We’re eleven days from a government shutdown, and apparently the teabaggers are maneuvering Congress into something like a fiscal suicide pact. The Right wants budget cuts that would shoot the U.S. economy in the foot. And, as I understand it, if they don’t get their cuts they’re threatening to refuse to raise the debt ceiling, which would be shooting the U.S. economy in the head.
And no, the Dems are no good at negotiation. And are expert at the Republicans the “bad cop/insane cop” act. But I’d also guess that only a small percentage of the voting public understands what is going on in Washington, and I blame media for that.
By design, or by ignorance, or both, the GOP is determined to kill what little recovery we had going on. Then they can blame President Obama and take back the White House in 2012.
Update: See “The Austerity Delusion.”
Ah, the confidence fairy. She is probably dressed in pink and green tulle, FM shoes, hair artistically disheveled and a bandeau top. The iPod earphones snake prominently across her chest, and she holds a Blackberry in one hand.
It just doesn’t do much for me.
Republicans are by far the better political players.
-Little Boots, with really no leg to stand on, fought like a cornered rat, brought in paid mercenaries into FL, and got his Daddy’s SCOTUS to put him in office.
-Huge crowds protesting the Iraq “War?” Damn the protesters, full speed ahead!!!
-Questions in key states about the results from electronic voting machines, and allocation of them? No problemo! Kerry and Edwards walk away!
-Open gifts to credit card companies? When you get the highest credit scores, we’ll listen to you.
-Eliminate Habeus Corpus? Lock the SOB’s up, and throw away the key.
-Take troops out of Iraq? FUCK THAT! Surge, baby, SURGE!
-People warning about the Housing Bubble? Pish, tosh!
What did all of these have in common?
The people didn’t want any of them.
Now, with the following coming:
Education cuts
SS cuts
Medicare cuts
Medicaid cuts
Police cuts
Fire Fighter cuts
Cuts to the elderly
Stifling Labor
Stifling womens reproductive rights
Cuts to blah, blah, blah…
What’s in common here?
The people don’t want them.
But, here again, sit the Republicans, with no aces, no face cards showing, and only a pair of deuces, going up against the Democrats with a straight showing, ace high, but down.
And what do the Democrats do?
Well, FOLD, of course, SILLY!!!
I can hardly wait until the Democrats evolve enough to have as much spine as a jellyfish.
A vote for a Democrat is now a vote to die slowly. A vote for a Republican is like Daffy Duck shouting, “SHOOT ME NOW!!!!”
GOD, HAVE SOME COJONES, DEMOCRATS!!!!!!!!!!!
Gutless bastards…
The GOP and the teabaggers are patriots no more. Probably never were. Their actions are going to permanently hurt this country. I go to bed glad I never had children and glad I am 65. I just history will write the truth about these treasonous hypocrites.
“And no, the Dems are no good at negotiation”
The Dems aren’t negotiating at all, they are capitulating, as they have since Reagan’s days. The Dems are on orders to never seriously fight the move to the far-far right.
Obama even pre-capitulates for the Congressional Dems!
OT, Joe Bageant (Dear Hunting with Jesus) died (of cancer). Eulogy here.
A generation of home shooling and the right-wing war on science is now catching up with reality.
“China ‘to overtake US on science’ in two years”.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12885271
“China to overtake US on science in two years”
Yeah, but we’ll kick their ass in Bible study.
Moonbat, thanks for the “heads up” about Joe.
Al-cancer claims another. If we spent as much time and money battling cancer as we spend chasing specters through the deserts, propping up bad dictators, and rebuilding after “creative destruction ” projects, cancer would be but a distant memory.
Fred Reed’s gave a great eulogy. I love Reed’s style, ‘reminds me of better times long past.
Cancer has claimed so many of my friends and family; a very good friend in California is battling cancer as I type this. He is going (soon) in for a second round of chemo.
Six of the twelve guys I worked with as a commercial diver in California have died from cancer.
All smoked cigarettes, besides that, we all lived and breathed the same.
There may be a darker strategy by democrats. Turnout. IMO, a lot of potential voters who know where to sign up for benefits have never registered to vote. Teabaggers are energized and motivated. A significant portion of the poor who the democrats want to protect expect that benefits will be there. Automatically.
It’s cynical but after they loose their lifeline, political agnostics will be easier to register. There is one non-negotiable point which democrats must refuse. A superiority to raise taxes. If teabaggers install that provision in their brief historical moment of popularity, they will extend their rule forever from a tiny minority.
Agreed. That’s largely why California seems permanently screwed, IMO.
Teabaggers always strike me as self centered children inside, angry about things they didn’t understand and never tried to understand. In most cases they are angry about things they imagine to be true, things that fit their childish paranoiac vision of the world. At the townhalls they were playing with matches, now the thrill has worn off and they want to play with fire. As for my rural, fundamentalist, teabagger neighbors. They are not stupid people, but they haven’t a clue (IMO) what the consequences of their ignorance might be, and it’s not going to be pretty.
The core of most good con-games lies in this: I can always convince you that you are smarter than I am. If there is another player in the game, I can convince you that you are smarter than he is as well. The “Puppetmasters” are confidence men of consumate skill. They have taken advantage of the mindset of a certain demographic. They have exploited the insecurity, the ignorance, the anti-intellectualism and the prejudices of people trying to maintain a precarious social and economic balance. To people looking for a little respect and trying not to fall into the pit of financial ruin, they offer an appealing illusion. But, they will pick their pockets and leave them ruined, and it will take them years to realize the deception, if indeed, they ever do.
This shutdown is serious stuff. I probably don’t understand economics much better than your average teabagger. But, I know that I don’t know, and I do actually try to understand. When the unravelling comes, if it comes, the common wisdom will be, as always, that “the liberals did it”. Lets, understate the case and say that there will be a lot of unpleasantness. The survivalists and endtimers will be convinced that their Biblical drama is unfolding.
I am heading off to Florida tomorrow. If the shutdown happens and Ezra Klein is right, I’ll probably return, like nearly everyone else, to a life’s worth of saving and planning in ruins. If we escape by the skin of our teeth, I suppose we should count ourselves lucky.
I had the good fortune to trade a few emails with Joe Bageant. He really was a down to earth guy, judging from our brief encounter. We discussed our ex-pat fantasies and he was able to make good on his. He talked about how he made cheese when he lived on the indian reservation and how he made a cheese pressing device out of an old car jack. He asked if he could come an visit to check out our goat cheese. He also had a lot of curiousity about delivering babies. We traded phone numbers, but somehow it never happened. That was about the time he left for Belize.
My favorites are his blog posts. His posts from Winchester struck me as being like a modern day “Canterbury Tales”, with a boiling sea of humanity erupting out of great, unforgetable characters. But, the characters always seemed like someone you had kind of known, or had seen often. Suddenly, hidden parts of their lives and situations would come out and you could believe that you knew them better.
I know, I’m just just scribbling disjointed memories. I get that way when I’m sad.
If the Republicans succeed in wrecking the country, it’s time for the old persons’ commune to come about. Old people, poor people and working people will have to find some way to get by. We can call on Joe’s spirit to see us through.
Well, I better walk the fences so the animals don’t escape and wreck the neighborhood and the coyotes don’t kill my older does.
Gotta see this article by Glenn Greenwald, it includes some excerpts of rare interviews of the Koch Bros, as it appeared in The Weekly Standard:
I always knew the rich were different – and I’ve known some wealthy conservative weenies – but these two guys occupy a class by themselves. The scale of their self-delusion is staggering.
moonbat,
Yeah, you gotta love the Koch Brothers.
If their Daddy hadn’t left them a fortune, these two dim bulbs would be piss poor, unmarried brothers living together on a 5 acre lot in the back woods somewhere, dry-humping their goat when they tired of doing one another.
I have an idea:
I suggest that people and their families making over $1 million a year have to live at least a year with living on minimum wage, and a hovel to live in. And no cheating, and using your savings. If you’re found doing that, all of your savings becomes public money.
And they have to continue living like that until they agree that over 50% of their money goes back in the kitty for the benefit of everyone in society.
Not only wouldn’t I piss on the Koch-sucker Brothers if they were on fire, to help put it out, I wouldn’t eat them when they’re finally roasted. They’re sure to give you indigestion, at best, and something deadly, at worst. Vermin carry some nasty vermin!
Dear god, Mr. Greenwald, never ever link me to the Weekly Standard again! It’s pure Alice-in-Wonderland over there. Example:
[U]nlike many billionaires, the Koch brothers espouse classical liberal economics: They advocate lower taxes, less government spending, fewer regulations, and limited government.
“Classical liberal economics”?! Um, no, dear dishonest Weekly Standard writer, you actually mean libertarian… even though you’re pretending otherwise with all your might.
Gaaah! It all hedges on the stupidity of the receiver, doesn’t it? And it works, this foul scam of theirs, time and again.
Congress, collectively it would seem, seems determined to destroy this country’s credit rating. Should they get their, apparent, wish, and we are forced to declare bankruptcy to partially wipe out our debts but of course make any future borrowing near to impossible, corporations (like the oil industry) and the ultra-wealthy will see all their presently enjoyed government subsidies, gone. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch. (What does Congress think we’ve been running on for the last 30 years? One-half a trillion dollars/year borrowed money from mostly foreign sources, that’s what.)
On the other hand, maybe all the nabobs will move to Bahrain and all the mega-corporations will move to China (?) and we who are left can all settle back and enjoy life – simple, granted – but certainly more enjoyable than the asylum we’re presently inhabiting.
Every decision has its consequenses, and if the repugs shut down our govt., the American people will have to indure those consequenses Will the repugs have to indure those? Hell no, or they wouldn’t be doing it. The only way to make them pay for their bs, is to get their asses out of govt. by voting Democrat.
I made the comment about the “one non-negotiable point…a supermajority to raise taxes”.
Today I read at Crooks & Liars. That’s in the Balanced Budget Amendment which is going to be the cornerstone of GOP demands. Or they will refuse to raise the debt ceiling. (Notice the advertising of the Chinese discussing the demise of the US? This is as well orchestrated as any military campaign I have ever read about. ) But to return to the supermajority, it’s in the Balanced Budget Amendment. The BBA caps spending at 18% of GDP and requires a two-thirds supermajority of BOTH houses to override. I hate being right.
The impact of an 18% of GDP cap? It’s about a 33% reduction, but almost a 50% cut net. I quote from C & L today.
“Taking interest on the debt and defense spending off the table (as most Republicans insist) means cutting over half of everything else the federal government does. And that includes Social Security and Medicare.”
It’s magnificent. By the time Seniors realize how badly they are screwed with savage cuts to THEM, it will be too late. Making any exceptions to the 18% cap will require the impossible supermajority.
“SHOOT THE HOSTAGE!” Classic line from the movie ‘Speed’. The hero does just that – shoots his partner in the leg. The bad guy can’t carry the wounded victim/hostage and releases him.
As I look at the Balanced Budget Amendment, with the supermajority clause, I think that we need to do the same – now! Give in completely to the demand for 100 BILLION in cuts THIS YEAR with the stipulation that the GOP decide and distribute the cuts. Those cuts, though draconian, are only 10% of what the BBA will be. And the BBA will be a bitch to remove. Decades, perhaps. So shoot THE HOSTAGE, under duress. The injury the teabaggers do will energize voters who have never voted.
If we don’t change the game now – we will lose.