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[ivysaur12]

Wait, so how will this eventually work? Do we get to pick our own partners who we'll be forced to gay marry or will it be done by lottery?

It's actually like The Lottery -- in every town, they'll stone a straight person to sacrifice them for the harvest and gay satan.

 

[Sibylus]

Wait, so how will this eventually work? Do we get to pick our own partners who we'll be forced to gay marry or will it be done by lottery?

The Frottery.

 

[Averon]

Back from a long vacation.

Hope the media blowhards don't get their way on Crimea.

The last thing we need to do is get embroiled in Cold War shit. Alienating an ally close to him over paranoia is going to hurt him more than us, if we use soft diplomacy to handle the situation.

I've been on a media blackout the past several weeks. Are the media actually criticizing Obama for NOT getting into a fruitless military confrontation with Russia over Ukraine? Unbelievable if true, especially after Iraq. Only been a decade yet the media are already itching for another needless military adventure. Were any lesson learned at all from Iraq?

 

[Audiospawn]

From none other than my home state:

From http://www.gpb.org/news/2014/03/03/medical-marijuana-and-abortion-bills-move-forward

Predictably, the abortion debate in the Senate was heated. But this year, the Democrats raised the bar by trying to place wire coat hangers on every Senator's desk. Their aim was to say Republicans want to send Georgia back to the days when women had to undergo risky illegal abortions, often by means of a hanger.

Sen. Mike Crane, a Newnan Republican, denied the bill stemmed from a purported GOP 'War on Women.'

"It's not about what is permissible or what is not," he said on the floor of the Senate. "It's simply a matter of, who is going to pay for it?"

But Crane also opposes abortion, and he didn't shy away from giving his opinion on the issue. And the hangers.

"It's evil. It's evil. This isn't election-year politics," he said of abortion.

"Wave around a vacuum. The method of choice for abortion - do you know, why don't we put that up on the screen? - is evacuation. Where they put a vacuum into the uterus, and they suck a child apart piece by piece."

Really? A "child"?

REALLY?

Also, A fucking plus for using wire coat hangers.

 

[Aaron]

Yet they don't seem to care if those children starve when they take away food stamps or other social services.

 

[JesseEwiak]

Yet they don't seem to care if those children starve when they take away food stamps or other social services.

Every life is sacred, as long as it has the bonus of punishing a woman for her sexuality.

 

[Diablos]

How many children will end up having their lives ruined because the GOP cut off their parents' only way to keep a roof over their fucking heads (food stamps, unemployment)? Hmm?

How many of those children will slip into extreme poverty and wind up being abused or dead someday? Thrown in jail?

The GOP preaches an awful lot about the sanctity of life before birth, but as soon as that kid pops out -- sorry, you are on your own you future dirty poor!

 

[Audiospawn]

Let me ask you, GOP.

Which of these is better?

Letting a child starve to death or get adopted because the child's parents are poor.

or

Letting the mother have an abortion so she can fucking feed herself.

Hmm?

 

[smokeandmirrors]

[
Letting a child starve to death or get adopted because the child's parents are poor.

The adoption market will decide their worth.

 

[Joe Molotov]

Let me ask you, GOP.

Which of these is better?

Letting a child starve to death or get adopted because the child's parents are poor.

or

Letting the mother have an abortion so she can fucking feed herself.

Hmm?

I think most conservatives believe that children are a punishment for having sex.

 

[Trouble]

Issa throws a tantrum, Cummings calls him out on his shitbirdery.

http://dailycaller.com/2014/03/05/d...t-hearing-after-lois-lerner-pleads-the-fifth/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsv6fmXu4gQ

 

[teiresias]

At a deli for lunch. TV is playing The View and some woman on here is waxing poetic about how we should have listened to Palin back in 2008 and kept an eye on Putin and drilled baby drilled to lower oil dependence.

I don't think I'll be able to keep my sub down.

 

[Joe Molotov]

Issa throws a tantrum, Cummings calls him out on his shitbirdery.

http://dailycaller.com/2014/03/05/d...t-hearing-after-lois-lerner-pleads-the-fifth/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsv6fmXu4gQ

I accidentally read the comments. :-\

 

[Wilsongt]

Issa throws a tantrum, Cummings calls him out on his shitbirdery.

http://dailycaller.com/2014/03/05/d...t-hearing-after-lois-lerner-pleads-the-fifth/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsv6fmXu4gQ

Heard a small portion of this on Fox News radio this morning. Of course, they were framing it so Issa was in a positive light.

While the rest of the world focuses on Russia, Fox News driving home with that hard hitting tantrum news.

 

[Wilsongt]

So Steve Stockman's primary challenge to John Cornyn ended up going nowhere:

Final results:

Good. I'd rather have simply crazy beat out batshit insane any day.

 

[gcubed]

So the Texas primary results basically confirm that Ted Cruz is completely out of the GOP

 

[Sibylus]

So the Texas primary results basically confirm that Ted Cruz is completely out of the GOP

We're not taking him back.

 

[gcubed]

We're not taking him back.

He could just be THE senator from Texas, no affiliation besides more affirmation that Texas is straight up looney sometimes

 

[Incognito]

I saw this discussed a little some days ago, but I'm starting to think my TPM reading days are waning. There are a lot of important stories ongoing right now, and their front page is largely filled with inside the beltway click bait garbage. They've been on that trajectory for a couple years now but it only really hit home the past couple weeks how bad it's gotten.

I used to read them for some very solid policy and political reporting, mixed with the occasional fun/frivolous story. Now the latter is taking up increasingly large proportions of their output.

Anyone have suggestions on where to fill the void?

I'm the same. I used to update TPM multiple times a day and now I'll go maybe once, twice a week. Admittedly, they've lost a lot of good reporters to the 'big leagues' but that's not their only problem. You mentioned the beltway click garbage, but I'd add a lot of snarky posts not befitting a prime time organization.

I've pretty much gone full circle for news consumption, now. In the early 2000s I religiously read newspapers, then I moved onto blogs, and now I'm back to newspapers with subscriptions to the NYTimes, Financial Times, and WSJ. In addition, Time Warner finally added Al Jazeera America and oh my god, what a contrast to the CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News guttter.

 

[speculawyer]

Let me ask you, GOP.

Which of these is better?

Letting a child starve to death or get adopted because the child's parents are poor.

or

Letting the mother have an abortion so she can fucking feed herself.

Hmm?

This is an argument that conservatives have an amazing ability to go into denial about. I guess the free market is supposed to magically make sure every kid gets food, shelter, and good education. But it just doesn't work that way. Just look to the third world if you want to see what a lack of education and family planning services creates.

 

[speculawyer]

At a deli for lunch. TV is playing The View and some woman on here is waxing poetic about how we should have listened to Palin back in 2008 and kept an eye on Putin and drilled baby drilled to lower oil dependence.

I don't think I'll be able to keep my sub down.

Domestic oil production has increased more during the Obama administration than at any other time in the last 40 years. So much of what conservatives think is based on stereotypes and not actual facts. They don't realize the public approves of gay marriage, they don't realize that the deficit has gone way down, they don't realize oil production is massively up, etc.

 

[The Technomancer]

Damn I can only watch the Jim DeMint interview on the Daily Show in like five minute increments to keep myself calm

 

[NYCmetsfan]

Don't you love Dems torpedoing a nominee even without the filibuster.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...nt-of-debo-adegbile-to-top-civil-rights-post/

All because he's a lawyer and helped with an appeal. I mean screw fair trials. We know it in our heart he's guilty why have all these rights, rules and due process. Right?
Imagine if we used that to disqualify presidents? (Its actually the anniversary of the Boston Massacre today ironically)

 

[WayneMorse]

Damn I can only watch the Jim DeMint interview on the Daily Show in like five minute increments to keep myself calm

Is it ten minutes of Jon Stewart going all centrist pundit on us? Also known as not asking any difficult questions so that he can appear to be impartial.

 

[B-Dubs]

So Steve Stockman's primary challenge to John Cornyn ended up going nowhere:

Final results:

I'm sad that the guy with the turtle joke ad didn't win, that would have been fun.

 

[Wilsongt]

Watched the Daily Show's segment on Fox News fighting against food stamps, as per usual. Apparently, the only thing people should be buying on food stamps is flour, meat that isn't seafood and non-organic products. So, essentially: People on food stamps should only be eating gruel.

 

[FyreWulff]

Don't you love Dems torpedoing a nominee even without the filibuster.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...nt-of-debo-adegbile-to-top-civil-rights-post/

All because he's a lawyer and helped with an appeal. I mean screw fair trials. We know it in our heart he's guilty why have all these rights, rules and due process. Right?
Imagine if we used that to disqualify presidents? (Its actually the anniversary of the Boston Massacre today ironically)

Fucking disgusting. Punished for upholding the Constitution.

 

[PhoenixDark]

Don't you love Dems torpedoing a nominee even without the filibuster.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...nt-of-debo-adegbile-to-top-civil-rights-post/

All because he's a lawyer and helped with an appeal. I mean screw fair trials. We know it in our heart he's guilty why have all these rights, rules and due process. Right?
Imagine if we used that to disqualify presidents? (Its actually the anniversary of the Boston Massacre today ironically)

Civil rights+cop killer? Oh boy, it's like the perfect storm of racial animosity.

I love how quick politicians are to shit on the legal system when it suits them - but not when it matters. Trying terrorists in court? No! Equal representation for criminals? Not if it's a cop killer. When I heard he was being nominated I remember thinking "yea right." Especially during an election year full of vulnerable red state dems.

At least Tom Perez got in.

 

[The Technomancer]

Is it ten minutes of Jon Stewart going all centrist pundit on us? Also known as not asking any difficult questions so that he can appear to be impartial.

Its twenty minutes of this guy spouting the emptiest of libertarian platitudes and deflecting when his own hypocrisy is pointed out

 

[bonercop]

Don't you love Dems torpedoing a nominee even without the filibuster.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...nt-of-debo-adegbile-to-top-civil-rights-post/

All because he's a lawyer and helped with an appeal. I mean screw fair trials. We know it in our heart he's guilty why have all these rights, rules and due process. Right?
Imagine if we used that to disqualify presidents? (Its actually the anniversary of the Boston Massacre today ironically)

i bet there will be no trouble confirming the two far-right nutjobs Obama recently nominated to fill judicial vacancies in georgia(reminder: one of the two voted against removing the confederacy insignia from Georgia's flag and the other defended Georgia's voter ID laws in court and won )

lol, democrats

 

[Oblivion]

From the WSJ no less!

The Affordable Care Act, President Barack Barack Obama’s signature health law, is already boosting household income and spending.

The Commerce Department reported Monday that consumer spending rose a better-than-expected 0.4% and personal incomes climbed 0.3% in January. The new health-care law accounted for a big chunk of the increase on both fronts.

On the incomes side, the law’s expanded coverage boosted Medicaid benefits by an estimated $19.2 billion, according to Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis. The ACA also offered several refundable tax credits, including health insurance premium subsidies, which added up to $14.7 billion.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014...account-for-most-of-income-spending-increases

 

[Fuchsdh]

NY Times, maybe the New Republic website. And I like reading Chait at the New Yorker. Also Slate has a host of good stuff.

TPM has really gone to shit since Brian Beautler left. Sahil Kapur constantly writes some of the most boring, obvious articles IMO. "5 Reasons Why X Is Likely/Unlikely." Yea...no thanks.

I don't visit new sites to chuckle at republicans saying dumb things, or to be bombarded with forced "X accidentally shoots Y" news articles, or an onslaught of Chris Christie news.

I feel like Slate carpet bombed their front page with Christie stories when the bridge stuff hit the mainstream. And their article headlines are pure clickbait partisan bull with lots of articles that say little. They give Salon a run for their money in schlock writing.

 

[PhoenixDark]

I feel like Slate carpet bombed their front page with Christie stories when the bridge stuff hit the mainstream. And their article headlines are pure clickbait partisan bull with lots of articles that say little. They give Salon a run for their money in schlock writing.

True but Slate has so many writers and blogs that it's very easy to ignore the front page antics. Whereas TPM is just the front page.

 

[Fuchsdh]

True but Slate has so many writers and blogs that it's very easy to ignore the front page antics. Whereas TPM is just the front page.

This is true. I guess I tend to reject websites that I feel are catering towards clickbait and shallow hack writing, even if it's only some contributors.

There needs to be a non-profit news outlet. Fact is that doing the in-depth, non-partisan reporting is not a good business model for making money.

 

[bonercop]

there's some sort of good news at least.

The survey found respondents almost exactly split on the question of whether they would be more or less likely to vote for a congressional candidate who supports the Affordable Care Act, with 34% saying they would be more likely to vote for the candidate and 36% saying they would be less likely to do so. Some 27% said it would not make a difference.

That’s a significant jump in support levels from November—a month after the troubled launch of HealthCare.gov, the federal insurance exchange that serves 36 states—when just 21% said a candidate’s support for the law would make them more likely to vote for them, compared to 37% who said it would make them less likely to do so. A much larger percentage—40%—were indifferent.

In both cases, Democratic voters were much more likely than Republican voters to support candidates favoring the health-care law. Since November, support for those candidates among Democrats has doubled—to 72%, up from 38%—and support among Republicans has more than tripled, to 27% from 7%.

 

[Zero-Crescent]

Damn I can only watch the Jim DeMint interview on the Daily Show in like five minute increments to keep myself calm

My favorite part so far:
JS: "If there is a class war in this country, the poor are getting their butts kicked."
*applause*
JD: "Well, uh uh I can prove er uh um." (JD goes on to the repeating same empty platitudes again)

DeMint seemed completely caught off-guard when Stewart brought up the demonization of the poor (as shown in the first segment). Then again, I've been getting that feeling throughout the interview so far; "ladder of opportunity" was DeMint's obvious deflection platitude.

Fake Edit: "How can you comparison shop for health care?" has another good reaction.

EDIT: And another gem JD: (paraphrasing) "Oh, those lobbyist collectives of companies writing bills for state legislatures don't have any power." smh
Oh geez, that moment of zen. lol. There's being out-of-touch, and there's being so far out-of-touch that you're in space.

 

[NYCmetsfan]

You guys still go to front pages?

 

[WayneMorse]

I feel like Slate carpet bombed their front page with Christie stories when the bridge stuff hit the mainstream. And their article headlines are pure clickbait partisan bull with lots of articles that say little. They give Salon a run for their money in schlock writing.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel.html

David Weigel is easily one of the best political writers in the media right now. He's the best thing about Slate.

 

[NYCmetsfan]

Jeez, obamacare is just a horrible law.

I mean its better than the status quo and will push us closer to single payer. It will save lives, and improve the economy.

But they picked the worst most complicated way to do it. The really screwed up not having a public option. I can't believe the buckled on that. Well, I can but I'm still disappointed. That would have been so much better and such and easy sell politically.

 

[Amir0x]

etc

oh look we won

Isn't it amazing how fast the tides have changed on this subject in the past decade? I mean, I feel like we're on a shotgun ride now, and it's so amazing.

 

[NYCmetsfan]

Pretty damning for Microsoft IMO.

 

[Zabka]

Jeez, obamacare is just a horrible law.

I mean its better than the status quo and will push us closer to single payer. It will save lives, and improve the economy.

But they picked the worst most complicated way to do it. The really screwed up not having a public option. I can't believe the buckled on that. Well, I can but I'm still disappointed. That would have been so much better and such and easy sell politically.

Obama was pushing hard for a public option but it would never have passed the Senate. It was blocked by conservative democrats.

 

[Aaron Strife]

Pretty damning for Microsoft IMO.

I'm not even surprised

 

[bonercop]

Obama was pushing hard for a public option but it would never have passed the Senate. It was blocked by conservative democrats.

From 2009

President Barack Obama is actively discouraging Senate Democrats in their effort to include a public insurance option with a state opt-out clause as part of health care reform. In its place, say multiple Democratic sources, Obama has indicated a preference for an alternative policy, favored by the insurance industry, which would see a public plan "triggered" into effect in the future by a failure of the industry to meet certain benchmarks.

The administration retreat runs counter to the letter and the spirit of Obama's presidential campaign. The man who ran on the "Audacity of Hope" has now taken a more conservative stand than Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), leaving progressives with a mix of confusion and outrage. Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill have battled conservatives in their own party in an effort to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. Now tantalizingly close, they are calling for Obama to step up.

....

"Everybody knows we're close enough that these guys could be rolled. They just don't want to do it because it makes the politics harder," said a senior Democratic source, saying that Obama is worried about the political fate of Blue Dogs and conservative Senate Democrats if the bill isn't seen as bipartisan. "These last couple folks, they could get them if Obama leaned on them."

...

The president's retreat leaves Reid as the champion of progressive reform -- an irony that is not lost on those who have long derided the Majority Leader as too cautious.

"Who knew that when it came down to crunch time, Harry Reid would be the one who stepped up to the plate and Barack Obama would shy away from the fight," emailed one progressive strategist.

On Thursday evening, after taking the temperature of his caucus, Reid told Obama at a White House meeting that he was pushing a national public option with an opt-out provision. Obama, several sources briefed on the exchange, reacted coolly.

"He certainly didn't embrace it and he seemed to indicate a preference for continuing to work on a strategy that involved Senator Snowe and a trigger," said one aide briefed on the meeting. Several other sources, along with independent media reports, confirmed the exchange.

...

White House aides responded to the pressure not by embracing Reid's more aggressive stance, but by denying reports that he was discouraging the opt-out proposal.

....


The intellectual father of the public option, Yale Professor Jacob Hacker, told HuffPost that the trigger proposal is a betrayal.

"The trigger is an inside-the-beltway sleight of hand that would protect private insurers from the real competition that a strong public health insurance option would create," he said in an e-mail. "It is unworkable in the current Senate bills, unwise as public policy, and unwanted by the substantial majority of Americans who say they want a straight-up public option."

i would not call this "pushing hard"

 

[PhoenixDark]

Obama was pushing hard for a public option but it would never have passed the Senate. It was blocked by conservative democrats.

No he wasn't. I specifically remember him outright not even mentioning it, and of course there's the fact the insurance companies weren't going to sign on if the bill featured a public option. It was taken off the table long before the bill was written.

 

[smokeandmirrors]

I wanna know what the "trigger" is and how can we get it to fire retroactively to 2009.

 

[Particle Physicist]

From 2009



i would not call this "pushing hard"

In case you had forgotten, Republicans and their friend, Joe Lieberman, were pushing very hard against any public option. What you are bolding right there is after months of negotiation where Obama was attempting to basically compromise with Joe Lieberman and friends in order to get the law passed with some semblance of a public option. He thought having a trigger would be the best route, at the end of the day, they did not even accept that plan.

 

[Oblivion]

Obama was pushing hard for a public option but it would never have passed the Senate. It was blocked by conservative democrats.

lol, no he wasn't.

edit: beaten many times over.

 

[bonercop]

He thought having a trigger would be the best route, at the end of the day, they did not even accept that plan.

not only did they not accept that plan, the blue dogs were(deservedly) massacred in 2010 and the notion of an "insurance-based reform" did not win Obama even a shred of conservative support politically, neither from politicians or from voters. none of the political calculations he supposedly made when abandoning the public option panned out.

in other words: obama's strategy of being the ~*post-partisan uniter*~ was idiotic at best and didn't win him anything.

 

[speculawyer]

Isn't it amazing how fast the tides have changed on this subject in the past decade? I mean, I feel like we're on a shotgun ride now, and it's so amazing.

I think a couple things happened:
1) People realized that it makes absolutely NO DIFFERENCE to their lives; and

2) Being able to be progressive on this issue allows them to feel better than lugheads like Vladimir Putin and Ahmadinejad. As much as conservatives push some anti-gay stuff here in the USA, they love to mock Iran (and Muslims countries in general) for persecuting gays.