Wednesday Open Thread [1.28.15]

Apparently the Muslim in Chief has very little control over his heretic wife.. If Obama was a real Muslim observing Sharia law, he would have to stone her to death.

President Obama and the First Lady attended the funeral of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, a renowned misogynistic tyrant who oversaw some of the harshest and most oppressive conditions endured by women anywhere in the world. These conditions included and still include bans on voting and driving. When going out in public, women must be accompanied by a male relative and are expected to cover their heads and faces because modesty or whatever. Abdullah also kept three of his daughters locked up for more than a decade for speaking out for women’s rights. (They remain so.)

According to some very upset people in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, Michelle Obama was supposed to cover her head while visiting the country. To vent their outrage, they took to Saudi Twitter and used hashtags that translate to #Michelle_Obama_Immodest and #Michelle_Obama_Not_Veiled. (Apparently, Saudi Twitter is just as capable of fruitless outrage as U.S. Twitter is.)

Well, Michelle Obama gave zero, and let’s count ‘em — zero, zero, zero — fucks about what the Saudis wanted her to wear on her head. Not only that, instead of wearing black at the funeral, she wore a blue blouse and a festive-looking blue-sweater jacket of sorts that could double as a spring getup for a leisurely stroll through the National Arboretum before a boozy brunch.

Michelle Obama is a badass.

I love this:

Alabama’s first openly gay state legislator fired back on Facebook over the weekend, including a threat to expose the affairs of state officials, to comments made by Republican Party officials in the wake of a federal judge declaring the state ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional.
State Rep. Patricia Todd, D-Birmingham, said she was elated and in “shock” when the judge issued the order overturning Alabama’s same-sex marriage ban.

But after seeing comments by Republican officials, particularly from Alabama Speaker of the House Mike Hubbard, and seeing Attorney General Luther Strange’s efforts to get a stay of the judge’s orders, Todd fired off an emotional Facebook post making a threat to expose politicians’ dalliances.

These Republican officials of course say same sex marriage is an affront to family values and good Christian morality. So is sleeping around with mistresses, or in some cases, boy toys. I say don’t just make the threat, reveal all now. If Republicans want to act holier than thou, then they better be holier than thou.

Jeffrey Goldberg has a piece in the Atlantic that is a must read on just how much damage the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has done to Israeli-American relations. And given that Israel only exists because of America, it seems a really stupid and suicidal thing to do.

Israeli prime ministers […] have two main tasks. The first is to protect their country from existential threats. The second: To work very hard to stay on the good side of the president and people of the United States. Success in accomplishing this first task is sometimes predicated on achieving this second task.

Israel has been, for several decades, a bipartisan cause in Washington. Bipartisan support accounts for the ease with which Israeli prime ministers have historically been heard in Washington; it accounts for the generous aid packages Israel receives; and it also explains America’s commitment to maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge.

Netanyahu’s management of his relationship with Obama threatens the bipartisan nature of Israel’s American support. His Dermer-inspired, Boehner-enabled end-run has alienated three crucially important constituencies. First, the administration itself: Netanyahu’s estrangement from the Obama White House now appears to be permanent. It will be very difficult for Netanyahu to make the White House hear his criticisms of whatever deal may one day be reached with Iran.

Netanyahu has also alienated many elected Democrats, including Jewish Democrats on Capitol Hill. One Jewish member of Congress told me that he felt humiliated and angered by Netanyahu’s ploy to address Congress “behind the president’s back.” A non-Jewish Democratic elected official texted me over the weekend to say that the damage Netanyahu is doing to Israel’s relationship with the U.S. may be “irreparable.” […]

Why doesn’t Netanyahu understand that alienating Democrats is not in the best interest of his country? From what I can tell, he doubts that Democrats are—or will be shortly—a natural constituency for Israel, and he clearly believes that Obama is a genuine adversary. As I reported last year, in an article that got more attention for a poultry-related epithet an administration official directed at Netanyahu than anything else, Netanyahu has told people he has “written off” Obama.

[…] A sitting president cannot be written off by a small, dependent ally, without terrible consequences.

Should Netanyahu and Republicans in Congress cause the breakdown in Iranian negotiations, then Israel as a nation must be cut off from any and all aid from the United States until such time as 1) Benjamin Netanyahu is no longer Prime Minister and involved in Israeli politics and/or government in any capacity; and 2) the Likud and all other right coalition parties are out of government.

If the Israelis can mess with our politics, then it is perfectly suitable for America, the country who is bankrolling Israel’s very existence anyway, to determine Israeli politics.

Finally]. Senate Democrats should just block everything. It is what the Republicans did, so that means it must be a good idea.

Democrats are giving Senate Republicans a taste of their own medicine. The new minority is pulling out all the stops to stymie Sen. Mitch McConnell’s first bill as majority leader — legislation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, which faces a veto threat from President Barack Obama.

And in a possible sign of trouble to come for the Kentucky Republican, Democrats are having some success — even though plenty of their own members support the pipeline. A vote to end debate on the legislation failed on Monday afternoon, 53-39, falling short of the 60 votes required to defeat a filibuster.

In an extraordinary act of trolling, Democrats seized on McConnell’s promise of an open amendment process to clog up the legislation with more than 150 amendments, and then complained that McConnell tried to “shut down debate” by attempting to move to a final vote on Monday.

If Republicans can obstruct while in the minority, then you better believe the Democrats can as well. And finally some Democrats are realizing that. I wonder if Harry Reid has Tom Carper bound and gagged in some Senate office closet.

Americans want Congress to fix a potential Obamacare gap by a remarkable 64-27 percent margin if the Supreme Court invalidates subsidies in three-dozen states, according to a new poll released Wednesday.