Tuesday Open Thread [12.23.14]

Tuesday Open Thread [12.23.14]

1 Comment
Nancy LaTourneau pushes back on the notion that Obama has rebounded and seized the narrative with several bold moves recently. She argues that each action has been in the works for over a year....
Every one of the things these pundits name as an example of the President's newfound persona - executive actions on immigration, new EPA rules, climate change agreement with China, Russian sanctions, normalization of our relationship with Cuba - has been in the works for at least the last 1-2 years (during the time he was supposedly a listless, passive spectator). Back in January of this year, he announced his intention to implement the "pen and phone strategy" we're all witnessing unfold. President Barack Obama offered a brief preview Tuesday of his State of the Union address, telling his Cabinet that he won’t wait for Congress to act on key agenda items in 2014. “I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone,” he said at his first Cabinet meeting of the year. Outlining the strategy, Obama said he plans to use his pen to sign executive actions and his phone to convene outside groups in support of his agenda if Congress proves unable or unwilling to act on his priorities. It's true that President Obama might have a new lightness in his step. But that could just as well be because he's finally off for a much-needed vacation in Hawaii with his family. Anyone who has really watched this President operate knows that he plays the long game.
A Festivus Miracle: The Airing of Grievances, by Donviti.

A Festivus Miracle: The Airing of Grievances, by Donviti.

21 Comments
Hi I got a lot of freaking grievances and I’m not going to lie (even though I hate that expression), this is going to be as wildly incoherent as Honey Boo Boo’s fame or how John Atkins (D?, R?, U/E?) was able to get elected multiple times in slower lower. But, these are the times we live in, train wrecks get a voice, and now I give you mine. Choo-fucking-choo bitches. This list is in no particular order and I will attempt to keep it relevant to 2014. 1. That I (we) may never know how John Atkins’ feels about a drunken Ray Rice beating his wife. 3. I was taken out of my father’s will this year after I called him a racist. I blame Obama for this, he has done nothing but divide this country since taking office. He has so clearly shined the light on racists, bigots and ignorant people that when relatives tell me in passing conversation we should just “lock em all up”, “give them all birth control”, “not let those animals breed,” I get upset. I liked it better when I didn’t know that was racism. Thanks Obama. Come inside for more...
Monday Open Thread [12.22.14]

Monday Open Thread [12.22.14]

7 Comments
Kevin Drum takes a look at what the President's recent moves mean for next year:
All of these things are worthwhile in their own right, of course, but there's a political angle to all of them as well: they seriously mess with Republican heads. GOP leaders had plans for January, but now they may or may not be able to do much about them. Instead, they're going to have to deal with enraged tea partiers insisting that they spend time trying to repeal Obama's actions. They can't, of course, but they have to show that they're trying. So there's a good chance that they'll spend their first few months in semi-chaos, responding to Obama's provocations instead of working on their own agenda. Case in point: Congressional Republicans are now going to have to spend significant time and energy in a Cold War battle with Obama over Cuba policy--one that is likely to end in failure, and that appeals only to a sliver of the U.S. population. After all the interminable stuff we heard in 2014 about the Great Big Adult Republicans getting control over the unruly Tea Folk, I think we'll find that Boehner and McConnell aren't going to easily restrain conservatives with so much chum in the water. The provocation to a feeding frenzy is just becoming way too overpowering.
Greg Sargent also makes the case that Obama's actions are laying the groundwork for a 2016 campaign that places the Democratic candidate (Hillary Clinton) on the right side of history and looking toward the future, and the Republican candidates on the wrong side and stuck in the past.

If there are no bad cops, then there are no good ones either.

33 Comments
They want to pretend that all the protests against police brutality and police murder were directed at all police, calling for the death of police officers in response to the murder of two black men in Missouri and New York. They want to pretend that Mayor De Blasio and President Obama, in legitimatizing the concerns of the protesters by speaking to their concerns, also called for the death of police. The have to pretend all that because they never want to be questioned or criticized, even when one of them does wrong. And any and all questions or criticism of bad cop behavior is taken as a direct attack on all cops, the good ones and the bad. Perhaps because in their mind there is no good or bad behavior. There is only police behavior, and that cannot be good or bad. Perhaps whatever they do is to be considered right and just for the simple reason that it was a police officer doing it. That is fascism. And it is the only thing I can think of to explain the outrageous overreaction of a few on the right to the horrible and evil murder of two police officers in Brooklyn this weekend.
Saturday Open Thread [12.20.14]

Saturday Open Thread [12.20.14]

23 Comments
Politico: “Obama’s turnaround in recent weeks – he’s seized the offensive with a series of controversial executive actions and challenges to leaders in his own party on the budget — can be attributed to a fundamental change in his political mindset, according to current and former aides. He’s gone from thinking of himself as a sitting (lame) duck, they tell me, to a president diving headlong into what amounts to a final campaign – this one to preserve his legacy, add policy points to the scoreboard, and – last but definitely not least – to inflict the same kind of punishment on his newly empowered Republican enemies, who delighted in tormenting him when he was on top.” I am going to take much pleasure in that.

Friday Open Thread [12.19.14]

3 Comments
Roll Call says we might have a new governing coalition in Congress:
The hard right and the hard left ended up out in the cold last week — free to raise their fists and their profiles and make a ruckus, but ultimately powerless to stop the cromnibus. The deal represents a return — at least for a week — to the fabled establishment Washington dealmaking of yore, warts and all, like it or loathe it. It’s a return that could put the ‘do nothing’ label back on the congressional shelf — with Republicans and the president eyeing deals next year on trade and taxes, in addition to keeping the government open for business after four years of serial shutdown and default dramas.
No wonder Tom Carper has been annoying lately. He is living his dream. But such a coalition will be temporary, because we do live in polarized times, and living in polarized times is the normal condition of our politics. Brendan Nyhan calls the bipartisanship of the mid-20th century that Tom Carper dreams about “a historical anomaly.”

Thursday Open Thread [12.18.14]

2 Comments
Politico: “Obama feels liberated, aides say, and sees the recent flurry of aggressive executive action and deal-making as a pivot for him to spend the last two years being more of the president he always wanted to be.” “As of Wednesday, that includes doing what 50-plus years of predecessors couldn’t do in relations with Cuba, propelling a generational shift in American foreign policy that could bring down the last pillar of the Cold War. The Cuba announcement follows a post-Election Day sprint that included sealing a landmark climate agreement with China, shielding five million undocumented immigrants from deportation and reaching a deal that funds most of the government for nearly a year while protecting Obamacare and other top priorities.”

Wednesday Open Thread [12.17.14]

13 Comments
Jason330 wrote about Senator Elizabeth Warren's speech on the Senate floor last week, and the punditry is still talking about it, and the possibility, despite her refusal, that she will run against Hillary Clinton for President. John Cassidy at The New Yorker:
Right now, the Democratic Party has three leaders: President Obama, who is term-limited; Clinton, the establishment successor-in-waiting; and Warren, whose role is difficult to define, but also increasingly difficult to ignore. Of the three, there’s no doubt who is conveying the most consistent message and generating the most enthusiasm among liberal activists: it’s Warren, with her populist crusade against Wall Street and moneyed interests. [...] The speech she delivered on the floor of the Senate on Friday evening has been viewed more than a quarter of a million times on YouTube. Also on Friday, more than three hundred people who worked on the Obama campaigns in 2008 and 2012 signed a public letter urging Warren to enter the Presidential race. [...] In saying that she’s not running, Warren can continue to use her prominent position in the Senate to promote the causes she believes in. She can also wait to see if Clinton falters. If that doesn’t happen, Warren can eventually fall in line with the party establishment and help elect the first female President. But if Clinton does stumble badly, in Iowa or before, Warren would still have an opportunity to step in. With her name recognition and army of supporters nationwide, many of them young and tech-savvy, she could quickly raise money and put together an improvised campaign operation.
And we some good polling goodness, and some pretty horrible polling badness about Americans and torture.
Finally.

Finally.

35 Comments
It would appear that what began as an unexpected handshake between Cuban President Raul Castro and U.S. President Barack Obama back last year at Nelson Mandela's funeral may have turned into actual negotiations that resulted today in the release of an American prisoner in Cuba, and the start of talks between the two countries about the resumption of diplomatic relations.
The U.S. is starting talks with Cuba to normalize full diplomatic relations and open an embassy, according to U.S. officials. The expanded relationship would also open imports of Cuban cigars somewhat, according to a CNN report. U.S. President Obama, Cuba's Raul Castro plan to speak separately at noon ET about relations between the two countries. Obama plans to overhaul Cuba's policy while Cuba plans to free 53 political prisoners and to allow U.S. debit and credit cards, Dow Jones reported. This follows Cuba's release of American Alan Gross from a Cuban prison where he spent five years on espionage charges, NBC reported.