The Democrat Thread

[Balta1701]

Yeah... this is one of the reasons I don't go to church. Pray a lot and Jesus will give you money and nice things. That is a crock of s***. Anyone who expects THAT out of their faith is doing it wrong.

And that's why I think the Christian thing to do with that money would be to help the poor. Not fly a plane around.

[farmteam]

These people can vote AND have children.

 

That's the disturbing part. I realize the left has crazies like this too, but I feel they're less easy to lampoon.

[Balta1701]

That's the disturbing part. I realize the left has crazies like this too, but I feel they're less easy to lampoon.

Are you kidding? Think about how easy it is to make fun of kucinich. Dept. Of peace? How unmanly.

 

He'll, it turns out that hippies wee even responsible for the catholic church abuse scandal.

[southsider2k5]

And that's why I think the Christian thing to do with that money would be to help the poor. Not fly a plane around.

 

Eh, you could make a case for either. But neither helps you get into heaven.

[farmteam]

Are you kidding? Think about how easy it is to make fun of kucinich. Dept. Of peace? How unmanly.

 

He'll, it turns out that hippies wee even responsible for the catholic church abuse scandal.

 

Yes, but Kucinich is an elf who has a hot wife, so he gets a pass.

[Balta1701]

The former engineer has long predicted the apocalypse, most famously in 1994, but his new date — May 21, 2011 — has received unprecedented publicity. That is thanks to a worldwide $100-million campaign of caravans and billboards, financed by the sale and swap of TV and radio stations....Camping's longtime producer, Matt Tuter] thinks $100 million is a conservative figure for the money Camping has spent publicizing May 21.

$100 million to advertise the apocalypse. impressive.

[Balta1701]

Family-planning centers are the main source of health care for 60 percent of the women who use them, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

Link

[Balta1701]

Tim Pawlenty's hometown newspaper this morning.

 

 

 

[StrangeSox]

In Brown v Plata today, the SCOTUS upheld a federal order for California to release up to 46,000 inmates due to 8th amendment violations caused by severe over-crowding.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-1233.pdf

 

Scalia, in a blistering dissent, indulged in a surprising amount of post-modern subjectivism. He also blatantly called for judicial activism and an abandonment of his originalist facade, instead advocating making the law fit a priori "common sense" outcomes.

There comes before us, now and then, a case whose

proper outcome is so clearly indicated by tradition and

common sense, that its decision ought to shape the law,

rather than vice versa. One would think that, before

allowing the decree of a federal district court to release

46,000 convicted felons, this Court would bend every effort

to read the law in such a way as to avoid that outrageous

result. Today, quite to the contrary, the Court disregards

stringently drawn provisions of the governing statute, and

traditional constitutional limitations upon the power of a

federal judge, in order to uphold the absurd.

 

But the idea that the three District Judges in this case

relied solely on the credibility of the testifying expert

witnesses is fanciful. Of course they were relying largely

on their own beliefs about penology and recidivism. And

of course different district judges, of different policy views,

would have “found” that rehabilitation would not work

and that releasing prisoners would increase the crime

rate. I am not saying that the District Judges rendered

their factual findings in bad faith. I am saying that it is

impossible for judges to make “factual findings” without

inserting their own policy judgments, when the factual

findings are policy judgments. What occurred here is no

more judicial factfinding in the ordinary sense than would

be the factual findings that deficit spending will not lower

the unemployment rate, or that the continued occupation

of Iraq will decrease the risk of terrorism. Yet, because

they have been branded “factual findings” entitled to

deferential review, the policy preferences of three District

Judges now govern the operation of California’s penal

system.

 

Alito with an awesome fire-and-brimstone ending in his separate dissent:

I fear that today’s decision, like prior prisoner release

orders, will lead to a grim roster of victims. I hope that

I am wrong.

In a few years, we will see

Edited May 23, 2011 by StrangeSox

[Balta1701]

I just wanted to post this somewhere.

 

Scoreboard.

Grimsvotn: 1

Obama's travel schedule: 0.

[BigSqwert]

Even volcanoes hate Obama.

[StrangeSox]

An interesting article about Republican orthodoxy, its relationship to reality and the shifting of the Overton Window.

The fact that, with no observable exceptions, the Republican Party relies on delusional beliefs for most of its claims about economics, science and history has been obvious for some years. But, until recently it’s been outside the Overton Window.

 

 

I hadn't realized that Ryan's Budget, which is hailed as a start to a "serious, honest conversation" about the budget, projects government spending to be 3% of GDP. lol.

[Balta1701]

I hadn't realized that Ryan's Budget, which is hailed as a start to a "serious, honest conversation" about the budget, projects government spending to be 3% of GDP. lol.

Discretionary spending, not government spending. Discretionary spending is everything other than Medicare, Medicaid, OASDI, and Debt service.

[southsider2k5]

Tim Pawlenty's hometown newspaper this morning.

 

 

 

Funny how much different the reaction when it isn't Fox...

[bmags]

yeah, fox gets such a bad wrap, don't they ss2k5?

[Balta1701]

Well, I wasn't going to bother, but since others brought up Fox, this long essay in NY magazine on Roger Ailes and how he runs that network as a conservative arm should prove good reading for those who haven't read it yet.

Going back to the 2008 campaign, Axelrod had maintained an off-the-­record dialogue with Ailes. He had faced off against Ailes in a U.S. Senate campaign in the early eighties and respected him as a fellow political warrior and shaper of narrative. But early on, Axelrod learned he couldn’t change Ailes’s outlook on Obama. In one meeting in 2008, Ailes told Axelrod that he was concerned that Obama wanted to create a national police force.

 

“You can’t be serious,” Axelrod replied. “What makes you think that?”

 

Ailes responded by e-mailing Axelrod a YouTube clip from a campaign speech Obama had given on national service, in which he called for the creation of a new civilian corps to work alongside the military on projects overseas.

 

Later, Axelrod related in a conversation that the exchange was the moment he realized Ailes truly believed what he was broadcasting.

[StrangeSox]

"We don’t need to rewrite the Constitution of the United States of America, we need to reread the Constitution and enforce the Constitution. … And I know that there are some people that are not going to do that, so for the benefit of those who are not going to read it because they don’t want us to go by the Constitution, there’s a little section in there that talks about “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,'” - Herman Cain, quoting the Declaration of Independence.

[StrangeSox]

Well, I wasn't going to bother, but since others brought up Fox, this long essay in NY magazine on Roger Ailes and how he runs that network as a conservative arm should prove good reading for those who haven't read it yet.

Going back to the 2008 campaign, Axelrod had maintained an off-the-­record dialogue with Ailes. He had faced off against Ailes in a U.S. Senate campaign in the early eighties and respected him as a fellow political warrior and shaper of narrative. But early on, Axelrod learned he couldn’t change Ailes’s outlook on Obama. In one meeting in 2008, Ailes told Axelrod that he was concerned that Obama wanted to create a national police force.

 

“You can’t be serious,” Axelrod replied. “What makes you think that?”

 

Ailes responded by e-mailing Axelrod a YouTube clip from a campaign speech Obama had given on national service, in which he called for the creation of a new civilian corps to work alongside the military on projects overseas.Later, Axelrod related in a conversation that the exchange was the moment he realized Ailes truly believed what he was broadcasting.

 

They've wholly convinced themselves that their fabricated narratives are reality.

 

 

[lostfan]

Why was Congress all over Netanyahu's dick today? What did dude say that was different from anything he's ever said?

 

Israel is a completely different f***ing country... seriously.

[StrangeSox]

Glenn Greenwald had some interesting comments on that:

 

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_gr...rael/index.html

 

Not sure why Obama's getting so much flak for taking a pretty mainstream stance on the 1967 borders.

[lostfan]

Whenever someone (usually a Democrat, sometimes an "oddball" Republican) makes even the slightest, most minor criticism of an Israeli policy or something one of its leaders said or did, they're immediately chastised and labeled "anti-Israeli." At the same time, it's funny how most of the people that do this (and let's be honest, it's usually Republicans) can vehemently disagree with everything Obama says and does but they don't feel they are being "anti-American" by doing so. Which, of course, they are not... so, something is wrong with one of those two things.

[lostfan]

Greenwald is spot-on. ISRAELI INTERESTS ARE NOT ALWAYS AMERICAN INTERESTS.

 

Democrats are such p*****s and followers, too...

Edited May 24, 2011 by lostfan

[Balta1701]

Hey, the democrats just picked up a republican held congressional district in a special election almost totally decided on the republican plan to dismantle Medicare.

[Balta1701]

Why was Congress all over Netanyahu's dick today? What did dude say that was different from anything he's ever said?

 

Israel is a completely different f***ing country... seriously.

It's hard to know what to think of this. My instinctive reaction is revulsion over being treated this way, and that's despite the fact that I've always fundamentally blamed Arabs for the lack of a peace agreement. They've started and lost three wars against Israel, they've turned down every peace agreement offered to them, and they've adopted terrorist tactics against Israel that no country in the world would tolerate. Israel, obviously, bears a considerable share of blame for this state of affairs too, but it's a distinctly minority share.

 

At least, that's how I've always seen it. But now? After watching Netanyahu in action; after watching his orchestrated attack on an American president who quite plainly is on Israel's side and proposed nothing new in the way of negotiating parameters; after watching the almost fawning reception he got from Congress; after watching him make it belligerently clear that he will concede nothing for peace; and after watching his almost smug recognition that he can singlehandedly direct American foreign policy — after watching all that, I just don't know anymore. Rationally, I still think that Palestinians are the ones who need the bigger reality check, but in my gut it's now a much closer call than it's been in the past. The last few days have been pretty sobering ones.

Link

[NorthSideSox72]

In Brown v Plata today, the SCOTUS upheld a federal order for California to release up to 46,000 inmates due to 8th amendment violations caused by severe over-crowding.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-1233.pdf

 

Scalia, in a blistering dissent, indulged in a surprising amount of post-modern subjectivism. He also blatantly called for judicial activism and an abandonment of his originalist facade, instead advocating making the law fit a priori "common sense" outcomes.

 

 

 

 

Alito with an awesome fire-and-brimstone ending in his separate dissent:

 

The term "judicial activism" as it is used in American politics is a wholly empty use of words. Completely meaningless. When politicians use the phrase, it almost invariably has a different meaning: "judges doing things I don't agree with".