|| Stupid girl. Based on the setup at the terminal, I thought that we all had to go through the scanners, so I asked about the procedure. It turns out that we didn't, but that, because I had asked, *I* had to go through the extra security. Yay, pat down! Worse than a prison check, though I didn't have to stand on one foot at a time and I was able to wear a headband.
The older middle-eastern couple in wheelchairs were bugged about not being able to stand without assistance for a minute, and the mobility assistant was not allowed to accompany them.
You've got to love America. Next up, full cavity searches!
|>
Bostoniangirl, why do you hate Americadentistry?
To the OP. Yes, if you're wedded to an incrementalist, progressive model of change, this counts as victories. In fact, all your victories are going to look like this until you get to the point where you think it's gone too far.
The position: We must at all times be civilised; we must be as inclusive as possible; we must try not to alienate our opponents, and the position: We want radical change for the better in everything by Tuesday night are not compatible. Sorry about that, wish it weren't true.
Also, what odds are the bookies giving against anything coming of this?
The glass is half full! Half full, I tell you!
To 4: It's hard to say, but the Democrats are taking a necessary and suprising first step.
So to you I say: Half full!
"This" - singular. "Victories" - plural. In the name of humanity, sanity, and Christmas, pick one and stick to it.
I'm torn between "humanity" and "Christmas." "Sanity" isn't even in the running.
I'm in full agreement with the OP. The lame duck session has been a string of modest victories, and two huge failures. I'm happy for the various wins for causes I am sympathetic to, but the systemic failure to fund government inherent to both the tax deal and the budget failure will affect my life, and the lives of those around me, in far greater ways than anything else that happened this session.
other than the small and poorly funded nuclear proliferation lobby
Also, I wouldn't underestimate the funding of the nuclear proliferation lobby. They managed to pull $84 billion for their industry as compensation for the START treaty getting passed.
1. No one other than political junkies gives s shit about "the narrative". (And I'm not sure I buy this anyway. It sure as hell won't change the narrative for Drudge/Fox/Limbaugh, and far too much of the mainstream media derives their narrative from that.)
2. If we see more cooperation in the next Congress, I'll buy this. Right now, I don't expect it.
3. Like you, I'll believe it when I see it. I'll be thrilled if it materializes, but I don't expect it.
4. DADT repeal was a long-overdue clear positive step, agreed.
I'd say the failure to fund health or financial reform implementation is a huge unforced error and outweighs the small satisfactions of these victories.
Also, while we are complaining, it kind of sucks that the DREAM Act failed.
Small wins, yes. But! I feel like I've seen a definite shift in the tone of media coverage, and particularly toward openly criticizing the Republicans. That does have an effect over time.
16; Knecht is right -- the narrative is important. It is what most voters do get out of the news -- not the details about policy, but the sense of who is a winning and who is losing. The story dominating the media had been that Obama as President is a loser. The perception of success created by the bils passed by the lame-duck session has changed that.
Of course, the 2012 election is a long time away, so maybe this will turn out not to matter anyway.
One thing we've learned from the lame duck session is what the Republicans actually care about, which is racism. Before the election, clearly, they were simply playing to the gallery on a whole host of stuff. We now know that they don't really care about nukes (new START), they don't really care about gays (DADT), and they don't hate the unemployed enough that they can't be bribed out of it (budget). But they do, in fact, hate immigrants at least as much as they say they do (DREAM).
I don't think I'm in a different position than I was a month or a year ago: if the Democrats make a major push for serious reform of senate procedure, I'll be happy, and if they don't, I won't.
Can the Republicans really take the position that the filibuster is sacrosanct, after they themselves were happy to threaten to blow it up over judicial nominiations in 2006?
19: I also have an alternate/supplemental theory that the mainstream media will support Obama as long as the liberals are angry at him. So. those saying that liberals should not be so critical of Obama are actually hurting him. The more fire Obama takes from the left the better off he is.
Also, it appears they were only pretending to hate firefighters.
Can the Republicans really take the position
Come on, they have no shame. That they prance around clutching their pearls about deficit spending with straight faces after their performance during the '00s, well.
7, 8: There's an elided singular referent for "this": the sentence should be read along the lines of "This [sequence of events during the lame duck session] counts as [a group of] victories?" That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
On the Dream Act, five Democrats voted against cloture, including the president of my senior class in high school. What a jerk! I'm just glad I had the sense to vote against him even back in high school.
25. I read it thus with no difficulty at all.
what the Republicans actually care about, which is racism.
Also, not paying taxes. Republicans care deeply about not paying taxes.
21: Could wealthy Southerners really take the position that states' rights were sacrosanct and then support the Fugitive Slave Act?
28: I think that's at least partially because of the racism, no? Or something of which racism is sometimes a subset; the general desire to structure one's beliefs so as to morally justify one's own position in the world, as long as it's, you know, a good one? They're Calvinists at heart?
Also, this is completely unrelated, but I'm genuinely interested in how something like this:
http://gawker.com/5715684/the-party-king-of-scottsdales-500000-christmas-fete
comes about. According to the comments, this dude's company send millions of spam texts, and if you don't respond, they take that as consent to charge you anywhere from $4-$10 per month? Until you catch them and yell at your phone company, essentially? And most people never do?
My question is this: why do the phone companies do business with this dude and his ilk? They seem pretty aware that it's a scam, but they have to go ahead and bill you, collect, and pass it along to the scammers anyway? What? Is this like a kickback thing? How can that be legal?
I almost want to find such charges on my phone bill so I can call and ask.
29: what are you saying, ari? Of course we can expect the GOP to behave consistently! You know, like on deficits.
22:Obama is the bestest El Presidente ever. He has fulfilled all my leftist imaginings.
It is always about the money. Once they got the tax bill, Repubs could let Obama make gayness mandatory for all governmental positions and surrender to Osama. It is always and only about the money. The pigs have won, forever now.
OTOH, let me take 60% of GDP with a top marginal rate of 90% in Fed taxes, force me to spend it all in the Defense Dep't, and I could bring peace, prosperity, and a progressive wet dream to America in a decade.
31: 28:I think that's at least partially because of the racism, no? Or something of which racism is sometimes a subset
Maybe taxes and racism run parallel. The hatred of taxes reflects not wanting share any of one's big pile while the racism reflects not wanting to share any of the benefits of being at the top of the heap in society.
Seems like both boil down to greed. START and DADT didn't interfere with the greed, so they passed. Taxes and DREAM on the other hand, got shot down because "I've got mine, fuck you".
as I was saying to Alex at the pub last night, there is an element of overdetermination to opposition to the DREAM Act; in its practical effect it might as well have been called the "Addition Of Significant Numbers Of Democrat Voters In Marginal Republican Congressional Districts Act 2010"
37: Yes. I think there is some actual just plain racism thrown in there. I'm thinking one born and bred conservative in particular I once knew who, in the span of a few hours, and from the same car, reacted to two different homeless men in the following ways:
Homeless man #1 (old, white, lots of pathetic looking rags, seen in the daytime). This person became visibly sad as we passed by, and said something along the lines of, "it's just...to keep driving is exactly the opposite of what Jesus would want."
Homeless man #2 (younger, black, less pathetic looking, seen once it had gotten dark). As we drove past: "Careful, if you hit him, you make his life." Further questioning revealed that this would be because he'd sue you. Somehow.
It was uncomfortable.
38: Not really. If the Republicans supported immigration reform those immigrants might vote Republican. Also there is a substantial segment of the Democratic base that is hostile to immigration reform. This is not an issue that has been divided along clear partisan lines.
It changes the narrative from "Obama rejected, on the ropes" to "Obama, gettin' 'er done."
AFAICS it is "Obama, still mostly disappointing in predictable ways?"
Doesn't really roll off the tongue, but there you are.
It changes the narrative from "Obama rejected, on the ropes" to "Obama, gettin' 'er done."
AFAICS it is "Obama, still mostly disappointing in predictable ways?"
Doesn't really roll off the tongue, but there you are.
22: I also have an alternate/supplemental theory that the mainstream media will support Obama as long as the liberals are angry at him.
There is something to this. Most members* of the political media are so choked with the bilious residue of the internal conflict between their actual role in driving the beast and their self-image that they reflexively lash out at anyone or anything that shows any hint of escaping that fate. Now that Obama has conclusively proven that he is the sullied "centrist" that he always was, they can relax just a bit.
*The others are simply evil.
In these late fading days of empire; small-minded spite, envy and gloating are all that are left to drive our societal narrative.
35.1: Now that I gave away the secret to bob, Obama is toast. Oh, no!
7 gets it right. Celebrate the victories you can, b/c that's how incremental change works. I think the lame duck session was handled well.
What bothers me about Obama is not the failure to get impossible things out of Congress, but too much timidity in using the power of the executive branch. The EPA could be regulating CO2 emissions right now if the administration would strap on a pair.
Also, opposition to things like the DREAM Act give Republicans a short term crack high, but are death for them in the long term. Getting Hispanics to vote like blacks or Jews (which is mostly now the case in California, due pretty much exclusively to Republican anti-immigrant insanity) is long term death for Republicans. GWB, being a Texan, understood that.
38: Addition Of Significant Numbers Of Democrat Voters In Marginal Republican Congressional Districts Act 2010
Despite having first voted as a newly-franchised 18-year-old in 1972, I've never really gone back and looked at the political calculations that cleared the way for the 26th Amendment*. Probably best viewed as collateral non-damage from the Vietnam War. Am also not finding any good data on how 18-20s voted in 1972, although exit polls had 18-29 as at least 12 points more to McGovern than any other age group (but still favored Nixon 52-46, what a fucking election).
*I'm intermittently slogging through Nixonland, presumably it gets some treatment in the book.
47: GWB, being a Texan, understood that.
So did McCain until the syphilis really took hold.
47:The Californian tells the Texan all about Hispanics.
Two new Hispanic Republican Congresspersons from Texas are going to be sworn in this session. Of the four seats the census gave Texas, three will be Hispanic, and two of those (down at the Southern border) are expected to be Republicans.
George W Bush was a liar. Pay no attention to what he said.
Texas understands how to turn recent immigrants (or 2nd and 3rd generations) to the state into Republicans or conservatives. I shouldn't need to go into details. The symbols and social acceptance matter little to the construction worker with a family.
Shorter Bob:Halford is wrong.
Another way to look at Republican opposition to DREAM is that it wasn't about the citizenship, it was about the job (and the education). Military service that grants you citizenship creates a very attractive government job. Republicans want jobs to come from the private sector.
give Republicans a short term crack high
Mmmmm.... short term crack high....
The best demographic hope for the GOP is that Hispanics nationally will vote like they do in South Texas -- a roughly 60/40 dem-rep split, or better. The difference between that and an 80/20 or 90/10 split is huge, and can happen if (as has already happened in CA and AZ, but not TX) the Republican party becomes the anti-Hispanic party.
If South Texas had voted like East LA, Bill White would have won, and steps like the DREAM Act help make that much more likely (if not in TX than in other states with newer Hispanic political cultures).
54:This is dynamic, not static. As California becomes more like Texas, California Hispanics will vote more like Texans.
I would say California had a pretty old Hispanic culture.
You need to explain the different voting patterns. I probably need to justify 54.1 with some history.
I probably need to justify 54.1 with some history.
No, please, I'd rather you just leave me alone.
"As California becomes more like Texas"
Is this a given? Sounds speculative....
"As California becomes more like Texas"
Is this a given? Sounds speculative....
A joke for bob, from a 9 year-old anarchist friend of mine:
Q: "What's the President's favorite letter?"
A: "Any letter, so long as it's capital."
Also, did anyone link to this here already? Sorta undercuts Shearer's points from the other day:
http://www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/swa_preview_income_inequality_in_dollars_and_cents/
I've got nothing to add. I'm just happy to be here among such lovely people.
||
Some unfortunate phrasing from Krugman today:
I'm going to what Jon Stewart says is the third holiest site of American Judaism tonight -- doing Rachel Maddow from the 92nd St. Y.
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60: Added to the base level of improper implication, if he has to specify where he's going to be standing, that seems to imply an astonishing level of braggadocio.
So did McCain until the syphilis really took hold.
Indeed. No matter what you think of Obama, we really dodged a bullet in 08.
Woods said "it hurts" McCain to vote against legislation like the Dream Act after years of working on reform but said the senator felt betrayed when Latinos overwhelmingly supported Obama in 2008. "When you carry that fight at great sacrifice year after year and then you are abandoned during the biggest fight of your life, it has to have some sort of effect on you," he said.
That is something -- while I'm horribly disappointed in Obama, I'm not getting close to regretting volunteering for him.
62: Poor man, stabbed in the back by DFHs in 1968 and Lationos in 2008.
John McCain was a Nazi
He's not anymore
He was a Nazi
But time evened the score
Anyone linked to Lindsay Graham's possible impending being outedness?
It's proper abusive partner psychology, that quote about McCain. "Look what you made me do."
I can't imagine anyone being surprised by 67.
I'm still not sure that we wouldn't be in a better position right now wrt/ carbon pricing if McCain had won.
71: Now you're just trying to start an argument.
Anyone linked to Lindsay Graham's possible impending being outedness?
Come on Santa, I've been real good this year and this is definitely high on my list.
I'm still not sure that we wouldn't be in a better position right now wrt/ carbon pricing if McCain had won.
Just how much eggnog have you had? McCrazy and VP Princess Oil State were going to do the right thing on carbon pricing? Really?
73: Lindsey Graham is not even close to the top of my list of who I'd like to see come out.
75: You can't go ahead and be all coy with your list, now. Out with it. So to speak.
(I tend not to know about political closet cases, bc they tend to be old, and men, and therefore...I don't care.)
I'm still not sure that we wouldn't be in a better position right now wrt/ carbon pricing if McCain had won.
Eh, maybe.
I think the best argument for how things might have been better with a McCain win is that tying the Republicans decisively in the public's mind to this recession would have allowed a sweeping Democratic victory in 2012 that could have accomplished a lot more than this administration has. Instead, the public associates Obama with joblessness and the world is going to go to hell in 2012.
Santorum is a has been. Come on, a current senator from South Carolina? How much better could it get than that? Maybe something like Boehner outing himself on TV during a crying fit.
Well, let's see, His Holiness, Snoop Dogg, and Shakira would be a good start.
71: Well, I could throw out the theory that if McCain had been elected with the support of Latinos and environmentalists then we would get Good President McCain, who would be the exact opposite of the bitter hateful old man that he is now.
Good President McCain would have pushed hard for carbon taxes, and immigration reform, and gotten rid of DADT the day after he took office.
Even in this delusional fantasy I do find it hard to posit that Prestident McCain would have been less aggressive in waging the Afghanistan and Iraq wars though.
A short, incomplete and un-ordered list of people I'd rather see outed that Lindsey Graham:
Glenn Beck
Mitch McConnell
John Boehner
Mike Huckabee
Richard Nixon (posthumously)
82: Why, urple? Are you tired of the hetrosexuals taking all the blame for the troubles of the world?
61 60: Added to the base level of improper implication, if he has to specify where he's going to be standing, that seems to imply an astonishing level of braggadocio.
As someone once said, "My lever's long enough that, if you give me a place to stand, I'll move your world."
82. The late, unlamented, but-there's-fuck-all-we-can-do-now Richard Nixon before that cunt from FoF?
Hey, who wants to be my Farmville buddy? My garden needs help!
74: well, for one thing, it's very difficult for me to imagine a presidential candidate in our current political climate winning Texas, California, New York, Ohio and Florida and yet somehow still losing the election.
Whoever is in charge of Pauly has my deep and abiding respect. Seriously, that's consistently good stuff.
89 gets it exactly right. When life gives you trolls, make troll-ade!
Santorum is a has been
Something I read recently (in the WaPo maybe?) suggested he's seriously considering a run for the presidency in 2012. So he could be mounting a comeback!
So he could be mounting a comeback!
Or a dog!
a current senator from South Carolina? How much better could it get than that?
Well, it could be the other senator from South Carolina. Jim DeMint is way worse than Lindsay Graham.
81: and if my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle. Seriously, what's the chain of causality here? Environmentalists support McCain purely on a random whim collectively around the country and out of gratitude he does them a favor? One vote on one bill in June 2001 was the real sign of what he really believes, and everything before and since was necessary sacrifices to get elected? McCain veers far to the left of Obama from summer 2008 on and still manages to turn out any Republicans at all?
Not to badger you; you do call it a delusional fantasy. I guess I just wanted to point out why it was delusional.
Also, where does the idea that Lyndsay Graham is gay come from? Maybe there are just allegations about rent boys that I miss or something, and if so, fine, but AFAICT there's nothing to it besides the fact that he happens to look and sound a bit girly. I notice the same thing, but if that's all there is to it, it seems a bit unrigorous.
and if my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle
Or your dad, depending on how your mom was on her sister-in-law.
the fact that he happens to look and sound a bit girly
Like Hugo Chavez happens to look and sound a bit Latino. The senator has a very...specific...Southern accent. Gay members of the commentariat: do you have any doubts about Graham?
and if my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle
I love that expression, but I'd never come across it in English before.
I mean, it's a big world and anything's possible. But still.
FWIW, I'm not sure it would really be all that damaging to his re-election prospects if it turned out to be the case. I suspect it's already figured into the price of the stock for a lot of his voters.
80 is the beginning of my favorite joke! What a coincidence!
58
Also, did anyone link to this here already? Sorta undercuts Shearer's points from the other day:
What points? What does the link have to with the definition of rich (and whether LB qualifies)?
99: I'm told by some of his constituents that you're right. And really, is there anything that a Southern Republican can do to lose votes from his (or her, I suppose) supporters? Have children by a black woman? Check. Wear diapers while visiting a prostitute? Check. And so on. In fairness, the same may be true of Democrats in the South as well. After all, Edwin Edwards. Actually, maybe it's not even regional. See: Cianci, Buddy. And really, that it turns out that most people don't really care -- as in, they'll clutch their pearls, but they won't change their vote -- who politicians fuck is fine by me.
Thinking about it for another minute, I think the revelations about Thurmond didn't crop up until after he died, right?
Will someone please explain to me how the internet works? In the meantime: ¡chalupa!
Think. Think. Think...think.
I'm picturing ari clutching a honey jar and tapping his temple.
who politicians fuck is fine by me.
"Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue"
Our society has devolved to the point where we can't enjoy our sinnin' anymore.
I don't know what Graham may believe about hot gay sex in his heart-of-hearts, but he might believe it wrong, do it anyway, and enjoy it more thereupon. What the hell, who politicians fuck and how they feel about it is fine by me.
It is his public pronouncements, positions and votes and gay-hurting actions that are the problem. There may be no hypocrisy, and I am not sure hypocrisy is any of my business.
I am of course a closeted ascetic, who disapproves of sex, food, ingesting pleasuring substances, play, humour, anger, and excessive dog-walking. I should be sitting under a tree naked, ingesting one beansprout a day, and chanting sutras. But goldarn, decadence is fun.
decadence is fun
Allow me to recommend dipping nacho-cheese-flavored tortilla cheeps in *actual* nacho cheese, a personal fave.
Cheeps? Chips. Holy crap. I need more coffee.
I believe in toasted turkey sandwiches with cranberry sauce on them. And coffee.
Coffee on a turkey sandwich? That'd make the bread all soggy.