Koch thinktank to help their new “dynamic scoring” of legislation at the CBO.
  
• Copyright and Intellectual Property: Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) has reintroduced the Innovation Act, designed to restrict patent trolls. It’s unclear whether it will pass Congress this time.
  
• Cybersecurity and Telecommunications: On Thursday, the FCC voted to enact net neutrality through the use of Title II and to overturn state laws banning municipal internet services. Republicans are not happy. As for CISPA, not much movement has occurred, though a breach at health insurer Anthem and a White House Cyber-security Summit at Stanford signal continued pushes in that direction.
  
• Gun Control: The Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act was reintroduced in the Senate by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX). The NRA (unsurprisingly) approves. It is very likely to pass.
  
• Environment: Obama vetoed Keystone XL, but McConnell signaled his intent to fight the EPA by taking a post on its appropriations panel in the Senate. Still, it's unlikely that the GOP will fight the EPA before they issue power plant regulations this summer.
  
• Immigration: As mentioned above, Republicans failed to pass the House’s DHS funding bill with a rider killing Obama’s executive action, due to a Democratic filibuster. After some concern that DHS would be forced to shut down, McConnell introduced a bill to fund the DHS without the rider, with a separate bill to express disapproval of Obama’s executive action without holding DHS hostage. This, however, was unable to pass the House, resulting in a conference committee and, after failing to pass a 3-week stopgap spending bill, a 1-week stopgap continuing resolution was passed. As a result, DHS funding remains in limbo into March.
  
• War on Terror: Obama has requested an Authorization for Use of Military Force on ISIS. Democrats don’t like sending men back to Iraq. Republicans are unhappy because it’s Obama doing a thing.
  
• The Torture Report and the NSA: The Justice Department has claimed it will not return copies of the torture report to Senate Intelligence Committee chair Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) while a FOIA lawsuit filed by the ACLU is pending. Meanwhile, NSA Director Michael Rogers has said that the government should require backdoors in order to decrypt all encrypted devices.
  
• Foreign Policy: Netanyahu still intends to speak to Congress next week, and rejected an invitation by Senate Democrats to a closed-door meeting, claiming it would show “partisanship”. Expect Netanyahu to slam Obama’s ongoing negotiations with Iran, and trot out a new claim from the dissident group who first leaked Iran’s nuclear ambitions that the Iranians are still working on nuclear weapons. (Even though recent leaks claim that Netanyahu’s claims are contradicted by Mossad.)
  

• The jockeying for 2016 on the Republican side of the aisle continues. Scott Walker remains ascendant, trying to become the new Ronald Reagan by comparing battling ISIS to battling unions just like his hero Reagan and by slamming the media for “gotcha” questions, while Chris Christie suffers from them over the measles epidemic, on top of another criminal investigation. While discussions about such news in the USPol thread is inevitable, please remember that we do have a 2016 Presidential Primary thread and a 2016 Senate elections thread, too.
  
• Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) thinks that restaurants should have the right to not force food workers to wash their hands.
  
• It turns out that the Chicago Police Department operates black sites.
  
• Oh, and Hispanic Lives Matter, too.
  
• Everyone’s favorite Alabama judge, Chief Justice Roy Moore, really hates gay weddings.
  
• The FBI is investigating terrorism. Eco-terrorism. Environmentalists who have been subject to interrogation, including one woman who was effectively denied her right to counsel, claim they are being intimidated for opposing Keystone XL and other tar sands projects.
  
• Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner (R) may be the new darling of anti-union Republicans, as he bans fair share fees for public employees and has retained the services of constitutional lawyers to make a First Amendment case in court.
  
• Not to be outdone, Republicans in Wisconsin are fast-tracking a bill to turn Wisconsin into a Right-to-Work state. This, as recent reports show Wisconsin public union membership dropping precipitously following Walker’s anti-union law in 2011.
  
• The Snowden documentary Citizenfour won an Oscar. Watch it.
  

• The Atlantic
  
  • "The Case for Reparations" by Ta-Nehisi Coates
    
  • "The Tragedy of the American Military" by James Fallows
    

• Punishment and Inequality in America by Bruce Western
  
• The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America by Naomi Murakawa
  
• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
  
• Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
  
• Matt Taibbi's
  
  • The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap and
    
  • Griftopia: A Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History
    
• Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power by Rachel Maddow
  
• Rick Perlstein's trilogy on the history of the modern conservative movement:
  
  • Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus
    
  • Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America
    
  • The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan
    
• Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party by Geoffrey Kabaservice
  

• @costareports (Robert Costa, Washington Post, formerly National Review): Conservative-leaning journalist to whom Republican sources often leak backroom stories (Republican retreats, Presidential campaigns, etc.)
  
• @daveweigel (Dave Weigel, Bloomberg Politics, formerly Slate): "Idiosyncratic libertarian" journalist who is second only to Robert Costa in connections/interviews with Republican officials. Contrary to popular belief, not D&D superstar Joementum.
  
• @BruceBartlett (Bruce Bartlett, ex-Reagan/Bush official): "Lifelong conservative who now thinks the GOP panders to fools, whom he calls wankers. My tweets should not always be taken seriously."
  
• The following are semi-random selections from a list offered by Rygar201 and may be good or bad.
  
  • @owillis (Olivier Willis, research fellow, Media Matters)
    
  • @mattyglesias (Matt Yglesias, executive editor, Vox)
    
  • @JuddLegum (Judd Legum, Editor-in-Chief, Think Progress)
    
  • @dick_nixon "37th President of the United States. Messages from the President are unsigned, others from Ronald Ziegler. "
    
  • @EricBoehlert (Eric Boehlert, Media Matters)
    
  • @JamilSmith (Jamil Smith, senior editor, The New Republic)
    
  • @jonathanchait (Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine)
    
  • @nielslesniewski (Neils Lesniewski, Senate coverage, Roll Call)
    
  • @abwhite7 (Abraham White, former comms for Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), Chuck Schumer (D-NY))
    
  • @DSenFloor (Senate D Floor Watch): "Live floor updates from the Senate Democrats"
    
  • @billmon1 (Billmon)
    
  • @ebruenig (Elizabeth Bruenig, The New Republic)
    

ComradeCosmobot fucked around with this message at 23:54 on Mar 1, 2015

• "At least he is fighting ISIS (American air strikes don't count)"
  
• He's standing up to Islamic terrorism and choking off the lifelines to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas
  
• Obama supported Mubarak's ouster (even if he opposed it at first) which led to Islamic terrorists (the Muslim Brotherhood) taking power. Sisi opposed this and set it right against Obama's wishes. (The enemy of my enemy...)
  
• Obama refuses to restore foreign aid to Egypt because Sisi took power in a coup. So the best way to oppose Obama is to support Sisi.
  

ComradeCosmobot fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Mar 1, 2015