US Pol January - Please, please leave the thread if this will affect you

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Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

My New Year thus far involved a kitchen fire, so needless to say my plans to build on and tweak the contribution of ComradeCosmobot were delayed. I present what they put together (9 pages worth) below

quote:

The 114th Congress is about to convene, and a new Republican majority in the Senate will necessarily lead to a tectonic shift in Federal governance.

One of the first actions after the swearing in of new members of Congress will be the election of the Speaker of the House (in the House, of course) and, if it's contemplated at all, filibuster reform in the Senate. Unfortunately for those of you who were paying attention to the thrilling moves in both cases in the 113th, we're unlikely to see anything nearly as exciting as an Allen West speakership or repeal of the filibuster. While there were a notable number of defections in the last Speaker election in 2013, the Tea Party Caucus, which was largely responsible for the defections, is now less powerful in the House, thanks to several of its members leaving (Bachmann, Broun and Stockman declined to seek reelection and Cassidy is now in the Senate) and Republicans now having a larger majority in the House, making the Tea Party Caucus less important to the majority vote. Boehner should likely sail to an easy victory, in spite of Hannity's wishes otherwise. On the Senate side, there's been little talk of filibuster reform (either repeal or rolling back the 2013 reforms), so it's unlikely we'll see any movement there.

Regardless of what happens on day one, however, one thing is clear: at long last, Republicans now believe they have finally broken partisan gridlock and only President Obama is left to stand in the way of quality legislation that will surely save America from becoming a second-rate nation.

Last Congress, the Republican House passed well over 350 bills that the Democratic Senate refused to act on. While not every House bill from the last Congress will make a reappearance in the upcoming Congress, there are a number of highlights that are certain to come back around again and, this time, land on Obama's desk. Some highlights follow:

Small Government!

Last Congress, the Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act (H.R. 4) which passed the House packed tons of goodies for libertarians and starve-the-beast conservatives, including:

The All Economic Regulations Are Transparent Act. This act would require each agency to make a report each month on the rules it expects to finalize in the subsequent year. If such a rule passes, expect to see these numbers trotted out by Fox each time they're reported to the Federal Register.

The Regulatory Accountability Act, which would require the same agencies to report each time a rule might cost the economy more than $100 million or reduce employment or wages (many rules do to a small degree, so you can expect a lot of good rules to get published, and subsequently maligned by Fox, for doing so).

The Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act. Among other provisions designed to discourage regulators from making rules that harm small businesses, this would also allow the Small Business Administration's Chief Counsel for Advocacy change the definitions of what counts as a Small Business by fiat.

Regulations From the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act. This act would require Congress to approve all major regulations (explicitly calling out carbon taxes, of course) and allowing Congress to disapprove any other regulations, so good luck getting any new regulations passed, Obama!

We might also see a return of the ENFORCE Act which allows either house of Congress to file civil action against the Executive Branch if it chooses to not enforce a law.

Nominations

While Cruz did Reid a favor in getting a few nominations through the Senate in the last few days of the 113th, there are still a few key nominations coming up for the Republican Senate to handle, including Loretta Lynch (replacing Eric Holder as Attorney general), Sally Yates (replacing James Cole as Deputy Attorney General), and Ashton Carter (replacing Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense). Senators Cruz and Lee intend to hold up Lynch (and possibly also Yates) to protest executive amnesty unless she explicitly denounces it (and Grassley has suggested that hearings on Lynch will focus similarly). Ashton Carter likely has a clearer path, but expect his hearings to be a sounding board for Republican complaints about Obama's bad relationship with his Secretaries of Defense and his extended period of "inaction" in Syria.

On the court side of the spectrum, there still remain a number of vacant seats in District Courts and Circuit Courts (mostly district court seats) despite Reid and Cruz's last-minute moves, mostly due to Obama not providing any nominees for the seats. These seats will likely remain unfilled in the 114th. The Supreme Court is, of course, fine for now, but the news about Ruth Bader Ginsburg receiving a stent in her right coronary artery in November is a reminder that it could become yet another contentious fight with Congress at any time (more so if the vacancy isn't Ginsburg, but instead one of the conservatives)

Obamacare

While a full-fledged repeal will likely be vetoed by Obama, expect more tinkering around the edges in an attempt to effectively defang the law. Possible highlights include changing "full-time employees" to include only those who work 40 hours a week and repealing the medical device excise tax.

One additional issue that has already raised its head at the end of the year is the cut of Medicaid payouts to doctors, which had been temporarily increased in 2014 to encourage doctors to take new Medicaid patients. Given that extending the increased payouts would only be a win for Obamacare, expect no action on them, so that Fox and conservative pundits can point out how many people have lost doctors (and how many doctors have had to drop patients) in 2015 thanks to Obamacare.

Banking and Finance

While the banking industry has already received one item on their wishlist from the CROmnibus (repealing derivative regulations), we can expect more of Dodd-Frank to be attacked in the next Congress. Some particular deregulations that passed the House in the 113th include: removing reporting and registration requirements for "small" investment companies that give investment advice, removing requirements for banks in the insurance business from preparing financial statements in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, removing collateralized loan obligations from regulation under the Volcker Rule, removing requirements for disclosure of certain points and fees in mortgage transactions, removing certain regulations on security swaps for risk hedging (they are really keen on getting these through I might add), and defanging the CFPB (although this last might not be as easy now that it has had a year to actually act)

Oh, and we might finally get that audit of the Fed the Paulites have been wanting... But with fewer Tea Partiers in the House to muck things up, it's just as likely that it won't happen.

Fiscal Cliff

No, we're not due for a fiscal cliff like we were in 2012, nor are we due for a government shutdown like we had in 2013. The CROmnibus bill means that everything but DHS is funded through until the 2015 budget comes up in September/October of this year (more on that exception a little later).

That still leaves the debt ceiling to deal with: the last agreement to extend the debt ceiling in February 2014 expires on March 15. Unlike last time, however, the smaller Tea Party contingent and Republican control of the Senate means that the 2015 debt ceiling hike will almost certainly not be a clean hike. Ideas floated last time that might reappear this time include: requiring approval of the Keystone Pipeline, Obamacare cuts (possibly to risk corridors), or requiring a balanced-budget amendment be presented to the states.

If there�s a chance for another shutdown, it may come late in 2015 when Obama and Congress come to loggerheads over passage of the FY2016 budget. The first signs of this battle will probably crop up when Obama submits his proposed budget early in the year. Also watch for the media to lavish attention on the latest Paul Ryan budget in April or thereabouts, when it is usually released. Some are speculating that the FY2016 budget will feature a nasty fight over entitlements and breaking down the wall between non-military and military spending under the ongoing sequester (so the GOP can cut more on food stamps and restore military funding, of course).

Trade

President Obama has pushed hard to get approval for the Trans-Pacific Partnership from the Senate, but Reid has balked and refused to grant the White House "fast track authority" to negotiate take-it-or-leave it terms for the trade pact. Obama and Republicans are both eager to see the TPP passed, however, so expect a straight up-or-down vote for fast-tracking early in the term, followed by final ratification a little later down the line.

Copyright and Intellectual Property

After Patrick Leahy killed patent reform earlier in 2014 at the urging of pharmaceutical companies and trial lawyers, expect patent reformers to try pushing largely the same bill in the 114th, as they had largely gotten bipartisan support until those two groups got involved. It's unclear whether the revival of patent reform will succeed, however.

On the copyright side of things, there's been little serious discussion of reform. Although the Unlocking Technology Act of 2013 was introduced with some Republican support, it got no traction in the 113th, and it seems unlikely to get any traction in the 114th for similar reasons (i.e. mostly Democratic support). That said, the Copyright Term Extension Act allows old works to enter the public domain in 2019, so we may start hearing rumblings about that, but that will more likely wait until the 115th before there is serious discussion on extending copyrights again.

More likely to crop up, however, will be efforts to force more and higher royalties for music streaming by reforming how audio copyrights are handled on the federal level (right now, music recorded before 1972 is covered by a patchwork of state laws, not federal law). In a similar vein, the recent Sony Pictures hack may provide a backdoor to getting SOPA revived, which the MPAA would still very much like to see.

Cybersecurity

You can be sure, too, that the recent Sony hack will provide impetus to reexamine CISPA, the cybersecurity act previously blocked in the Senate which simultaneously guts privacy regulations to allow more sharing of consumer information with the government.

Social Security and Entitlements

While a Grand Bargain might return to the table at any time, there isn't much currently on the table designed to curtail Social Security or Medicare spending (barring a quite possible reappearance in the FY2016 budget battles, as mentioned previously). That said, keep an eye out for the revival of the ABLE Act, which, in addition to providing for programs to help disabled individuals save money for their needs, offsets expenditures in the program by lifting the age at which Social Security Disability payments are no longer subject to reductions (among other minor tax reforms)

Gun Control

Last Congress, legislation to force all states to recognize and reciprocate concealed carry permits passed the House, but failed to pass the Senate. Expect this one to sail through pretty easily.

Environment

One of the last bills to fail in the Senate in December (after another similar bill had passed the House earlier in the year), a bill to authorize the Keystone XL pipeline is currently slated to be the first bill up in the Senate and will almost certainly pass this go around. Other environmental goodies likely to be in such a bill (or subsequent bills) can be seen in last Congress's H.R. 2, including:

Prohibiting the EPA from promulgating any rule that would cost more than $1 billion if the Secretary of Energy determines that the rule would cause significant adverse effects to the economy (and requires the Secretary of Energy to make such a determination for any such rule that won't help the economy)

Prohibiting the EPA from using the "social cost of carbon" in any cost-benefit analysis relating to energy rules that will cost more than $1 billion (which a carbon regulation almost certainly would)

Prohibiting the EPA from making any greenhouse-gas-related performance-based regulations that haven't already been achieved by at least 6 different power plants around the country that aren't demonstration plants of the "category" of plant being regulated (categories explicitly include coal, natural gas, and coal plants which burn coal which contains less than 8300 BTUs per pound)

Requiring the Secretary of the Interior to lease at least 50% of unleased acreage within each continental shelf unit believed to have the largest undiscovered oil and gas resources, including sales off Virginia, South Carolina, and in Southern California.

Streamlining drilling permits by requiring the Secretary of the Interior to decide on a permit within 30 days, and automatically approving any permit undecided upon after 60 days

Requiring the Secretary of the Interior to offer for sale at least 25% of all federal lands nominated for leasing for oil and gas exploration each year.

Prohibiting the Secretary of the Interior from canceling or withdrawing from a lease after a sale has occurred

Deeming the BLM oil shale management plans issued in late 2008 as satisfying all legal requirements, paving the way for oil shale leasing in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming

Requiring annual lease sales of land currently unleased in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska

Prohibiting the Department of the Interior from enforcing any federal regulations on fracking, and defer instead to state regulations

Adding additional requirements to the EPA research on fracking (presumably to make the wording as wishy-washy and inconclusive as possible)

Requiring state regulation of coal mining to incorporate the 2008 federal regulations on such and prohibiting any additional regulations requiring stream buffer zones

Congress may again try to hamper the EPA's science-based regulatory approach by requiring that all scientific data used by the EPA for regulatory purposes be completely public and open for public review. While this may sound like a good idea, in the debate on an amendment requiring such, Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) pointed out that such a requirement is designed in part to prohibit the EPA from relying on research which depends on confidential patient information (which for obvious reasons cannot be made public, and therefore could not be used for regulatory purposes), including research linking air pollution to lung cancer by analyzing the Cancer Prevention Study II data set.

Immigration

Republicans are still mulling how best to respond to Obama's executive amnesty, and have already decided to hold the Department of Homeland Security's funding hostage, extending its funding on a continuing resolution until February as part of the CROmnibus passed in December. What will happen is still a big question mark, but it's fair to say that something will happen even if Obama has to veto the bill. Their best leverage, of course, is not a standalone bill, but in the DHS budget itself, so expect some pound of flesh to be demanded in exchange for its passage.

War on Terror

With Congress having already approved funding to fight ISIS as part of last year's National Defense Authorization Act which passed in December, there's not much new for Congress to add on the war on terror, other than perhaps making Obama's life miserable in negotiating with Israel and Iran (but more on that a little later). Something that has been getting some attention is Congress's inability to pass an extension of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act which expired at the end of 2014. The lack of this reinsurance program may cause some havoc in the insurance market as businesses and skyscrapers have their insurance plans revoked since the federal government will no longer guarantee insurance plans which protect against losses due to terrorism. A retroactive extension will probably pass early on once enough businesses raise hell, but it's also an opportunity to throw in some extra riders on what is likely to be "must-pass" legislation, so look forward to some dirt on what the extension may involve.

The Torture Report and the NSA

Given that the US recently bolstered the NSA's powers instead of increasing oversight, and the fact that the new Senate Majority Leader explicitly cited the war on ISIS as a reason to block cloture on an NSA reform bill, NSA reform is basically DOA for the next two years. And the Republican rage response at the CIA Torture Report should be a pretty good indicator of what's likely to happen on the CIA side of things (nothing).

Foreign Policy

Foreign affairs may be the prerogative of the executive branch, but that won't stop Congress from using the power of the purse to make sure Obama does what Republicans work. While Congress and Obama might be on the same page on Ukraine and Russia (hawks aside), there's been more than enough rumbling about strengthening Iranian sanctions to thwart Obama's recent talks with Iran that something on that topic may indeed pass Congress early on.

It's also entirely likely that Congress may pass something to explicitly help out Israel in spite of Obama's reticence on the issue, but given little discussion on the issue in the media, it's probable that any such actions will simply be extensions of the status quo (i.e. funding the Israeli military in the foreign aid budget) rather than anything novel to really spite Obama, though that could easily change.

Republican reactions to Obama's plans on opening relations with Cuba, however, have been more muted, so it's less clear whether anything will pass on that topic, although it's far from certain that the existing embargo will be lifted, as that does require positive Congressional action.

War on Drugs

Given the success of legal weed efforts in Oregon and Alaska, and a likely return of legal weed efforts in California in 2016, a return of the Preserving Welfare for Needs Not Weed Act is probably in the cards. This act would prohibit TANF/SNAP from being given to any establishments that sell weed.

Abortion

Udall was right! The Wall Street Journal has announced that Republicans are likely to pass a ban on abortion after the 20-week mark. Last Congress's Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (H.R. 1797) will likely serve as a guide.

Pee-pee, doo-doo, Obama is a bad president

No, despite what everyone is saying, impeachment isn't likely in the cards. For as well as Republicans did in November, they're still a long way from the 67 votes they would need to convict, so it's not likely to progress that far barring some shocking revelations. That said, there are still several cards that are on the table to keep Obama (and ~~Hillary~~ any Democratic 2016 candidate) on their toes:

Benghazi: Sure, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released its report on Benghazi in November, but Trey Gowdy's Select Committee on Benghazi is still ongoing and Lindsay Graham has called for a Senate Select Committee on Benghazi, so ~~Hillary~~ Obama will continue to hear a lot about that over the next year or two.

IRS targeting: While the Senate and House have issued initial reports, Jason Chaffetz has vowed to continue Issa's investigation in the next Congress, and Orrin Hatch will also continue the Senate investigation.

House Lawsuit: Pundits largely regarded this as a play to avoid explicitly invoking impeachment but still placate the Tea Party contingent. With the elections out of the way, and the Tea Party a less significant component of the House Republican Caucus, expect this to continue for a year or two until it ends ignominiously in a "political question"/"you should use impeachment if you think something is wrong" decision.

You can be sure that Republicans will find something else to keep filing investigations against the illegal, unconstitutional presidency of Barack Hussein Obama. Grubergate might be a suitable calling card here.

Regional Issues

With Representative Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) now Majority Leader in the House, it's almost certain that some sort of drought relief act (like H.R. 5781 last session) granting farmers in the Central Valley more water at the expense of environmentalists concerned about the ecology of the San Joaquin River Delta will pass both Houses.

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Related threads
"US Politics" is an incredibly broad topic, as A) the country is freaking huge and B) given our role in international events pretty much everything impacts us. So there are other subthreads
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post suggestions for adding to the above and I'll edit them in. I would be more thorough, but currently I'm investigating how chrome cladding on a pot can catch fire

so yeah, post

# ¿ Jan 2, 2015 03:11

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 12:06

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

HUGE PUBES A PLUS posted:

I'm all tingly with excitement!

Also, did you have an empty pan on the stove with a burner left on? Left on long enough the pan will get hot and do all sorts of amazing things. I have a very wobbly 2qt Revereware sauce pan I did that to. Also took off a layer of the copper.

nope, I had a corned beef roast (~2.5 lbs worth) and enough water it was barely covered. Fire started about half way through the simmer time.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2015 03:42

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

VirtualStranger posted:

Happy 2015.

This year will almost certainly be the year that Gay Marriage becomes legal across all 50 states, so at least there is something that isn't terrible.

Maybe, but it will definitely be the year the Fair Housing Act gets gutted.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2015 04:35

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

ComradeCosmobot posted:

On the other hand the right wing pundits have been priming their "Democrats are the real Party of No" tag line all last Congress and the Tea Party wing is already pointing to Obama's veto pen as proof. It'll be hard to shake off that label when it's no longer hidden in negative actions (legislative tricks like not taking up bills). When rejection is refocused as a positive action (vetoing bills) it's a lot harder to dodge

It's already an article of faith with the right that it was the Dems who shut down the government because the GOP wanted to fund everything except X, Y and Z and the Dems wouldn't go along

# ¿ Jan 2, 2015 18:55

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

How many SotU rebuttals will we have this year and who will give which? We had what, 7 last year?

# ¿ Jan 2, 2015 22:41

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Rangpur posted:

I'm still trying to wrap my head around that one: we're going to encourage companies to hire more veterans... because those companies can then remain fully staffed... without providing healthcare... to the veterans they just hired. I guess the veterans themselves aren't supposed to mind because they're covered by the VA? Is that a common attitude amongst veterans with options beyond what the military provides? Because at the moment this just sounds like comically inept villainy.

Reminder that if you have a full time job you will be paying for your VA treatment.

Yeah, this is your standard "gently caress em" republican bill

# ¿ Jan 4, 2015 01:36

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Jerry Manderbilt posted:

So Georgia's unemployment rate is pretty bad, despite (or maybe because of) the whole "get gubmint out of the way and let the private sector do its thing!" and tax cuts business.

Surprised it neglects what happened to GA's agriculture sector after they passed their own "immigrant" law

# ¿ Jan 4, 2015 02:08

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Jerry Manderbilt posted:

Did the farms start to go fallow because Real Americans� don't want those jobs?

They took a huge hit because the migrant workers wouldn't come, so there was no one to do the work (at the offered wages) yes. Haven't looked to see if that was a long term thing but I do remember that the season after the law was passed a lot of stuff rotted in the fields because there weren't pickers

# ¿ Jan 4, 2015 02:18

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

I'm a fan of teaching history from a financial POV personally. Adam Tooze's books on the subject are very interesting and put a whole new spin on the topic and puts things in new context. I'm just in his latest and already things make a lot more sense. Lusitania and Zimmerman telegraph always struck me as very light pretext to go to war. That we used those to rally most people and the real reason was to prop up England and France so they could pay back American companies the 2012 equivalent of $560 billion dollars, that makes more sense. But maybe I'm overly cynical and the money had nothing to do with it.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2015 03:14

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

My Imaginary GF posted:

Loan repayment was a smaller one, of many factors. The loans would get paid back no matter who won; otherwise, America would have the legal right to repossess overseas territories in order to secure the loans. No matter what, the loans always get paid, even if France and Britain would have had to pursue a firesale of colonial assets and inflate their way out of debt, as occured throughout the 20s.

Yeah, how well did that work out with the loans we made to Russia at that time period? And the concern that Tooze is laying out is that if England and/or France would no longer exist, not that they would be in a poor position to pay back after the war.

computer parts posted:

Do you also believe France's opposition to the Iraq War was because they were actually getting paid by Saddam?

How about we cut to the chase and you lay out your framework and evidence against Tooze's argument while I finish the book, rather than playing silly "you are too credulous" games.

Panzeh posted:

The gold standard was only intelligent in the context of totally gaming it the way the French did.

well, at least until the collapse of the French exotic metals market crashed the rest of the global markets and kicked off the great depression that's true.

Fried Chicken fucked around with this message at 07:04 on Jan 4, 2015

# ¿ Jan 4, 2015 07:01

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

computer parts posted:

I don't even know who Tooze is other than your one line about him.

So you have no idea the actual research and argument behind what I was talking about, but decided to play it off as loony nonsense with a glib comment just because?

Here is the book, by the way

Here is the NY Times review of it, and here is a summary of it and his WW2 counterpart at the Atlantic

# ¿ Jan 4, 2015 07:11

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Reminder: King v Burwell is slated for SCOTUS hearings in March. For those who don't recall, this is the legal challenge to the ACA on providing subsidies, because at one point in the law it specifies state exchanges are eligible for them, not federal. The law mentions federal exchanges and subsidies at two other points in it and we have terabytes worth of politicians discussing it showing the subsidies were from all exchanges, but the counter to that is a guy who didn't pass the law said subsidies weren't for federal exchanges and the GOP really wants the ACA to fail, so that's a pretty heavy point to make.

GOP still has no health care plan btw. And the ACA is still working better than even optimistic predictions expected

# ¿ Jan 5, 2015 17:17

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

ComradeCosmobot posted:

I was under the impression that, on several occasions last term, the Republicans had proposed a "plan", if you can call "repeal Obamacare and then pass all the stuff we liked about it in a piecemeal fashion, also tort reform" a plan.

I don't think voting to repeal a law and saying they will, at some later date, do something (they won't say what) with a law (thus far unwritten) that will accomplish *talking point* through some mechanism (unknown and without empirical support) with the bonus of it won't cost anything and the can fit on a napkin constitutes a plan.

Of course, what I just described was the "plan" for Iraq, so hey, I guess by their standards it is.

On a different topic: You�re being very disrespectful walking around like that,� said one NYPD officer to ANIMAL photographer Aymann Ismail as he documented cops with their backs turned.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2015 17:34

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Shifty Pony posted:

Looks like someone hasn't looked at the used car market lately.

About the only way to get a 2-3 year old low mileage used car for 60-70% of new is to buy a salvage title or a Chevrolet.

I must be an anomaly then, because I managed it.

Anecdotes, yay!

# ¿ Jan 5, 2015 19:19

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

zoux posted:

Vice's doc about how much we failed in Afghanistan is extremely depressing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja5Q75hf6QI

Quoting this just to flag it so I can watch it at home

Also, though it hasn't come up in here yet the business news today is going all chicken little about the euro falling vs the dollar. Remember that long term trends matter more than day to day fluctuations, and single bad trading days don't mean the sky is falling.

However, I refuse to miss out on what might be my last chance to be right, so let me declare
:supaburn:

"We're all gonna die!" :supaburn:

# ¿ Jan 5, 2015 20:55

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

zoux posted:

The part that I remember is this depressed rear end major who keeps talking about how they are trying to keep Afghan commanders from keeping prepubescent gently caress boys and letting their men gang rape them but try try as they might they can't get them to give it up.

Strong parallels with what Hersh hints is in the Pentagon's secret tape there.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2015 21:34

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

zoux posted:

What's that now?

The CIA interrogation tapes were all destroyed when people began questioning their actions after Anu Ghraib came out. The Pentagon did not. There is quite a bit more of what went on at Abu Ghraib than was ever released, most of it in photos (which is why there is still the call to release the photos). Seymour Hersh has been saying since 2004 that there is more than that, that there is a heavily classified tape of the prisoner abuse. And that one of the less offensive things to happen on the tape is the forcible sodomizing (his words) of children, boys in the 12-18 year old range (per Guardian interviews with former detainees there), in front of their mothers. With audio of them screaming in pain and terror. And again, there is supposed to be worse stuff than this in the AG archives that hasn't come out.

http://www.salon.com/2004/07/15/hersh_7/

This popped up back into the news cycle before Christmas when he gave a speech to the ACLU and it came up in the aftermath of the torture report.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2015 21:54

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

zoux posted:

Surely if government would get out of the way the free market would innovate some new system of government that doesn't blow rear end.

Like, say, fully privatized cities for the rich designed from the ground up to withstand climate change and defend against and keep out the poor who will desperately try to get access to them as the environmental collapse gets worse?

# ¿ Jan 5, 2015 21:58

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

zoux posted:

B...but the free market is a benevolent entity!

http://boingboing.net/2012/11/07/tom-the-dancing-bug-hollings-2.html

# ¿ Jan 5, 2015 22:03

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Zeitgueist posted:

Given that we basically raped a bunch of the people we tortured in the CIA report, going so far as to intentionally hire sexual assault predators, this is sadly way too believable.

Yep. People need to remember this poo poo when they try and play the bullshit equivalence game of "Obama is as bad/worse than Bush" or "the GOP and Dems are the same". The atrocities directly committed under Bush looks like a demon's resume, and we don't even know a tenth of it.

There is always more, and it is always worse.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2015 22:06

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Zeitgueist posted:

Nobody(hardly anybody at least) ever says they are the same, that's always a straw man that's easily struck down by saying "but Bush was provably worse". Yes, he certainly was, but also Obama is bad. They can both be bad, in different ways.

Being awful is basically a requirement for power in this country.

But yeah on a scale of bad presidents Obama doesn't even make top 10 and Bush is easily top 5.

The problem is ranking those bottom of the shitheap. Buchanan let the civil war get kicked off to spite people leading to 700,000 dead, but that had the bright spot of slavery was ended through it (and frankly it probably wasn't ending any other way and I'm skeptical it would have ended through economic pressure like some claim). Johnson sabotaging the reconstruction had the nightmare that was Jim Crow going on long after he was in the ground, how much of that pain and misery gets put on his tab vs the presidents after him when it was ongoing?

gently caress it all man

# ¿ Jan 5, 2015 22:17

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

A juror in the Michael Brown grand jury has filed suit (represented by the ACLU) against Bob McCulloch to break the gag order the jurors are under. The juror is claiming it is because McCulloch is mischaracterizing what happened with a case that is "unique" and "any interests furthered by maintaining grand jury secrecy are outweighed by the interests secured by the first amendment" given the prominence of this case in national discussions on race and policing.

The nasty, cynical part of my mind notes that, without said gag order, the juror is probably looking at a very handsome book deal.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2015 23:11

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Everblight posted:

Is this month's thread title a reference to R. Budd Dwyer? It seems like it, but I can't pair that with a current event, unless R. Budd Dwyer represents the Republicans and R. Budd Dwyer's head represents America.

Yep, it is

Business Gorillas posted:

Someone had a breakdown at the end of the December thread, IIRC.

That was the Right Wing Media thread where a poster started talking about feeling suicidal from the constant bombardment of bad news. This title was just because I felt like it. Also, it is good advice

Fried Chicken fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Jan 6, 2015

# ¿ Jan 6, 2015 00:05

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

richardfun posted:

I ask not sure I want to know the answer, but who did this alleged sodomizing? Were US soldiers allegedly raping kids....?

yes. Allegedly.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/may/22/iraq.usa1

quote:

"I saw [name blacked out] loving a kid, his age would be about 15-18 years. The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets. Then when I heard the screaming I climbed the door because on top it wasn't covered and I saw [blacked out], who was wearing the military uniform putting his dick in the little kid's rear end," Mr Hilas told military investigators. "I couldn't see the face of the kid because his face wasn't in front of the door. And the female soldier was taking pictures."

# ¿ Jan 6, 2015 00:32

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

The goal of Boehner and McConnell is to avoid the theatrics that have entertained us for the past few years, not hold their positions. Those aren't at risk. I don't doubt that Boehner will end up as speaker, but at the same time the leadership wouldn't be meeting this late and whipping this hard if they were confident this was an in the bag clean and easy vote. I think there is a fair chance we are looking at some entertainment tomorrow. Even if it doesn't go second round I'm betting on some attention getting nonsense to show unhappiness at the leadership's plan to play "small ball" with Obama

By the way, Politico is reporting a scoop, that Jeb is launching a leadership PAC and super PAC very soon to start putting together the money.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2015 05:08

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

gently caress You And Diebold posted:

Ahahaha, I saw I had a few unread posts in one of the old threads and ran across this again https://soundcloud.com/tpmmedia/cochran-call it should be mentioned as one of the best moments of 2014 (craziness starts around 8:00).

reminder that this is the result of the floorpooper trying to boost his name (among the other insane poo poo he did during that campaign)

# ¿ Jan 6, 2015 06:33

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

GreyjoyBastard posted:

Oh my god, I had to go back and think about it.

That's fantastic.

Is there something beyond the Great Depression thee that I'm missing?

# ¿ Jan 6, 2015 06:36

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

zoux posted:

Like a week ago there were all these articles about how Bohener was perfectly safe. Did something change or is this the media horse racing it?

He is, but the Tea Party wants to do something big and dramatic to show they are unhappy with the prospect of playing "small ball" with Obama - as in compromising on a number of small but necessary measures and keeping quiet to look like a responsible party and not throw 2016 away instead of using those measures to confront Obama. If they capture the position, so much the better from their POV, and some may even think they are going to. But the more reasonable goal is to tell the leadership to fuckoff and keep doing the kind of inane poo poo they've been doing since Bush was re-elected. They want a big media heavy confrontation with Obama, so they are orchestrating one, and the media is going along because its their job.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2015 06:43

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Joementum posted:

Ahh, C-SPAN callers. "We gotta vote against Boehner because he stopped the impeachment, which is what Obama wanted, and repeal Obamacare because it's... it's just goofy!"

Vox populi Vox dei

# ¿ Jan 6, 2015 16:50

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Joementum posted:

And his only serious challenger was defeated in a primary last year by a college professor who thinks that Ayn Rand was the second coming of Jesus.

Well, Scalise could have made a play here, but the news about his speaking engagement has him laying low for now.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2015 17:06

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Raskolnikov38 posted:

I'm sorry we were looking for Vox populi Vox canem. Vox populi Vox humbug would also have been acceptable.

Of course, we all know the government really operates on the principle of lucre sermat. Which leaves the rest of us excretus ex fortuna, but if we complain they can always fall back on the justification of quia ego sic dico, enforced by the police under the doctrine of fabricati diem punc

# ¿ Jan 6, 2015 17:34

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

SgtScruffy posted:

What time (ish) is the speaker vote today? I know it'll probably be pretty boring and relatively "most people cool with Boehner? Cool. Done.", but I still am hoping for a miracle.

12:40 I believe

# ¿ Jan 6, 2015 17:38

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Kinda disappointed we didn't get more entertainment here. Bombastic Fox News/talk radio speeches, insane rhetoric, apocalyptic press releases, etc. Oh well. I am enjoying the #tcot freakout at Eric son of eric and Rush over not pushing more to beat Boehner, and their responses. Gosh its almost like they just whip you people into an insane frenzy for money.

# ¿ Jan 7, 2015 00:55

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

If people are actually interested in learning about the cost drivers in health care and what can be done about them, I suggest the research of Dr. David Belk

The frontpage of his website https://www.truecostofhealthcare.org has been taken down, but you can get to much of it by using subpages, like this http://www.truecostofhealthcare.org/introduction

He did a long series at Huffington Post that can be found here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/search.php/?q=david+belk&s_it=header_form_v1

Here is a video of him presenting on it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcLXzWeherI

And for kicks and giggles he did an AMA in 2013 about it that you can find here: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1sbwz8/i_am_david_belk_im_a_doctor_who_has_spent_years/

and here is an LA Times investigation backing up his findings http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-medical-prices-20120527,0,4627745.story

Short version is there is no silver bullet to get costs down, and worrying about single payer vs public option is missing huge swaths of very important nuance about access and costs.

Fried Chicken fucked around with this message at 01:27 on Jan 7, 2015

# ¿ Jan 7, 2015 01:25

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Rygar201 posted:

You'll notice that 50 is significantly less than 218. You should also remember that there was absolutely no way a public option could get sixty votes in the Senate, much less universal medicare.

Actually there was a week there where it was proposed that the eligibility age for Medicare be lowered 5 years every 10 years as part of a compromise, and it looked like that was going to break the logjam (being able to go back and tell seniors you increased their Medicare was a big hit). Except after about 3 days of it moving forward faster than anything else in that long slog had Joe Lieberman absolutely lost his poo poo and threatened to kill the whole thing if that provision got in. The reason he was so adamant against it? Because the idea was proposed by a Connecticut professor and democrat activist who had backed Ned Lamont in 2006. Pure, no poo poo out in the open spite was what sunk that idea.

# ¿ Jan 7, 2015 01:37

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

JonathonSpectre posted:

Well, you see, when it comes to healthcare it's a GOOD thing to be way more expensive and way less efficient and, you know, humane, than the rest of the world because otherwise how will people in the medical industry make any money?

I had to go to the emergency room over Christmas because I had trouble breathing due to an allergy attack. I got a chest X-ray and 3 albuterol nebulizer breathing treatments.

Got the bill today. It's very nearly FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS.

Makes perfect free market sense that I would pay the equivalent of ten iPads for three doses of a common, fifty-year old medicine I can buy for less than a loving dollar a dose at Wal-mart and an X-ray! Look how much freedom that is!

Man, if you value your sanity don't ever look into the cost of industrial molecular and enzyme synthesis. Actual production costs for most medicines are less than a penny per dose, it is amortization and markups that dive the cost, not what it takes to actually make the stuff.

# ¿ Jan 7, 2015 01:43

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

uncurable mlady posted:

The front page of truecostofhealthcare.org still works for me. I recall skimming it before and remember it making some salient points.

I do know one of the things that gets missed (sorta) in the whole healthcare/insurance debate is how much we end up paying for a very small subset of the healthcare consumer 'market'. Pills and procedures that are targeted for certain conditions that have an absurd cost relative to their benefit to the patient, y'know?

Huh, might be something with my internet then that is keeping it from showing.

And yeah certain conditions and illnesses have a massively disproportionate cost. That's just the nature of the beast though. It would be great if you could get some chemo treatments down to the cost and effectiveness of tylenol for aches and pains, but its just not in the cards. The optimal solution is getting the costs of treatments as under control as possible, and then going nuts on R&D to come up with better treatments relative to benefit to the patient.

Whoops, there I go again - imagining society is structured to provide the greatest overall quality of life at highest efficiency, rather than being the rigged game it is.

# ¿ Jan 7, 2015 01:49