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

sadly it is!

really good doctor i think you're not cynical enough

xp lol

tbh pretty much the entirety of life experience is a game with varying levels of stakes

http://kidsdungeonadventure.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/chutes-and-ladders.jpg

every way you look at it you lose

A game of thrones, if u will

well... yes
most people enjoy playing though, which is why we don't usually see millions of people all intentionally committing suicide

bread & third-way circuses

less bread coming soon

i'm not the only one that read "three-way circuses" right

I think approaching politics with the 'game' mindset instead of 'what do I consider to be morally right and why are people in power not doing that, always' sorta explains the ilx politics divide. for the most part we don't argue about actual policy.

but I mean even in democracies w/ sane, reasonable, moral people in power, politics still operates entirely as a game! there's always going to be interest groups w/ different ideas, votes to be counted and traded.

but that's been reduced in the US system to a binary -- see, the PBS Newshour has David Brooks AND Mark Shields

which has killed our civilization, and this thread

oh for fuck's sake

we've had binaries since... well since before we've even had a country. every country has binaries!

and once they stood for different things

but if you are confident that the two-headed monster has covered the spectrum of appropriate/plausible responses to our apocalyptic problems, well, it's gr8 to be you.

i'm not confident of that, no

what? fuckin everybody in this country is underwater

the post tries for zing but gets this totally wrong

/The newcomers have helped press a simple GOP message about the public debt: The country has too much and must reduce its burden immediately. These documents seem to show that, in their private lives, some freshmen took a more nuanced view: Debt could be useful, when put toward furthering ventures in real estate, farming or other businesses./

I think it's a fair critique because of the constant repetition of the talking points about how government should be run like a business, a family has to balance the budget and can't keep spending, blablabla. It's really common to hear arguments from politicians/pundits to the effect that government and a family budget are not dissimilar.

right, so the post should run with the idea? i mean, what's the counter-argument there, "these guys are deep in the red, so we might as well let the government do the same?" it's basically the same!

maybe i've been reading too much brad delong, but the real hypocrisy the post should point out is that these guys would be doing themselves a huge favor if they pushed the appointment of 'dovish' fed governors / pushed the fed to actually hit a 2% inflation target.

if indebted gop reps continue to support the gop voodoo economic policies that guided the country while said reps went into debt, then i think 'the post' has a point

THAT ISN'T THE POINT THE POST WAS MAKING THOUGH

poor post

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2011/images/06/16/t1larg.pawlenty.tweet.jpg

nice try loser

so...guess it's just romney vs perry at this point

Is Perry really going to enter?

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/06/obama-and-boehner-accuse-each-other-of-flip-flopping-on-libya-and-war-powers-act.php?ref=fpb battle of the War Powers Act flip-floppers

i kind of hope he does

i have kind of missed his batshittery since leaving texas

i am not really someone who cares about how macho his politicians are but god tim pawlenty looks like A HUGE WUSS does he see this??

Pawlenty-is-a-wuss was cemented when he cut off his mullet

but I mean even in democracies w/ sane, reasonable, moral people in power, politics still operates entirely as a game! there's always going to be interest groups w/ different ideas, votes to be counted and traded.

I don't have an opinion on this but it seemed like a good time to post this underrated jam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IqxX4JsoYk

featuring a favorite rhyme of recent-ish years

you cross him? it's mayhem
you owe him? just pay him

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKb9XQ39-zc

if we're doing the musical allusion thing now

she's... so... funkular

he's...so...mulletular

makes me wanna start a Peter Gabriel vs. Li'l Eazy poll but if you look up "forgone conclusion" in the OED it's actually a link to a Peter Gabriel vs. Li'l Eazy poll

the most hilarious thing to me about american political coverage is how obsessed everyone is with manners. like you'll get a good 20 minutes of a cable show discussing whether someone is "attacking" someone else. "was that an attack, john?"

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/90059/gop-rick-santorum-best-friend-defense

a brief history of 'some of my best friends are x'

M. Gerson (former Bushie who writes a column for the W. Post) on the Biden negotiations with the Republican hostage-takers on the debt limit. Surprise surprise-- the Republican "red line" is not crossed, but not sure what's in this for Dems ("perhaps...") or for the economy in the short term:

For the first time, Senate Republicans describe to me the outlines of a possible deal: a package of immediate and specific budget cuts; budget caps reaching out five years to reassure conservatives that tough budget decisions will be made in the future; Medicare reforms short of the House approach; no tax increases — a Republican red line — but perhaps additional revenue from the elimination of tax expenditures.

crossposting this from the abortion thread just because it's so fuckin...

ready to be really, really offended?

http://images.floridaindependent.com/2011/06/Radiance-Foundation1.jpg

details here

this has been an ongoing tactic for a while but this is really stepping up the "I can't believe you're actually saying that" quotient

no tax increases — a Republican red line — but perhaps additional revenue from the elimination of tax expenditures

uh

M. Gerson (former Bushie who writes a column for the W. Post) on the Biden negotiations with the Republican hostage-takers on the debt limit. Surprise surprise-- the Republican "red line" is not crossed, but not sure what's in this for Dems ("perhaps...") or for the economy in the short term

it seems to me a part of this deal is that republicans are supporting eliminating some tax breaks which effectively means higher taxes but need a way to say it differently for public consumption?

no tax increases — a Republican red line — but perhaps additional revenue from the elimination of tax expenditures

I don't know what this means

yeah it means that taxes will go up, but theyre not "tax increases"

so, thats whats in it for democrats

im sure its a "bad deal" but it remains to be seen if its "really bad" or "could be worse"

i could ask this anywhere, but this is where i'm most interested in the effects, so:

what happens if (when) greece defaults?

some of em are not tax increases, but the expiration of freebies (ie, tax increases to the corporate class)

Coburn was calling em "revenue increases" yesterday

lol okaaayyy

ideological purity is such a funny thing

It's like when they voted yesterday on getting rid of the ethanol tax credit.

An interesting subtext to this week’s Senate votes on the ethanol subsidy is the internal debate going on among conservatives over whether eliminating the tax credit was in effect raising taxes.

That’s the argument that Grover Norquist, chairman of Americans for Tax Reform, had been making to Republicans.

Aides to the chief Republican critic of the subsidy, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, said the issue was settled on Tuesday when Republicans voted en masse to kill the 45-cent-per-gallon tax credit for ethanol. Coburn didn’t get the 60 votes he needed to cut off debate on his proposal that day because Democrats voted against him for procedural reasons.

But on Thursday, just 14 Republicans voted for preserving the tax credit and all of them were from the Midwest – or from Mississippi (Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker.). The other 33 Republicans all voted for killing the credit.

However, going into Thursday’s vote, Americans for Tax Reform told senators that voting to kill the tax credit wouldn’t violate the no-new-taxes pledge they signed with the group, if they also voted for a separate proposal by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., to eliminate the annual usage mandates for biofuels.

”Taken together, this elimination of favoritism toward ethanol is not a violation” of the pledge, said Norquist’s group. No vote on eliminating the mandates has been scheduled, however.

Norquist’s position that eliminating a tax credit has been widely rejected by conservatives outside the Senate, too.

Jonah Goldberg, writing today for National Review Online, wondered whether it also would be wrong for conservatives to vote against a tax credit for abortions on the grounds that that would be raising taxes, too.

“I’m generally sympathetic to Norquist’s pledge, but I think it’s crazy for it to be turned into a tool to defend the statist status quo (statist quo?),” Goldberg wrote. ” Yes, abolishing some market skewing bad policies will increase revenues for the Treasury. Is that really a reason not to abolish them?”

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20110617/BUSINESS01/110617005/0/CAROUSEL

increased revenue for the Treasury, oh fuckkkkk!

sums up this whole thing pretty well