quote:

Budget rules allow a reconciliation bill to avoid a Senate filibuster, so it is frequently used to pass policies that wouldn’t survive that chamber’s typical procedural hurdles. Its more recent use was to pass Obamacare and, before that, President George W. Bush’s tax cuts. It is still subject to presidential signature or veto.

If Obama vetoed a reconciliation bill that dismantles key elements of his signature health care law, proponents argue it would make it clear to 2016 voters that the only element missing from a successful repeal is a Republican president.

Repealing all of the health care law through reconciliation is impossible. Reconciliation must be used to effect savings through changing taxes, spending or entitlements. Outside that purview puts it under the normal Senate procedural process.

quote:

“Oh yeah, we got to get it on his desk so he will veto it, and then he’ll be stuck owning Obamacare, because nobody associates Obama with Obamacare yet,” Rep. Thomas Massie told CQ Roll Call.

Joementum posted:

Congressional Republicans are cooking up a plan and you'll never guess what it is! Unless you guessed "defunding Obamacare", which would be a good guess.


But not all Republicans are convinced of the tactical genius of this plan.


Meanwhile, the Senate is going to vote on their first judicial confirmation of the year this afternoon.

Joementum posted:

But not all Republicans are convinced of the tactical genius of this plan.

silvergoose posted:

Wait they're actually voting on a confirmation?

Are they going to vote it down, since the GOP controls the senate?

Joementum posted:

They're set to confirm Alfred H. Bennett to be a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Remember that district judicial nominees are approved by their state's Senate delegation before moving on to the judicial committee and then the floor. Cruz and Cornyn have already put out press releases saying they support his confirmation, so it'll probably be unopposed.

Joementum posted:

Quote of the morning, "If they get to nominate Hillary Clinton, why don't we get to nominate Dick Cheney? He has a much better record." ~ Bill Kristol

quote:

Why was a 73-year-old insurance company executive playing cop?

That’s the simple question many are asking more than a week after an undercover Tulsa police operation went wrong — and a white reserve deputy sheriff shot and killed an unarmed black man, apparently by accident. He has not been charged with a crime.

...

In a video released by police over the weekend, a gunshot fires and Bates says, “Oh, I shot him. I’m sorry.” It was one of at least two shootings this month in which a white officer shot and killed an unarmed black man — and it has created a backlash for many reasons, one being Bates is not a real police officer. He’s a reserve sheriff’s deputy. And some fear he wasn’t qualified to be one.

...

It’s not all that uncommon. Volunteer reserve officers have become a staple in the Tulsa sheriff’s department, which reportedly uses about 100 of them, as well as in many other cities. It’s not unusual for them to be out on assignment, Tulsa County Sheriff’s Maj. Shannon Clark told the Tulsa World. By trade, they’re bankers, doctors, lawyers, retired cops or even celebrities. They get varying degrees of training and they help the local police, not just by patrolling with them, usually at no cost, but also sometimes by bringing their own equipment, including weapons. Some departments even request donations in exchange for the positions. The Oakley, Mich., police department asks for $1,200, according to Salon.

...

“These people drop four or five grand and dress up to look like police,” Donna LaMontaine, president of the Deputy Sheriffs Association of Michigan, told the magazine. “I have a problem with that.”

Crain posted:

What's better than yet another unarmed black man being killed by the police? An unarmed black man killed by a 70 year old insurance sales man who pays the police to let him run around and play Cops and Robbers. Link

Joementum posted:

Quote of the morning, "If they get to nominate Hillary Clinton, why don't we get to nominate Dick Cheney? He has a much better record." ~ Bill Kristol

Radish posted:

Don't infer the system isn't good or it loses its magical totemic powers to protect us from criminals.

Crain posted:

What's better than yet another unarmed black man being killed by the police? An unarmed black man killed by a 70 year old insurance sales man who pays the police to let him run around and play Cops and Robbers. Link

quote:

As Harris lies face down on the ground bleeding and crying out “oh poo poo man, he shot me, he shot me! Oh, he shot me!” one officer puts his knee on Harris’s head in an apparent effort to subdue him. An officer tells Harris to “shut the gently caress up” shortly thereafter.

When Harris tells one of the officers “I’m losing my breath,” the officer responds, “gently caress your breath.”

KiteAuraan posted:

So say that you want to work to change some of the hosed up poo poo going on in this country? What is a good organization to start with as a volunteer? Particularly in Arizona, but national groups are also fine. I just want to get involved somehow and try to do what little I can to help change poo poo.

Crain posted:

What's better than yet another unarmed black man being killed by the police? An unarmed black man killed by a 70 year old insurance sales man who pays the police to let him run around and play Cops and Robbers. Link

Mister Macys posted:

Oh well, as long as he says he's sorry, then I guess it's okay...

Mister Macys posted:

He's 73 and should have been put behind a desk, not the barrel of a gun.

Rincewinds posted:

So some commentator was on TV here in Soviet Scandinavia and said that Hillary only had 14.7 % chance (he did not explain how he got that number) to win, while Jeb Bush was going was to win, after knocking out Rubio. As they have been saying less dumb poo poo than most of the republican clown brigade, are they the most likely candidates and will they be able to appeal to other voters after putting on clown makeup for teabaggers?

Rincewinds posted:

So some commentator was on TV here in Soviet Scandinavia and said that Hillary only had 14.7 % chance (he did not explain how he got that number) to win, while Jeb Bush was going was to win, after knocking out Rubio. As they have been saying less dumb poo poo than most of the republican clown brigade, are they the most likely candidates and will they be able to appeal to other voters after putting on clown makeup for teabaggers?

Rincewinds posted:

So some commentator was on TV here in Soviet Scandinavia and said that Hillary only had 14.7 % chance (he did not explain how he got that number) to win, while Jeb Bush was going was to win, after knocking out Rubio. As they have been saying less dumb poo poo than most of the republican clown brigade, are they the most likely candidates and will they be able to appeal to other voters after putting on clown makeup for teabaggers?

Mister Macys posted:

He's 73 and should have been put behind a desk, not the barrel of a gun.

hobbesmaster posted:

He's 73 and a reserve officer. Which means he had no training. I thought reserve officers were supposed to be crossing guards and direct traffic during football games.

Mister Macys posted:

To be fair, up in Canada we kill our minorities with tazer™s.


He's an insurance salesman. If he wants to play cop, stick him behind a desk to administrate.

Radbot posted:

Did anyone get a chance to listen to Dan Carlin's latest Common Sense?

It was pretty adorable - he strongly adheres to a truth-is-in-the-middle ideology and having him try to paint the left as just as bad as the right on specifically the TPP and other trade deals was really strange. You know, those big leftist organizations that benefit from American corruption just as much as corporations do, like... um, you know...

Chamale posted:

Hillary will win if we maintain status quo for two years, or if things get only somewhat worse domestically and internationally. For her to lose would require a big economic downturn, Iran proving Mossad wrong and getting a nuclear bomb, or Hillary having a health problem. I have no idea how someone could give her that low a chance, did the commentator even say why he thinks she's not the favourite?

gradenko_2000 posted:

Carlin flat-out says he expects you to disagree with Common Sense about half the time, and I think it's his sense of self-awareness that's the only thing keeping me from writing off his non-Hardcore History work completely, because some of the time he really come off as sounding like a South Park libertarian.

Rincewinds posted:

He did not specify much, nor did he say how he got that number, the only thing he pointed out was that after 8 years of a democratic president, it would be hard for a new democrat to take over. Then again, in our politics governments lose elections not because they have done anything directly wrong but because people believe it's time for change.

gradenko_2000 posted:

Carlin flat-out says he expects you to disagree with Common Sense about half the time, and I think it's his sense of self-awareness that's the only thing keeping me from writing off his non-Hardcore History work completely, because some of the time he really come off as sounding like a South Park libertarian.

Rincewinds posted:

So some commentator was on TV here in Soviet Scandinavia and said that Hillary only had 14.7 % chance (he did not explain how he got that number) to win, while Jeb Bush was going was to win, after knocking out Rubio. As they have been saying less dumb poo poo than most of the republican clown brigade, are they the most likely candidates and will they be able to appeal to other voters after putting on clown makeup for teabaggers?

foobardog posted:

He's right there's usually a constant flip back and forth between Republicans and Democrats around a period of two terms, but it usually comes after the current president has screwed the pooch on a big enough stage to make the other party favorable. And it's not always exactly two terms.

They may hate Obama that much, but I'm not convinced everyone else does.

zoux posted:

KomradeX posted:

Hell that's part of the reason I gave up listening to his history podcast. I was listening to his world war one series last year and that truth in the middle crap just kept hitting me and after awhile I just turned it off cause he's a crap historian. I don't get why he's so popular, I'd rather listen to The Dollop at leat those guys are funny

Pohl posted:

He is way more complicated than that. I'd probably vote for a different Democrat than him because Biden is really pro war. I didn't realize that a long time ago. You have to realize, I've been rooting for this guy for 20 years.
I love the man, but I've lost faith in him.

Of course, he is still a lot better than the candidates he lost to.
Biden would have been the Terminator President, and that would not be bad.
By Terminator I don't mean war, I mean he would be like troll Obamo 24 hours a day. He can't let poo poo go, so he would be constantly firing back.

quote:

If Hillary Clinton wins her party's nomination, she'll be the most hawkish Democratic nominee since the Iraq War began.

Democrats have grown deeply skeptical of foreign wars since Iraq ¡ª a fact reflected in Barack Obama's more restrained foreign policy.

If Clinton skates to victory, she will take a more aggressive approach to world politics, pulling the party in a new direction without much of a debate. And if she were to win the presidency, both the party and American foreign policy itself could change in a big way.

quote:

Clinton was Obama's Secretary of State, so she can't openly denounce his foreign policy while running for the Democratic nomination. But she has taken oblique shots that make her feelings clear: She believes the Obama administration's approach to world politics is too cautious.

"Great nations need organizing principles, and 'Don¡¯t do stupid stuff' is not an organizing principle," she said in a 2014 interview with the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg.

Many Democrats feel differently. In a poll released within weeks of that interview, a plurality of Democrats said America "does too much in helping solve world problems." But being out of step with the Democratic party is nothing new for Clinton: throughout the Obama administration, she has been consistently at odds with the majority of the party on key issues of war and peace.

And while, unlike the Republican candidates, Clinton has been fairly supportive of some of the Obama administration's foreign policy ¡ª she's cautiously supported the framework nuclear deal with Iran and broadly endorsed Obama's approach to fighting ISIS ª¥ ¡ª she has also disagreed.

In mid-2009, then¨CSecretary of State Clinton was one of the key forces in the Obama administration advocating for a "surge" of new troops to Afghanistan. At the time, Gallup found that 62 percent of Democrats opposed sending more troops to the country.

In March 2011, she argued strongly for intervening to stop Muammar Qaddafi's slaughter of rebels in Libya. At the time, 57 percent of Democrats told Pew the US had no responsibility to stop the killing in Libya.

In 2012, Clinton and General David Petraeus presented Obama with a plan for arming the Syrian rebels fighting Bashar al-Assad's regime. Only a tiny minority of Americans ¡ª 11 percent ¡ª supported the idea, according to a June 2013 NBC/Wall Street Journal. The poll didn't disclose an exact partisan breakdown, but Democrats and Republicans broadly agreed: "whether you voted for Romney or Obama, they have the same opinion on Syria," Bill McInturff, one of the pollsters who conducted the poll, said.

Clinton doesn't regret these decisions today. In fact, she seems to think they've been vindicated. In her interview with Goldberg, she blamed the rise of ISIS partly on Obama's failure to arm the Syrian rebels in time. She defended the intervention in Libya. She compared the struggle against groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda to the Cold War.

So while she may not be openly criticizing Obama too much now, it's very clear that a President Clinton would bring far more hawkish instincts to bear on global problems than the current president ¡ª or, for that matter, your average Democratic voter.

Warcabbit posted:

Indeed. After a while, America tends to feel it's time for a change. But I don't think America's ready for a change back to W. And that's what Jeb's showing.

Personally, I can't wait for the Walker-Bush unfriendly fire.

Chamale posted:

Over the whole history of U.S. elections, a party winning exactly two consecutive terms has happened 8 times. A party winning just one election before losing again has also happened 8 times, 3 or 4 consecutive terms twice each, and 6 or 7 consecutive terms once each. Certainly a noteworthy historical trend, but a look at the current candidates makes me still think Clinton is the favourite.