Good talk NR. I'm not convinced.... there are cabinet appointments, etc. he's made that make me not trust him, but I am listening. Ob's speech a couple days ago has me wondering you've got a direct line to him or something.

In reply to this comment by NetRunner:
>> ^Truckchase:

I know where you're coming from and I don't disagree with your logic, but I'm not gonna get out there and campaign for or vocally support Obama because I do think his administration is still heavily corrupted by (mainly) the financial industry. As you point out he's not nearly as bad as the repubs, so unless by some miracle Buddy Roemer gets any real traction I'll most likely be voting for Obama and running from the polling place in a ankle length trench coat and hat like a family man from 1974 escaping the newsstand with a smut rag.

Oy, Buddy Roemer? The problem with Buddy Roemer is that he seems to think his becoming President is the only/main way to fix the problem with money in politics. Never mind that the biggest problem with campaign finance law is that a) Republicans always oppose it and b) the Supreme Court has deemed real campaign finance law unconstitutional.

The answer to that is a Constitutional Amendment, not giving Buddy Roemer the potential ability to appoint SCOTUS judges, especially since he'd only get to replace liberals in a 2013-2017 term, not roadblocks like Thomas, Scalia, or Roberts.

I personally don't think silent support is good enough. I'm gonna be out campaigning for Obama nice and loud. I'm especially going to be pushing back against what I see as crazy misinformation, like the story Cenk is pushing here.

Once you strip away the misinformation, the only legitimate liberal complaints I've heard about Obama boil down to "he didn't do enough to make things better" as opposed to "he made something worse". People seem to have rather quickly forgotten the width and breadth of the damage done by Bush and a Republican congress.

Most people just remember the wars, the Patriot Act, and the tax cuts. Fewer people remember the US Attorneys scandal, fewer people remember the way he gutted the SEC, put the EPA on hold, sabotaged the FEC, tried to gut the FCC, turned the NLRB into a union-busting department, and so on. It was a nonstop deluge of sabotage, fraud, and abuse that just went on and on relentlessly for eight fucking years.

It grates me that it's only partially and often only temporarily being undone by Obama, but now those low-publicity nitty-gritty detail stories are almost universally good ones.

The choice isn't really one of a "lesser of two evils" it's a choice between empowering an enemy who's sworn to destroy everything you hold dear, or empowering a friend who's let you down. I see this as a choice between feckless and imperfect good, or pure, ruthless evil.

>> ^Truckchase:

I know where you're coming from and I don't disagree with your logic, but I'm not gonna get out there and campaign for or vocally support Obama because I do think his administration is still heavily corrupted by (mainly) the financial industry. As you point out he's not nearly as bad as the repubs, so unless by some miracle Buddy Roemer gets any real traction I'll most likely be voting for Obama and running from the polling place in a ankle length trench coat and hat like a family man from 1974 escaping the newsstand with a smut rag.

Oy, Buddy Roemer? The problem with Buddy Roemer is that he seems to think his becoming President is the only/main way to fix the problem with money in politics. Never mind that the biggest problem with campaign finance law is that a) Republicans always oppose it and b) the Supreme Court has deemed real campaign finance law unconstitutional.

The answer to that is a Constitutional Amendment, not giving Buddy Roemer the potential ability to appoint SCOTUS judges, especially since he'd only get to replace liberals in a 2013-2017 term, not roadblocks like Thomas, Scalia, or Roberts.

I personally don't think silent support is good enough. I'm gonna be out campaigning for Obama nice and loud. I'm especially going to be pushing back against what I see as crazy misinformation, like the story Cenk is pushing here.

Once you strip away the misinformation, the only legitimate liberal complaints I've heard about Obama boil down to "he didn't do enough to make things better" as opposed to "he made something worse". People seem to have rather quickly forgotten the width and breadth of the damage done by Bush and a Republican congress.

Most people just remember the wars, the Patriot Act, and the tax cuts. Fewer people remember the US Attorneys scandal, fewer people remember the way he gutted the SEC, put the EPA on hold, sabotaged the FEC, tried to gut the FCC, turned the NLRB into a union-busting department, and so on. It was a nonstop deluge of sabotage, fraud, and abuse that just went on and on relentlessly for eight fucking years.

It grates me that it's only partially and often only temporarily being undone by Obama, but now those low-publicity nitty-gritty detail stories are almost universally good ones.

The choice isn't really one of a "lesser of two evils" it's a choice between empowering an enemy who's sworn to destroy everything you hold dear, or empowering a friend who's let you down. I see this as a choice between feckless and imperfect good, or pure, ruthless evil.

heh heh

careful... your reference (2 corinthians 11:19) may be showing your christian credentials - that's a big no-no on the sift

and you don't even use the cliché correctly, sheesh!

so... what is it you disagree with?

1. that maddow isn't an attack dog for the left?
2. that the federalist society isn't evil?
3. that it's pure coincidence that the federalist society's annual dinner (planned many months in advance) just happened to take place on the same day as the scotus announcement that it would hear the legal challenge in question? how could any scotus justice have predicted that??
4. that maddow is misinterpreting canon 4c of the code of conduct, which only applies to lower level judges?
5. that virtually all our scotus justices 'violate' the above regularly? heck, ginsberg 'violated' it again just three days ago while being the speaker at an nwlc-sponsored event.
6. that supreme court justices can't have their votes 'bought' by just treating them to a nice dinner?
7. that this whole story isn't just a tit-for-tat over the right's squawking over justice kagan's apparent refusal to recuse herself? i don't necessarily think she should.

so... which is it?

share with us? throw your pearls before the swine...

or is your snarkiness simply a knee-jerk reaction to a true centrist's better erudition and analysis of yet more political polemics?

ha!

well, let's just put this in perspective then...
26 of our 50 states took the obama healthcare initiative to our highest court.
wouldn't this be the same conflict of interest if any state funds were used to host any activity to which our supreme court justices were invited and attended? (by any measure, they are the plaintiffs in this case.)

answer: yes, by your very myopic and obtuse assessment... it would.

take a deep breath, pull your heads out of your behinds, and realize A. that this is one-sided reporting of a bipartisan pasttime, and B. that the members of our SCOTUS are selected because they are the premier interpreters of our nation's constitution, and therefore given the benefit of the doubt because of the long road and fractious appointment process that has brought them to their positions.

frankly, i don't care which way they vote on this issue - i live overseas. but if i were a betting man, i'd wager that we see a 5-4 / 6-3 split, both against the constitutionality of the current plan. this will clearly disrupt your shortsighted view of political partisanism.

seriously, don't bother to respond to my comments if you don't understand the issue, or are too lazy to do your homework.

rachel maddow is figuratively the unwanted offspring of a beck / limbaugh coupling, where they then pissed on the infant and put her up for adoption.

simply put: she inherited their style but has an axe to grind with their politics.

I'm terribly late to the party, but I can't resist commenting here. This is a wonderful post with loads of great ideas and comments. I'll go bullet style like all the cool kids are doing.

* Taxation of individuals, and more to the point enforcement of individual tax laws, comes down to prioritization. Morally, it may feel better to want the IRS to tackle the super rich, but financially, it is in fact more beneficial to audit those less capable of evasion. If the IRS can spend $5k to get $10k from several individuals, that is fiscally more useful than spending millions going after one individual that can indefinitely avoid settling up. Corporations, on the other hand, are another matter entirely. Corporations are given the rights of citizens, like free speech, due process, etc., but are not expected to fulfill the same obligations in terms of taxes, being honest with law enforcement, being eligible for military service, voting, etc. That's a whole other can of worms opened up by the SCOTUS back in the 1800s. The answer lies in removing the citizen like rights of corporations, but that's not going to happen in our lifetimes.

* Welfare serves the dual purpose of helping those who have been screwed over by circumstance and those who have been screwed over by the system. It is something that the vast majority of right wingers will claim is better served by private charities, which are invariably faith based. Even AA is a religious organization. And every person that subscribes to a faith of one sort or another will tell you that nearly all charities are faith based. You know why? Because its virtually impossible to get non-profit status and wide recognition for an organization unless it is faith based. That historical/cultural bias is reason enough for me to justify a secular/communal charity system.

* Conventional nuclear power is great, assuming it is done safely. That's the problem, though - is it economically viable to maintain conventional nuclear power plants safely? None of the arguments I've seen on either side of the issue really deal with that aspect. It basically comes down to a matter of risk management, which TEPCO clearly failed at. Implementing conventional nuclear power safely requires a really absurd amount capital, but it may be economically smart at a large enough scale. Figuring out the economics of safe nuclear power is way above my pay grade. Ultimately, I believe it is something humans are quite capable of doing, but is there enough political will to do it properly?

* Free markets are awesome! Don't confuse free markets with capitalist bullying, though. A free market assumes that everyone in the market has the same information as everyone else. That's the only way it can actually be free. As soon as one party manipulates the information available to others, the market is no longer free. That applies to everything from snake oil remedies to irresponsible mortgages. A free market doesn't mean a market free of regulation, it means one in which everyone has equal access to the marketplace, producers and consumers alike.

* Small government, or even no government, is ideal because ideally everyone thinks like you do, and has exactly the same minimal requirements that you have. In the real world, the needs of individuals in very large social groups are immensely varied. You may live your whole life without ever needing the services of a fire department. You may not ever need to protect yourself from a psychopathic killer. Hell, you may run your own website from your home and never do more than walk your kids along a deer path to a private school near you. But you are a part of a society. Your kids' teacher may live 50 miles away and need to travel along paved roads to get to that wonderful school. The web of internetworked computers upon which your income relies was first conceived by people working at public institutions. The smallpox vaccination you got as a kid was developed by a tax funded group of doctors. The nuclear power that you want to support would never have been possible without vast amounts of federal funding. Bureaucratic and corruption waste is not unique to government, and any properly organized system can minimize waste. It's not the idea of government, but its implementation that makes it wasteful. Corporations are no more immune to that waste than any other collective. It's true that waste is easier to identify and possibly eliminate in smaller systems, but very large organizational systems are required for big results like space travel, vaccinations, and imperial domination.

* Do not confuse religion with spirituality. Religion is about dogma and social control. Spirituality is about one's connection with the universe. If your neighbor believes in a grey bearded man in the sky that created everything 6000 years ago, it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with his desire to eliminate the teaching of evolution from public schools. He may use the former to justify the latter, but the two are not really connected. If someone comes to your door offering a deeper connection with the universe around you through Jesus, you can listen politely, tell them that you are already plugged in, or whatever. If someone comes to your door to tell you that you and your family need to behave in a certain way, you can tell them to fuck off with a quite clear conscience.

I don't think any of these ideas are young or old, but it does take some time to refine them into something coherent. I'm 41 and I barely know what coherent or consistent means. One last thing to remember is that you are not who you were 10 years ago, or even 10 seconds ago. Every moment fresh water flows over the fall - it might look the same, but the rocks are never touched twice. (oh - now I'm just getting pretentious)

Glen Greenwald on Rendition (which often results in torture). The president should not have the power to unilaterally render anyone foreign or domestic to another country for any reason.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/02/09/state_secrets

It is not the presidents place to strike down Habeas Corpus or reinstate it is left up to the SCOTUS to interpret whether the writ can be removed or not. How that relates to the consensus of the people I still don't understand.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2008/06/12/boumediene

Whether or not the Executive Branch actually abides by the writs of the constitution is another thing entirely. The branches can do whatever they wish until another branch or the people file complaint against them and the checks and balances actually take place.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/04/11/bagram

The above links and points are merely my interpretation of things evident during Obama's presidency they are wholly my opinion and therefore could be wrong. He inherited power and did not return it which is typical of any one holding the POTUS, and appears to be using that power (see any number of Greenwald's articles on Obama and Civil Liberties).

Everyone, all US citizens need to stop believing shit and actually use some critical thought. Belief without thorough review of evidence is faith, and faith is much more fallible than evidentiary claims. Even if those evidentiary claims are interpreted wrongly, which mine might be.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Obama went into office with the intention of ending torture, restoring Habeas Corpus, ending the patriot act, ending the war in Iraq and creating public health care system.

Here's what happened...

Some asshole, lazy, pathetic guy named Clarence Thomas ended up on the Supreme Court of the United Stated. He sleeps, sits back, has never once asks a single question or speaks in five years. He along with Bush appointee rule on some insane Citizens United case, and overturn 100 years of campaign finance law. This same Thomas clown also once wrote that.. “the Constitution does not afford students a right to free speech in public schools.” This same asshole uses the pickup line, "Who has put pubic hair on my Coke?"

Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_Commission
Cornell Law

The case was actually about a special interest group, funded by for-profit movie maker guy who aired Hillary hit movie 60 days before the election.

Instead of ruling on "Whether a broadcast feature-length documentary movie that is sold on DVD, shown in theaters, and accompanied by a compendium book is to be treated as the broadcast 'ads'" SCOTUS didn't rule on the actual case, but instead made a far reaching leap to rule somehow that corporations have First Amendment rights (a legal arrangement to protect shareholders from liability)... Also, not only do they have First Amendment rights, but they don't have to obey and campaign finance laws or contribution limits.

So an individual can only contribute so much, but if you put your money into any corporation, you can just donate as much as you want to run ads on TV as a special interest.

Two justices should have recused themselves. In fact, if Obama didn't fail to investigate any crimes committed recently, they would have followed up...

"A year after the decision, Common Cause asked the Department of Justice to investigate conflicts of interest on the part of two of the Justices in the majority. The organization noted that Thomas's wife was the founder and president of Liberty Central, a conservative political advocacy group that would be empowered to accept corporate contributions to run campaign advertisements. In addition, Scalia and Thomas had participated in political strategy sessions organized by David H. Koch and Charles G. Koch, who stood to benefit from the decision"

@BansheeX I think anyone who promotes the idea of a return to a gold standard has to realize that deflation is just as bad, if not worse than inflation.

What we're seeing right now in the economy is the effect of mere disinflation (i.e. a drop in the rate of inflation), and the result is lots of unemployment, and very low investment in actual economic activity because it's far too attractive to hoard cash (or more accurately financial assets so safe they're as good as cash).

Part of how you break out of that cycle is to create an expectation of inflation, and you have no hope of that under a gold standard, because you can't increase the money supply. In fact, you're guaranteed to see a steady rate of deflation whenever your population grows, or your economy tries to expand and that will put a drag on growth.

I don't think there's much of a case to be made that the Fed is unconstitutional (and what case there is rests on the word "coin" carrying a lot more weight than the phrase "regulate the value thereof" which follows it). Even if some SCOTUS ruled it unconstitutional, you'd see an amendment to the Constitution passed before you can say the phrase "the Senator from Goldman Sachs". Like Cenk said, our government is nothing but quick and efficient when it comes to serving the interests of the rich and powerful.

Which ultimately is what I think Cenk said that carries the most weight -- the problem isn't that the Fed exists and has the power to do things like this, it's that the actions it takes are quick and decisive when banks and investors are in trouble, but regular people not so much.

In this case, the Fed bought a lot of toxic assets at face value. I like this a lot more than Congress authorizing treasury to do the same thing, because unlike Treasury and Congress, the Fed can just print the money rather than borrow it. We don't have to pay interest on those dollars to anyone, and we don't need to collect them back with taxes, either. We might see inflation, but right now inflation would be good for the economy.

What the Fed could have done instead is print up money and give it to people to pay off their mortgages. In effect it could still do this by just writing off the toxic assets it holds, and not foreclosing on the mortgages it has on its balance sheet. It may still do this, and I suspect it will have to for some percentage of them. I also expect right-wing people to bitch about "moral hazard" and lazy parasites mooching off the producers in society if/when it happens.

Ultimately, the only downside to any of what the Fed is doing is that it might lead to inflation. But so far nothing it's done has created even the slightest increase in the year-over-year inflation rate, which is already well below the 2% target. Furthermore, all market indicators are predicting inflation of essentially 0% as far out as 7 years, even though the scale of the Fed's actions are public knowledge.

>> ^silvercord:

Two things. MSNBC is just as much in the tank for the lib/prog/soc folks as FOX is for the conserv/rt wing/teaparty people.

Depends on when you tune in. If you watch during the daytime, it's pretty much right-wing or false equivalency central. In the evenings you have a solid block of people who're all openly left in varying degrees.

There's no time I could tune in Fox and hear anything other than far-right lunacy.

>> ^silvercord:
Second, I used to think that part of the journalistic effort was to discover the truth about every corruption. Alas, I was wrong. Today's journalism is about pointing out the corruption of the people you disagree with while turning a blind eye toward those you do. It doesn't really matter which hypocritical side you are on any longer; the train is going over the cliff.


The way I see the state of play, you have the right fabricating corruption and blaming everything bad in the world on the left (whether they had even the remotest control over it or not), while the left points out true corruption on both the left and the right.

The left says that we're stuck with two parties, one whose policies are far too heavily influenced by big business, and the other whose policies are indistinguishable from those of big business.

The right mostly cheers the defeat of things like the DISCLOSE act, and having the SCOTUS strike down essentially all campaign finance reforms.

WTF is up with that?

Still not sure how "secession" is not tied directly to slaves, slave trade and state sanctioned racism/discrimination.

The only time secession was actually declared was in the Confederate States of America (ie: the confederate slave trading racist motherfuckers). in 1869, the SCOTUS declared that secession is basically null. Also, I'm not sure how one can be constantly screaming about following the US Constitution, without understanding that it replaced the Articles of Confederation. Meaning, this state sovereignty schtick is hollow rhetoric. You can't believe firmly in one, and the other at the same time. Well you can, but you're either doing it to hide your real racist views, or you're an idiot.

The more and more you push this secession and property owners rights to discriminate against races, the more and more you scream "I'M A RACIST!".

@NordlichReiter it sounded to me like you just agreed with all my points.

Republicans need to go, period. The SCOTUS is in the hands of right-wing activist judges. The influence of the military-industrial complex would wane if we stopped engaging in wars and cut defense spending. Hell, you even said that killing the F-22 and C-17 (which only happened due to Obama's veto threats) was a good thing.

You didn't mount any kind of argument that Democrats would indeed continue the war if the Republican party and their media cheerleaders disappeared.

If I were Stephen Colbert, I'd be saying "I accept your apology" right about now.

"done know" also insert "dang nabbit" at the end.
>> ^thinker247:

knows
Also, it's proper to spell the numeral if it's less than ten, so "4" was incorrectly used.
>> ^maximillian:

Well, she know more than many judges and 4 of the SCOTUS justices:
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100
311/NEWS/3110340
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2010/06/28/AR2010062802134.html?hpid=topnews

knows

Also, it's proper to spell the numeral if it's less than ten, so "4" was incorrectly used.
>> ^maximillian:

Well, she know more than many judges and 4 of the SCOTUS justices:
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100
311/NEWS/3110340
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2010/06/28/AR2010062802134.html?hpid=topnews

>> ^Duckman33:

That said, what in the world makes this woman think just because she can fire a weapon, this qualifies her as a good candidate?


Well, she know more than many judges and 4 of the SCOTUS justices:

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100311/NEWS/3110340

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/28/AR2010062802134.html?hpid=topnews

Yes, but what about the fears!

>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
Why are BP and the President handling something that is clearly the courts responsibility?
Let's just start with this. Again, from BP's summary of the agreement:

The fund will be available to satisfy legitimate claims including natural resource damages and state and local response costs. Fines and penalties will be excluded from the fund and paid separately. Payments from the fund will be made as they are adjudicated, whether by the Independent Claims Facility (ICF) referred to below, or by a court, or as agreed by BP.
The ICF will be administered by Ken Feinberg. The ICF will adjudicate on all Oil Pollution Act and tort claims excluding all federal and state claims.