Book of the Month

Shuts and Failures

by Michael Maiello

dijamo's picture

And you get a Pony! And you get a Pony!!!

by dijamo 7/2/2012 - 4:05 pm

According to ongoing discussions with Obama aides and associates, if the president wins a second term, he plans to tackle another American war that has so far been successful only in perpetuating more misery: the four decades of The Drug War.

Read More http://www.gq.com/news-politics/blogs/death-race/2012/07/exclusive-in-his-second-term-obama-will-pivot-to-the-drug-war.html#ixzz1zUuYOFqI

Read the full article at http://www.gq.com/news-politics/blogs/death-race/2012/07/exclusive-in-his-second-term-obama-will-pivot-to-the-drug-war.html

The movie sounds interesting, but Ambinder totally fails to back up his lead and his headline. "According to ongoing discussions with Obama aides and associates ... ?" That's like saying, "Sources say ... " Useless, piss-poor journalism. Actually, NOT journalism at all.

by acanuck 7/2/2012 - 4:23 pm

It seems to me pretty apparent that it's a response to the polling of unenthused, unemployed up to their necks in student debt youth, but with no one in the named in the administration that can be held accountable if Obama is reelected.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/02/us/politics/economy-cuts-into-obamas-youth-support.html?hpw

The micro-segmenting of the progressive base continues apace.

by dijamo 7/2/2012 - 4:37 pm (re: acanuck)

OK, but my only point is that Ambinder is asking us to just take his word on this. Sorry, no.

by acanuck 7/2/2012 - 4:54 pm (re: dijamo)

In a little known change to the Federal Rules of Evidence, Marc Ambinder was recently made an exception to the rule against hearsay.  The whole piece is admissible in federal court as direct evidence of what he claims.

by Articleman 7/2/2012 - 9:03 pm (re: acanuck)

But your point should have been "Ambinder is asking to take his shite poorly concocted writing as a real serious article".

Drug laws were invented to keep down blacks, rather than part of the rush to prohibition in the 1920's?

"even though the two forms of cocaine are still pretty much the same goddamned thing" - is he kidding? The effect of crack cocaine & snorting coke produces the same feeling & behavior?

Drug Gang Warfare has come about because the price for drugs makes it attractive? Wow, we haven't known that since... forever.

Returning vets are game for drugs because of all our Vietnam movies, so it has to be like that coming back from Afghanistan. Deer Hunter II, Coming Home II....

No mention of what Obama's DoJ and IRS have done in the 3 1/2 years he's been in office - rather funny. Or not, if you've been arrested and harrassed.

Oh, but don't forget to slap down those hippie pro-pot guys, Marc - that, like Obama's snide comments on the subject, show you're Washington DC serious.

​And you can't be serious without waterboarding.

(President's actual recent statements on the topic here. Don't expect a sea change. Wanted to find his earlier dissing of progressive medical marijuana activist as a stoner, but my Google finger got lazy)

 

by PeraclesPlease 7/3/2012 - 1:58 am (re: acanuck)

But thank you for pointing us to an excellent issue of GQ.  :)

by Articleman 7/2/2012 - 9:04 pm (re: dijamo)

Obviously you think this is just micro-segementing pandering to progressives in the hopes of getting elected.

But your article points out:

But from his days as a state senator in Illinois, Obama has considered the Drug War to be a failure, a conflict that has exacerbated the problem of drug abuse, devastated entire communities, changed policing practices for the worse, and has led to a generation of young children, disproportionately black and minority, to grow up in dislocated homes, or in none at all.

So based on your article, it would seem to be a legitimate claim that Obama might look to see what can be done from the WH to deal with the Drug War and how the federal government responds to it.

I don't see the damage done that some in the WH are leaking info that the Drug War isn't going well and reform is needed.

My guess is that Romney's administration would be to just lock more up, with longer sentences.

[I can't help but note that the article points out that drug offenders released from prison can't vote because of the great progressive President Clintion]


 
by Another Trope 7/2/2012 - 5:10 pm

LOL! Perhaps instead of focusing on dissecting the nuance of everything until there is no meaning left, you might want to start by dissecting things like punctuation and sentence structure.  Am to lazy to copy the quote, but the article says drug offenders barred from Public housing due to President Clinton, not President Clinton barred them from voting.  How does a president impact the right of felons to vote anyway since voting laws are implemented by individual states anyway?

Moving on, Clinton's position was that in order to create safer environments in public housing, to remove known convicted drug dealers offenders as well as those convicted of violent crimes, gang activity.  And his position was in the context of providing safe neighborhoods and housing for the vast majority of the law abiding citizens in public housing who had to live with drug dealing and usage in the stairways, menacing gang activity and to reduce the amount of violence in those areas. I grew up in a neighborhood greatly improved by Clinton's efforts, though not in the projects themselves.  There is an appeal process available after 3 yrs release, so it's not necessarily a lifelong ban.  He caught all sorts of hell about it from progressives, advocates for the poor etc but he CAMPAIGNED on it, and progressives had a chance to make their views known at the voting booth.  None of this wait until you elect me and then I'll reveal my true intentions Obama bullshit.

 

by dijamo 7/2/2012 - 9:20 pm (re: Another Trope)

More detail on Clinton's one strike and you're out of public housing proposal:  http://clinton4.nara.gov/WH/New/other/challenge.html

 

imagine that, a president with actual principles/beliefs that you could agree or disagree with but at least you knew what he stood for.

by dijamo 7/2/2012 - 9:26 pm (re: dijamo)

I could provide a list of things Obama has achieved.  I can't imagine how much you would be gushing about how Clinton saw the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or extended benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees, and so on.  If Clinton does something non-progressive, it is because he has principles/beliefs, but if Obama does something non-progressive, it is because he is evil coporate-hack. 

Again, I don't see Clinton as some awful president.  But your constant assertion that Obama lacks actual principles/beliefs - unlike Clinton - just makes you an hack with some axe to grind in my opinion.

by Another Trope 7/3/2012 - 10:57 am (re: dijamo)

Curiously, (Hillary) Clinton did extend benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees, which she supported during confirmation hearings and affirmed shortly after assuming SoS:

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=404858

http://www.feministlawprofessors.com/2009/05/hillary-clinton-pushes-defense-dept-on-dont-ask-dont-tell/

That was over 3 years ago. What isn't clear is why if Obama thought DOMA unconstitutional he had his DoJ defend it for 2 more years, and never took the step of contesting it in the courts, or even took aggressive action once a court declared it unconstitutional in February. Instead, he's left it to the discretion of Congress to change it. And that's still not fait accompli as you make it sound - Lieberman has to push the domestic partners version, and at the end of May the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed DOMA as unconstitutional. Fortunately with the DoJ not defending it this time. So if SCOTUS refuses to review, it might be all over, but most likely they'll have a say.

Re: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, I don't know what they've done, but I know that HAMP didn't bail out many mortgage owners as intended, and the DoJ stood by and allowed millions of robosignings and illegal foreclosures/repossessions to take place, and then negotiated a nice soft deal for the illicit mortgage industry.

So did this "Financial Protection Bureau" protect? Or is it another bit of Orwellian speak?

Oh. My. God. The coin just dropped. That's the board that Obama nominated Elizabeth Warren for and then dropped her while making out-of-session appointments for several other positions. So basically the one person who would have run the board to protect consumers, and he let her be shunt out of town. Brilliant. Another head feint to progressives without any actual results.

AT, as usual, just putting a sign "PONY" on a pile of shit is enough to bring your support. Congratulations.

by PeraclesPlease 7/3/2012 - 3:17 pm (re: Another Trope)

The Obama & Drug War stuff seems more campaign fodder / building up his path to enlightenment stuff.

Obama's DoJ increased its medical marijuana raids even where medical marijuana has been approved by state referenda and has popular support ~70%. Why exactly is he doing that if he's so concerned about Drug War overreach?

Just more empty words. I suppose he'll hold a heart-rendering tete-a-tete soon to declare he's "evolved" on the issue just in time for pot smokers to vote for him.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/06/pot-activists-threaten-obama-2012_n_1190301.html

by PeraclesPlease 7/3/2012 - 1:31 am (re: Another Trope)

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