• Obamacare: Open enrollment is upon us, which means that it’s time to wipe the slate clean and start putting out stories about how lovely Obamacare is instead of the state of Congressional Republicans! Among them? Half of co-op insurance plans created since Obamacare passed have collapsed. Most Obamacare plans have seen rates skyrocket by double-digits. Oh, and Republicans are still moving forward with that showboating reconciliation bill to repeal it. (We’re still waiting to hear if SCOTUS will try to gut the contraceptive mandate)
  
• Budget and Appropriations: The debt ceiling crisis is over (at least until President Hillary takes office) but that doesn’t mean that the appropriations process is over. The House still has to pass bills actually allocating the money made available by loosened budget caps. As mentioned above, Republicans still plan on trying to gut Obamacare and Planned Parenthood funding through a reconciliation bill, rather than passing a real appropriations plan.
  
• Trade: The TPP was concluded, but the text isn’t public yet. Next stop: the Senate.
  
• Cybersecurity and Telecommunications: CISA passed the Senate, putting a cybersecurity bill one step closer to landing on Obama’s desk, once Congress finishes with reconciliation. Oh, and by the way… Net neutrality hasn’t exactly halted capital expenditures from ISPs, but let’s not let that stop Congress from defunding the FCC, shall we?
  
• Gun Control: Recent school shootings aside, just because America wants gun control doesn’t mean the NRA won’t pull out a dog whistle to get its way. Maybe they’re just sore that a federal court upheld New York and Connecticut’s recent gun control laws… Sorta…
  
• Environment: That didn’t take long. Neither did this. Also, the Clean Water Rule has been blocked for now. And the EPA is still getting a black eye for that wastewater disaster in Colorado over the summer. Elsewhere, NOAA and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology are gearing up for a fight over Smith’s planned fishing expedition to gin up another Climate-gate.
  
• Immigration: Yeah, the Fifth Circuit isn’t going to let anything happen soon. And the rise of Ryan appears to make Congressional action even more remote.
  
• War on Terror: Time for our quintennial congressional grousing about the War Powers Act!
  
• The Torture Report and the NSA: CIA detainees are suing the psychologists behind the torture program. And the government lost its case to block release of force-feeding videos from Guantanamo Bay. Finally, Obama vetoed a bill that would have prohibited the closure of Guantanamo Bay. On the NSA front, it should surprise no one that the post-Freedom Act reauthorization of metadata collection was ruled legal, seeing as the Freedom Act provided for such. Also, we now know why the NSA is able to break your SSL connections.
  
• Abortion: Noted pants-shitter Chuck Johnson won’t let a pesky court order prevent the release of more Planned Parenthood videos! But Louisiana and Alabama lost their cases to block Planned Parenthood funding through Medicaid, and Texas is probably next. Texas, in particular, has been taking aim at PP this month, going on a fishing expedition, as well.
  

• Trump seems to have peaked, but isn’t going away. Carson’s nipping at his heels though, if not ahead outright. Jeb's in trouble while Rubio is ascendant. And Chafee and Webb are out (the latter shortly before the New York Post reported on some PAC shenanigans), narrowing the Democratic field to three (Lessig doesn’t count, guys…) (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…)
  
• Boots on the ground.
  
• The mass shootings will continue until morale improves
  
• Are you a hedge fund manager? Then you’re free to inside trade!
  
• Black lives haven't stopped mattering.
  
• The New York Times just put out an article investigating binding arbitration (hint: arbitration’s bad)
  
• The ACLU just uncovered documents stating that stingrays not only track where you are and who you call, but can grab the contents of your phone calls, too.
  

• 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."
  
• @dick_nixon: "37th President of the United States. Messages from the President are unsigned, others from Ronald Ziegler. "
  
• 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)
    
  • @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)
    

Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 08:42 on Nov 1, 2015

Alligator Horse fucked around with this message at 14:12 on Nov 1, 2015