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

somebody call the times

haha sorry i'm having a dumb argument abt this stuff on fb and i think i'm transferring some of my "argh"

well yeah, mcconnell mumbling about a "contingency plan" is interesting news.

btw:

“Nobody is talking about not raising the debt ceiling; I haven’t heard that discussed by anybody,” the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said

you lie!

tpm quote of Obama at the press conference:

"It's not an option for us to just sit by and do nothing. if you're a progressive that cares about he integrity of Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid ... then we have an obligation to make sure that we make those changes required to make this sustainable in the long term."

Sorry, but these are not the changes needed.

“Nobody is talking about not raising the debt ceiling; I haven’t heard that discussed by anybody,” the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said

haha yeah this was the biggest lie of the weekend. i should have taken a screenshot of twitter there was this tweet and then right above it someone talking about michelle bachmann saying "dont raise the debt ceiling" that same day

the $4tril deal collapsed because boehner couldn't get his caucus to go along with any of tax increases contained in it. as far as i can tell conservatives are pissed today because that's exactly what people are saying about it.

"worst are lima beans for sure"

gotta cook w/ pork fat

Actually I do believe McConnell; to some extent this nonsense is Kabuki. If there were no Tea Party, Mac and Boehner would have yielded long ago.

^^^OTm

let's not return to the failed farts of the ass

you are history's greatest human for this

we're watching the populist and the oligarchic wings of the GOP fight each other

xp

McConnell isn't lying. The Republicans have always said they'd raise the debt ceiling ... if taxes are cut, benefits cut, budgets slashed ...

... if Obama steps down ... if everyone gets a free gun ... if Kentucky gets a disproportionate amount of federal aid ... oh, wait.

the kabuki matters in the interim tho. obama wants something that would be called "significant" deficit reduction, either because he thinks it's right, he wants a grand tip o'neill moment going into 2012, or both. the GOP sees this well enough, and aren't going to let him play reasonable dad with the checkbook without really sticking it to the (parts of) the public sector (they hate). "give an inch, take a mile" isn't really the right metaphor.

the counter-weight to the "it's all going to be fine, the business lobby will dictate terms in the end" idea is the "no really, so much of the GOP really is batshit" idea, however.

You know, if you chant "The GOP is crazy" enough, all of Medicare will undergo liquid putrefaction.

I expect changes to Medicare in my lifetime. I have all but given up hope of any real movement toward a single-payer system for everyone (which, ironically, would relieve businesses of a huge burden and improve the overall economy as cost containment measures would be implemented much more efficiently - gee, you'd think the Fortune 500 would be clamoring for it).

What with the totally fucked-up politics of the USA today, the best one can hope for is a postponement of the issue until about 50 more sitting members of Congress are responsible adults. This isn't complete pie-in-the-sky. It's an achievable goal.

gee, you'd think the Fortune 500 would be clamoring for it

also ironic in that the principle of social insurance that we do have was developed by big business moderate technocrats during the 20s and 30s- not the "left."

yeah but in the 20s & 30s the business community needed Americans a lot more than they do now; it's all about "emerging markets" now. We're already in debt, so we've fulfilled our purpose.

Not until they've revived indentured servitude and debtor's prisons.

That's called "living in Florida".

we're watching the populist and the oligarchic wings of the GOP fight each other

if only the populist wing of the Democratic Party could strike fear in the hears of the oligarchic wing of the party ... but we just described the decline of labor unions a few hours ago.

anyway, the excuse of Obama et. al. is "where will the liberals go?" truth is, the Teabags have nowhere to go either if Boehner et. al. throws them under the bus.

I love you, Eisbaer, but please don't use "under the bus" again.

shakes and alfred otm re: mcconnell

the Teabags have nowhere to go either if Boehner et. al. throws them under the bus.

not entirely true, remember the Reform Party lol. I think Teabaggers are much more likely to bolt to a third party than liberal Democrats are. mostly cuz liberal Democrats (including me) tried that with Nader and it didn't work out so well, that memory is still fresh.

otm

I will repeat: there is no Tea Party, it's a press-created name for a fervent GOP grassroots that has existed since 1980.

I think Teabaggers are much more likely to bolt to a third party than liberal Democrats are.

they'd need someone rich, dumb, creepy and narcissistic enough for them to bolt to. a ross perot only comes around once in a great while.

they'd need someone rich, dumb, creepy and narcissistic enough for them to bolt to.

Donald Trump came thiiiis close

I will repeat: there is no Tea Party, it's a press-created name for a fervent GOP grassroots that has existed since 1980.

this isn't entirely true, there are existing Tea Party organizations (Tea Party Express, Dick Armey's Freedomworks) that could conceivably be leveraged into a party aparatus. and the press didn't make up those organizations, they were funded and developed by GOP hacks like Armey.

not a successful or particularly effective party apparatus, mind you, but the general structure is there

they'd need someone rich, dumb, creepy and narcissistic enough for them to bolt to

Palin comes pretty close

Those groups have existed since 1980 under different names and with less funds; it's a shock to the national press that the descendants of Richard Viguerie's direct-mail campaigns and Ralph Reed's phone conferences have made an impact?

I will repeat: there is no Tea Party, it's a press-created name for a fervent GOP grassroots that has existed since 1980.

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, July 11, 2011 1:26 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

not sure i agree. fox news helped promote the name and idea, but it originated at the grassroots level, and fox is at least as much a political advocacy organization as it is "the press." rise of the tea party movement is a distinct contemporary event within american conservative politics, even if the basic philosophies and organizing strategies have been in place for ages.

ugh Ralph Reed

but yeah obviously this is a demographic/wing of the party that goes way back. whether they bolt or not... eh, remains to be seen. if Romney starts to really lock things down I'd say the odds increase

no it isn't - their influence is just magnified given the circumstances xp

that said i side with shakey here - call it what you want, or don't: the 'tea party' represents a genuine and enthusiastic bloc

FOX News and the national press gave this faction of the GOP its legitimacy, not realizing that the elections of Reagan and George W. Bush already did.

has anyone watched that "boogie man" movie about lee atwater? it's on netflix on demand.

xp my memory is that there really was some kind of organic 'tea party' type of thing but it was more a loose label for disaffected goldbug/ron paul types through the last year of W. tax day protests, that kind of thing. as soon as obama entered office it took on a different life, blew up, was bought out, however you want to put it.

what is being called 'tea party' now is not new tho, no. and i think really unlikely to go their own way.

Oh wait: I'm not dismissing TP enthusiasm and legitimate fears. I admire them more than Democrats.

there were definitely self-identified 'tea party' groups at the local level long before the national republican party thought to pay attention to them.

I admire them more than Democrats.

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, July 11, 2011 4:37 PM (24 seconds ago)

same

They're holding their representatives accountable! They're not like Democrats who year after year go, "Oh well, I gotta vote for Gore/Kerry/Obama cuz god knows what THE OTHER SIDE is gonna put on the Supreme Court."

i.e., of course anti-tax, anti-gov't "tea party" libertarianism isn't entirely new, but the sudden ascendancy and coherence of these philosophies into a powerful movement with explicit goals, well-attended rallies, electable candidates, GOP-redirecting power and so forth is a legitimately new wrinkle in american conservative politics.

I gotta get off the bus at that point k3v & alfred

I mean I don't have any admiration at all for either side but your choices here are people who will sit idly by while other people hurt you & lie about how they wanted to help vs. people who are actively trying to hurt you - the former category at least might be fun to take in a movie with, the latter are just a drag

I don't wanna go to a movie with them – I want them angry enough to blow up the projectionist for threatening to show "Transformers 3."

They're holding their representatives accountable!

this, and yeah, on that level, i "admire" them (in a distanced sense) far more than current democrats. more than the democratic party, more than its candidates, and more than its constituency. the tea party and its candidates/supporters are active, engaged, morally committed, and willing to make and stand by strong demands. everything any worthwhile political party needs to be.

yeah I cannot take what they are standing for out of the equation

of course not. on that level, they're reprehensible and i admire them not at all.

(that other level, i mean...)

No one here has expressed support for the GOP platform.

Here's what makes the national press so excrutiating. From The NYT story posted this afternoon about Obama's press conference:

The president’s tone about his Democratic allies changed as well. Mr. Obama appeared eager to demonstrate that the difficulties House Speaker John A. Boehner is having with conservatives was matched by Mr. Obama’s willingness to talk tough to his own liberal constituency.

Obama's willingness to shit on what is presumably his base is as courageous as Kerry, Gore, and Clinton's.

Wait never mind: his true base is Wall Street. Sorry.

This is the kicker line: “Let’s do it,” (Obama) said. “I’m prepared to do it. I’m prepared to take on significant heat from my party to get something done.”