55 replies to this topic

[Mr. Roboto]

Only the truly child-like can have expected anything else.

In the year of our Lord 2010, the voters of the United States elected the worst Congress in the history of the Republic. There have been Congresses more dilatory. There have been Congresses more irresponsible, though not many of them. There have been lazier Congresses, more vicious Congresses, and Congresses less capable of seeing forests for trees. But there has never been in a single Congress -- or, more precisely, in a single House of the Congress -- a more lethal combination of political ambition, political stupidity, and political vainglory than exists in this one, which has arranged to shut down the federal government because it disapproves of a law passed by a previous Congress, signed by the president, and upheld by the Supreme Court, a law that does nothing more than extend the possibility of health insurance to the millions of Americans who do not presently have it, a law based on a proposal from a conservative think-tank and taken out on the test track in Massachusetts by a Republican governor who also happens to have been the party's 2012 nominee for president of the United States. That is why the government of the United States is, in large measure, closed this morning.
We have elected the people sitting on hold, waiting for their moment on an evening drive-time radio talk show.

We have elected an ungovernable collection of snake-handlers, Bible-bangers, ignorami, bagmen and outright frauds, a collection so ungovernable that it insists the nation be ungovernable, too. We have elected people to govern us who do not believe in government.

We have elected a national legislature in which Louie Gohmert and Michele Bachmann have more power than does the Speaker of the House of Representatives, who has been made a piteous spectacle in the eyes of the country and doesn't seem to mind that at all. We have elected a national legislature in which the true power resides in a cabal of vandals, a nihilistic brigade that believes that its opposition to a bill directing millions of new customers to the nation's insurance companies is the equivalent of standing up to the Nazis in 1938, to the bravery of the passengers on Flight 93 on September 11, 2001, and to Mel Gibson's account of the Scottish Wars of Independence in the 13th Century. We have elected a national legislature that looks into the mirror and sees itself already cast in marble.

We did this. We looked at our great legacy of self-government and we handed ourselves over to the reign of morons.

This is what they came to Washington to do -- to break the government of the United States. It doesn't matter any more whether they're doing it out of pure crackpot ideology, or at the behest of the various sugar daddies that back their campaigns, or at the instigation of their party's mouthbreathing base. It may be any one of those reasons. It may be all of them. The government of the United States, in the first three words of its founding charter, belongs to all of us, and these people have broken it deliberately. The true hell of it, though, is that you could see this coming down through the years, all the way from Ronald Reagan's First Inaugural Address in which government "was" the problem, through Bill Clinton's ameliorative nonsense about the era of big government being "over," through the attempts to make a charlatan like Newt Gingrich into a scholar and an ambitious hack like Paul Ryan into a budget genius, and through all the endless attempts to find "common ground" and a "Third Way." Ultimately, as we all wrapped ourselves in good intentions, a prion disease was eating away at the country's higher functions. One of the ways you can acquire a prion disease is to eat right out of its skull the brains of an infected monkey. We are now seeing the country reeling and jabbering from the effects of the prion disease, but it was during the time of Reagan that the country ate the monkey brains.

What is there to be done? The first and most important thing is to recognize how we came to this pass. Both sides did not do this. Both sides are not to blame. There is no compromise to be had here that will leave the current structure of the government intact. There can be no reward for this behavior. I am less sanguine than are many people that this whole thing will redound to the credit of the Democratic party. For that to happen, the country would have to make a nuanced judgment over who is to blame that, I believe, will be discouraged by the courtier press of the Beltway and that, in any case, the country has not shown itself capable of making. For that to happen, the Democratic party would have to be demonstrably ruthless enough to risk its own political standing to make the point, which the Democratic party never has shown itself capable of doing. With the vandals tucked away in safe, gerrymandered districts, and their control over state governments probably unshaken by events in Washington, there will be no great wave election that sweeps them out of power. I do not see profound political consequences for enough of them to change the character of a Congress gone delusional. The only real consequences will be felt by the millions of people affected by what this Congress has forced upon the nation, which was the whole point all along.

Among other things, the Library Of Congress is closed as a result of what the vandals have done. Padlock study and intellect. Wander aimlessly down the mall among the shuttered monuments to self-government. Find yourself a food truck that serves monkey brains. Eat your fking fill.

MEET THE MORONS: Profiles of 11 of Our Favorites

[Zimbochick]

How to use the GOP's shutdown tactics to get whatever you want in life.

[PERM BANNED]

So when are any of you going to look at the DNC and how they refuse to offer a balanced budget? How Obama couldn't get his own party to approve his budget when he had total control and how he hasn't offered anything since Republicans got the house. I get that objectivity isn't as fun as finding every article you can grab to paint your team in the right light, but the DNC has done absolutely nothing when it comes to managing the debt and our out of control spending. That's a hell of a lot more important to me than some women in Texas being denied an abortion at 8 months or whether people of the same sex get to call themselves married or in a civil union. But I guess everyone has different priorities.

[wedjat]

That has what to do with Obamacare? Nothing.

[Mr. Roboto]

These Are Probably The 3 Best Debt Ceiling Tweets You Will Ever Read

[Mr. Roboto]

Right-Wing Truckers Plan To Jam DC’s Major Commuter Highway, Arrest Members Of Congress

Between furloughs, car chases, and a self-immolation, the residents of Washington, DC, aren’t having a great October. But by Friday of this week, things could get even worse — and not because of the looming debt crisis.

On October 11th, a group of right-wing truckers is planning to drive to DC to shut down the major commuter highway that circles the city. They’ll continue to block traffic, they say, until they see the arrest of elected officials who have “violated their oath of office.”

Organizers of the event, which is titled “Truckers Ride for the Constitution,” say they are fed up with a variety of headaches caused by the government: Fuel efficiency standards enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency, Obamacare, state and local laws over idling their trucks, and “insurance companies purportedly requiring technological updates,” according to US News and World Report.

They say that to demonstrate against violations of the constitution, they plan to circle interstate 495 — known widely as the beltway — and not allow through any traffic. If police try to stop them, they’ll park their trucks right on the highway.

Originally, reports from US News and World Report indicated the truckers were looking to impeach President Obama. But Earl Conlon, an organizer of the event, told US News, “We’re not asking for impeachment, we’re asking for the arrest of everyone in government who has violated their oath of office.” These include House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), both for purportedly arming al Qaeda linked Syrian rebels. But while it might seem very US-specific, even some Canadian truckers might join in.

It was not immediately clear how truckers would go from circling the highway around DC to actually arresting elected representatives.

But, if the protest grows large enough, it could spell even more trouble for DC: The trucker event is slated to go on for three days, and will coincide with the weekend of the previously-planned Million Vet March, where veterans can express their outrage over the government shutdown.

http://thinkprogress...-wing-truckers/

[PERM BANNED]

Do you people not read the same headlines as the rest of the world? Didn't Obama say "I will not negotiate." We have the abomination that is Obamacare that no one can defend as is. It's incredibly costly to those who use it, and drives our debt up trillions. It was passed in the sleaziest, back alley rush job in the history of the republic without one republican vote. Pelosi never even read the fucking thing. But the GOP are the bad guys because they won't just roll over and allow this horrible law to remain intact.

The GOP gave Obama tax hikes last year. And as usual, the left lied and didn't make the cuts they promised. The Republican Party is fucked and has the wrong priorities. But the DNC is like a teenage Kardashian or Hilton on a spending spree at the mall with their daddy's visa.

[PERM BANNED]

Right-Wing Truckers Plan To Jam DC’s Major Commuter Highway, Arrest Members Of Congress

Between furloughs, car chases, and a self-immolation, the residents of Washington, DC, aren’t having a great October. But by Friday of this week, things could get even worse — and not because of the looming debt crisis.

On October 11th, a group of right-wing truckers is planning to drive to DC to shut down the major commuter highway that circles the city. They’ll continue to block traffic, they say, until they see the arrest of elected officials who have “violated their oath of office.”

Organizers of the event, which is titled “Truckers Ride for the Constitution,” say they are fed up with a variety of headaches caused by the government: Fuel efficiency standards enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency, Obamacare, state and local laws over idling their trucks, and “insurance companies purportedly requiring technological updates,” according to US News and World Report.

They say that to demonstrate against violations of the constitution, they plan to circle interstate 495 — known widely as the beltway — and not allow through any traffic. If police try to stop them, they’ll park their trucks right on the highway.

Originally, reports from US News and World Report indicated the truckers were looking to impeach President Obama. But Earl Conlon, an organizer of the event, told US News, “We’re not asking for impeachment, we’re asking for the arrest of everyone in government who has violated their oath of office.” These include House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), both for purportedly arming al Qaeda linked Syrian rebels. But while it might seem very US-specific, even some Canadian truckers might join in.

It was not immediately clear how truckers would go from circling the highway around DC to actually arresting elected representatives.

But, if the protest grows large enough, it could spell even more trouble for DC: The trucker event is slated to go on for three days, and will coincide with the weekend of the previously-planned Million Vet March, where veterans can express their outrage over the government shutdown.

http://thinkprogress...-wing-truckers/

won't happen. And why didn't you post the articles when Occupy blocked traffic or the Cindy Sheehan's claimed they were going to arrest Bush.

[wedjat]

Do you people not read the same headlines as the rest of the world? Didn't Obama say "I will not negotiate." We have the abomination that is Obamacare that no one can defend as is. It's incredibly costly to those who use it, and drives our debt up trillions. It was passed in the sleaziest, back alley rush job in the history of the republic without one republican vote. Pelosi never even read the fucking thing. But the GOP are the bad guys because they won't just roll over and allow this horrible law to remain intact.

The GOP gave Obama tax hikes last year. And as usual, the left lied and didn't make the cuts they promised. The Republican Party is fucked and has the wrong priorities. But the DNC is like a teenage Kardashian or Hilton on a spending spree at the mall with their daddy's visa.

Actually, people can & do defend Obamacare. You just choose not to open your ears. The rest of your post is just....hysterics.

[Mr. Roboto]

Do you people not read the same headlines as the rest of the world? Didn't Obama say "I will not negotiate." We have the abomination that is Obamacare that no one can defend as is. It's incredibly costly to those who use it, and drives our debt up trillions. It was passed in the sleaziest, back alley rush job in the history of the republic without one republican vote. Pelosi never even read the fucking thing. But the GOP are the bad guys because they won't just roll over and allow this horrible law to remain intact.

The GOP gave Obama tax hikes last year. And as usual, the left lied and didn't make the cuts they promised. The Republican Party is fucked and has the wrong priorities. But the DNC is like a teenage Kardashian or Hilton on a spending spree at the mall with their daddy's visa.

He did negotiate already...within 2% of the Ryan budget. What's the problem?

************

One of the great mysteries of the current budget crisis is why Republicans did not declare victory and pass a continuing resolution last week funding government through the end of the year.

The resolution that is at the root of this crisis already establishes sequestration-level funding that President Obama and Senate Democrats have repeatedly said is unacceptably low but which they were willing to swallow in order to avoid a government shutdown.

That is the kind of compromise that, under normal circumstances, Republicans should celebrate. They got Democrats to accept a continuation of drastic, across-the-board spending cuts that are anathema to the president and his base. And yet members of the Tea Party, from Senator Ted Cruz to Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, have driven the Republican Party so far though the looking glass that even a compromise that so greatly favored their side has not been enough.

This could have been the week when Republicans celebrated a continuation of austerity.
The American public knows this, which is why the Tea Party does damage to the Republican Party the longer this crisis drags on.

Public opinion polls continue to show that voters overwhelmingly blame Republicans for the pain this shutdown is inflicting.

House Speaker John Boehner knows this but will do nothing to stop it. His agenda is not to win national or statewide elections or even to save the Republican Party from the kamikaze pilots who have taken it over. His sole priority is to save his speakership, which is why he will not bring a clean continuing resolution to the floor and allow an up-or-down vote.

Republican complaints that the president and Senate Democrats refuse to compromise ring hollow.

“Compromise,” to these demagogues, is to mandate that Democrats scrap President Obama’s signature domestic legislative accomplishment, which was passed by Congress, signed into law by the president, upheld by the Supreme Court and ratified by voters who returned its architect to the White House last November.

Belatedly, Republicans have complained that Senate Democrats won’t compromise by refusing to go to a budget conference committee. This request was all the more insincere when it arrived immediately before the government was due to shut down this week.

Senate Democrats, of course, had been begging for a budget compromise for months – ever since the senate passed its budget last spring. But Republicans rejected this attempt at compromise 18 times, refusing to allow the Senate and House of Representatives to go to a budget conference to hammer out a deal that would have put an end to this cycle of continuing resolutions.

The reality, of course, is that Republicans do not want a compromise. Their behavior this week is a final grasp at strangling a health care bill they were unable to defeat legislatively, judicially or electorally.

Republicans could have been scoring political points by pointing out all the glitches with the health care exchanges that went live on the same day they decided to shut down the government.

Instead, the public’s focus has been on their intransigence and the myopia with which a small, nationally reviled faction has managed to hold the will of the American people hostage.

This could have been the week when Republicans celebrated a continuation of austerity, across the board spending cuts and all the fiscal policies they had been rhetorically touting for decades.

Democrats compromised by giving away the store on sequestration-level funding. Too bad that the Tea Partiers driving the train in Washington these days are too wild-eyed to see it.

http://www.foxnews.c...ont-compromise/

[Mr. Roboto]

won't happen. And why didn't you post the articles when Occupy blocked traffic or the Cindy Sheehan's claimed they were going to arrest Bush.

You are welcome to attack things I say or do, however you may not attack things I don't say or do not do.

Thank you.

[Mr. Roboto]

[PERM BANNED]

With the federal government shutdown dragging into a seventh day, President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner are no closer to breaking the impasse, much less taking seats across from each other at a negotiating table.

During a midday visit to the Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters in southwest D.C., Obama today challenged Boehner's recent criticism that the president is obstructing a path to a resolution.

"I have said from the start of the year that I'm happy to talk to Republicans about anything related to the budget," Obama said inside FEMA's National Response Coordination Center. "There is not a subject that I am not willing to engage in, work on, negotiate and come up with commonsense compromises on."

Obama added, however, that he "cannot do that under the threat" of prolonged shutdown or default, which he said Republicans were using as leverage to "get a hundred percent of what they want."

"We shouldn't hurt a whole bunch of people in order for one side to think that they're going to have a little more leverage in those negotiations," Obama said.

Boehner to Obama: "All He Has to Do Is Call"

The Obama-Boehner war of words intensified this weekend when the speaker, appearing on ABC's "This Week," criticized the president for a "refusal to sit down and have a conversation" without preconditions. He said the GOP-led House could not and would not vote to reopen the government or raise the debt ceiling without simultaneously addressing some of America's "underlying" economic problems.

"The American people expect in Washington when we have a crisis like this that the leaders will sit down and have a conversation," Boehner told ABC's George Stephanopoulos. "And I told my members the other day that there may be a back room somewhere, but there's nobody in it. We're interested in having a conversation about how we open the government and how we begin to pay our bills. But it begins with a simple conversation."

Speaking at FEMA, Obama challenged Boehner to put a government funding measure on the floor for a vote, with no strings attached. The speaker told Stephanopoulos Sunday that the votes are not there.

Obama said, "If Republicans and Speaker Boehner are saying there are not enough votes, then they should prove it. Let the bill go to the floor, and let's see what happens. Just vote. Let every member of Congress vote their conscience, and they can determine whether or not they want to shut the government down."

Obama said he made the midday trip to FEMA headquarters in southwest Washington to get a briefing on Tropical Storm Karen and to thank FEMA for preparing for weather-related natural disasters "under less than optimal situations."

"Their job has been made more difficult," he said.

The Shutdown's Best (or Worst) Political Stunts

The president said 100 of the 200 FEMA workers recently recalled to help prepare for Karen would be "refurloughed" now that the threat has passed.

"Here you are, somebody who's a FEMA professional, dedicated to doing your job," he said. "At a moment's notice, you're willing to show up here in case people got in trouble and respond to them even though you're not getting paid, even though you don't have certainty, and now you're being put back on furlough because the government is shut down.

"That's no way of doing business."

http://gma.yahoo.com...s-politics.html


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So refuse to negotiate months leading up to this, intentionally close things at a higher cost than staying open, just to try and get fear on your side, then claim you'll negotiate once a debt ceiling is increased as usual. So we go another year with Democrats refusing to make any cuts and only being able to use Gore style "fuzzy math" to claim you met the Republicans even close to what they asked. While Obamacare isn't everything about our debt, Obama has refused to have any meaningful talks on reform.

Nothing has been done to fix its problems, just Obama giving handouts behind closed doors to his donors. Why else would businesses be given a year to participate, but civilians have to participate now. Why is it that the cost of Obamacare is many times more expensive than the tax you pay if you fail to participate? Why is it that the Democrats in congress exempted themself from the very same care they're forcing on every citizen? The answer is because they know it was fucked from the start. They know it would be so bad that the only way to realistically fix it would be to increase its scope and control over private medicine. They'll refuse to do anything that might make it workable or even sustainable. Millions of dipshits get herded to the polling station on election day with promise of more handouts they'll never be taxed for if only they check the box with a (D) next to it. That's their entire strategy. None of their social policies and special considerations are sustainable. But as they keep creating more and more broke shit that fails, they have even more reason to toss more money at the problem. All in hopes that some yanker 60 years from now will put their name on some college.

[Mr. Roboto]

Ex-GOP insider unloads: Blame “neo-Confederate insurrectionists” for shutdown!


http://www.salon.com...s_for_shutdown/



The government shutdown, and the prospect of an unprecedented debt default, have sparked a new wave of debate about whether the system of government set forth in the Constitution is equipped to handle the tactics taken up by the modern GOP. Salon spoke Friday with Mike Lofgren, who worked as a Republican congressional staffer from 1983 to 2011 (including 16 years as a senior analyst on the budget Ccommittees of the Senate and House) before leaving and writing the best-seller “The Party Is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted.”

We discussed the last government shutdown (“terrible”), the current GOP (“neo-Confederate insurrectionists”) and how this showdown could end. A condensed and edited version of our conversation follows.

So in the lead-up to the shutdown and the way it’s played out so far, what if anything has surprised you?

Nothing. Of course the media is kind of covering it like the Michigan-Ohio State game, and love anything with a countdown clock or supposed suspense and all this other crap, and the easy visuals of some park service guy putting up a sawhorse at the Jefferson Memorial. None of that surprised me. [But] this is not something happening according to exigent circumstances or happenstance. This is something that the GOP wanted.

And I’ll say this: I am not an Obama partisan. I have many bones to pick with him, including the healthcare bill. If your intent was to insure as many people as possible, you’d have single payer. You also wouldn’t pay off big Pharma and the insurance companies. That said, the difference between what Obama and the Republicans are doing is like the difference between stomach upset and galloping Ebola.

These people are basically neo-Confederate insurrectionists. They are in substantive rebellion against the orderly government of the country. And one of the things I noticed — and it’s something that’s very common in human beings — we all try to mollify or appease the crazy uncle at Thanksgiving dinner. You know, “Don’t make a scene.” Well, I noticed in the last few years of my service on the Hill that a number of Democrats seemed to be afraid of Republicans. And Obama pretty much wasted his first term trying to mollify them. I think he’s finally stumbled upon a strategy that’s better: simply not give them what they demand. Because this is a deliberate strategy to hold the government hostage.

Newt Gingrich has been arguing that this isn’t really unusual, because shutdowns have happened before, and other language has been attached to bills raising the debt ceiling before, and so this is just the normal course of politics — and that it’s Obama who’s acting unusually by not being willing to make concessions to avert a shutdown or a debt default. What’s your view of that kind of argument?

What concessions were made in the cases prior to this that the debt ceiling was raised? Yeah, people made partisan political speeches. But they didn’t threaten to shut down the government or have the United States default.

Gingrich has to defend it because of the shutdown that occurred during his speakership; if he were to criticize [this], it would be a criticism of his leadership. Now he says, “Well, we got the welfare reform and all of this other stuff from Clinton, so it was useful.” Well, [while] they were worried about Vince Foster’s “murder,” and how Clinton was a “communist,” he was probably the best moderate Republican president we’ve had. He signed the repeal of Glass-Steagall and he was not under any duress. He signed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 that pretty much prohibited any regulation of commodities, CDOs and mortgage-backed securities. So that was Clinton’s inclination all along; it had nothing to do with pressure from Gingrich.

What did the ’95-’96 shutdown look like from the inside?

It was terrible. It was just basically showing up — I was an exempt employee – just showing up for work and essentially waiting for the Great Oz to speak – namely, the speaker’s office.

Was there a sense that there was a plan? How ordered was it? How chaotic?

It was fairly chaotic. And finally cooler heads in the Senate like Bob Dole simply prevailed. I recall him saying in the well of the Senate, “Enough is enough,” and that’s how it ended. Essentially when the Republican Party divided over whether it was a good idea or not, rather than getting some sort of deal out of Clinton. And the [balanced] budget – well, that was a flood of revenue, basically a result of the dot-com bubble. It didn’t really have that much to do with discrete decisions made on Capitol Hill.

How much has the Republican Party changed since then?

In the ‘80s there was a willingness to negotiate, to compromise. The Beirut bombing killed 246 Marines, and it revealed a terrible lack of cooperation between the individual services. And Barry Goldwater and Bill Nichols, his Democratic counterpart in the House Armed Services Committee, got together and came up with the Joint Chiefs reform act. There was no partisanship about this. It was, “How do we fix this problem?”

If that’s changed, then why?

I think Gingrich’s speakership was an important way station on the road to our current circumstances. Because he very much polarized things. And his successor in function if not in title, [former House Majority Leader] Tom DeLay, took it a step closer with the K Street Project and that sort of thing to really polarize matters.

But maybe in a broader social sense, I think it was the twin shocks of 9/11 and the 2008 meltdown that released a Frankenstein monster that was sort of sleeping in the American id — a certain totalitarian streak came out, an absolutist streak, good versus evil, where either you’re with us or against us, all of this kind of nonsense.

Plus, in 2008 you had the biggest crash since the Great Depression. And you know, we think we got through the Depression OK – well, we had Franklin Roosevelt. But you know other countries lurched to the right, violently. And there is a strain in the American society that seeks a kind of reactionary order to the chaos they see, that supports charlatans like Ted Cruz.

And although our American political system doesn’t offer much choice, with only two parties and gerrymandering, I think the people that elect these idiots bear a heavy burden of responsibility. They can’t say they’re against the government and then moan that they don’t get their check from the V.A.

What’s your view of how John Boehner’s approaching and preserving his speakership?

Well, he’s hanging on as best he can. I’ve always regarded him as a typical country club Republican — and for me, that’s not a criticism, that’s praise. He’s better than the zealots. I would take Boehner drunk over Cruz sober. But he’s in a hard position. Maybe he’ll have to give up his speakership in order to resolve this.

So what is the most likely ending to this?

Just based on intuition, I tend to think it’ll go on until sometime close to the default date, 17th of October. Because the government shutdown is a bad thing, but a default puts us into uncharted territory. When you screw around with the full faith and credit of the United States government, that’s serious. And I think [Obama] did a horrible job in 2011 taking the invocation of the 14th Amendment off the table. The 14th Amendment states that the United States will pay its debt. This is an exigent circumstance, and he can do it. Just tell the Treasury to keep rolling over the T-bills. And he’s in his second term; what can they do to him?

[Mr. Roboto]

So refuse to negotiate months leading up to this, intentionally close things at a higher cost than staying open, just to try and get fear on your side, then claim you'll negotiate once a debt ceiling is increased as usual. So we go another year with Democrats refusing to make any cuts and only being able to use Gore style "fuzzy math" to claim you met the Republicans even close to what they asked. While Obamacare isn't everything about our debt, Obama has refused to have any meaningful talks on reform.

That's just so patently false. Total horseshit.

Why else would businesses be given a year to participate, but civilians have to participate now.

You act as if this in itself is some sort of indictment of the ACA, it's not. Individuals need health insurance, while companies already provide a great deal of health coverage through employment. If he did it all at once they would complain and say it should be phased in to not "shock" the business community, you can bet on that.

Why is it that the cost of Obamacare is many times more expensive than the tax you pay if you fail to participate?

It is initially but the cost for not participating will go up over time. You know, they are are phasing that in.

Why is it that the Democrats in congress exempted themself from the very same care they're forcing on every citizen?

Why is it you guys keep repeating this lie ad nauseam?

http://finance.yahoo...-153149342.html