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

I do enjoy seeing the big tent problem hit the other side for once.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says House Republican Leader Eric Cantor should not be part of the debt limit negotiations. He's calling the Virginia Republican congressman "childish."

Reid says Cantor's conduct during the sensitive White House talks have "shown, in Reid's words, "he shouldn't even be at the table." Reid says other congressional leaders are negotiating in good faith as an Aug. deadline approaches for raising the debt limit.

In other news, I wish Eric Holder would get the Justice Department to go after Rupert Murdoch:

from CNN:

On Wednesday, several senators sent letters to Attorney General Eric Holder asking him to look into concerns that News Corp. violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, known as the FCPA. The law, enacted in 1977, makes it illegal for a U.S. person or company to pay foreign officials to obtain or retain business.

Potential liability flows from journalists at News of the World to its parent, News International, and to its parent, News Corp., which is a publicly held company in the United States.

Concerns that victims of the 9/11 attacks had their privacy violated appear to be traceable to a story published Wednesday by the Mirror, a British tabloid that includes a section it describes as "gossip gone toxic."

seems inevitable tbh

I mean the odds that the News Corp hacking of victims' stuff stopped at the water's edge is preposterous

odd idea

Concerns that victims of the 9/11 attacks had their privacy violated appear to be traceable to a story published Wednesday by the Mirror

i sort of love the mirror but they're not exactly paragons of reliability

them's some preposterous odds!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3716613.stm

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40156000/jpg/_40156213_mirror2ok.jpg

wait THAT'S where Piers Morgan came from????????

"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/archive/7/73/20110128203738!Trollface.png"

- the whole uk

I do enjoy seeing the big tent problem hit the other side for once.

― bnw, Thursday, July 14, 2011 10:29 AM (36 minutes ago) Bookmark

hell yes. i know the fate of the universe is on the line, but yes.

President Obama may call lawmakers to Camp David over the weekend in order to continue debt negotiations, Business Week reports.

He's totally going to invite them in, then lock the door , run away and return to Washington. What are the odds no one notices the missing lawmakers?

"lawmakers" is being generous

But where will the immediate 44% cut in overall spending needed to avoid default come from instead? Michele Bachmann, who has gone so far as to demand the debt ceiling never be raised, dodged questions on the issue Wednesday by simply repeating her assertion that Social Security and troop pay be left sacrosanct.

Asked by TPM about what areas might need to be cut offset their proposed guarantees, Rep. Nan Hayworth (R-NY) offered a similar response, repeating that Social Security, Medicare, military pay, and veterans' benefits should all be off limits. Pressed to name any savings -- furloughing federal employees, shutting down various agencies -- that might be preferable, she said her focus was only on calling out Obama's threats.

"We're not targeting any of those things," she said. "We're not scheming on the House side to somehow have a menu of things that are going to happen when the inevitable denouement occurs."

Thanks

um

In other news, I wish Eric Holder would get the Justice Department to go after Rupert Murdoch:

from CNN:

On Wednesday, several senators sent letters to Attorney General Eric Holder asking him to look into concerns that News Corp. violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, known as the FCPA. The law, enacted in 1977, makes it illegal for a U.S. person or company to pay foreign officials to obtain or retain business.

Potential liability flows from journalists at News of the World to its parent, News International, and to its parent, News Corp., which is a publicly held company in the United States.

Concerns that victims of the 9/11 attacks had their privacy violated appear to be traceable to a story published Wednesday by the Mirror, a British tabloid that includes a section it describes as "gossip gone toxic."

― curmudgeon, Thursday, July 14, 2011 11:30 AM Bookmark

It's pretty hard to hold a parent corporation liable for the actions of a subsidiary, and I'm pretty sure News International is incorporated in the UK, so probably the UK would have to pursue this under whatever equivalent statute (if any) it has.

BTW in re the debt ceiling stuff, in a more paranoid (lucid?) moment recently it dawned on me that maybe the Bush tax cuts were a kind of time bomb attempt to force later government shrinkage.

Minnesota gov apparently caving to GOP budget demands...?

BTW in re the debt ceiling stuff, in a more paranoid (lucid?) moment recently it dawned on me that maybe the Bush tax cuts were a kind of time bomb attempt to force later government shrinkage.

this was noted at the time they passed by certain people

yeah that philosophy dates back pre-bush even

I had to read Curmudgeon's c/p a second time, as I was pretty damn sure Bachmann is incapable of using the phrase "inevitable denoument." Nan Hayworth may have gotten a new word-a-day calendar, but her website is nonfunctional.

http://nanhayworth.com/

yeah that philosophy dates back pre-bush even

― iatee, Thursday, July 14, 2011 3:38 PM Bookmark

Sure. I remember reading lots of stuff about Grover Norquist and his bathtub in college (which would be the pre-W/early W years)

Sorry, I mean I read it when I was in college. I don't know what kind of bathtub Norquist had in college.

one filled with the blood of the poor, presumably

he want to harvard so presumably one made of gold

depends on which house he lived in

now I can't stop thinking about how Michelle Bachmann would pronounce "denouement"

"denno-weement"

Deweening?

http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/07/14/269210/michele-bachmanns-weak-command-of-yiddish/

Deneweemint

http://news.yahoo.com/ap-source-fbi-probing-news-corp-9-11-185600706.html">FBI opens investigation into News Corp

FBI opens investigation into News Corp dammit

BTW in re the debt ceiling stuff, in a more paranoid (lucid?) moment recently it dawned on me that maybe the Bush tax cuts were a kind of time bomb attempt to force later government shrinkage.

this was noted at the time they passed by certain people

― i hate it when rats eat my bushels (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, July 14, 2011 8:37 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark

the gimmicks used to make an $800-billion-plus tax cut carry an official price tag of only $320 billion are a joke, yet the cost without the gimmicks is so large that the nation can't possibly afford it while keeping its other promises.

But then maybe that's the point. The Financial Times suggests that ''more extreme Republicans'' actually want a fiscal train wreck: ''Proposing to slash federal spending, particularly on social programs, is a tricky electoral proposition, but a fiscal crisis offers the tantalizing prospect of forcing such cuts through the back door.''

Paul Krugman 2003

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/27/opinion/stating-the-obvious.html

It's hard to fathom -- it seems like you'd have to have an almost religious devotion to the idea of small govt to pull that kind of shit.

"almost"

I know, I just can't completely get my mind around it. It's one thing to think "we can't afford to have the government taking care of everyone" or even "I'm uncomfortable with the government taking care of people" -- it's another to think "I want to MAKE the government unable to afford to take care of everyone"

well if you honestly believe that the government taking care of people is bad for the economy/bad for society, then slashing the tires is a good deed

right

among some of these ppl it's not just bad for the economy or our government, it's bad for people ~existentially~

if they think government is so bad, WHY ARE THEY RUNNING FOR OFFICE

"Hey, there's enough food for everyone. Let's burn some of it."

these people are basically right-wing anarchists

if they think government is so bad, WHY ARE THEY RUNNING FOR OFFICE

to make it worse! literally!

lol

ie, the only authority they are willing to invest the state with is the authority to kill people

xp

beyond that, all bets are off

these people are basically right-wing anarchists

― i hate it when rats eat my bushels (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, July 14, 2011 8:19 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

http://www.fr33minds.com/product_info.php?products_id=467

those are left-wing anarchists tho