US POLITICS SPRING 2011: Let's just call off this country.

As for nervous Democrats, who were split on the House floor yesterday, it’s worth noting that the National Republican Congressional Committee issued two kinds of press releases after the vote: one attacked Democrats who voted for the Republican bill, the other attacked Democrats who voted against the Republican bill. The Dems who sided with the GOP were smeared as cowardly hypocrites; the Dems who sided against the GOP labeled “brazen kings of debt” who want to “make the problem worse.”

See this is the kind of ground game the democrats just don't have. That's fucking politics right there, throwing it all at the wall and seeing what sticks. We all might think the cynical hypocrisy is disgusting, but it has a certain gravitas...

http://tv.yahoo.com/blog/tv-executives-admit-in-taped-interviews-that-hollywood-pushes-a-liberal-agenda--3086

is anyone actually surprised by any of that

Yahoo! was; it was the lead headline on their homepage

Hollywood, those free-market hating bastards. This also explains the disturbing lack of gun violence in American movies.

"people who make entertainment that take socially liberal positions are not fans of politicians that are socially conservative; HOW SHOCKING IT MUST BE A CONSPIRACY/AGENDA"

creative types more likely to be liberal, and people often hire others from similar backgrounds and with similar mindsets... I am shocked.

next you'll be telling me software engineering is overrun with literal-minded libertarians.

"New study shows police departments largely run by pro-authoritarians"

it's like I'm seeing things for the first time...

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/164199-gop-rolls-eyes-as-obama-talks-about-lower-taxes-than-reagan

By Molly K. Hooper - 06/01/11 01:21 PM ET

Republicans attending a White House meeting on Wednesday didn’t take kindly to President Obama telling them tax rates were higher during the Reagan administration.

GOP members engaged in a lot of “eye-rolling,” according to a member who was on hand to hear Obama, who invited House Republicans to the White House for discussions on the debt ceiling. The White House and Republicans are trying to reach a deal on spending cuts that could allow the $14.3 debt ceiling to be raised.

"Entertainment industry exec admits he hates poor people as much as right wingers."

many xposts - max i totally read those and the new yorker thing off the newsstand, i guess that's why the RS piece didn't seem like anything new

also the entire media has gone insane w/this anthony weiner story. and it IS weird.

but i think he did it on purpose for the LOLz. because now, every obsessive political blogger that had previously occupied many hours of his time investigating, photoshopping, pixelating, filtering and scrutinizing in great detail and writing post after post about images of obama's birth certificate and, before that, memos about w bush's service in the texas air national guard, are now putting those mad internet sleuthing and blogging skillz to good use examining in great detail..

While doing research yesterday, I found this clip. I didn't expect to hear this president mention the urgency ("with great reluctance") of raising the debt ceiling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGaN_qjih08

today's GOP base would think reagan (also nixon) was a liberal RINO wouldn't they.

no doubt

only if he polled poorly

Rep. Paul D. Ryan, architect of a Medicare overhaul aimed at slashing the cost of the popular entitlement program by reducing the government's open-ended commitment to seniors, accused Obama of "mis-describing" his plan and implored the president to ease up on the "demagoguery."

In reply, Obama said he was no stranger to cartoonish depictions, reeling off a list of conservatives' favorite attack points: "I'm the death-panel-supporting, socialist, may-not-have-been-born-here president," Obama said, according to people familiar with his remarks.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-gop-debt-20110602,0,7998900.story

Poor crybaby Paul Ryan

so shameless

Between that and the "eye-rolling" in response to him citing the facts about how taxes are lower now than under Reagan, this confirms that they are in a bubble. But it also confirms for me that Obama should take them on regularly to at least make it harder for them to live in their bubble

tribal fools like contemporary "conservatives" don't listen to reason though. the bubble just thickens in defense

I guess. But maybe he could at least wake up some of the mainstream media covering this.

And make his base happier

wealthy showbiz 'liberals' (ie Democratic donors) seem fully capable of hating poor ppl, it's the most commonplace bipartisan vibe. The ones waving at me and my fellow protesters on their way into Bill Clinton's 50th-birthday gala at Radio City Music Hall certainly seemed full of secure contempt.

i bet he's going to steadily get more outspoken, curmudgeon, as the campaign heats up. not saying it's good he'd be that strategic about timing his outrage, but it seems his habit

who – Morbs?

morbs is perma-outraged. no - owebama

don't quite get why Paul Ryan is so upset about people describing exactly what his plan actually does? does he really think handing seniors a voucher for medical costs will not leave a significant number of them destitute? how clueless can he be.

I guess he's realized that his grand medicare plan failed (even most conservatives oppose it), and is trying to position himself as someone that was misunderstood rather than as someone who had a catastrophically stupid idea. And if post-catastrophe image is the goal, he can pretty much just make up shit. With enough repetition and exposure at least a healthy chunk of people will believe him.

Obama comeback is lol

I think Ryan once worked for Jack Kemp who pushed all that supply-side nonsense way back when. I think Ryan may, in his bubble, believe (or rationalize) that handing seniors a voucher for medical costs is somehow better than a government panel determining costs of medicare items. But I am guessing that until now he had noone telling him that in the real world prices will go up for medical items and seniors won't be able to afford increased expenses with just your vouchers.

The question is whether Obama and the Dems will keep the pressure on Ryan and the Republicans especially with the media elite and other elites playing down the flaws of the Ryan plan. Come August Obama will probably want a bipartisan answer to the debt limit crisis and give in to some of the extortion from the Republicans.

like the sun will probably come up tomorrow

I am guessing that until now he had noone telling him that in the real world prices will go up for medical items and seniors won't be able to afford increased expenses with just your vouchers.

You can't be serious. He just doesn't think it's true--and I'm sure he has his evidence for it, flawed and incomplete as it may be.

i honestly don't think he cares. and when the chickens come home to roost, the GOP would simply blame Obamacare... and approx half of the country would believe them.

Speaking of finding support for a belief:

I figured people would question Boehner's list of economists who say something must be done about the deficit in handling the debt limit

http://politicalcorrection.org/blog/201106010003

Tea Party yahoos and 24 of the economists who signed both letters also signed a 2003 letter endorsing the Bush tax cuts as a "fiscally responsible" path to "more employment, economic growth, and opportunities for all Americans."

whose chickens? which coop?

ie if Ryan's voucher plan were to be instituted, inevitable health care increases would essentially leave seniors fucked. which i don't suspect keeps Ryan and his ilk up at night. because they can always kick up enough sand to make half the country believe it was zomg liberal "social engineering" or you know, somehow Clinton's fault.

or are you fucking w/ me

w/r/t what ryan 'really' believes it's probably a combination of things: markets are pretty well magical, and even if they aren't, they are morally superior than direct government provision of anything.

so if an old person's coverage costs exceed their new voucher (and they well, that's the whole money-saving point!) then A. some genius out there will (should?) come up with a means of delivering said coverage for something underneath the voucher AND B. well, the old person or someone in their family needs to pony up, and they should have been saving and planning better all along!

deeply held voodoo randianism means you can say -- and mean -- "everything is gonna be awesome" and "fuck you, tough shit" at the same time. one tends to poll better than the other tho.

Randians don't believe in anything but their own gift for fooling and suppressing the weak. We do share one thing: we scorn the intentional fallacy.

what pols really think is usually of no importance whatsoever

the question was 'doesn't he know this will ruin people's lives?' i don't think the answer is that hard to come up with!

people who aren't rich already aren't people

There's always a lot of rightwing anger displayed in comment sections of websites at those poor people who don't pay taxes. The nerve of them not making enough money to pay taxes. They must be living it up somehow.

the rich people who don't pay taxes, otoh

moody's: quit fucking around

WASHINGTON — Moody’s Investors Service warned on Thursday that it might downgrade the nation’s sterling credit rating if Congress does not increase the nation’s debt limit “in coming weeks,” putting a spur to sputtering talks between party leaders and the White House to reach agreement on a long-term deficit-reduction plan.

republicans - "yeah, quit fucking around!"
democrats - "yeah, quit fucking around!"
obama - "yeah, quit fucking around!"
public - "yeah, quit fucking around!"

keyboard cat - "yeah, quit fucking around!"

has congress ever really fought over the debt ceiling? i remember symbolic teeth-gnashing, but nothing like this

It seems like whenever republicans get a really good midterm election (1994, 2010) they immediately piss away all of the public goodwill they had gathered. I was honestly very surprised they didn't go through with another government shutdown a few months ago (has it even been that long?)

Now they're just threatening the stability of the entire global economy. Good show, GOP!

Oh yeah and making "kill medicare" the new presidential campaign litmus test... thats gonna really GOTV with seniors.

It seems like whenever republicans Democrats get a really good midterm election (2006, 2008) they immediately piss away all of the public goodwill they had gathered