Politics

Apparently the general public thinks that the federal government is handling the Texas oil spill in a manner that's even worse than its response to Hurricane Katrina. This is politically significant since Katrina is often named as a key factor in the downfall in George W. Bush's poll numbers in his second term. President Obama is up for re-election in 2012, but his party faces a tough mid-term election in less than five months. The article includes a link to a PDF showing charts and questionnaire sample. http://abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/Media/poll-bp-oil-spill-rated-worse-katrina-criminal-charges/story?id=10846473

Looks like carbon offsets have met their demise. They were notably missing from the President's speech last night. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38599.html Some observers also see this as a sign that there won't be a major climate bill this year: But the President does indicate a lack of patience on the issue: (I think the author meant to write "fair hearing" in the quote above!) And there is some reason to think a bill may still be forthcoming this year. Senators Kerry and Lieberman have co-authored a bill that cap emissions below 2005 levels by 2020, and are pressuring Harry Reid to schedule some floor time to debate the…

http://money.cnn.com/2010/04/29/news/economy/offshore_drilling_spill/ Oops. Giant oil spill, thanks to offshore drilling. Drill baby drill? I apologize, this is an inauspicious beginning of a post given my recent complaints against poorly-started threads when Fox is involved, but seriously... does the quality of rhetoric presented by the advocates of offshore drilling really demand a more complex response than "oops, real-world examples of the consequences"?

The House is working on a new Campaign Finance Reform law that has been in the works for some time, but leadership has had a tough time getting it passed. Well apparently a deal was reached today, by way of giving some interesting exceptions to the rule. The Humane Society and the AARP are pretty understandable, ideologically speaking. But the National Rifle Association? Seriously? Wow. Something tells me that won't play at MoveOn.org. Especially since MoveOn.org ISN'T exempt from the new rules. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/15/nra-remains-the-king-on-t_n_612981.html?igoogle=1

I'm afraid I just have one indirect link on this because it was a video item on local news that I caught just before we left our vacation spot, and I'm afraid to scour the news at the moment because I've tivo'd the US-UK soccer game and I don't want to spoil it! (Have at thee, former colonial oppressors!!!!!) This one is about Obama saying "no hard feelings" to the British and I'm kinda afraid to read it because I see soccer pics on the page. (lol) But the news item I heard was that it's become a bit of a row in the UK -- is that right? Something about some in Britain being upset that Obama has been so critical of BP? I was kinda surprised at that because I didn'…

This is more of an interesting observation than a big topic, but when thinking of the realities libertarians see and that progressives see it strikes me that both really are complaining about the same thing: the indisputable erosive force of human nature: When a libertarian goes into a private business to conduct their affairs, they are generally met with attentive helpful staff who you can tell just by talking to them are alert and well aware their job exists because they maintain a level of service able to complete with their competitors. They are to the point and don't waste time, and try to offer what will meet your needs while ensuring their own are met as well…

I've kinda asked similar questions before, but I think I can clearly define the real thing that bugs me with how we politically deal with debt, the economy and our budgets. 1) Republicans condemn out of control federal spending, saying how we are borrowing money to pay for programs we can't afford - Democrats defend programs because the money creates jobs and provides useful services. 2) Democrats try to cut anything Republicans like (say DoD) or raise taxes - Republicans defend how DoD creates jobs, provides useful services, and how rich people "don't sit on their wealth" but create jobs, provide useful services. Honestly, I can't see how the benefits and …

BP (BRITISH Petroleum) is a publicly traded equity on many exchanges including the NYSE (BP). In the past few weeks the Companies value (market cap) has dropped from around 200BUS$ to under 100B$. As both a foreign Company and one in the Oil/Gas Business, they are highly regulated by Congress and need permits to do much of anything, in addition to stages of any operation. Think about 2008, they did get out of the Retail Business in the US and any holdings along this area are to supply retailers. They do however employ around 30,000 people in the US. http://moneycentral.msn.com/companyreport?Symbol=BP To further advance a coming opinions, Royal Dutch Shell, also op…

so I cam here and tried to post in politics and it's NOT WORKING. do you have some liberal elite who can post in politics? that is WRONG just tonight I found out obama has not even met the CEO of BP and THE LAW says he is responsible for cleaning up the oil spill, not BP and there is a $75 mil limit on the money BP should spend at which point it's OBAMA whould should clean up the oil and OBAMA is not doing anything and this is a huge problem. but I guess there are a bunch of liberal elites here who do not want to talk about these topics

http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2007/01/08/01291.html I hope the 3 out of 4 of you that are due to die in the next 18 months enjoy the time you have left. And for speaking out against this sort of utter bullsh*t we get called deniers.

How long will it be before a parent telling a bedtime story to their children will be shocked to hear one of them ask: Mommy, what are holidays? The Mom replies: Where did you hear such a dirty word? But yes, there was a time when Holidays were a fun thing to do. Let me see!! There was, Christmas, Easter, Memorial Day, the 4th of July, Labor Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, and even more, but I cant remember their names at the moment. Some years back the government thought we were taking too much time off from work and decided we really didn't need Holidays, so "bingo" they're gone. Does anyone honestly believe this could happen?

On Friday Arizona's governor signed a new bill into law for that state which requires police to check an individual's citizenship status if they suspect that the individual is in the country illegally. Couple articles pulled at random from Google News: a liberal source a conservative source The state doesn't allow racial profiling, but some see this as a slippery slope to that very thing. The state already allows for checking when it has a suspect in custody, and it's not the only state that allows that (see second source above). From the LA Times article: The problem is numbers -- Federal enforcement is insufficient to deal with the problem. …

It's hard to find really good news sources on the Internet -- CNN's website usually makes me want to hit someone, for example ("do I really care about Tiger Woods?!??!"). I subscribe to the Times (of London, not New York) on my Kindle, but I think I could be getting more. What sites/devices/formats do you use to get your world news? Newspaper, web site, RSS feed, electronic gizmo...? Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedI might add that I'm specifically looking for global news, not just one country's politics and celebrity gossip. The Times is nice, but I think I could be getting more. I can get online access to the Economist through my parents, which…

According to Scott Sumner, Reganomics did produce the desired growth. http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=5164&utm Seems to suggest that Chicagoan reforms of the 80s did indeed promote growth in Regan and Thatcher administrations. I think, however, it depends on what metric you're using. Yes, GDP growth was up, but were the results destablized markets & income inequality? I've seen arguments both for and against, and I'm not sufficiently convinced either way. However, Sumner's point is that neoliberal convictions that classical liberal policies would not produce growth were dead wrong. I'm glad when economists are willing to make prediction…

I stumbled over this article at factcheck: http://factcheck.org/2010/05/does-immigration-cost-jobs/ In short, they provide evidence that immigration (legal or illegal) do not cost jobs and provide economic benefits. See also http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/bp255/ Using this as basis I would like to ask the question whether anyone has more data on costs of immigration, ideally separating illegal with legal ones. Anyone found peer-reviewed publications on this matter? Just by skimming some articles I got the impression that most articles that argue the inverse tend to be from activist groups rather than economists. But I may be rather wrong on this one. M…

I don't know how to do a poll, but in your honest opinion; how is President Obama doing in running our country? I'm a "Hill Billy" 'tweener, so there's no offense taken one way or another. And if my question is inappropriate, would a moderator please kick it to the curb!!

Since I don't know how to do a poll, I was just wondering; in your honest opinion, how is President Obama doing in running our country? I'm a "Hill Billy" tweener, so there's no offense taken one way or another. If my question is too provocative, I hope an administrator will kick it to the curb before anyone can reply. Otherwise, can we turn it into a poll?

Not the new one (yet). This is a recent but older Arizona law in which the state imposed more stringent penalties against employers of illegal aliens than what federal law does. The Obama administration's position is that it usurps their authority to enforce immigration law. The Court was originally asked to hear the case last fall, but it has not replied to the petition yet. This new filing today, and the particular way of phrasing their position, suggests that they wish the court to consider the case in light of the new law as well. If the court agreed with them then the new law could also be struck down, perhaps even by the same ruling. I think this is an in…

ABC News ran an interesting piece today about how "emergency" spending has exceeded $230 billion since February. Why is this date range significant? Because in February Congress and the President passed PAYGO, which was designed to stop deficit spending. Ah, but it's emergency spending, right? Or is it? Even many of the items that seem urgent (like highway construction in light of our declining infrastructure) don't sound like "emergencies", at least in the sense of not having to pay for them. Just charge it to the credit card, right? It's not as if we really need that credit line for anything, and it doesn't hurt, so just rack up some more debt. …

Interesting article in the Washington Post today about how Bill Clinton's continued popularity and Senator Blanche Lincoln's struggle to get re-elected in Arkansas put a spotlight on the ongoing struggle between centrists (edit: meant to say "moderates") and progressives in the Democratic party. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/29/AR2010052902329.html Not particularly profound, but interesting stuff, and I think worth a read.

I wonder sometimes how these stories make it up the chain to appear on Google News, but hey, their algorithm has sure produced some juicy material for SFN Politics over the years. At any rate, this story is about a bar in (if I read this right) Hamilton, Ontaria, Canada. The bar has the amusing name "The Honest Lawyer", and inside the men's bathroom were some mouth-shaped urinals, with big, red, glossy lips. The urinals were there for about three years, according to the owner, but for about the last year an activist group called the "Woman Abuse Working Group" began protesting the urinals, saying that they were linked to violence against women, that it's "no joke t…

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Politics/national-debt-soars-past-13-trillion/story?id=10748382 The National Debt has just surpassed $13,000,000,000,000, up from $10.7 trillion when Bush left office, increasing some $2.3 trillion under Obama. For comparison, the debt increased $4.97 trillion under Bush's 8 years in office. The national debt is simply out of control and I really have no suggestions at this point. It seems at this point America will have an incomprehensibly large national debt for quite some time. Personally I think the government should sue Wall Street financials who defrauded the entire country in order to recoup the TARP money the financials…

first George Galloway, and now this? i mean wtf? and btw, it's been quite some time since i was planning to post this, it's not something that just turned up;)

It just boggles the mind the reasoning people will stoop to sometimes in an effort to uphold a single, narrowly-defined ideological principle. In this case, the allegation is that the ACLU is involved in a concerted and deliberate effort to photograph CIA agents and provide those images to terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why? Defenders say it's to protect their "right" to know who their potential torturers are so that they can avoid them. No, really. And yet the left went bonkers over the outing of Valerie Plame, the worst-kept secret in DC. Do you guys really wonder why conservatives get frustrated with liberals? Seriously? Some articles for ba…

Bascule asked recently why I haven't posted more examples of liberal commentators doing what Glenn Beck does. The answer isn't because they aren't doing it, it's because I'm not obsessed with finding such examples. But I did happen to catch a few minutes of AC360 tonight while puttering around the house, and I was rather shocked at what I saw. Anderson Cooper 360 is touted as "CNN's premiere nightly news program", not commentary! (you can see this on the page immediately below the video linked below) (Does Fox News do this too, now -- calling their commentary/entertainment programs "news"? Yeesh!) I found a video on the CNN web site that contained most of t…