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

the cuts are around $38-39 billion, and the original Republican proposal was for $30 billion in cuts. he may have "lost" from the bonkers tea party perspective, but he seems to have done pretty well for the rest of the party.

xpost

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/budget_negotiations-0408.png

he lost bc the tea partiers don't give a shit about how much is cut. they care about what is cut and planned parenthood hasn't been cut.

They are saying the agreement which still has to be voted on at the end of the week(tonight is a temporary agreement to give them time to put the deal in paper form) won't include riders but will allow seaparate votes in the Senate on some of riders (including the planned parenthood one). Apparently the Dems think they will stick together and vote it down in the Senate.

The DC rider lives. DC will not be allowed to use its own money for abortions.
The bill will supposedly call for audits of Warren's new consumer agency and of the health care bill. Those are obviously just Republican tools to slow down things they don't like.

MSNBC commentators think there's a chance Tea Party folks will vote against the bill. They also think the left will be disappointed. Will any of this help the economy and the 9% unemployed--doubtful.

The Dems supposedly convinced Boehner to include some token defense cuts that Gates wanted (that were not in the original House bill). If Gates wanted them cut that means they were just pork projects.

hey bill are you the doctor_morbius posting on justin.tv msnbc live feed?

Yes! I still have a job!!

btw who was the house rep chowing down on his nails during the pre-vote speeches?

Forget the debt ceiling debate - they still have to debate a 2012 budget! All this bullshit was just for the remainder or 2011. Sigh.

i love how this looks like a crank letter to a local paper and in no way a letter by someone who actually is trying to be president of the country.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/08/opinion/lweb08trump.html?src=ISMR_HP_LO_MST_FB

To the Editor:

Re “Donald Trump Gets Weirder,” by Gail Collins (column, April 2):

Even before Gail Collins was with the New York Times, she has written nasty and derogatory articles about me. Actually, I have great respect for Ms. Collins in that she has survived so long with so little talent. Her storytelling ability and word usage (coming from me, who has written many bestsellers), is not at a very high level. More importantly, her facts are wrong!

As far as her comments on the so-called “birther” issue, I don't need Ms. Collins's advice. There is a very large segment of our society who believe that Barack Obama, indeed, was not born in the United States. His grandmother from Kenya stated, on tape, that he was born in Kenya and she was there to watch the birth. His family in Honolulu is fighting over which hospital in Hawaii he was born in-they just don't know.

He has not been able to produce a “birth certificate” but merely a totally unsigned “certificate of live birth”-which is totally different and of very little significance. Unlike a birth certificate, a certificate of live birth is very easy to obtain. Equally of importance, there are no records in Hawaii that a Barack Hussein Obama was born there-no bills, no doctors names, no nurses names, no registrations, no payments, etc. As far as the two notices placed in newspapers, many things could have happened, but some feel the grandparents put an ad in order to show that he was a citizen of the U.S. with all of the benefits thereto. Everybody, after all, and especially then, wanted to be a United States citizen.

The term used by Ms. Collins-“birther”-is very derogatory and is meant in a derogatory way. Had this been George Bush or almost any other President or Presidential aspirant, they would never have been allowed to attain office, or would have been thrown out of office very quickly.

For some reason, the press protects President Obama beyond anything or anyone I have ever seen. What they don't realize is that if he was not born in the United States, they would have uncovered the greatest "scam" in the history of our country. In other words, they would become the hottest writer since Watergate, or beyond.

Open your eyes, Gail, there's at least a good chance that Barack Hussein Obama has made mincemeat out of our great and cherished Constitution!

DONALD J. TRUMP
New York, April 7, 2011

Her storytelling ability and word usage (coming from me, who has written many bestsellers), is not at a very high level.

as much as i resent dignifying anything shitheel says with a response...uh?

anything this shitheel*

Her storytelling ability and word usage (coming from me, who has written many bestsellers), is not at a very high level.

nice syntax trump

Give him this: He doesn't use any staff to translate his letters into English.

are you the doctor_morbius posting on justin.tv msnbc live feed?

Oh, hell no.

So I don't even want to share with yall my gross napkin estimate of how much we spent as taxpayers over the last week in senior executive OH SHIT meetings and shotgun blasted WHAT TO DO IF YOU HAVE ANY KIND OF GOVERNMENT ANYTHING LIKE A BLACKBERRY OR A LAPTOP OR A VISA CARD OR A PASSPORT OR A PLANE TICKET OR A JOB AND YET ARE NOT ALLOWED TO USE ANY OF THEM e-mails, and resultant WAIT WHAT ABOUT ME I HAVE AN IPAD AND A TRAIN TICKET responses

I was on a "mission essential" short list which gave me a kind of pre-emptive survivor guilt over a lot of this crap and I hated it. I especially hate the ultimate #1 dbag fed (former Microsoft salesman to the DOD, talk about a job that should really be going to the disabled and/or mental), an irretrievable republican who has no problem whatsoever repeating nonsensical GOP TPs from the 90s, whom I spotted snickering to himself during the end of our main jane "this is going to suck" briefing while our appointed leaders were trying to do their best to soften the this is going to suck bit. He knew he was on the short list because of his job title so I guess he thought it was a good time for some chuckles. Fuck that guy, you should all hate that guy.

also the phrase "furlough averted" sounds kinda disgusting to me.
oh, furtive aversion? overt burtation. burp, hurl!

i like the cut of yr jib

I will admit I had been holding a perverse Mel Gibson fascination with the possibilities of the DC landscape sans civil service commutertronics come Monday AM

should have been a shutdown, imo, to perhaps remind bitches of what all the government actually does like restrain tombots

― mookieproof, Friday, April 8, 2011 11:42 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

As far as the two notices placed in newspapers, many things could have happened, but some feel the grandparents put an ad in order to show that he was a citizen of the U.S. with all of the benefits thereto.

This is really fucking funny.

ezra hates the deal http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/2011-is-not-1995/2011/04/06/AFxPaT5C_blog.html

yeah this basically sucks

hurrah, the government will still fund planned parenthood, *three cheers*

id be willing to bet that a shutdown will be avoided

― ban drake (the rapper) (max), Friday, April 8, 2011 3:03 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

bummed no one took me up on this bet

I should have bet on a Democratic shutoff.

Not sure this is bullshit on par with the tax cut extension, but this is bullshit nonetheless. Obama should have come out and said, hey, you don't cut spending when you're emerging from a recession. It didn't work in 1937, it's not working in the UK, it shouldn't happen here. Then he could use it as a campaign promise: "if reelected, I promise to cut $40 billion of bullshit." He could have come off the grown up and the campaigner, offering it as a pantomime challenge: "will the Republicans step up and agree with me to tackle these future cuts in 2012?" Because this shit deal (natch) just sets the stage for further shit deals in the waning months of his first term, which is a weak position.

But the republicans know this. When the economy tips back again, inevitably, when he's in his second term, he'll take the blame, and when he tries to flip that back on the republicans, they'll say the economy sucks because he didn't go far enough when he had the chance. And then the stage will be set for a republican to easily take back the white house, let alone the house and senate, and do some real damage. Because as much as we joke about the the weak republican presidential prospects for 2012, the dem bench ain't exactly that deep, either.

a) the economy is going to continue to get better, not worse
b) Obama is going to sail to reelection

There is going to be some sort of 3-5%-vote attracting progressive in the general election next year who will threaten Bam's reelection, and let cowardly liberals revive their Nader hate from 2000.

i wouldnt bet on it!

Why would a liberal who felt--rightly or wrongly (there are arguments to be made either way)--that Nader put Bush into the White House, and therefore was a little angry at him, be cowardly?

this will be an enlightening and civil conversation and we will all emerge better friends because of it

a) the economy is going to continue to get better, not worse
b) Obama is going to sail to reelection

There is no doubt that Obama will get reelected, or at least little doubt. What I see, though, is him firmly setting the stage for a republican win in 2016, plus further republican gains in the house and senate in between.

As for your first point, I'd like to know what information you have that makes you so certain that just a couple years after a near-depression, a recession, and a jobless non-recovery (that is, things are stable but not much better) that has in the most half-assed, compromised way addressed the issues that lead to the recession/near-depression, the economy will continue to get "better." Between chaos in the middle east, nuclear meltdowns in Asia, banditos south of the border, there are all sorts of things that could go wrong, and domestically I'm still not seeing much going right - the country going right, in the political sense, being part of the problem, or at least more certainly not a historically productive solution.

clemenza, bullying people into guilt for not casting your vote for the candidate who's "entitled" to it is cowardly.

Great, now we/Josh know what's happening 5 years from now.

Plastics.

Two voters, both inclined to vote for the Nader-like candidate. One says, "I'm voting for him, I don't care how it plays out." The other does worry about how it will play out, and casts a conflicted vote for Gore (or Obama). I think both of those choices are valid; I don't see how the one is noble and the other cowardly. And if the second voter gets a little upset at the Nader candidate because the results are exactly what both he and the Nader candidate knew might happen, I don't think getting a little angry is unwarranted either (provided some of his anger is directed at the Democratic candidate for running a lousy campaign).

k3vin, I know you fly high above such mundane reasoning.

I kinda wish the Florida Nader voters had felt bullied into voting for Gore. Try to deny it, but it would have given us Gore instead of Bush.

Re the current economy I wish it was all as simple as Shakey says.

Obama and his corporate dems staff think he looked like a talented Ceo handling this and despite evidence otherwise, they so still think he can attract those "I don't read the paper or even the internet and tv news headlines independents" . But except for Reid's last-minute pleas re womens health issues, no one was touting Democratic values on anything--economic issues,social...So when the next budget fight and the debt ceiling fight happens it will again be up to Reid.

As predicted they threw DC residents under the bus--1. They're forcing some of D.C.'s limited taxpayer money to go to vouchers for christian schools; and 2. They're barring DC from spending its own money for abortion-related services for poor women.

I won't "try" to deny it; that you frame it that way, and not by the overwhelming evidence that Gore won Florida... I just surrender.

Some people vote swapped in order to get Gore votes in key states- I think there was a funding issue for Nader, too?

I don't think progressives as a whole have jumped ship yet, obama's image is pretty tarnished but the right is much scarier than it was in the nader years. maybe if romney gets the nom the prog left will feel a little bit more comfortable.

That's why the Republican nomination will be so fascinating, and something of a mirror image of the Democrats in '72: can they nominate one of those boring Bush I types their Tea Pary wing despises, someone who could actually beat Obama, or will the revolt from within be too great? I think that'll depend in large part where Obama and the economy stands in the early months of 2012.

x-post Yes there were hanging chad votes,etc. in Florida but if Nader voters in Florida had gone to Gore, we wouldn't have to have worried about trying to count all the votes that the Supreme Court prevented from being counted.

I am worried about the gang of 6 in the Senate. These moderate Dems and Conservative Republicans are seen by the chattering elites as pushing the sensible alternative to Ryan--very slight tax increases with big cuts and changes to Social Security. But even the Post's AJ Dionne (whose friendly talk with Brooks on NPR irritates Soto) sees the Gang of 6 as giving in to Republicans and not a plan that reflects the ideal Democrat position that the poor and elderly should not have to take the fall because of Wall Street, Bush rich people tax cuts, 2 plus wars, Bush prescription drug company plan, etc.

whose friendly talk with Brooks on NPR irritates Soto)

Last week they apparently heard me and swapped Brooks for Ramesh Ponnoru!

weigel http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/weigel/archive/2011/04/09/the-shutdown-wrap-boehner-wins-austerity-wins-and-the-social-conservatives-go-home-with-a-participant-trophy.aspx

Democrats spent months predicting that Boehner would have trouble controlling his new Tea Party members. They spent this week saying he had to put the Tea Party “horse back in the barn,” as Dick Durbin said. Well, there’s a deal – the implication is that he put the horse back in the barn. If the Republicans would have been blamed for a shutdown, it follows that they get credit for a shutdown being avoided.

Rep. Mike Pence introduced the rider to ban Title X funds from going to Planned Parenthood. It would have saved around $363 million, but it was anathema to Democrats. So it served two purposes -- a bargaining chit for the coming debate, and a way to shift the Overton Window on the abortion debate.

Tonight, Democrats got the rider stripped, handing a massive victory to the pro-choice movement. So – spitballing before we get exact numbers – Pence’s $363 million was worth an extra $637 million. That’s a pretty good deal for economic conservatives.

I don't think progressives as a whole have jumped ship yet, obama's image is pretty tarnished but the right is much scarier than it was in the nader years. maybe if romney gets the nom the prog left will feel a little bit more comfortable.

― iatee, Saturday, 9 April 2011 15:21 (1 hour ago)

Romney is going to have to move very far to the right to get the nomination (he already has).

Obama Job Approval (Fox News)
Approve 49.0%
Disapprove 47.0%

Republican Party Job Approval (Fox News)
Approve 35.0%
Disapprove 58.0%

Americans just want a divided government that doesn't actually do anything, I guess.

I agree, romney's gonna have to make himself look crazy, but he's still got a resume that screams "I'm probably not so crazy as far as contemporary republicans go"

I think, if anything, the gop probably has more to worry about w/ 3rd party candidates this time around.

corporate america wants a divided government that doesn't do anything. what 'americans' "want" is increasingly irrelevant

xp

i dont know that im willing to bet on it, but i think romney will probably take the nom. my guess is that obama will beat him if the economy is good enough? i dunno, a lot can (and will) change in the next 18 months.

is it wrong that i think "the economy will eventually get better in the long run regardless so keeping planned parenthood funded for symbolic purposes and keeping the powers of the EPA for both symbolic and real world purposes is worth it?"

also i think all the talk about who will be seen as having 'won' the showdown is irrelevant & won't be a factor come 2012