• Obamacare: Republicans are moving forward with their plan to waste their one chance at reconciliation on gutting Obamacare (and Planned Parenthood) while Democrats play it quiet when an immigration reformer proposes to extend Obamacare to undocumented immigrants.
  
• Budget and Appropriations: Dominating the month was the threat of a government shutdown on October 1, primarily over the ongoing Planned Parenthood investigations. Fortunately, the surprising resignation of House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) means the government gets to stay open until December 11th, conveniently setting up a Christmas shutdown and lining up the government shutdown with the debt ceiling hike. But maybe not! Either way, the real wrangling is just beginning.
  
• Trade: The US and EU are meeting again on TTIP this month, but progress is slow.
  
• Cybersecurity and Telecommunications: CISA, the bill allowing private businesses to share security details with the government, will probably come up for a vote this month, while threatened changes to the legality of bug bounties under the Wassenaar rules are already having chilling effects on software security. On net neutrality, not much has happened, although Jeb! promised to kill it if elected.
  
• Gun Control: Legalizing concealed-carry has no impact on crime rates. But that won’t stop the Trump!
  
• Environment: The EPA is going to clean up the air around oil refineries and water around coal plants, but this doesn’t matter because it’s the EPA that are the real polluters!
  
• Immigration: ICE is probably deporting people based on fake ID papers, while the courts drag their feet on ruling on executive amnesty. But hey, at least we’re gonna take 10,000 more Syrian refugees! (If we don’t elect Trump, anyway…)
  
• War on Terror: Training the FSA seems to be a failure, our weapons are going to the Al Qaeda-aligned Jabhat al-Nusra, and blocking recruitment by ISIS seems to be failing too. And did I mention that the Taliban has captured a major Afghan city? It’s almost like anything Obama does is a bad thing! If only we had an authorization to use military force that was open ended and could let us stay in Syria forever!
  
• The Torture Report and the NSA: You remember that torture report? Even if the DOJ doesn’t, Amnesty International does… But hey, at least the US isn’t spying on Americans (because the UK is doing it for us) Greeks, on the other hand…
  
• Foreign Policy: Obama finally earned that Nobel Peace Prize.
  
• Abortion: Don’t worry, just because Planned Parenthood didn’t cause a government shutdown doesn’t mean the GOP doesn’t care about abortion! How would you like a House Select Committee on Planned Parenthood?
  
• RINO Hunting (New!): After threats to his leadership from the Raiders of the Tortilla Coast should he fail to defund Planned Parenthood and an audience with the pope, John Boehner announced that he will resign from the House effective at the end of October. Jockeying of his replacements began soon after, though but House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is most likely to take his place. (Could do worse…) Meanwhile, the RINO hunt moves on to the Senate…
  

• Has Trump peaked? Carson and Fiorina are now nipping at his heels, even if Fiorina is a liar. Nevertheless, Trump succeeded in pushing out Walker and Perry, and Rand may be next. Jeb, too, may be seeing rocky shores, given his poor performance so far, and with Walker out, Rubio might be the next establishment pick. The next debate is the Democratic debate on October 13, followed by the Republican debate at the very end of the month on the 28th. (Now, normally I’d suggest that you try to take elections chat into the appropriate elections threads, but RSF has them at the moment, and, surprise-surprise, people don’t really want to post there. So I’ll just say that it’s probably not a good idea to talk about Hillary vs. Sanders here. Or there. Or anywhere, really…)
  
• SCOTUS begins its October 2015 term on the 5th of this month. Recapping some cases that are coming up to bat this term from the July OP: “in addition to the one-person-one-vote and striking-black-people-from-juries [Foster v. Chatman] cases from [May], we’re also due up for Fisher II and a case to overturn Abood v. Detroit Board of Education.” These come along with the usual gaggle of cases about the death penalty and juvenile criminal sentencing that come up every few years, so there’s plenty of “tock” to come down the pipe. It’s also very likely we see one or more religious freedom and abortion cases come up, seeing as Little Sisters of the Poor v. Burwell (can Obamacare force a mandate to require plans to carry the Pill?) created a circuit split and Currier v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (can Mississippi close the last remaining abortion clinic in the state?) is pending cert.
  
• So the Pope came to town, and both parties don’t actually care about what he said.
  
• Chinese President Xi Jinping also came to visit, but not much good seems to have come from it.
  
• A born-again Christian really hates gay marriage in Kentucky and got to meet Pope Francis as a result.
  
• Saudi Arabia’s plan to kill off US oil exploration appears to be working.
  
• Accepting bribes is free speech! (Probably!)
  
• Elizabeth Warren embraced Black Lives Matter, possibly signaling that Democrats are aware that African Americans are not happy with them.
  
• No one seems to know what game Putin and Obama are playing, because Putin’s bombing the Free Syrian Army, not ISIS, and Secretary of State Kerry implicitly approved.
  
• We may have to reevaluate our special relationship with the UK, because DCFADP
  

• Slavery by Another Name
  
• Citizenfour (Laura Poitras's companion pieces My Country, My Country and The Oath are useful for additional context on the impact of the US war on terror in the Middle East)
  

• The Atlantic
  
  • "The Case for Reparations" by Ta-Nehisi Coates (systematic mistreatment of African Americans in the economic sphere)
    
  • "The Tragedy of the American Military" by James Fallows (the US: the chickenhawk nation)
    
  • "The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration" by Ta-Nehisi Coates (the Moynihan report and the fragmentation of African-American families due to crime, 50 years on)
    
  • "The Southern Captivity of the GOP" by Christopher Caldwell (still-applicable 1998 article about regionalism in the GOP)
    
• The New Republic
  
  • "The Rehabilitationists: The Libertarian Movement to Undo the New Deal" by Brian Beutler (Libertarians are arguably winning the fight to undo Lochner)
    

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

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

ComradeCosmobot fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Oct 1, 2015

ComradeCosmobot fucked around with this message at 23:54 on Oct 5, 2015

ComradeCosmobot fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Oct 9, 2015