It’s so nice to see this in print:
The truth is that because Speaker Boehner cannot move on taxes (either because his caucus won’t let him, or he believes in cutting taxes to pre-New Deal levels), there is no deal. Because Speaker Boehner linked the debt ceiling to a deal, America is on the brink of a default that would impose a stealth tax increase — in the form of higher interest rates — on every American. And the country’s top priorities (initiatives to promote more jobs and faster growth) have been ignored by a Congress obsessed with shrinking government. Does this mean politicians can’t govern? Or that everybody puts politics first? No, it does not. President Obama and Sen. Coburn could make a deal today. This is not a Washington problem; it is a House Republican problem. And commentators who are obsessed with balance should remember good journalism is not “Republicans say the sky is blue, Democrats say the sky is red, experts disagree.” It is reporting — without fear or favor — what is actually happening. It means substituting moral clarity for moral equivalence.
Sadly, the message will not sink in.
arguingwithsignposts
Because it’s not in print?
arguingwithsignposts
Also, too – the Mangoes in the comments are indeed putrid:
So apparently, there’s a whole wingnut universe where they’ve been using the Charlie Brown/Football analogy in the opposite direction.
MikeBoyScout
Two-step
Boehner-Cantor Teatard Toodleloo
Hello baby, I’m gone, goodbye
Half a cup of rock and rye
Farewell to you old southern sky
I’m on my way – on my way
Jack Canuck
Would be nice to also see an explicit acknowledgement that none of this “stealth tax increase” actually goes into government coffers to pay for infrastructure, social programs, heck, even defence spending. Might feel like a tax increase in your wallet, but it’s all just pissed away. Unless your a bank CEO with a bonus to look forward to, I suppose.
aimai
If the comment thread over there is any indication we are fucked. The 28 percenters and true believers have zero idea what is going on and are proud of it.
aimai
Elizabelle
That’s awesome. I’ve bookmarked Brian Goldsmith.
More of this, please.
FYI:
CBS’s loss is Stanford’s gain.
Zifnab
Eventually, we’re going to stop talking about defaulting on the debt and start actually defaulting on the national debt.
The FAA has already gone into a massive 4000 man furlough. It’s only a matter of time before the rest of the government is shut down. Then we’ll be back to Gingrich ’95 and fifty million very angry senior citizens.
The message is going to sink in when the checks start bouncing. Then its just a matter of what people are going thinking in November of 2012. Because this is, was, and always will be all about politics.
agrippa
All true.
Obama and Coburn could make a deal. It is a House Republican problem. That caucus is blocking a deal.
And, it is good to see that written. Very refreshing.
Elizabelle
aimai: I think a lot of the Atlantic (and Kevin Drum) commenters are “legends in their own minds” types.
Got to say, they do pollute a thread and make me, at least, stop reading after a few too many.
Which is likely their objective.
arguingwithsignposts
@Elizabelle: Until the Atlantic fires their Business and Economics “Editor,” I’m not making a habit of reading anything over there.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Both sides do not do the same thing all of the time, there is such a thing as right or wrong. There are two sides and they are not always equivalent.
End of story.
Elizabelle
Any guesses on what Obama will say tonight?
WereBear
We have a lot of skin in this game; Mr WereBear is on disability, and almost half our income won’t show up if it comes to that.
Then we yank the plug on a lot of things like cable TV (that and the computer, it’s all he has) and premium ice cream; you know, our frills, so we can make rent.
And the economy will drop down another gear, because we won’t be the only ones doing it.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
Fortunately, as part of the Boehner deal, there are mandatory cuts when spending caps are exceeded, so President Obama cleverly negotiated mandatory spending increases when the unemployment rate exceeds 6.1 percent.
.
.
TenguPhule
Someone got their colors backwards.
The Democrats are saying the sky is blue.
The Republicans are insisting that its puce with plaid linings.
MikeJ
Thank gopod for booman. It’s nice to see somebody who understands these negotiations.
Elizabelle
“Arguing”: yeah, Megan’s definitively “part of the problem.”
BUT: you would miss Ta Nehisi-Coates, who is wicked smart and reads some truly excellent books, and James Fallows and now Brian Goldsmith.
Josh Green is often good too.
Steve Clemons is just moving “The Washington Note” over to The Atlantic. He’s a genuinely kind and inclusive guy who’s got some sharp insights into Washington (even if some are conventional).
General Stuck
Absolutely goddam right. And what was Obama supposed to do, just ignore a branch of congress, who did win the last election, and do a Bush/Cheney up yours move? That would have shut them up, right?, and made them do the right thing, the same as hitting them in the head with a ball peen hammer,
They would have nailed the “tax and spend liberal” badge on his ass, and demagogued dems to death with it, just like Reagan did. Obama instead, has check mated them with a seeming fair offer they couldn’t accept, and turned over the ugly teatard underbelly.
And the press can fluff the wingers all they want, and they can try to do the “both sides do it” bullshit, but they can’t fool mother nature delivered over all their pin heads, straight to the public. Who now may be getting it, just a little bit. POlls are clear.
But of course, let us wail and knash teeth that Obama has sold us out, and handed over the Liberal Holy Grail, But reality is a bitch, and the wingers get nothing except a light shown on their nasty little designs to kill The New Deal and not reduce the debt.
And the country gets a default, most likely, and an opportunity for a black knight to ride in and save the day at the last possible moment.
quaker in a basement
This bit of naivete misses the obvious: a good number of beltway commentators are NOT obsessed with balance, they’re actively working for the GOP and the millionaire caucus.
TenguPhule
Also, too. The Real Clarence Thomas is long overdue a lynching for pretty much every ruling he’s made.
JC
It’s good to see this. Is this a straight reporter, or a columnist?
Mike G
The words “GOP” and “wise” appeared in the same sentence. Perception FAIL.
MikeJ
@Elizabelle:
The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy My brothers. And you will know My name is the Lord when I lay My vengeance upon thee.
BO_Bill
Here is an idea to save the system that might seem very distressing for Mister Goldsmith. However, it is simple and would work. Here we go:
1. Stop paying interest to all bondholders with an aggregate holding of more than $100,000 in T-Bills. This would include nearly all institutional investors and exclude small mom and pop investors.
This would effectively end the Big NeoBank-Corrupt Public Official alliance. Future budgets would be restrained by the fact that FedGov would be required to borrow real money instead of NeoMoney. These people who seek to control us would get their money back, without interest, which is probably better than they deserve. Good faith small investors would be made whole.
Petitions to redress any perceived grievances could be forwarded to the United States Marine Corps.
Thymezone
The piece is spot on, and for that reason, the things we said the other day are still true: There won’t be a default, and Obama is winning the politics of the thing. And both things are basically true for the same reason, which is the reason cited in the piece. The GOP owns this fuckup, they caused it. The ginned up a crisis for no reason. Even if we buy their maudlin concern over the debt, this game is not the best way to address that problem, and not only is it not the most effective way, it’s needlessly reckless and divisive.
Because of this, Obama is free to override the reckless GOP and do whatever he needs to do. As long as he gets a debt limit raised and doesn’t do some fiscal thing that is particularly dumb, he wins the contest because the country wants this to be over.
The House’s attempt at coercion, underway now, fails before it takes its first breath because no effort in either house can be taken seriously unless it has a chance of passage in the other house. And, no plan can advance if it requires more swings at this toxic pinata next year, if Obama stays the course on that issue.
The whole spectacle is sitting right where it was Friday when the petulant speaker threw his tantrum. And everything we said over weekend is still as true, or false, as it was then.
Al Sharpton, a few mins ago (paraphrased): The president has been pretty good at making convincing arguments in the past, and he probably will do so tonight. But if that fails, he can always let Speaker Boehner talk, and that will sell the president’s message.
I am not a fan of Al’s show but that was just perfectly stated.
Elizabelle
Pulp Fiction!!
That’s worth watching for.
agrippa
#18
General Stuck, that is , basically, what happened.
JC
The President speaks tonight. How does he deal with a crazy caucus, and a press who won’t call them crazy?
Does he cave, as to a man, all the Republicans thought he would, in that New York Book Review article?
Does he hold the line, and risk default, while the press then ‘call him out’ for being rude?
It’s a no-win situation. I think Booman is right though, in that this latest offer from Boehner is basically an ‘eff you” offer. It’s a joke.
And Obama knows that.
FlipYrWhig
@ MikeJ : BooMan is growing on me. On the other hand, TPM has gone the full monty, heavy-breathing breaking news that functions as Auto-Erotic Capitulation.
MikeBoyScout
You all do know that the Boehner Plan he presented today is already DOA in the House, right?
Right-leaning groups oppose Boehner’s new debt plan
WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE
arguingwithsignposts
@MikeJ: Followed by:
FlipYrWhig
“I have had it with these motherfuckin’ snakes on this motherfuckin’ plane!”
jwb
General Stuck: I read someone recently who thought Obama should be dog whistling the left more. Fuckwads on the left really are teatard wannabees.
Steeplejack
@arguingwithsignposts:
Don’t know when it changed (sometime in the last month, I think), but McArdle’s bio snippet at The Atlantic now says she is a “senior editor” who “writes about business and economics.” A small change, but perhaps telling, in that “poring over pictures of the Kremlin bigwigs at parades” kind of way.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Dear me, how uncivil. I may swoon!
JPL
TenguPhule not funny…
the votes are 5-4 so why not Roberts, Alito, Scalia or Kennedy…
Davis X. Machina
@MikeJ:Wow! Is that in the Koran (ducks….)
Cris (without an H)
@TenguPhule: that’s a pretty ugly comment, even understanding the context.
JPL
It doesn’t matter what the President says. The only thing that matters is what MSM says he said.
Are the networks going to carry his message?
trollhattan
@23. MikeJ – July 25, 2011 | 6:10 pm · Link
Heh, indoozle!
Also, too, “Check out the big brain on
BradBoehner.”gogol's wife
I was talking to two highly educated, scientist colleagues today, and it was “Washington is broken. Both sides are to blame.” My blood pressure is now through the roof.
Cris (without an H)
@FlipYrWhig: oh man, don’t you wish Samuel L. Jackson was young enough to play Barack Obama when they make a movie about him?
gwangung
That’s kinda stupid. One of Obama’s strengths is that he keeps it close to the vest. Asking for dog whistling is pretty much asking him to give away a tactical advantage.
(And, yes, I know some folks around here actually think he should).
Davis X. Machina
@gogol’s wife: The years — decades, really — and amount of money, and the number of man-hours expended to have your two highly educated colleagues default to saying that is sobering to contemplate.
jl
Serious question for those with constitutions tough enough to have watched the minute details and sequence of this mess:
Has Boehner ever tried a bipartisan House bill to raise ceiling? Or is he going to go all GOP bill all the way? If so, why is he bothering? And if so, where is the balance on the Democratic side?
I been saying that Boehner has been the stand out partisan so far, but wanted to check to make sure my understanding is correct and precise.
FlipYrWhig
Come to think of it, I remember reading that too. Everywhere, constantly, since the New Hampshire primary.
Cermet
TenguPhule – I hate those SC liars as much as most and Uncle Tom is second on my list but you are over the top even for me; that practice was sick beyond belief and should never be referanced for anyone much less a black man – ever. Read what it really was and then a retraction would be in order.
pragmatism
the ghost of david broder haunts our fair land with his eerie cry of “boooooooooothhhhhhhh siiiiiiiiiiiiiides doooooooooooooooooooooooooooo iiiiiiiiiiit”. who ya gonna call?
Elizabelle
FlipYrWhig: you are on fire!
TPM purveying “Auto-erotic capitulation.” On target. (Sometimes I wonder if rightwing blogs serve to incite their readers, and leftwing blogs instill helplessness and dismay.)
And then the Oedipal snakes.
JPL
When the Nixon team started labeling the media as liberal, they knew what they were doing.
aimai
I hope that Obama’s speech begins at the beginning, and involves hand pupetts, because I swear to god the american people are too dumb to understand how their own government works.
It should sound like “When a mommy and a daddy love each other very much…” but probably be focused on the god damned house of representatives responsibility to pay for shit they voted on in the past.
aimai
Trurl
Worked for Libya.
And how is the Days Not Weeks War going?
Amir_Khalid
@Davis X. Machina:
I believe that is an excerpt from the Analects of Tarantino.
Martin
I would die of happiness.
dmsilev
No, no bipartisan bill. The closest we’ve come was a vote on a “clean” debt ceiling hike, you know, the sort that has been absolutely routine for the last several decades. It was deliberately structured to fail, coming to the House floor under a process which required a 2/3 vote for passage, and was basically intended to be a political club to bash those “borrow and spend liberals”.
That’s Boehner’s definition of bipartisan.
Maude
@JPL:
Bloomberg Radio will carry it. That matters because it reaches the financial sector. Also other countries.
When he speaks to the country, the MSM can’t change what he says because too many people hear it. That’s one reason the pundits get snotty about his speeches. They love to tell us what it all means.
Tomorrow, the Repub talking points will include, the president is on the tv all the time. Today it was the default won’t bother us none, don’t worry, be happy.
AAA Bonds
This let’s-start-a-crisis philosophy is somewhere between conservatism and fascism and it’s on the move.
JPL
I just saw a picture of Boehner standing in front of a half of dozen flags. He feels threatened. Pretty soon the stage will be all flags.
Tony
Well, at least we have Nancy and the Democratic house minority holding down the left flank of the debate. Or, you know… not.
http://thinkprogress.org/special/2011/07/25/278696/pelosi-it-is-clear-we-must-enter-an-era-of-austerity/
AAA Bonds
@Steeplejack:
They’re doing what they can to salvage their fuck-up.
AAA Bonds
@Tony:
Well, that’s it, we’re fucked then, aren’t we?
jl
@55 thanks, that is what I thought. Didn’t know that the demonstration clean debt ceiling raise bill was rigged though.
John O
aimai wins the internets today.
AAA Bonds
Austerity at this point is goddamn national suicide.
quaker in a basement
TenguPhule:
Stop that.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig:
No doubt dog. No doubt.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Elizabelle:
God, I hate those people.
Rome Again
@TenguPhule:
Yeah, I noticed that too!
AAA Bonds
How’s everyone’s six wars doing, by the way?
Davis X. Machina
@Tony: She’s the Minority Leader in the House, where money bills must originate, and where there is no filibuster. And the Democratic caucus in the Senate only contains about 38-40 actual Democrats
Unless and until the House reverts to Democratic control, and the Ben Nelsons of this world join the other fossils of the Permian, she’s just stating facts.
FlipYrWhig
@ Tony : That’s interesting, because IIRC the actual word “austerity” hasn’t been used before this point. But it’s a bit more evidence that even progressives in Congress really do think that deficit/debt reduction is important to achieve — with the caveat that the effects of doing so should spare the most vulnerable.
hhex65
Indeed, perhaps, but this is still good news for John McCain.
AAA Bonds
@FlipYrWhig:
We’re getting shock doctrined, is what’s up.
jl
@61 AAA bonds: Not if Obama does the sensible thing and in the face of an impasse, ignores the stupid debt ceiling. That would be smart thing to do for country and for himself politically.
But, then maybe he will concede even that. Concede to whom I do not know. Figments of orderly bipartisan process compromise flicking somewhere in illogical fitful dreams?
If he lets the economy and country collapse because of this questionable legal and political BS, then we will have another James Buchanan presidency for future historians (probably from another country, say China or Australia) to analyze.
I cannot believe Obama would let that happen. I hope not.
gwangung
Or, perhaps, hearing that message form their constituents.
Thymezone
Via Steve Benen, this blurb today captures the Republican situation pretty succinctly IMO:
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) has a six-word warning for Boehner on the economy: “If you break it, you own it.”
jl
@63 IF he goes that route, he should do Lewis Black’s version of divorce: ‘When two people hate each other in a very special way….”
FlipYrWhig
@ Corner Stone : Not a BooMan fan? If I ever declare that Matt Yglesias is growing on me, and now I realize that one of the most serious threats to the American commonwealth is too-strict regulation of barbershops, that would be a truly troubling sign.
Just Some Fuckhead
@General Stuck: Stuck, there there. Even if the US defaults, Obama will be fine. He’s got a lot of money and pretty good post-presidency career options. That should make you feel better.
I know you’ve been worried sick about Obama. Now you can put that to rest and worry about the little people.
Tony
@Davis X. Machina:
No, no, and hell no. The “facts” are that a clean debt ceiling bill can be had right now without the public face of the progressive movement acknowledging that an era of austerity is necessary. She is indeed mostly powerless to affect the actual negotiations, but she doesn’t have to do John Boehner’s job for him by making Democrats think “well, even Nancy realizes we need to tighten our belts.”
FlipYrWhig
I guess the Pelosi comment (linked by Tony) isn’t necessarily saying that she finds “austerity” _desirable_, but rather that she’s resigned to it’s having become inevitable. But I don’t know if that’s better.
Martin
Somewhere early on he confessed to only being interested in a GOP-only bill. In the 11th hour I expect he’ll go crawling to Nancy at the insistence of the guys in the House that are currently sweating buckets over this.
Keep in mind that Boehner can’t seem to get any bill out of his caucus other than obviously symbolic ones, which means that whatever plan the teatards are happy with won’t pass the rest of the caucus. Otherwise he would have announced something last night. I imagine that the non-teatards and the Dems could come up with something fairly quickly, though. Those guys that have been rattling around in the House for 2 decades didn’t get this far by being suicidal.
Linda Featheringill
@TenguPhule: #20
No.
NamelessGenXer
@MikeBoyScout 3
Two Furthur shows this weekend. No Half-Step, but good times anyway.
@FlipYrWhig 32
LO-freakin-L
Davis X. Machina
@Tony: When you don’t lose elections, these issues don’t come up.
FlipYrWhig
Of course, she might truly think that we need to tighten our belts, slowly, starting later, with the best-fed among us going first. Lots of progressives think that. I just wouldn’t want to use the term “austerity” for that.
General Stuck
Just Some Fuckhead
That’s some lame ass trolling there fuckhead. Maybe you need a stint in the minors to up your game. Yawn.
JC
If it goes to a ‘grand deal’, rather than a raise of the debt ceiling, then yes, that’s right. Classic shock doctrine.
I’m still hoping that the debt ceiling is simply raised. 20 to 30 Rethugs sign on to do the right thing, by voice vote, and the fight goes where it should go, to the budget process.
I still think the NY Review books article has it right, in that this is part of the ‘re-election strategy’ for Obama, and the reason why he is offered ‘the deal’. It’s still playing on the Republicans (false and hypocritical) home ground. and it’s wrong for policy reasons.
The opening gambit in that was the december deal.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
NamelessGenXer
Some folks trust in reason
Others trust in might
I don’t trust to nothing
But I know it come out right
Corner Stone
@Davis X. Machina: That’s what you got?
jl
Anyone want to get into an office pool on the exact day not enough money to pay the bills, Econbrowser blog has some analyses posted over last two or three weeks. One had a graph predicting sometime between Aug 2 and Aug 12.
Note to self: pick up more dried split peas (9 g protein per serving) and lentils (10 g) and some powder milk tonight. Run by Cosco and pick up do it yourself back yard bunker kit (they are the odd shaped shrink wrapped things on pallets, right behind the cars).
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig:
You’re not sure?
Nutella
I used to think it was a shame that the Republican reps had the discipline to vote the party line while the Democrats has so many disagreements and differing votes from blue dogs, progressives, and others. I thought it would be a good thing if the Republicans didn’t all vote together when their leaders asked them to.
I see now I was very, very wrong about that.
FlipYrWhig
@ JC:
I totally agree with this. If Republicans think that they have a winning argument about what needs to be cut to handle deficits and debt, they can keep
riding that horsefucking that chicken all the way to Election Day. They ought to relish that opportunity.Raven (formerly stuckinred)
Nguyen Cao Ky died. fuckin cowboy
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig:
He’s a hardcore Obama fluffer who can wrestle any outcome to the sunshine for President Obama.
Now you’ve got Benen and BooMan.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
jl
don’t forget the ammo
FlipYrWhig
@ Corner Stone : I’m not sure if it’s better for Pelosi to actively want austerity or to have lost hope that anything but austerity is possible, no. What’s your point?
General Stuck
I’m sure it looks that way to a sewer rat.
FlipYrWhig
@ Corner Stone : Who do you have, Digby’s sad whomp-whomp trombone? Josh Marshall’s Many Understudies and the “disturbing things we’ve heard from anonymous staffers today” kickline?
Tonal Crow
Good excerpt, except the writer (I have to believe unintentionally) slid right back into the false-balance pool when he wrote:
Sorry, but very nearly every politician who claims the sky to be red is a Republican.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: You forgot your hatred for Atrios in there.
And no, I don’t need some fluffer to tell me what I think.
If you can find the last time I quoted from Digby or TPM I’ll eat my hat.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
General Stuck
Or a Wharf Rat
Corner Stone
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): You should’ve made your call sign “McRaven”, like the head of JSOC.
That’s the kind of badass I picture you as.
FlipYrWhig
@ Corner Stone : You’re right, I should have mentioned Atrios’s WHEEE Do Something revue.
No, all your opinions are totally genuine. The fact that they’re exactly like the vast majority of the liberal blogosphere is purely coincidental.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
Corner Stone
Ha, just a broken down old war horse tryin to get over.
jl
@101: The reversed party colors could also be an implication that the corporate media balance myth really functions as pro GOP propaganda in disguise, and amounts to big media telling lies.
For, in reality, on most days, the sky is blue.
When the sun’s out, and no dust storms, and the sun is not caught up in red giant star’s gravitation and we are being sucked into it, or color mechanism of the human eye not suddenly changed because some people say so…
So.. huh… is the sky really blue? I just looked out the window, but am confused now.
Edit: anyway, the blue and red sky thing is probably a joke, and if I got the joke right, as near as a respectable member of the media can come to calling some of his colleagues total hacks.
cleek
wow. MSNBC must be trying to set a record of some kind. they started a debt ceiling thread on Saturday and have been linking all their stories to it. it’s up to almost 17000 comments.
MSNBC.com is where i go when i want to see what the wriggling id of America is thinking. it’s half wingnuts and half bwwildered centrists.
gex
Brother-in-law (works for Lockheed Martin) was over last weekend. We agree on so very much, but he’s not very well informed. He’s pretty sure taxes always go up but never go down (so the Bush tax cuts never happened?) and that he at $100K per year is considered “rich” and would be the target of tax increases on the top earners, and is pretty convinced that the housing bubble was caused by borrowers after describing how carefully the bank vetted him for his house before the bubble. He’s not a teatard. But he doesn’t think education’s gotten too expensive (he’s paying $15K/year for his son to attend a state college not including housing). Also he’s pretty sure it won’t be a big deal if we get downgraded or default.
He’s not an extreme far right person, but the dogma has sunk in really, really well. It makes me think that people like him won’t figure it out unless the new depression/guilded age costs him everything.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): But a badass broken down old warhorse, no doubt. How’s mrs. stuckinred doing on the ankle resting?
Sophie Amrain
@96 corner stone
Booman has been critical of Obama repeatedly. He just happens to have much better analytical skills than his co-publisher Steven. It also helps that he thinks with his brain, not his spinal cord.
FlipYrWhig
@ gex : Doesn’t working for Lockheed mean that he’s very likely getting paid, at least indirectly, by… government spending?
jl
@108 @109
Plenty of material for what pointy heads call them natural experiments for future social scientists (probably from some other country, say, India or New Zealand) to test all sorts of wild theories.
Here’s an old hypothesis by some dead guy that we will soon be able to test:
” A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”
James Madison to W. T. Barry
4 Aug. 1822
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch18s35.html
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
The foot is in ice. She’s being taking it as easy as is possible for her. She made a dress over the weekend instead of wheeling that damn pick in the garden. As a reward for me trying to help out down there I now have chiggers in places I don’t have places! It’s all about love.
General Stuck
That’s okay. Corner Stone thinks with his liver.
kdaug
@MikeJ: Now give me my wallet. It’s the one that says “Bad Motherfucker”
John O
@gex
Obama should go with sock puppets, as aimai suggested, a chalkboard (“See, here’s how many times the debt ceiling was lifted under Reagan, *writes 17*, this is how many under GWB, *7*, do you remember any big fuss about that?”) and go into pissed off professor mode. Everyone has a vestige of fear and respect for a pissed off teacher.
I think the clock will be very close to midnight when this thing gets resolved. IF it gets resolved.
freelancer
Jesus H Christ. In a sane world, this would mean the absolute end of the Republican party as an influence on American politics.
But it isn’t and it doesn’t. We are so totally boned.
Jeffro
Gex is right – the upper middle class or lower upper class or whatever (people making between $75K-$150K/year each or $100K-$200K/year as a family) are really a royal pain to a) deal with and b) get through to.
They think they’re solidly middle class, and they’re oh so put upon. It really is amazing. All you have to do, if you have time, is to walk them through what it would be like to make $50K as a family (or, god forbid, have two full time minimum wage earners with two kids trying to make ends meet) and slowly it dawns on them.
But only about half the time…sigh…
gex
@112 FlipYrWig
Yes it does, he’s in the defense side. But just like everyone I know who lives high on the hog from defense spending, that’s the right kind of government spending. The wrong kind is the spending on people who aren’t them.
JC
freelancer,
Yep, it’s pretty true that Boehner has been giving the finger, metaphorically, to the President since he stopped taking his calls late Thursday.
The name of his ‘plan’, and that he informs Rush, just shows how much of a smarmy smirking doofus he’s being.
Comrade Luke
@JC:
First comment on that blog post.
Both sides do it. So there you go.
FlipYrWhig
@ gex : Yup, ain’t it always the way…
Jewish Steel
@cleek:
Ew.
Vividly put. But ew.
gex
Oh, the other gem from the bro-in-law: His wife’s small business is in the red “because the government is killing it.”
It’s not because:
a) there’s no market for what she’s selling
b) she’s under pricing what she’s selling
or
c) she’s not a good businessperson.
It is, by definition, the government’s fault.
I hate the unquestioned dogma. And the “it’s someone else’s fault” victimhood.
ETA: He flew out of MSP today, so hopefully my blood pressure will go back to normal before work tomorrow.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I think this describes a sizable chunk, if not the majority of “swing voters”. The evidence is pretty strong that very few people really understand marginal tax rates, and I have a pet theory that most people, on an emotional if not cognitive level, don’t really distinguish between taxable income and net worth. When Obama says “those who earn more than $250/yr” they think “My house is worth 300,000 dollars! He wants to raise my taxes.
Nutella
@gex:
Yep, contractors (aka beltway bandits) usually defend all the government spending on their projects and complain about all the government spending on everything else even when they know their project is a boondoggle.
You’d think that much cognitive dissonance would give them the bends, but it never does.
ruemara
I think we should have a whole thread devoted to this, Mike Lee (R-UT) wants to bring down the econ to force Congress and the American people to vote on the balanced budget amendment in 2 weeks.
FlipYrWhig
@ Jim:
I have a different thought. When Obama says that, they think, “Hmm, sounds OK.” But then they get told, “No, he’s lying, and he’s coming for YOUR WALLET!” The biggest ruse, and one Republicans run all the time, is being deliberately hazy about the difference between “raising taxes” and “raising YOUR taxes” or “raising tax RATES across the board.” That way if you took a billionaire and raised his taxes alone, yielding a lot of money, Republicans would say you just raised taxes by $X million, and the people who hear that think, “Well, I haven’t see it affect me personally yet, but I know it’s coming.”
Regnad Kicn
@ 94 FlipYrKnowNothing
Somewhere, Joel Oppenheimer is rolling in his disestablishmentarianist grave.
Old Dan and Little Ann
My bro-in-law is a surgeon and self-proclaimed Libertarian. We were fortunate to spend about 24 hours in the car together a few weeks ago. He taught me that Republicans and Democrats are exactly the same and I was just a naive liberal. It’s a miracle my head didn’t explode. The several times I said, “You mean, Fuck you, I’ve got mine” was just hollering in a well.
jl
Anyone want to know how this comes out, read Aristophanes’ The Knights, except ignore the happy ending.
Pray that the worst we get is another Peisistratos.
Edit: the big Peis is not in the play, that was real life.
General Stuck
That dude is a fucking lunatic
Corner Stone
@Sophie Amrain: Is your IP address new?
John O
Wolfie is telling me that both sides do it.
Time to check out until maybe the dueling addresses.
Sko Hayes
People on Twitter have been speculating that republicans in the House want Obama to pull out the 14th amendment so they can impeach him. Or try to impeach him, at least.
(It’s a Newsmax piece, so I’m not going to link to it)
Svensker
@ ruemara
Yay-su Xreesto.
Davis X. Machina
@Corner Stone:
The truth of an assertion is an airtight affirmative defense against libel. The defense rests.
MikeJ
@gex:
What does she do, run a lead smelter?
dmsilev
BTW, for anyone who wants to listen to Obama’s address without talking-head blather, http://www.whitehouse.gov/live
FlipYrWhig
Was this linked here?
What Obama offered to Boehner – Jonathan Zasloff
MikeJ
@kdaug:
You leave town tonight, right now. And when you’re gone, you stay gone, or you be gone. You lost all your D.C. privileges. Deal?
jwb
Sko Hayes: At this point, I’m convinced that they’ll try to impeach no matter what happens.
jl
The teabagging couple in my family owns a fragment of one of the remaining family farm plots. The main visible produce is old oil drums full of crushed beer cans, produced on the premises, BTW, so I guess they can be called artisinal.
Some good land remains unplanted and unrented because…. well… because.
As far as they are concerned, it’s the damn gummint. The sane productive members of the family who are no longer in the farm business, will be SOOL if the gummint shuts down, since all of their jobs depend on the government being able to do something or other (even the stolid engineer). The other farm in the family is owned by… liberals. So the tea’ers requests for
beermoney to help the them survive the big gummint onslaught are going without response.They are decompensating ugly.
Elie
This is quite a duel…That said, I am sure, (if we survive this period), that it will be hard to remember what we were doing “when”. That was true for me when remembering such historical events as the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago and the assassinations of MLK and Bobby Kennedy. These were epochal events, but still life went on underneath. My friend Danny got roughed up by the cops on his way to violin lessons downtown Chicago when there was a police riot. I went to a party (I was 18) the night of Robert Kennedy’s assassination…
This is a huge huge event. Tonight is just one more step in this, probably not the defining event. But its coming.
I read people tallying up who is with us or agin’ us — friends, relatives that they think haven’t a clue. No denying the cone heads are numerous…and they always are.
Remember, most of the north was ambivalent about the Civil War, but in the end, did what was necessary, losing a brace of kinsmen. Indeed, Lincoln made the ultimate sacrifice…
I have no idea of the details, but we will be ok. There are a lot of jerks, but a lot of good people who will actually know the right thing to do and will back the right thing. At every turn, on the whole, the American people have done the right thing — ultimately. We are big, diverse and almost unwieldly in our passions and competing ideas about how to roll. But watch, over the next couple of weeks, its going to work out…
JC
FlipYrWhig,
Well, that and this, just goes to show you how totally insane this whole debate is.
a. Let’s continue with Bush tax cuts – add to the deficit.
b. Let’s not do the debt ceiling raise, that has been throughout the last 50 years.
c. Let’s pretend that it’s about deficits.
d. Let’s continually ramping up the pressure, and keep saying no to better and better deals offered.
e. Profit!!
We’ll see if this is a particularly cynical employment of the Cheney “Madmen theory”, and Obama and dems get rolled, the Rethug caucus gets what they want.
Or whether they really are crazy, Boehner is in a tight pickle, Obama will stand strong, and at the last minute 30 republicans and the democratic House members will raise the debt ceiling, via voice vote (nothing on record).
Who’s zooming whom in Kabuki theater, or who’s driving the bus in the game of chicken with the debt ceiling canyon?
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
Elie
I’ve told my story of the night RFK was killed so I’ll skip it but I think you are right.
Sunrise doesn’t last all morning
A cloudburst doesn’t last all day
General Stuck
The problem with this analysis, is that it doesn’t factor in Obama’s insistence of 1.2 trillion in new revenue tax reform.
You can’t make a conclusion that this was no rope a dope, so long as that is what Obama insists on with his package. Reid’s plan doesn’t have those revenue enhancers, but it doesn’t make any large changes to the entitlements either.
And if you can make yourself believe that Obama is a poor enough politician to consider those kinds of tax hikes as passable by the winger House, then you can swim in those serious waters. I can’t do that, watching the dude operate for 3 years now.
gex
@139 She publishes a small magazine about environmental stuff. You know, ’cause print media is ’bout to really boom.
Elie
JGabriel @ 148 —
Man, how do you get on a list like that?
Must be your interest in history and politics in what you link to on the internet. Since our Google choices, etc are all so “customized” to our patterns and tastes, I am sure that is why. Thank God I am a lightweight and get mostly House and Garden selections (wink, wink) — heh heh heh
suzanne
Waiting for da Prez and Oompa Loompa to talk.
This whole dynamic reminds me less of two reasonable, principled sides working out a compromise than of a battered wife blaming herself for the violence because she didn’t try hard enough to please the abusive prick who has her under his thumb.
zmullls
Oh, if Obama went 14th they would definitely go for impeachment. They’d go all the way. There would be an embarassing Senate trial and it would be easily “Not Guilty”. Worked really well for the Republicans last time.
Cacti
So, will Boner start weeping gin during his speech?
Frank
grrrr NPR was doing the both sides do it theme again.
Geoduck
Heh. It’s gone already, but the picture CNN.com used to link to Boehner’s rebuttal made him look like he’d just been hit on the head with a mallet.
fuckwit
It’s all going down. Buy gold, guns, food, medicine, and ammo.
Or, for a more left-wingy approach, take a good look around at who your close relations, neighbors, and friends are, because that’s all anyone is going to have around to help each other survive. That’s the truth. This shit is about to get medieval. Literally.
I recommend reading Dmitri Orlov and James Howard Kunstler right about now.
cleek
@Frank:
NPR is utterly worthless on topics that take more than four words to sum-up.
dollared
@gex. Environmental magazine. Certain path to unimaginable wealth. Gad.