US Politics Thread |OT| THE DARKEST TIMELINE

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

http://thesarahpalinchannel.com/

I was listening to the BBC world news podcast, and the announcement of said channel was their 'lighter side of the news' segment for that episode, they played a greatest hits roll of her malapropisms, good times.

[Kara]

Just started watching Boardwalk Empire. Up to ep.5. It's funny to see the annoyance at democrat meddling in a perfectly rigged system.

I really like the politics as a balancing of social interests dynamic in season 1.

e: And as someone who works in taxation, it cracks me the hell up whenever the fuzz nick someone and shout "BUREAU OF INTERNAL REVENUE, YOU'RE UNDER ARREST."

[benjipwns]

So now he's trying to ration my hating? Who is he to tell me when I can and can't hate?

Literal tyrant.

[Phoenix Dark]

The United States economy rebounded heartily in the spring after a dismal winter, the Commerce Department reported on Wednesday, growing at an annual rate of 4 percent from April through June and surpassing economists’ expecations.

In its initial estimate for the second quarter, the government cited a major advance in inventories for private businesses, higher government spending at the state and local level and personal consumption spending as chief contributors to growth. Economists, who had been hoping for a full reversal of the first quarter’s decline, were cheered by the second quarter’s numbers. The consensus forecast for G.D.P. was 3 percent.

“Fantastic,” Douglas Handler, chief United States economist for IHS Global Insight Analysis, said of the second-quarter G.D.P. increase. The bigger-than-expected gain further cemented views that the decrease in America’s overall output during the first quarter was most likely a fluke tied in large part to unusually stormy winter weather and other anomalies. Any dip in gross domestic product outside an official recession is considered rare.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/31/business/economy/us-economy-grew-4-in-second-quarter.html

Entire cities were virtually shut down for months during last winter, the GDP crash shouldn't have been surprising to anyone who wasn't playing politics.

[benjipwns]

Why are economic/job/etc. reports always "unexpected"?

[Kara]

The anarchy of production.

[helios]

[ZephyrFate]

Obama looks so much more interesting than Reagan ever was in that photo. God, Reagan was one ugly motherfucker.

[benjipwns]

God, Reagan was one ugly motherfucker.

[Mandark]

Young John McCain, on the other hand, was surprisingly hot.

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

John Kerry has movie star looks, as long as that movie star is Harry Dean Stanton.

[helios]

Young John McCain looks like Tom Cruise



Will Tom Cruise look like him in the future?

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/vauxnews

heh, some of them are good 

Vox @vauxnews  ·  Jul 22
Two justices that should retire.

Vox @vauxnews  ·  Jul 22
Why today's Halbig decision makes the case for reclassifying President Obama as a "State."

Vox @vauxnews  ·  Jul 21
12 things we Googled this afternoon and repackaged in yellow branding.

Vox @vauxnews  ·  Jul 21
Does the country deliberately become more difficult to govern when a Democratic president is in charge?

Vox @vauxnews  ·  Jul 18
Why water is just the first in a long line of products we’re going to argue is somehow different.

Vox @vauxnews  ·  Jul 18
How Mary Jo Kopechne’s death helped to alleviate overcrowding in the Northeast.

Vox @vauxnews  ·  Jul 17
How Ronald Reagan's "Challenger" speech was a missed political opportunity.

Vox @vauxnews  ·  Jul 17
"It looks like it may be a terrible tragedy" — Obama on the downed Malaysian Airlines flight. 9 reasons he's right.

Vox @vauxnews  ·  Jul 16
The worlds 10 most amazing fictional bridges.

Vox @vauxnews  ·  Jul 16
Zack Beauchamp read a few webpages in an Internet café this morning. Here's a half-assed piece about the Middle East.

[Phoenix Dark]

Why are you always posting stuff from the comments section of news articles? Who cares. I might read comments sections for a quick chuckle but that's it.

[benjipwns]

Typical elitist liberal intelligentsia preferring to pontificate from on high with just theory, rather than to learn about the real world from the masses. To discover their hopes and dreams and fears. To get the real story from the streets not the filtered confirmation bias of the lamestream media. To have the walls fall as Shaka witnessed and feel the emotions of trembling before ESAU. To locate not just our differences but our similarities as a species, nay, as a family here upon this planet. To become one with the masses in understanding. To experience the thrill of wearing another man's intellectual skin. Feeling his innermost wants and desires and being in control of every single move. That's how you get off.

Now don't you guys want to get off with me?

[benjipwns]

 

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[benjipwns]

[Phoenix Dark]

I just don't get the appeal. It's like my view on Devolution spending 90% of her Bore time posting dumb comments from GAF: what's the point and why do you care.

My mom discovered how to effectively use YouTube a few months ago, and even more recently discovered the comments section. She texts me random troll posts from there and I just smh. I keep explaining the uselessness of comments sections but nah, they now explain everything about "this generation" to her

[benjipwns]

I've posted two quotes from comments on the last eight pages over the last 23 days.

What's the point? Same as anything else? I find them amusing on some level.
Why do I care? I don't know if I do care really other than to the extent that they can be amusing.

I'm not offering up any grand unified theory of the unwashed or a "generation" or anything and never have claimed to be. But if it's bothering people then I won't post quotes from comments anymore on here. It's no biggie to me.

[Great Rumbler]

The latest meme among the GOP is that the only people talking about impeachment are Democrats because they want to raise money and Obama keeps talking about impeachment because he loves playing the victim card:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/paul-ryan-impeachment-ridiculous-game
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/karl-rove-obama-impeachment
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/07/30/allen-wests-impeachment-flip-flop/200266
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/07/28/conservatives-blame-democrats-for-conservative/200222
http://mediamatters.org/video/2014/07/30/sean-hannity-obama-claimed-to-be-the-victim-of/200268

[Brehvolution]

I saw that yesterday and it amazes me how fucking stupid they think their base is.

[Dickie Dee]

I've posted two quotes from comments on the last eight pages over the last 23 days.

What's the point? Same as anything else? I find them amusing on some level.
Why do I care? I don't know if I do care really other than to the extent that they can be amusing.

I'm not offering up any grand unified theory of the unwashed or a "generation" or anything and never have claimed to be. But if it's bothering people then I won't post quotes from comments anymore on here. It's no biggie to me.

nah, it's coo - I get PD's point that nutpicking is ultimately pretty futile, but nothing wrong with having a laugh at them now and then

[Broseidon]

God, Reagan was one ugly motherfucker.

(Image removed from quote.)

[benjipwns]

I guess I was confused because that "vauxnews" thing I posted is a twitter account making fun of Vox style headlines, not anything to do with comments so I wasn't sure what PD was referring to.

It's probably just disappointment that there really isn't a top ten list of the world's best fictional bridges.

[Joe Molotov]

I guess I was confused because that "vauxnews" thing I posted is a twitter account making fun of Vox style headlines, not anything to do with comments so I wasn't sure what PD was referring to.

It's probably just disappointment that there really isn't a top ten list of the world's best fictional bridges.

1. The Bridge to Terabithia
2. Simon and Garfunkel's 'Bridge Over Troubled Waters'
2. The Bridges of Madison County
3. The Album Cover of Robin Trower's 1974 Album 'Bridge of Sighs'
4. That One Cool Bridge from That Final Fantasy Game Everyone Likes
5. 'The Bridge to Nowhere' that Sarah Palin took All the Money for and Then Forgot to Build
6. Bill Clinton's Bridge to the 21st Century
7. Aretha Franklin's Cover of Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water
8. The Bridge of the USS Enterprise
9. Franz Kafka's "The Bridge"
10. The Golden Gate Bridge from the Opening of 'Full House'

[Great Rumbler]

Here's some good political news for once:

Hospital Corporation of America, the biggest for-profit hospital network in the country, reported a 6.6 percent decrease in uninsured patients across its 165 hospitals, according to Bloomberg. And in the four states where HCA operates that expanded Medicaid, the drop was 48 percent.

bloobloobloo death panels!!!

[Rufus]

I guess I was confused because that "vauxnews" thing I posted is a twitter account making fun of Vox style headlines, not anything to do with comments so I wasn't sure what PD was referring to.

It's probably just disappointment that there really isn't a top ten list of the world's best fictional bridges.

And here I thought you personally sift through the sewage to find the 'gems'. Because that I don't understand. You should pitch articles to Cracked.com or something, at least get paid for it.

In Devo's case I understand (suspect) that she's just venting and pointing fingers at the shit that pops up in a community she otherwise enjoys. I don't read it outside of German GAF, so I wouldn't know, but the unending stream of refuse does prompt a "why bother?" in me too. Just an impression though. Pedophiles and insufferable man-children everywhere, etc.

[Mandark]

I've posted two quotes from comments on the last eight pages over the last 23 days.

You post more stuff from comment sections than every other poster combined.

[Dickie Dee]

I guess I was confused because that "vauxnews" thing I posted is a twitter account making fun of Vox style headlines, not anything to do with comments so I wasn't sure what PD was referring to.

It's probably just disappointment that there really isn't a top ten list of the world's best fictional bridges.

1. The Bridge to Terabithia
2. Simon and Garfunkel's 'Bridge Over Troubled Waters'
2. The Bridges of Madison County
3. The Album Cover of Robin Trower's 1974 Album 'Bridge of Sighs'
4. That One Cool Bridge from That Final Fantasy Game Everyone Likes
5. 'The Bridge to Nowhere' that Sarah Palin took All the Money for and Then Forgot to Build
6. Bill Clinton's Bridge to the 21st Century
7. Aretha Franklin's Cover of Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water
8. The Bridge of the USS Enterprise
9. Franz Kafka's "The Bridge"
10. The Golden Gate Bridge from the Opening of 'Full House'

Bridge on the River Kwai, c'mon now son

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actually, i was really impressed with your list 

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[Kara]

Ask "What's the point of doing X?" in an existence without universal truth or meaning brehs.

[Mandark]

Yeah, gonna need a better reason than a cold and impassive universe to excuse lame posting habits.

[Great Rumbler]

I've posted two quotes from comments on the last eight pages over the last 23 days.

You post more stuff from comment sections than every other poster combined.

Isn't that basically what everyone in the GAF thread is doing?

[Phoenix Dark]

I wish we could have some type of limit where you get 5 posts in the GAF thread a day. No more endless spam of links and snarky comments.

[Kara]

Yeah, gonna need a better reason than a cold and impassive universe to excuse lame posting habits.

You can just say, "Hey [poster] [this thing you do] is annoying me, would you mind toning it down, or even stopping it?" instead of passive aggressively caching it in some existential shell that puts the onus on someone else to defend their posting's inherent worth instead of on yourself to communicate what you want and don't want to read here.

[Phoenix Dark]

גענטלעמען, מיר מוזן ניט קעמפן אַמאַנגסט זיך אין דעם בייַזייַן פון גויים.

[Kara]

I tried translating that instead of just pasting it into Google Translate. Taking the ל on that one.

[Rufus]

The period is on the wrong side. Makes the cursor freak out when you try to select the entire sentence.

[Mandark]

Fair enough, Kara.

I could really stand to read fewer "hey, lookit the dumbs I've found!" posts, whether it's the GAF thread, benji dumpster-diving comment sections, or you talking shit about the middlebrow tastes of some woman who messaged you on OKC.  I get the appeal of it (I'm sure if you check my post history you'd prove me a hypocrite in no time), but outside of small doses, the self-congratulatory contempt for other humans is ehhhhhhh.  At least with the GAF-posting it's been quarantined and I can choose to steer clear.

[Kara]

Since you asked me directly and I don't want to infringe on your enjoyment of the forum, I'll do my part to knock it off.

[benjipwns]

I don't have any contempt for people from comments or forums, by any objective standard they're probably mostly all superior to me*, I just think they can be amusing/funny/interesting in a much more honest way than "officially recognized" commentators. But if that's not the case, that's not the case, I'm wrong and I don't need to post anything.

*Especially that marine guy who was writing poetry about illegal immigrants on Brietbart.

[Madrun Badrun]

Young John McCain, on the other hand, was surprisingly hot.

Ya its a shame what the Viet Cong did to him.  I'd never get a brow lift through medical tourism.  http://media.salon.com/2013/02/mccain_pareene.jpg

[helios]

All I see is brown. Brown and full of Aztecs

[Kara]

The next time someone rants about taxes being theft feel free to link them to this story.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/how-east-germany-robbed-collectors-of-their-art-a-982739.html

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At dawn on Dec. 8, 1981, two men stood on his doorstep. One said they had come to check his water meter. The other put his hand on Schwarz's shoulder after entering his home and said: "You are under arrest for tax evasion." They said that the objects he had been keeping in his home for decades had appreciated in value and that Schwarz owed back taxes as a result. The total was 1.5 million East German marks.

This actually happens to taxpayers that own interests in passive foreign investment companies (PFICs) under the Internal Revenue Code.

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[DCharlieJP]

Muslim pray mats and , heaven forbid, some books?

I can see why these gap tooth extra-chromosome having morons would be terrified of books.

[Joe Molotov]

"This situation shows the intense concern within our conference - and among the American people - about the need to ensure the security of our borders and the president's refusal to faithfully execute our laws.  There are numerous steps the president can and should be taking right now, without the need for congressional action, to secure our borders and ensure these children are returned swiftly and safely to their countries.
~John Boner

Please, Obama, issue some executive actions (that we can sue you for later) because we can't do shit.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Cruz_Control

[Kara]

good piece, thanks.

I wasn't surprised by the SED's institutional complicity in the activity, but the... cooperation with the West legitimately surprised me. (Not the dealers, the off the books fund setup by the government that was later ended.)

I guess I always give the West German government way too much credit for not being morally bankrupt even though its pathetic efforts to de-Nazify are well known (and still felt in the case of the BfV / die Linke scandal) by now.

[Trent Dole]

[Joe Molotov]

[Steve Contra]

If only they could unskew...the past.

brb selling that to Chris Nolan.

[CatsCatsCats]

This was a dumb post made out of boredom, carry on

[Eric P]

wow

http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-obama-torture-20140801-story.html


Obama: 'We tortured some folks'

In startlingly blunt phrasing, President Obama on Friday acknowledged the CIA’s use of brutal interrogation tactics in the years after the Sept. 11 attack, even as he defended the agency’s top spy, who is a veteran of the era.

“We tortured some folks,” Obama said to reporters during a news conference Friday. “We did some things that were contrary to our values.”

uh

[Eric P]

wow

http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-obama-torture-20140801-story.html


Obama: 'We tortured some folks'

In startlingly blunt phrasing, President Obama on Friday acknowledged the CIA’s use of brutal interrogation tactics in the years after the Sept. 11 attack, even as he defended the agency’s top spy, who is a veteran of the era.

“We tortured some folks,” Obama said to reporters during a news conference Friday. “We did some things that were contrary to our values.”

uh

[Phoenix Dark]

I'm sure Dick Cheney and his daughter will have something to say about that on Sunday morning news shows.

[benjipwns]

Great. Thanks a lot Obama. Now the terrorists know.

And this guy has the nerve to complain about Edward Snowden when he leaks this kind of sensitive national security stuff on TV.

[ZephyrFate]

Obama has evolved into President Obama With Relative Minimum of Fucks to Give

[benjipwns]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/aug/1/ben-carson-takes-major-step-toward-presidential-ca/

Ben Carson, the former neurosurgeon turned conservative sensation, is taking a major step toward a 2016 presidential bid by forming a political action committee and selecting the man who would run his campaign, The Washington Times has learned.

Emerging from two-days of meetings with supporters in Palm Beach, Fla., Dr. Carson told the Times on Friday morning he has selected Houston businessman Terry Giles to be his 2016 campaign chairman should he run and approved the formation of a PAC called One Nation.

“Now is the time to start all of the appropriate exploration and investigation, and put down the structure that is necessary,” Dr. Carson said in a phone interview.

Asked about the likelihood he will run for president in 2016, Dr. Carson said: “I would say we are definitely a step or two closer than we were a year ago.”

[Joe Molotov]

[Phoenix Dark]

House GOP Votes To Spurn Obama, Deport Dreamers Before Leaving Town

In a vote likely to exacerbate their party's demographic problems, House Republicans passed legislation on Friday night to effectively require the deportation of everyone in the U.S. illegally, including young people brought as children who attended college or joined the military.

It passed by a vote of 216 to 192. Eleven Republicans voted no and four Democrats voted yes.

The bill serves a symbolic rebuke of President Barack Obama for his current and upcoming executive actions to relieve undocumented immigrants from the threat of deportation. It passed shortly after the House passed 223-189 a separate GOP-led border funding proposal, which gives House Republicans the opportunity to go home for recess and say they acted on the child migrant crisis.

"In the end, the Republican position on immigration can be summed up as: deport 'em all," said Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-IL). "You know it is suicide as a political strategy, but you continue to say deport 'em all."

Both bills are dead on arrival in the Senate. Obama slammed them as "extreme and unworkable" and promised to veto them if they land on his desk.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/house-gop-votes-rebuke-obama-deport-dreamers?utm_content=buffer8c01b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

dance into your electoral grave brehs

[Phoenix Dark]

It's a troll lawsuit that prays for the SC to overturn precedent and sock it to democrats, nothing more. It's true that the bill say states need to run exchanges, but every piece of evidence suggests that was not the intention of the framers, nor was it discussed much.

Given Scalia is on the record about legal intent and the Roberts court's knack for siding with big corporations makes it very hard for me to be nervous about this shit.

It might not even make it to the SC.

[benjipwns]

The CBO isn't exactly allowed to model whatever they want.

Not saying it supports the alternate case, just that, like OMB and the BoxScore Geeks, there's always assumptions built into the model with a weak underbelly. And in the CBO's case it's Congress.