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

AlbertBrooks Albert Brooks
When did Planned Parenthood become the enemy? It must be the corn syrup lobby that demands a constant supply of newborns to make fat.
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read this as meaning that the corn syrup lobby was processing babies into fat, and i was like jesus albert brooks kind of dark there and also out of nowhere

that klein quote speaks to the high-level gaming that i always thought pols engaged in until i realized that....they don't.

I would not be so sure about Republicans losing on this. It's not 1995 Shakey. Social Security retirement checks are automated now and will still go out. Clinton was vocal about the differences between he and Gingrich. Obama has not been vocal. The tech boom kicked in and helped Clinton with the economy. That's not suddenly gonna happen now.

x-post re: I did not word that carefully. There was a rider to prevent DC health clinics that receive any taxpayer money from doing abortions and there was a rider or a section of the budget reducing the federal contribution to the Washington DC subway and Metro bus system.

is that not what brooks is sayin xp

read this as meaning that the corn syrup lobby was processing babies into fat,

wait is there some other way to read this?

corn lobby needs more people to have more kids to sell those kids shitty food

i think it means that the corn syrup lobby wants to make the babies fat with their corn syrup products

it takes a special crew of asshole tea party congressmen to make Boehner sympathetic.. but they did it!

xxp

id be willing to bet that a shutdown will be avoided

"I would not be so sure about Republicans losing on this"

ditto. Obama is the most inept "smart guy" in the WH yet.

or at least since H Hoover

Dems have nothing to gain from compromise, I don't see it happening

though i agree with the good doctor, i wanna believe that O's playing these greedy clowns, manufacturing a mother of a backlash

the two possible outcomes at the moment are huge cuts or a shutdown. dems don't want either one, the GOP would be basically fine with either!

i mean reid was saying the final offer on the table was 38 bill in cuts 'take it or leave it' and boehner keeps saying the numbers are still negotiable which means he is neither taking it nor leaving it

- Yesterday I met a senior diplomat from a very large and important country. (Hint: I write about it a lot, and used to live there. Also, it has pandas.) A very senior delegation from that country is scheduled to meet this coming week with a very senior U.S. official. (Hint: her husband used to be president.) This meeting has been in the works for months, and involves areas of cooperation, as in energy research or policy toward Iran and North Korea, and of disagreement as well. These are talks that should be held and business that needs to be done.

But if the U.S. government is shut down, the meeting can't happen, because the State Department will be officially "closed" except for emergency functions. The delegation is set to leave from this other country's capital at just about the same time as the shutdown deadline. If they don't take off -- and the shutdown's averted, they'll miss their meetings. If they do take off and the shutdown occurs, the trip will be an (embarrassing) waste. The diplomat was sweating bullets: would he have to call them on the runway and say: Sorry, this government has been up and running since 1787, but it's out of business now?

last line a bit stupid but

fallows btw

ditto. Obama is the most inept "smart guy" in the WH yet.

like my Dad used to say (mostly about me), "how could someone so smart be so stupid?"

or wr2 the Dems: "can't ANYONE here play this fucking game?"

i have to believe that the meeting in q will still happen? i mean come on. unless there's some legal-constitutional problem with any executive official performing any work that is unfunded by congress.

Obama is like a weekend dad who spends all day, every day, at the office and then comes home clueless to the kids on Friday. The kids fight, and the best he can do is either "go tell your mom" or "figure it out yourselves." Then he goes back to reading the paper.

Seriously, really bummed that with no real competition on the president front, and with dwindling congressional allies, Obama's not more vocal. I realize the guy has a lot to deal with right now, but seriously, he's been blessed with such a motley crew of White House contenders that he should take advantage of the freedom.

Hey, what's Bill Clinton been up to these days? Or Joe Biden? Where are the charming, toothy attack dogs when you need them?

it seems like HRC would be designated as an "essential" employee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyfSWO-wfUk

The first question soldiers stationed in Iraq asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates during his Thursday stop had to do with military pay.

Gates said if the government shutdown begins on Friday and lasts for one week, troops would get half a paycheck midmonth. If it continues from April 15 to April 20, he said, troops would not get a paycheck.

In that scenario, all troops eventually would be back-paid in full for the affected time, Gates said.

"When I start to think about the inconvenience that it's going to cause these kids, and a lot of their families, even half a paycheck delayed can be a problem for them," he later told reporters. "So I hope they work this whole thing out."

Unborn babies more important than soldiers in the field?

well they have to keep churning those kids out so they can send them off into the meat grinders around the world

Don't tar "pro life folks" with the same brushes. I know plenty who openly admit to using birth control.

Are pro life folks actually opposed to condoms and all birth control, en toto?

Depends. Catholic doctine is against both abortion and birth control. Amongst Protestants, it varies from sect to sect.

Is it about women having sex and not "paying the price" for their non-reproductive sexy fun times? Because if so, your answer is "Yes."

lots of ppl use birth control and have abortions despite being ideologically opposed to both

so, like, every white, middle class-to-rich girl at my high school (even the southern baptists) was on birth control*. "heavy periods" i think was the story. my sister (white, middle class, southern baptist) had "heavy periods." what's up with all these rich white kids and their heavy periods?

(*information via my hs gf)

no disrespect to anyone who's ever suffered with heavy periods btw. just curious...

I would just like to say that both opinion pieces currently on CNN.com about this debacle are terrible, misinformed, poorly conceived nonsense

here's one by a guy who wrote a book with the subtitle "How Libertarian Politics Can Save America"

and here's one by a guy who states flatly that everyone agrees that since the 1970s the Democrats have become more liberal and the Republicans have become more conservative

just ugh I STAB YOU

http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2011/OPINION/04/08/howell.shutdown.factors/tzleft.howell_william.jpg
http://www.entertainmentearth.com/images/%5CAUTOIMAGES%5CRC452lg.jpg

hey, he's half right, that's pretty good for CNN.

meanwhile, i'm a prophet: the Repugs are calling off the country!

Good luck, comrades...

http://www.pocomoketattler.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/assclown.jpghttp://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2011/OPINION/04/08/howell.shutdown.factors/tzleft.howell_william.jpghttp://www.entertainmentearth.com/images/%5CAUTOIMAGES%5CRC452lg.jpg

http://youtu.be/1aJEv98xTcw

uh

ooops

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1aJEv98xTcw

grrrrrrr

oh, white people

Seriously, really bummed that with no real competition on the president front, and with dwindling congressional allies, Obama's not more vocal

I can't decide if the reason is his personality (always wanting everyone to get along) or it's a political strategy to try to win independents(get everyone to blame Congress while he thinks he will look like the post-partisan adult in the room)

http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2011/04/pew-poll-obama.php

This article re a Pew Poll on low support for Obama by less educated white people has inspired incredibly ugly comments about Obama. They don't dislike him for reasons expressed here, they dislike him because he's a Kenyan born friend of Al Sharpton!

There is no way Obama is going to win independents, whatever that means and whoever they are. It was a small miracle he got what he got the last time from that quadrant, but that was before the incessant dis/misinformation campaigns that sent said "independents" back to the Republicans, the Tea Party, or to the "libertarian" wing of either of them. I mean, my dad is an "independent," and the odds of him voting Democrat are fuck-all.

idk... tea party/ GOP favorability with indies not doing so hot right now

btw what was that 'noon deadline' shit I heard this morning, allegedly from the White House?

What the hell constitutes an "independent" then that's not covered by dems, repubs or Tea Partiers?

wafflers and ignoramuses mostly

people who want to cut taxes AND collect social security

also, ppl who probably arent voting for prez next year (perhaps me)