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PoliGAF 2013 |OT3| 1,000 Years of Darkness and Nuclear Fallout

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Z

zero shift

Banned
So I typed this up in the "16 things you won't believe people say after visiting America" thread after some Europeans were confused to as of why America is too racially sensitive. I'm posting it here because I posted right when the thread died and I put a lot of work into it. Was wondering how accurate you all think it is:

zero shift said:
First off I agree with many points you make. However I would say that while you have the fact they seem out of order. Racism isn't the effect of Americans anti-social justice stance its arguably the cause or at the barebones least part part of the catalyst. Let me take you back to the 1960s. This is when American leftism was arguably at the peak. Welfare was at the levels of around Europe, government programs were widely available, and where wages for jobs like fast food workers would have been all that far off from $15 an hour. By the time the 1960s where over it wasn't all that long until America started slipping into conservationism with Nixon and then it went full force with Reagan. Now this happened pretty much throughout all the West (save for France who arrived to the party a bit late), but nothing that came as radical of a departure as America. Not even Maggie's United Kingdom.

The answer lies in the Southern Strategy headed by Richart Nixon. How do you get the poorest area of America to be the most corporate ballwashing anti-poverty anti-poor area of the country? Say that the niggers African-Americans are taking all of the welfare. They are taking YOUR money! This is what gave birth to the conservative revolution. And to this day it still pioneers it.

Just go to any American Politics thread and you constantly see news bits (and posts) from the right-no the mainstream American voice constantly saying "we need to give money to those who need it because some people (wink-wink) abuse it." Or "the problem isn't the lack of money but that some Americans (wink-wink) need to back to our traditional culture of the 1950s". You want to know the REAL reason why so many Americans are against free healthcare? I was driving home from work with my brother one day. I brought up the topic of how stupid our healthcare system is. Now at the time my brother was on food stamps, lacked a stable job, was uninsured, and paid $100 a month for pills for his condition. I told him that free health care would work because its practiced everywhere else in the Western world. His response "It couldn't work here because America is different, other countries don't have blacks and Latinos who would take advantage of the system. That's the way it is." Other than his lack of education in civics (I'll brush upon this later), this is how Americans think. Extend welfare? The blacks and Latinos will just abuse it and won't work. Get better wages? Blacks and Latinos will just stay in minimum wage jobs. This is the entire thought process of many Americans. They will deny it, but push them enough and they'll say it. Americans really believe that America is "different" than Europe. While this may be true to an extent it is nowhere near to the point that they believe and every bit as exaggerated as they exaggerate crime in the streets (I.E. South Side of Chicago = San Salvador).

Yes the anti-communist rhetoric had something to do with America's rightward shit. Nobody is deny that. But when it was at its peak so was American leftism. It wasn't the sole contributor. I personally agree with everything you said about class being the real problem. The problem with that is when many Americans hear things like "reduce income inequality" = "blacks and Latinos want more money for themselves to take from white people". Or "we need to invest in education" = "waste more money on brown and black kids who won't learn." Again they will deny it but get them alone and talk to them they'll admit it. Of course there are plenty of Americans who are conservative not because they dislike minorities but poor people, but many overlap and when you combine those that hate poor to the ones that hate minority they are a force to be reckon with.

Your theory on why the left weak is close, but has a flaw. Talking about racism when running for office? Yeah you lose. Done. Finished. You can hint toward racism when you on one side of the aisle, but once you even give a slight nudge that you are for helping brown people gain an edge over whites, done. You will not be elected. President Obama is the first non-fully white president we have ever had and I don't believe he has ever commented on racism in the manner you speak of. The only time I can recall was the Trayvon Martin incident when what he said boiled down to "Look white people, give us blacks a break. I was followed around stores before. Just don't assume that we are all killers." The sad part is that sentence isn't that much of a hyperbole. The Democrats literally have NOTHING to stand on other than saying "We aren't as far right as the Republicans." They are possibly the most take no action party ever. This is because the right wing's way of thinking is so dominate in the country. The best nation I can compare the situation to is Venezuela, in which one party has gone so far on one side of the political spectrum that the other party is pretty much just a catch all party. Its not quite that serious yet but with the way things are going they are getting there. When the Democrats held a super majority they couldn't even pass a public option for healthcare. What passed was the Romney plan! I repeat the only plan that the Democrats agreed to pass was the plan laid out by the Democratic Presidential candidate's rival! That says EVERYTHING about the Democrats really.

In terms of affirmative action, that Atlantic article is bullshit. Its been widely acknowledged that affirmative action in school has been very beneficial to blacks and Latinos. Plenty of studies have shown that the best way for people to improve their school performance is to lump the underperforming students with the overperforming ones as Finland has shown in its education model. The Atlantic really has been on a roll lately with its articles. Affirmative action has to be strengthened as a whole if anything. As its been shown study by study that blacks with an average record are a bit less likely to receive job offers than white felons.

America's problem is the lack of understanding how society works. The concept of structural functionalism is so absent in this country its ridiculous. People don't see our incarceration rate as problem because "they're black and probably deserve it" (soon 1/3 black males and 1/6 Latino males will have been incarcerated in their lifetimes), they don't want to invest in schools because "its a waste of money. The problem with this is not only are these people are significant part of the country, but these policies effect everybody. Americans are very absent minded in terms of why a collectivist culture is better than an individualistic one (something that wasn't a problem forty years ago). Americans don't understand why poorer people having money would be good for their society. "Invest it to become middle class and have a more competitive society you say? Pipe dream most will just by rims and lowrider gear. What it will a generation or to and it has to be done because in the long run it will be better for the country? Well why do I have to give MY money then!?" Civics and the concept of "take care of your society and society will take care of you" is very absent minded in this country. And its rooted from the Southern Strategy. You can't separate America's class problems from its race problems.

There does seem to be light at the end of the tunnel though. Millennials are the most Democratic voting generation since the Great Depression Era. A lot of this is due to minorities becoming more of a majority as well as the young whites moving more leftward. Things will change. Comparing America and Europe in regards to race to me is a bit difficult because both places have had a very different history and fallout when it comes to race. And really being honest I don't see race as that in your face here. The only time I get offended by people is when foreigners say something along the lines of "Well you aren't a real American because you aren't white" or when rednecks (who I hardly know) call me "Muhammad" and think its a joke. If you want to talk openness, well fine I'll be open. If II don't like something you said to me I'm going to say it. If you stereotype me or say something about my race I don't like then I'm going to tell you. And again, I rarely see the brouhaha of being "oversensitive". Unless you joke around by saying "Oh did you receive your welfare check today" to a black friend or call a Latino a "spic". To me it seems that people come here to a place with boundaries that don't exist in their own countries and feel uncomfortable.
Click to expand...
 
D

Diablos

Member
In the meantime, Christie said breathless 2016 speculation made him "feel badly" for President Barack Obama, who famously crossed party lines to join Christie in 2012 for a tour of the storm-ravaged New Jersey shoreline. "He just won [reelection] a year ago, and as we shove him out the door, we minimize his ability to be an effective executive," Christie said.
Click to expand...
Props to the guy for saying that even if I disagree with him on nearly everything.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/18/chris-christie-gop_n_4299100.html
 
T

thepotatoman

Unconfirmed Member
zero shift said:
So I typed this up in the "16 things you won't believe people say after visiting America" thread after some Europeans were confused to as of why America is too racially sensitive. I'm posting it here because I posted right when the thread died and I put a lot of work into it. Was wondering how accurate you all think it is:
Click to expand...

Entertaining read. Don't really have anything to add. I mean I think there's more to it than simply the southern strategy, like the generational lopsidedness (baby boomers vote liberal when young and poor in 60s, conservative when old and tax paying in 80s), the boom between 1980-2000 that happened to align right with the shift right even though it wasn't caused by it, abortion/religious politics, and the cold war anti-communist rhetoric that you mentioned.

But yeah, the southern strategy may still be the number one cause for it to this day. I too have heard plenty of help the poor = help minorities = help a bunch of lazy criminals that don't deserve it.
 
Z

zero shift

Banned
thepotatoman said:
the generational lopsidedness (baby boomers vote liberal when young and poor in 60s, conservative when old and tax paying in 80s)
Click to expand...

image.jpg


I agree that those things have something to do with America's jump on right, definitely. However I feel that many Europeans don't understand why America's race relations are so bad. They only recently received immigration and it tends to be from Chinese, Indians, and Muslims. Demographics that don't have much of a history in Europe as well as (not being racist but I have to be honest) are seen as "model minorities".
 
W

WayneMorse

Banned
Race relations in Europe are deteriorating very badly currently, most people are blaming their problems on immigrants.

Watch over the next few years when you see right wing dingbats like Marine Le Pen and Nigel Farage gain power.
 
J

JesseEwiak

Member
WayneMorse said:
Race relations in Europe are deteriorating very badly currently, most people are blaming their problems on immigrants.

Watch over the next few years when you see right wing dingbats like Marine Le Pen and Nigel Farage gain power.
Click to expand...

Yeah, Europe might be going through their version of the 60's and 70's as far as race relations go and it might lead to the same backlash from the majority, unfortunately.
 
W

Wilsongt

Member
zero shift said:
image.jpg


I agree that those things have something to do with America's jump on right, definitely. However I feel that many Europeans don't understand why America's race relations are so bad. They only recently received immigration and it tends to be from Chinese, Indians, and Muslims. Demographics that don't have much of a history in Europe as well as (not being racist but I have to be honest) are seen as "model minorities".
Click to expand...

So essentially the boomers need to die off and stop voting.
 
empty vessel

empty vessel

Member
WayneMorse said:
Race relations in Europe are deteriorating very badly currently, most people are blaming their problems on immigrants.

Watch over the next few years when you see right wing dingbats like Marine Le Pen and Nigel Farage gain power.
Click to expand...

That usually happens when the economy is bad. Sadly, increased racial strife was a predictable result of the Euro monetary system.
 
B

Black Mamba

Member
Dax01 said:
So all indications is that sign-ups are increasing, states that have their own websites will hit enrollment targets, Medicaid is expanding effortlessly, and healthcare.gov is slowly being put together.

Excellent.
Click to expand...


You forgot to mention people in non-Medicaid expanding states that didn't know they were always eligible for the program are also signing up in large numbers.

Red states foiled again!
 
G

GaimeGuy

Volunteer Deputy Campaign Director, Obama for America '16
Bo said:
Official releasing what appears to be original court file authorizing NSA to conduct sweeps (Ellen Nakashima, Greg Miller, WashPo)









You should be comforted to know that while the NSA claims it has abandoned efforts to geolocate all your call data, it also claims it has the legal authority to do that anyway. I'm slightly amused that FISA compliance almost seems to be included as an afterthought.
Click to expand...

The FISA court was greatly nerfed by the Protect America Act, though. FISA compliance by the NSA was left up to a set of internal NSA controls. This should be a surprise to no one.

If youIf you let the NSA and CIA write legislation about information gathering and regulations, they're going to make them as loose as possible. And let me say, the Protect America Act and FISA Amendments Act were both written primarily by the NSA and CIA, drafted by the executive branch and provided to Congress to go through the formality of passing, which they did so in roughly 72 hours). Because their primary jobs aren't to write legislation, but to perform their duties as instructed by congress in accordance with the rules and guidelines provided to them. Giving themselves more flexibility would seem reasonable from their perspective.

Have you ever watched a crime drama like NCIS or CSI and kind of rolled your eyes at the people who stonewall investigations by the main characters and field agents, demanding warrants, or that agents announce their presence and knock before entering a room (and provide a 5 count before entering?)? Or not really given a second thought to the reactions of the protagonists, the field agents, who are usually irritated by this? It's not a matter of being "evil." but of not wanting to get bogged down by the process. Once you get past the suspension of disbelief about some of the technology stuff, you probably don't even bat an eye or think poorly of the fact that they do things like tracking the GPS signals of suspects' phones without a warrant in nearly every episode, and you're probably on the agent's side whenever someone makes them get a warrant and they have an exasperated reaction like their investigaiton is being impeded, even if it turns out the person wasn't the criminal.

It's not just that you're caught up in the action. You're seeing things through the perspective of the agents, who, having good intentions and being responsible, just want to be let to do their thing.

But this is why you don't let the people who are inconvenienced by court oversight write the regulations for the courts. People take shortcuts out of convenience, not out of malice. In every line of work.
 
T

The Librarian

Banned
Kynect could cause a lot of problems for McConnell

“Look, if I went out here on the street today (and said), ‘You guys want free health care?’ I expect you’d have a lot of signups,” he said at a Kentucky press conference recently. “People signing up for something that is free,” McConnell said, is the only part of the Obamacare rollout in Kentucky that is actually successful.

That was before the November enrollment surge.

By mid-December will he be able or willing to say the same? McConnell has cited a Kentucky Department of Insurance estimate that 280,000 Kentuckians will lose their current plans because of Obamacare. That figure emerged before Obama announced an administrative measure that will allow insurers to renew canceled plans, and Kentucky regulators have given carriers the green light. But either way, this doesn’t help McConnell much past October. If everybody in Kentucky gets to keep their old plans, his talking point — along with a large font of Affordable Care Act animus — will dry up. But if only some plans get renewed, the remainder will still be primed consumers, and many of them will become satisfied customers in Kynect.

McConnell’s current position — his position for the past three and a half years — is that the law “needs to be eliminated and we need to start over.”

But before Obamacare, over 17 percent of non-elderly Kentuckians were uninsured. If Obamacare knocks that figure into the single digits next year — even if it isn’t doing much for Tennesseans — how long will his position hold? His leadership role is about to come into exquisite tension with his responsibility to his own constituents.​
 
T

thezerofire

Banned
I only skimmed the article, but citing a 1979 decision regarding metadata is probably woefully inadequate. They couldn't possibly know the type of data everyone now generates thanks to cell phones and the internet
 
S

Sibylus

Banned
Judge: “NSA exceeded the scope of authorized acquisition continuously” (Ars)

Based EFF and ACLU.

GaimeGuy said:
The FISA court was greatly nerfed by the Protect America Act, though. FISA compliance by the NSA was left up to a set of internal NSA controls. This should be a surprise to no one.

If youIf you let the NSA and CIA write legislation about information gathering and regulations, they're going to make them as loose as possible. And let me say, the Protect America Act and FISA Amendments Act were both written primarily by the NSA and CIA, drafted by the executive branch and provided to Congress to go through the formality of passing, which they did so in roughly 72 hours). Because their primary jobs aren't to write legislation, but to perform their duties as instructed by congress in accordance with the rules and guidelines provided to them. Giving themselves more flexibility would seem reasonable from their perspective.

Have you ever watched a crime drama like NCIS or CSI and kind of rolled your eyes at the people who stonewall investigations by the main characters and field agents, demanding warrants, or that agents announce their presence and knock before entering a room (and provide a 5 count before entering?)? Or not really given a second thought to the reactions of the protagonists, the field agents, who are usually irritated by this? It's not a matter of being "evil." but of not wanting to get bogged down by the process. Once you get past the suspension of disbelief about some of the technology stuff, you probably don't even bat an eye or think poorly of the fact that they do things like tracking the GPS signals of suspects' phones without a warrant in nearly every episode, and you're probably on the agent's side whenever someone makes them get a warrant and they have an exasperated reaction like their investigaiton is being impeded, even if it turns out the person wasn't the criminal.

It's not just that you're caught up in the action. You're seeing things through the perspective of the agents, who, having good intentions and being responsible, just want to be let to do their thing.

But this is why you don't let the people who are inconvenienced by court oversight write the regulations for the courts. People take shortcuts out of convenience, not out of malice. In every line of work.
Click to expand...
Agreed in full (though maybe not the CSI line of thought, I'm more rolling my eyes at everything :p), particularly the last line. It's definitely in the interest of everyone (CIA and NSA included) to allow outside parties to police and determine what is kosher for intelligence agencies to be doing, even if one suspects nothing more than overindulgence by way of best intentions.
 
T

theprodigy

Member
Dax01 said:
Kynect could cause a lot of problems for McConnell

“Look, if I went out here on the street today (and said), ‘You guys want free health care?’ I expect you’d have a lot of signups,” he said at a Kentucky press conference recently. “People signing up for something that is free,” McConnell said, is the only part of the Obamacare rollout in Kentucky that is actually successful.

That was before the November enrollment surge.

By mid-December will he be able or willing to say the same? McConnell has cited a Kentucky Department of Insurance estimate that 280,000 Kentuckians will lose their current plans because of Obamacare. That figure emerged before Obama announced an administrative measure that will allow insurers to renew canceled plans, and Kentucky regulators have given carriers the green light. But either way, this doesn’t help McConnell much past October. If everybody in Kentucky gets to keep their old plans, his talking point — along with a large font of Affordable Care Act animus — will dry up. But if only some plans get renewed, the remainder will still be primed consumers, and many of them will become satisfied customers in Kynect.

McConnell’s current position — his position for the past three and a half years — is that the law “needs to be eliminated and we need to start over.”

But before Obamacare, over 17 percent of non-elderly Kentuckians were uninsured. If Obamacare knocks that figure into the single digits next year — even if it isn’t doing much for Tennesseans — how long will his position hold? His leadership role is about to come into exquisite tension with his responsibility to his own constituents.​
Click to expand...

but what does it mean for Kay Hagan

I wonder what McConnell's strategy is
 
G

GaimeGuy

Volunteer Deputy Campaign Director, Obama for America '16
Dax01 said:
Kynect could cause a lot of problems for McConnell

“Look, if I went out here on the street today (and said), ‘You guys want free health care?’ I expect you’d have a lot of signups,” he said at a Kentucky press conference recently. “People signing up for something that is free,” McConnell said, is the only part of the Obamacare rollout in Kentucky that is actually successful.

That was before the November enrollment surge.

By mid-December will he be able or willing to say the same? McConnell has cited a Kentucky Department of Insurance estimate that 280,000 Kentuckians will lose their current plans because of Obamacare. That figure emerged before Obama announced an administrative measure that will allow insurers to renew canceled plans, and Kentucky regulators have given carriers the green light. But either way, this doesn’t help McConnell much past October. If everybody in Kentucky gets to keep their old plans, his talking point — along with a large font of Affordable Care Act animus — will dry up. But if only some plans get renewed, the remainder will still be primed consumers, and many of them will become satisfied customers in Kynect.

McConnell’s current position — his position for the past three and a half years — is that the law “needs to be eliminated and we need to start over.”

But before Obamacare, over 17 percent of non-elderly Kentuckians were uninsured. If Obamacare knocks that figure into the single digits next year — even if it isn’t doing much for Tennesseans — how long will his position hold? His leadership role is about to come into exquisite tension with his responsibility to his own constituents.​
Click to expand...

It's only a "problem" if the bettering of peoples' lives is secondary to his cushy seat.

I know that for many career politicians, they become obsessed with elections and campaigns, wanting to keep their jobs as a means of acquiring income, asserting power, and shaping the world in their image, but to be honest, I'm glad to have someone like Al Franken who, even though he ideologically disagreed with the whole idea of a private insurance mandate with exchanges and payment reforms, and wanted more provisions on electronic data infrastructure and medical school cost reforms introduced (squeezing the costs the doctors faced so that they wouldn't be crushed by reduced medicare payments), he recognized the merits of the conservative health care proposal, which the PPACA was modeled after, voted for it, and shrugged his shoulders. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It's not about ideology, but about improving lives. You fight the fights that need to be fought, but you never abstain from moving forward, even if you'd rather do it another way.

I just wish republicans would realize that, hey, it's okay for the country to do well while the Democrats are in power. I will vote for a candidate on their individual merits and record. Nixon, Eisenhower, and H.W. Bush (Bush Sr) did some pretty damn awesome things as presidents. I love the FAA, NASA, and EPA, and the Americans with Disabilities Act, even though they were all established/signed into law by Republican presidents. Does not matter one fucking bit to me. On the other hand, Clinton compromised with republicans on the matter of gay rights by saying that it's okay for gay people to be in the military, as long as no one knows that they're gay (but really, that's no different than the prior position of saying it's not okay for gays to be in the military, since the effect is the same.)

John Kline is my representative, and I don't oppose him because he's republican. I oppose him because he supports policies like setting interest rate floors for student loans that exceed 10 year treasury yields. Because he believes the health care system we had in 2007/2008 is preferable to the PPACA. Because he supported the shutdown which furloughed 800,000 federal workers and millions of contractors and subcontractors, and because his stubbornness during budget talks over the previous few years have resulted in job uncertainty and work shortages for me and my coworkers, not because there is no work to be done, but because he, and other ideologues in congress, would refuse to let the FAA (our customer) let us do it.

Frankly, his policies are consistently harmful, both in foresight and hindsight, and that's why I oppose him. Not because he's a republican.
 
Rhomega Beta

Rhomega Beta

Member
Wilsongt said:
Change communism to socialism and Cuba/Katanga/Portugal to Israel/Israel/Israel and it almost reads as if it's going after Obama.
Click to expand...

More like Israel/Israel/England, after Obama gave the Prime Minister a bunch of Region 1 DVDs and his children some models from the White House gift shop.
 
V

Videoneon

Member
For a topic and NY times article on right wing populism resurgence in europe, check out this thread from a while back:

http://neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=712222
"NYTimes: Europe's Right-wing resurgence has the establishment rattled"

zero shift said:
image.jpg


I agree that those things have something to do with America's jump on right, definitely. However I feel that many Europeans don't understand why America's race relations are so bad. They only recently received immigration and it tends to be from Chinese, Indians, and Muslims. Demographics that don't have much of a history in Europe as well as (not being racist but I have to be honest) are seen as "model minorities".
Click to expand...

I don't know if the thread you were originally talking about mentioned stuff like Zwarte Piet ("They're just having fun!!!", but I find it strange how casually racist sentiments get thrown about in some European political groups. It sometimes gets bad in GAF too, like with gypsy comments ("you don't understand how much of a blight on society these people are - they steal stuff!". I don't value open racism versus on-eggshells racism unequally, but I guess I've gotten used to the awkward side-stepping that usually circulates in American discussion. That, or the racism by proxy ideas like Voter ID, "illegals"/immigration obstinacy

See for example, this:
 
P

PhoenixDark

Banned
Rhomega Beta said:
More like Israel/Israel/England, after Obama gave the Prime Minister a bunch of Region 1 DVDs and his children some models from the White House gift shop.
Click to expand...

Don't forget Obama throwing the Churchill bust out the Oval Office window to make room for MLK!

Obama and Cameron's bromance has slowly ended the "tension with England" meme thankfully.
 
B

besada

Banned
P

PhoenixDark

Banned
Rhomega Beta said:
He didn't throw it back, he gave it back to England. Seriously, as far as I know, he did give the Prime Minister a bunch of DVDs, unless there's something saying otherwise.
Click to expand...

I know, that's the point though. The meme is that Obama rejected the bust and removed it from the White House when in reality it was loaned to us.
 
B

Black Mamba

Member
Senator Harry Reid appears set to go nuclear — before Thanksgiving.

With Senate Republicans blocking a third Obama nomination to the powerful D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, a senior Senate Democratic leadership aide tells me Reid is now all but certain to move to change the Senate rules by simple majority — doing away with the filibuster on executive and judicial nominations, with the exception of the Supreme Court – as early as this week.

At a presser today, Reid told reporters he was taking another look at rules reform, but didn’t give a timeline. The senior leadership aide goes further, saying it’s hard to envision circumstances under which Reid doesn’t act.

“Reid has become personally invested in the idea that Dems have no choice other than to change the rules if the Senate is going to remain a viable and functioning institution,” the aide says. That’s a long journey from where Reid was only 10 months ago, when he agreed to a toothless filibuster reform deal out of a real reluctance to change the rules by simple majority. Asked to explain the evolution, the aide said: “It’s been a long process. But this is the only thing we can do to keep the Senate performing its basic duties.”

Asked if Reid would drop the threat to go nuclear if Republicans green-lighted one or two of Obama’s judicial nominations, the aide said: “I don’t think that’s going to fly.”

Reid has concluded Senate Republicans have no plausible way of retreating from the position they’ve adopted in this latest Senate rules standoff, the aide says. Republicans have argued that in pushing nominations, Obama is “packing” the court, and have insisted that Obama is trying to tilt the court’s ideological balance in a Democratic direction — which is to say that the Republican objection isn’t to the nominees Obama has chosen, but to the fact that he’s trying to nominate anyone at all.

Reid believes that, having defined their position this way, Republicans have no plausible route out of the standoff other than total capitulation on the core principle they have articulated, which would be a “pretty dramatic reversal,” the aide continues.

“They’ve boxed themselves in — their position allows them no leeway,” the aide says, in characterizing Reid’s thinking. “This is not a trumped up argument about the qualification of a nominee. They are saying, `we don’t want any nominees.”

The aide says Reid believes he now has 51 Dem Senators behind a rules change, if it comes down to it. The Huffington Post reports that some Dem Senators who have previously opposed changing the rules — such as Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein — are now open to it. “I believe that we are there,” the aide tells me.

The key to understanding what’s happening now is that it is fundamentally different from the last “nuclear” standoff. In that one, Republicans blockaded a handful of executive nominations (such as Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Board) in part out of an objection to the function of the agencies they had been picked to lead. Republicans ultimately dropped their objections in exchange for Dems agreeing not to change the rules as part of a short term deal.

But now, Dems have already agreed not to change the rules once, and the filibustering continues, even though Republicans admitted when the last deal was reached that they were wrong to block Obama from staffing the government. And now, the GOP position is not grounded in an objection to Obama’s nominees or to the function of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals; it’s grounded in the argument that Obama should not have the power to make these appointments to the court at all. As Jonathan Chait argues, Republicans may not have even thought through the full implications of the position they’ve adopted. But Dems have, and taking it to its logical conclusion, they believe Republicans have presented them with a simple choice: Either they change the rules, or they accept those limits on Obama’s power. And that really leaves only one option.
Click to expand...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/11/19/harry-reid-is-set-to-go-nuclear/

Reid is in his final form, people.
 
T

The Librarian

Banned
Reid's set to go nuclear on judicial nominations

Reid has concluded Senate Republicans have no plausible way of retreating from the position they’ve adopted in this latest Senate rules standoff, the aide says. Republicans have argued that in pushing nominations, Obama is “packing” the court, and have insisted that Obama is trying to tilt the court’s ideological balance in a Democratic direction — which is to say that the Republican objection isn’t to the nominees Obama has chosen, but to the fact that he’s trying to nominate anyone at all.

Reid believes that, having defined their position this way, Republicans have no plausible route out of the standoff other than total capitulation on the core principle they have articulated, which would be a “pretty dramatic reversal,” the aide continues.

“They’ve boxed themselves in — their position allows them no leeway,” the aide says, in characterizing Reid’s thinking. “This is not a trumped up argument about the qualification of a nominee. They are saying, `we don’t want any nominees.”

The aide says Reid believes he now has 51 Dem Senators behind a rules change, if it comes down to it. The Huffington Post reports that some Dem Senators who have previously opposed changing the rules — such as Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein — are now open to it. “I believe that we are there,” the aide tells me.​
Could come later this week.

Edit: Goddammit, mamba. Mine looks prettier.
 
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