US Politics: Check with a Court before you see your Doctor

[Shryke]

Well, Kerry went over there in an attempt to do something but he was ridiculed and insulted by nearly everyone so it's not like the US wasn't willing to try. It's just that Israel/PLO/Hamas basically told em to fuck off.

Cause they know he's got no leverage. The US government is locked into a pro-Israel stance by lobbying and powerful voting blocks. Israel rubs it in the US government's face fairly frequently.

[Fez]

Yeah, the Obama administration just loves the fact that Jordan's population just grew by 10%, over 600,000 people who aren't going home any time soon, in a country that already has a restive refugee problem. They also welcome the influx of people fleeing a Sunni-Shia sectarian conflict into Lebanon, because what could go wrong there?

Maybe there are some positives to this scenario I'm missing though.

No, you're right, I can't see how the US would be drawn into any kind of conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia, as it isn't like the US has any major strategic interests in the Persian Gulf.

Before ISIS was ISIS, it was a little known organisation called Al-Qaeda in Iraq (at one time it was lead by a guy called Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, but yeah, he was never of any interest to the US). While a bunch of them got run out of town in the Anbar Awakening they never fully left, and one of the first things Assad did was empty his jails of them. I would have thought getting some kind of resolution to the Iraqi civil war so that these guys wouldn't find a simmering cauldron of sectarian grievance to play havoc with might have been in US interests, but recent events appear to have vindicated this 'just let them kill each other, there's no way this could blow back on us' policy.

Speaking strictly in terms of national interests (and the assumption, which I don't particularly agree with, that whatever's good for Israel is also good for the US),

1) Why should the US care if Lebanon has a refugee crisis? If anything, that's good for the US, since it means Hezbollah will be too busy dealing with that to try anything with Israel. Jordan's trickier because the King is friendly enough, so it wouldn't do any good for the government to fall; but if the crisis drives him even further into our arms, that's fine.

2) Iran are enemies and Saudi Arabia are "friends," if they get into proxy fights or real ones, that only hurts them. And if it disrupts the flow of oil and causes demand for US oil and gas to skyrocket, bully for us then as well.

3) I wasn't talking about the Iraq situation at all, just the Syrian one, and I said that things got bad for the Syrian one when it spilled over into Iraq. But having Iraq spill into Syria was fine. Again, they're all in one place and they're fighting each other; and we're currently only targets when we're over there. If the Iraq situation hadn't gone so badly, and the army was properly trained and able to repel any Islamists trying to cross over from Syria; we'd have no problem.

The conflict in Syria ties up most of the major players in the region, and, before the recent events in Gaza, also helped draw people's ire away from Israel and towards al-Assad. It only started becoming a real problem for the US once one side started winning.

[snake]

Cause they know he's got no leverage. The US government is locked into a pro-Israel stance by lobbying and powerful voting blocks. Israel rubs it in the US government's face fairly frequently.

I still cannot understand how they manage to do that so often and get away with it. Hard to believe that lobbyists can be that successful. It's certainly a weird relationship.

[DanteGabriel]

I still cannot understand how they manage to do that so often and get away with it. Hard to believe that lobbyists can be that successful. It's certainly a weird relationship.

AIPAC is well funded and influential, the McJesusites who form a significant portion of the Republican base and their Congressional delegation believe that they can't be Raptured unless Israel does what it does, and anyone who criticizes the policies of the Israeli government gets smeared as an anti-Semite.

[Commodore]

Yuval Levin describes Obama's political strategy well

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/384008/legalization-edict-yuval-levin

In one sense, the approach the president is said to be contemplating does fit into a pattern of his use of executive power. That pattern involves taking provocative executive actions on sensitive, divisive issues to isolate people he detests, knowing it will invite a sharp response, and then using the response to scare his own base voters into thinking they are under assault when in fact they are on the offensive. That’s how moving to compel nuns to buy contraception and abortive drugs for their employees became “they’re trying to take away your birth control.” This strategy needlessly divides the country and brings out the worst instincts of people on all sides, but it has obvious benefits for the administration and its allies. Liberals get both the substantive action and the political benefit of calling their opponents radicals and getting their supporters worked up. Obama’s legalization of millions would surely draw a response that could then be depicted as evidence of Republican hostility to immigrants, rather than of Republican hostility to illegal executive overreach that tries to make highly significant policy changes outside the bounds of our constitutional order.

[snake]

AIPAC is well funded and influential, the McJesusites who form a significant portion of the Republican base and their Congressional delegation believe that they can't be Raptured unless Israel does what it does, and anyone who criticizes the policies of the Israeli government gets smeared as an anti-Semite.

That's just insane man.

[Shryke]

Yuval Levin describes Obama's political strategy well

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/384008/legalization-edict-yuval-levin

Or, you know, Obama wants to actually accomplish something and since Congress is utterly dysfunctional because of Republican obstructionism, he ends up doing so via executive power.

The reason this occurs on "sensitive, divisive issues" is because those are the issues Congress is the least functional on while frequently also being incredibly important.

[aceluby]

AIPAC is well funded and influential, the McJesusites who form a significant portion of the Republican base and their Congressional delegation believe that they can't be Raptured unless Israel does what it does, and anyone who criticizes the policies of the Israeli government gets smeared as an anti-Semite.

Or it's 'Palestinian propaganda'. When I get into these kind of debates w/ someone who can't understand how someone could criticize the Israeli govt I tell them "there are no 'good guys' in this scenario, so if you're trying to paint this as 'good guys' vs 'bad guys' it's obvious you don't understand the situation".

[lokisnow]

Regarding our Georgia Wishful thinking. Here's some data with shiny charts showing that our wishful thinking was wishful.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/07/28/a-purple-or-even-blue-georgia-not-yet/

[Horza]

I don't think we've "failed" in Syria; as you say, our intervention there has been quite limited. However, to the extent that we did interfere, this interference was not helpful. The same thing is true of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: didn't do much, didn't help.

Failure and incompetence were your choice of word...

Speaking strictly in terms of national interests (and the assumption, which I don't particularly agree with, that whatever's good for Israel is also good for the US),

1) Why should the US care if Lebanon has a refugee crisis? If anything, that's good for the US, since it means Hezbollah will be too busy dealing with that to try anything with Israel. Jordan's trickier because the King is friendly enough, so it wouldn't do any good for the government to fall; but if the crisis drives him even further into our arms, that's fine.

You've got this weird impression that civil wars are these neat, containable events with predictable outcomes that the US can comfortably direct and I have no idea where it comes from.

2) Iran are enemies and Saudi Arabia are "friends," if they get into proxy fights or real ones, that only hurts them. And if it disrupts the flow of oil and causes demand for US oil and gas to skyrocket, bully for us then as well.

...again: the US hasn't spent 35 years building its strategic presence in the Persian Gulf to watch the whole place go up in flames.

We're going to leave aside things like the actual consequences of a shutdown of Gulf oil transit on global commerce and the impact of 70s style price hikes on the spending power and strategic ambitions of people like Vladimir Putin for a second and just focus on the fact that one of these parties is an aspiring nuclear power, whose energy program the US has displayed a tiny bit of interest in steering away from nuclear weapon production and the other is already way too cozy with jihadi terrorists and Pakistan's nuclear establishment. Taking into account that 'wars are unpredictable and dangerous' concept I raised earlier I'm struggling to see why the US would find higher oil prices worthwhile compensation - especially as other economies have gotten even less oil-reliant, giving them a comparative advantage in this nightmare scenario.

3) I wasn't talking about the Iraq situation at all, just the Syrian one, and I said that things got bad for the Syrian one when it spilled over into Iraq. But having Iraq spill into Syria was fine. Again, they're all in one place and they're fighting each other; and we're currently only targets when we're over there. If the Iraq situation hadn't gone so badly, and the army was properly trained and able to repel any Islamists trying to cross over from Syria; we'd have no problem.

The conflict in Syria ties up most of the major players in the region, and, before the recent events in Gaza, also helped draw people's ire away from Israel and towards al-Assad. It only started becoming a real problem for the US once one side started winning.

And I'm telling you they've been interlinked conflicts since the Syrian civil war began and this neat little division you've sought to impose on them is a fantasy. The Iraq situation went 'badly' in part because of the Syrian situation, and vice versa. This is good example of how your whole "they're fighting over there, none of our business" thesis is crazy: civil wars spread. Civil wars also undermine states, so it's no good whinging about how the plan was flawless but for the collapse of the Iraqi army - the debilitating effects of a decade long civil war did a lot to bring that on. This is why the US isn't really keen on Middle East civil wars, even when only fought between groups it doesn't like.

[Altherion]

Well, Kerry went over there in an attempt to do something but he was ridiculed and insulted by nearly everyone so it's not like the US wasn't willing to try. It's just that Israel/PLO/Hamas basically told em to fuck off.

He was ridiculed and insulted because instead of negotiating with Israel/Hamas/PLO or at least with Egypt which neighbors both parties, he went to plan a cease-fire with Turkey and Qatar (and later with the same plus EU officials). Neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians are ordinarily prone to such rudeness towards high ranking American officials -- it serves absolutely no purpose -- but this act was so bizarrely undiplomatic that they had to say something.

[Shryke]

He was ridiculed and insulted because instead of negotiating with Israel/Hamas/PLO or at least with Egypt which neighbors both parties, he went to plan a cease-fire with Turkey and Qatar (and later with the same plus EU officials). Neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians are ordinarily prone to such rudeness towards high ranking American officials -- it serves absolutely no purpose -- but this act was so bizarrely undiplomatic that they had to say something.

:lol:

Actually they are. Especially in the past 6 or so years since the US administration and the current Israeli government don't get along.

[Horza]

Bibi was publically rooting for Mitt Romney all through 2012 out of his deep and enduring respect for the great instutition of United States democracy.

[ljkeane]

He was ridiculed and insulted because instead of negotiating with Israel/Hamas/PLO or at least with Egypt which neighbors both parties, he went to plan a cease-fire with Turkey and Qatar (and later with the same plus EU officials). Neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians are ordinarily prone to such rudeness towards high ranking American officials -- it serves absolutely no purpose -- but this act was so bizarrely undiplomatic that they had to say something.

I'm not really seeing the issue. Israel are pretty adamant they don't want the US talking directly to Hamas as that would grant them some legitimacy, Hamas aren't big fans of the new Egyptian regime and vice versa. In light of that speaking via Qatar and Turkey, two countries with reasonably good relationships with Hamas, seems pretty logical. It'd probably be better just to speak directly to Hamas but I imagine the outcry from Israel would be significantly worse.

[karaddin]

Yuval Levin describes Obama's political strategy well

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/384008/legalization-edict-yuval-levin

I know responding to you is a waste of time, but I feel the need to smack down one particular piece of bullshit every time it comes up. Just because right wing christianists decide to declare certain types of contraception as abortifacients in the face of all scientific evidence, that doesn't mean they are abortifacients. It's a piece of bullshit that they keep hoping if they declare it enough times it makes it true, but it doesn't. The fact that your supreme court has decided that religious belief can apparently apply to anything you want it to, not just the parts that are actually part of the religion, is also bullshit but doesnt make those beliefs any more true.

[1918me]

I don't know if anyone has seen this yet, but here's an entertaining illustration of how the impeachment grumbles have evolved:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/07/29/who-really-started-the-impeachment-scam-a-timeline/

[Summah]

The Annexation of Hawaii went pretty smoothly I guess

I take it you've never had a conversation with a Hawaiian sovereignty activist about this.

[DanteGabriel]

I know responding to you is a waste of time, but I feel the need to smack down one particular piece of bullshit every time it comes up. Just because right wing christianists decide to declare certain types of contraception as abortifacients in the face of all scientific evidence, that doesn't mean they are abortifacients. It's a piece of bullshit that they keep hoping if they declare it enough times it makes it true, but it doesn't. The fact that your supreme court has decided that religious belief can apparently apply to anything you want it to, not just the parts that are actually part of the religion, is also bullshit but doesnt make those beliefs any more true.

I was going to say something about Commodore posting an article that purports to decry needless divisiveness while going on about nuns being forced to purchase abortion drugs, but what's the point? Commododre's head isn't going to suddenly drop back out of his asshole.

[Commodore]

I know responding to you is a waste of time, but I feel the need to smack down one particular piece of bullshit every time it comes up. Just because right wing christianists decide to declare certain types of contraception as abortifacients in the face of all scientific evidence, that doesn't mean they are abortifacients. It's a piece of bullshit that they keep hoping if they declare it enough times it makes it true, but it doesn't. The fact that your supreme court has decided that religious belief can apparently apply to anything you want it to, not just the parts that are actually part of the religion, is also bullshit but doesnt make those beliefs any more true.

You can give it whatever name you want, their objection was to any means of artificially inhibiting/preventing the development of a fertilized egg.

Regardless, the SCOTUS decision did not rest on that determination.

[karaddin]

You can give it whatever name you want, their objection was to any means of artificially inhibiting/preventing the development of a fertilized egg.

Regardless, the SCOTUS decision did not rest on that determination.

But it's not doing that, that's the whole fucking point. They say it does, but it doesn't - it prevents fertilisation in the first place. It's not playing semantics, its you are making shit up then expecting it to be taken seriously.

And the SCOTUS decision allowed for a religious objection that was based in incorrect belief, the fact that it also allows for just not providing all contraception doesnt alter that it said "this bullshit belief you've got? all good, you can discriminate based on that".