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

he would make a badass telethon host probably

oliver stone could direct

But Obama didn't start this war! He's only, er ... helping it along? Trying to speed things along?

i think they were referring to the other war

which war are we talking about
xpost

Did I miss a war?

Obama hosting a sort of Jerry Lewis-styled variety show telethon to fund his reelection and military campaigns would be both a new high and a new low in American politics on a Mike Judge level.

which tbh i'm still not prepared to call an 'american war' no matter how many punk frontmen and msg board posters try to convince me otherwise xxp

xpost

So I look in my academic-job-related-email-address-inbox and there's an email with the catchy subject line "Fecal matter sodomy"

Grimly fascinated, I open it and the text reads:

If you vote for the Democrats and some Republicans, homosexual fecal
matter sodomy will be the law of the land for your children and
grandchildren, and the U.S. military's reputation will be destroyed. About
90% of Blacks, 70% of Hispanics, and 50% of Whites have been voting for
fecal matter sodomy. This behavior is repulsive, offensive, and divisive.

Jim, www.debatejim.com

Today’s Democrat voter would rather vote for politicians who promise the
most of other people’s money, who destroy the entire economy in the
process, than they would vote for politicians who reduce taxes and
spending so that Democrat voters can have a secure job.

the link takes you to this Xtian conservative dickhead's website featuring truly pathetic snaps of him in a karate outfit attacking "B.S." (do you see?) etc. Has anybody else received this? Apparently he's spamming the hell out of universities nationnwide to prove that "no one is willing to debate with me, these sheeple are afraid of the truth". Could it be that the fecal approach isn't making people yearn for further, uh, contact? Gotta give it to him, it would make a pretty sweet login name

plunging a clogged toilet is essentially fecal matter sodomy right?

The crazy racist "90% of Blacks are voting for fecal matter sodomy" thing, oh man, I just . . .

90% of Blacks, 70% of Hispanics, and 50% of Whites have been voting for
fecal matter sodomy

lmfao

http://i53.tinypic.com/1zdvh1l.gif

dude i'm listening to that last lcd soundystem show while watching that, you have no idea how tripped out i am

Z S u are a treat

Remember everyone: as an American, come election time, it is your duty to VOTE FOR FECAL MATTER SODOMY

I'm imaging a squishy stool in the form of Harvey Feirstein addressing the nation from the Oval Office.

i'm a single issue voter. and that issue is fecal matter sodomy.

vote for obama

90% of Blacks

it's as if the only thing he knows about African-Americans came from listening to the Outhere Bros' "i wanna fuck you in the ass" a few too many times.

maybe he's angry at santorum voters

Former Bush speechwriter and current Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson's spin on budget talks. Could the excerpted sentence below about Obama be right?

I also need to find a tax expert who can systematically show that the Ryan plan, despite supposedly getting rid of corporate tax loopholes and farm subsidies, is a scam. I've read people attack it in general terms.

So Obama has managed to lighten his liberal baggage, turn Republicans against each other and ensure they would be (justifiably) blamed for a shutdown. Not a bad month’s work.

This strategy may succeed because Republicans are genuinely divided. One bloc — the faction of the serious — is led by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), author of the 2012 House Republican budget. Few details of that document are surprising, but the cumulative effect is comprehensive and impressive. House Republicans propose major tax reform, including lower top rates, a broadened tax base and the closing of loopholes. The plan sets hard spending caps and adopts a number of recommendations from the president’s fiscal commission, which were largely ignored by the president himself. Ryan’s proposal takes on corporate welfare and farm subsidies, consolidates job-training programs, and includes welfare and litigation reforms. Most important, Ryan begins the Medicare debate in earnest, proposing a system of means-tested premium supports — taking seriously the challenge of 80 million baby boomers beginning to make their way into the system. Unlike his more libertarian colleagues, Ryan makes the case that entitlement reform, properly designed, can actually strengthen the social safety net for the poorest.

The less-than-serious faction of the Republican Party is intent on squeezing more savings out of the 2011 budget or pursuing a government shutdown as an end in itself.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/on-the-budget-obama-has-republicans-cornered/2011/04/04/AFbin9eC_story.html

Any plans to reduce "entitlement spending" are bullshit, especially after the Obama administration accepted the Bush tax cuts in November, but no one in Washington wants to have that discussion. So this is all a lot of posturing.

Dahlia Lithwick: the Obama administration's capitulation to its critics on trying KSM by military commission is cowardly, stupid, and tragically wrong.

lol at describing ryan's budget proposals as "serious"

Gov. Walker hires lobbyist's inexperienced son for $81,500 job.

http://www.startribune.com/local/119207744.html

Federal government tells Maine governor, "Uh, we paid for that painting."

The federal government is stepping into the labor mural controversy in Maine, demanding that the state either put the artwork back up at the Department of Labor or repay the cost of the mural.

In a letter first obtained by the Associated Press, Gay Gilbert, a senior U.S. Labor Department official, writes that the federal government appropriated the funds to Maine for the mural.

"We understand, however, that the mural is no longer on display in your headquarters," writes Gilbert. "Thus, it is no longer being used for an administrative purpose permitted by the Reed Act. Accordingly [...] the state must [...] return to its UTF [Unemployment Trust Fund] account the amount of the Reed Act funds represented by the mural."

While some of the state GOP there hop off the bus:

We should be focused like a laser on the agenda the governor laid out – reducing our tax burden, getting rid of unnecessary government regulation that stifles innovation and entrepreneurship, and putting into place thoughtful welfare reform.

Instead, we find ourselves continually diverted, responding to yet another example of our chief executive picking a personal fight not worth fighting. "Government by disrespect" should have no place in Augusta, and when it happens, we should all reject it.

Every day a new cartoonish action by a governor...

http://www.samefacts.com/2011/04/watching-conservatives/moment-of-deceit/

A blogger taking on David Brooks predictable endorsement of the Ryan budget proposal.

Oh gawd, our country's longterm budget fate is in the hands of the Gang of 6 in the Senate...

The larger budget battle will begin even before the 2011 fight is resolved. Ryan plans to open a voting session Wednesday on his 2012 blueprint in the House Budget Committee. If approved, the measure would then go to the House floor, where GOP aides declined to speculate on its fate.

If approved by the House, the blueprint would go the Senate, where the Democrats who control the upper chamber are unlikely to accept much of Ryan’s vision for the nation’s fiscal future. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) is instead at work with five senators of both parties on a deficit-reduction strategy that is likely to trim spending on entitlement programs less dramatically than Ryan’s plan while raising additional revenue through an overhaul of the tax code

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/house-republicans-unveil-35t-budget-blueprint-for-2012/2011/04/05/AFT6IDjC_story.html?hpid=z1

Vote for Obama and the Dems, they will:

trim spending on entitlement programs less dramatically

well this is technically o/t but it's great reading so far, peeps who read this thread might be into it: perry anderson on lula's brazil

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n07/perry-anderson/lulas-brazil

When, midway through his second term its test came, he handled it with aplomb. The crash of Wall Street in 2008 might be a tsunami in the US, he declared, but in Brazil it would be no more than a ‘ripple’ – uma marolinha. The phrase was seized on by the press as proof of reckless economic ignorance and irresponsibility.

But he was as good as his word. Counter-cyclical action was prompt and effective. Despite falling tax revenues, social transfers were increased, reserve requirements were reduced, public investment went up and private consumption was supported. In overcoming the crisis, local banking practices helped. Tight controls, holding multipliers of the monetary base well below US levels, and greater transparency had left Brazilian banks in much better shape than those in the US, protecting the country from the worst of the financial fall-out. But it was concerted, vigorous state policy that pulled the economy round. Lula’s optimism was functional: told not to be afraid, Brazilians went out and consumed, and demand held up. By the second quarter of 2009, foreign capital was flowing back into the country, and by the end of the year the crisis was over.

...however, while i'm talking to myself, why do old-line marxists always pull sneaky shit like this when they write? god let it go already

Consecration of the new position he had won for his nation came with the formation of the BRIC quartet in 2009, bringing the heads of state of Brazil, Russia, India and China together in one-time Sverdlovsk, with a communiqué calling for a global reserve currency

ahem...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yekaterinburg

Yekaterinburg (Russian: Екатеринбу́рг, also romanized Ekaterinburg), formerly Sverdlovsk (Свердло́вск) is a major city in the central part of Russia, the administrative center of Sverdlovsk Oblast... Between 1924 and 1991, the city was known as Sverdlovsk (Свердло́вск), after the Bolshevik party leader Yakov Sverdlov.

Wrong thread?

nope!

in yr FACE, dowd

http://twitter.com/#!/TheRickWilson/status/55254121749544960

haha jeez

that's the city where nicholas & family were imprisoned and shot. obv the soviets changed all kinds of town names but that one always struck me as kind of ashamed.

ekaterinburg i mean.

I look duly ashamed by my failing to understand the link between the renaming of Soviet cities and US politics. :)

WashPo: "House Republicans huddled late Monday and, according to a GOP aide, gave the speaker an ovation when he informed them that he was advising the House Administration Committee to begin preparing for a possible shutdown."

sorry i was just complaining as an aside about perry anderson's writing

the point was to compare lula to obama, kind of

house republicans eagerly anticipating a short taste of the government free world they urgently seek

Glenn Greenwald today:

One thing is for certain: right now, the Democratic Party is absolutely correct in its assessment that kicking its base is good politics. Why is that? Because they know that they have inculcated their base with sufficient levels of fear and hatred of the GOP, so that no matter how often the Party kicks its base, no matter how often Party leaders break their promises and betray their ostensible values, the base will loyally and dutifully support the Party and its leaders (at least in presidential elections; there is a good case that the Democrats got crushed in 2010 in large part because their base was so unenthusiastic).

In light of that fact, ask yourself this: if you were a Democratic Party official, wouldn't you also ignore -- and, when desirable, step on -- the people who you know will support you no matter what you do to them? That's what a rational, calculating, self-interested, unprincipled Democratic politician should do: accommodate those factions which need accommodating (because their support is in question), while ignoring or scorning the ones whose support is not in question, either because they will never vote for them (the hard-core right) or will dutifully canvass, raise money, and vote for them no matter what (the Democratic base). Anyone who pledges unconditional, absolute fealty to a politician -- especially 18 months before an election -- is guaranteeing their own irrelevance.

It was often said that Bush/Cheney used fear as their principal political weapon -- and they did -- but that's true of the Democratic Party as well. When it comes to their base, Democratic leaders know they will command undying, unbreakable support no matter how many times they kick their base, because of the fear that has been instilled in the base -- not fear of Terrorists or Immigrants (that's the GOP's tactic), but fear of Sarah Palin, the Kochs and the Tea Party

that they have inculcated their base with sufficient levels of fear and hatred of the GOP

Seems to me the GOP have done most of the heavy lifting to make this happen.

i think that's right on, but weirdly only half true. the contemporary american right IS terrifying, and not only the "GOP" but the socially-rooted backlash itself that the official party is trying hard to chase after and domesticate.

greenwald has this funny trait of being unable to heap scorn on one party at once

lol xp

greenwald has this funny trait of being unable to heap scorn on one party at once

Because there's plenty of blog colleagues who heap scorn on the Republicans already?

I read Greenwald these days when I need a slap to remind me why I left the Democratic party years ago.

sucker, I never joined

which means you're probably ahead of me in the bar in heaven.

although I think the only time I haven't voted for a Democrat was 1992, when I voted for my dad for President

(my logic being if I was voting for the person I'd like to see running the country, that person was him, and really screw both Clinton and Bush)

actually that's not true, I've voted Green in local elections several times

i think that in both economics and nat'l security Something Is Happening Here that is bigger and deeper than whatever one half (or the other) of our duopoly is up to in narrow terms.

any day's news will remind me why I'm not a Democrat...

Although I am usually a registered Democrat bcz in NY, the primary is usually the election. (This was until we started having Republican mayors.) However, I may ditch that in the near future, as I imagine our govs, sens and mayors will be scum (and the congresspeople interchangeable) for the rest of my residency.

Well, sure, goole, that's why paranoics like Oliver Stone have something genuine to worry about.