As Greg Sargent points out there’s literally no amount of compromise that President Obama can make that will be acceptable to Republicans short of his resignation from office, and Sen. John McCain is at the head of that particular train of sore loser goalpost-shifters. McCain on FOX yesterday introducing his new “jobs bill”:
We have a plan and we’ll have almost all of the Republican Senators behind it. And if [Obama] wants to bring up a piece of his proposed plan, we’ll bring up a piece of ours.
We’d love to see, for example, a vote in the United States Senate on a moratorium on Federal regulations, which are coming out by the thousands, costing businesses billions and billions of jobs. We’d love to see a vote on that. But it will be interesting to see if the Majority Leader will allow it.
And yes, he actually said Obama was costing America “billions and billions of jobs” and wants a complete moratorium on federal regulations (he can’t even get his talking points straight.) In other words, McCain wants Obama to stop being President until further notice. It doesn’t matter what the President does for the economy, it doesn’t matter what he proposes, it doesn’t matter how many business roundtables or Silicon Valley town hall meetings he holds, Republicans are going to say he hates business and the proof is he won’t give them 100% free reign to pillage the serfs like Republicans demand.
And yes, this means “centrist” McCain is now using the Rand Paul playbook.
sherparick
Billions and billions of jobs? The Stupid, it burns, it burns.
jibeaux
Oooh, Carl Sagan is doing a triple lutz.
Mark B.
Everybody in America will have 5 or 6 jobs if this bill passes!!
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
But remember, they’re only doing it because Obama and the dems are such intractable super-hyper-partisan ideologues that the GOP just HAS to be monolithically against everything the president does, or else!! It’s not their fault! AP knows the score!
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
They are actually determined to destroy this country in the course of a tantrum they are throwing because the President has the audacity to be a Democrat, near, and dignified. I suspect it would also piss them off that he is smarter than they are, if they were only smart enough to recognize that.
Bill E Pilgrim
He’s been borrowing Megan’s calculator again.
Er, no not that Megan, the other one.
AuldBlackJack
New York Daily News reports NYPD has set up a checkpoint at Broadway and Wall, Police are checking IDs for access to Wall Street
General Stuck
Dear Leader Mccain has been reading too many of his press clippings again. Somebody and republicans make a deal, pass a law, and he might just ignore it. As is his fancy.
You see, his very presence on the floor is enough to nullify a law he doesn’t like. I still can’t believe the wingers voted yes to automatic big cuts in defense spending, on top of already announced cuts by Obama, and for that matter, cuts to medicare providers. Dems got a heads we win, tales you lose in that deal.
JPL
You guys are just unwilling to look at the positive aspects of deregulation. Pollution creates jobs for the health industry. Prescription drug manufacturers would have to hire more due to the increase demand for inhalers and think about the producer of masks. Also, too in order to remove the smut on your car and windows, you’d have to buy additional cleaning supplies.
I agree it would be difficult to increase employment by billions but I can foresee a decrease in unemployment. Of course some of that number would be caused by premature deaths.
Rommie
The Cylons had a plan, too, and that worked out just swell. I’d like to see someone send them a Clue instead, but it would be left in some dark corner, ignored and unloved, and that’s just mean.
magurakurin
Fuck John McCain and fuck all the idiots in Arizona who voted for him again.
Fuck you very much, Arizona.
lacp
Fuck the Ancient Mariner. His 15 minutes came and went three years ago.
Carbon Dated
But having a total moratorium on the Obama presidency is just Walnuts’ opening bargaining position.
(And that’s excellent news for McCain)
wilfred
“You see, his very presence on the floor is enough to nullify a law he doesn’t like”
Was it Schrodinger of whom they said his mere presence in a city was enough to make experiments go awry? McCain is political anti-matter, if it matters – he’s against it.
Comrade Javamanphil
@Mark B.: Erick Erickson is halfway there!
Mark S.
@General Stuck:
How will these “efficiencies” be imposed, Uncle Walnuts? By regulations?
redshirt
Damn, Sagan joke in second reply. Thought I’d get it in first. Damn you smart people!!!
sherparick
An important word in the Conservative Republican Tea Party Evangelical lexicon is “believe.” I heard an excerpt of McCains talk on WTOP yesterday and it was all about how “we Republicans believe that business, not Government” creates jobs. No empirical evidence offered, just an assertion of doctrine as “self-evident truth.” Of course the reality is that the U.S. Federal and State Governments have created an enormous amount of the wealth and capital of the country. (I also note, since it cannot be noted often enough, that John McCain has received Government funded health care from the date he was born to the present (as a son and grandson of Admirals), and that his entire education was Government funded.)
Slate has just published a great article on the New Deal and the wealth it created and which we still depend on for our infrastructure as it exists today. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history_lesson/2011/10/new_deal_accomplishments_do_conservatives_who_attack_the_new_dea.html
Linda Featheringill
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): #5
I do think that is part of it. For one thing, there is jealousy. For another, his intelligence really challenges the white supremacy thing. And of course, he proves what can result from miscegenation.
Culture of Truth
THAT ONE!
redshirt
I still chuckle over the “Country First” branding attempt. Doublespeak so plainly revealed – literally, at this point you can take everything a Republican says and either infer the opposite to be the case to whatever point they’re making, or you can infer they are doing the very thing they accuse others of doing.
We’re well past the Looking Glass here people!
harlana
@JPL:
By jove, I like the cut of your jib!
Plethded
McCain’s math is based on the secret Senate Republican plan to invade and annex China, India, and all of southeast Asia, thus adding billions of workers to the American workforce. This is really the only republican plan that would actually add jobs to our economy.
GregB
Screw the Democrats.
It’s time the system bring in some fresh young faces like John McCain, Richard Lugar and Orrin Hatch to shake things up.
The system is broken and it is time for a new generation of political leaders like these fine men to lead us out of the mess created by the entrenched political class.
McCain, Lugar and Hatch 2012!
Culture of Truth
@harlana: By
jove, Rove I like the cut of your jib!kindness
Life tough on you Juicers? Well synch that belt one more notch tighter & pull up your bootstraps because John McCain has plans for you.
Yes he does. Since Republicans want to add billions of new jobs to America & since there are only about 350 million of us that means each and every one of us is going to have to start working 3 jobs. Or more. Depending upon how much those treasonous Democrats cut from this promising and heaven sent ‘Jobs Bill’.
And don’t worry, your family won’t miss you because they will all be working 3+ jobs each too. Even the kids.
Republican’s love of family is bringing tears not only to John Boners eyes but mine as well.
Kristine
Oh, I love Steve Benen:
“The intellectual bankruptcy of the Republican Party is just astounding. It has no new ideas, no constructive solutions, no creativity, no depth of thought, no intellectual consistency, no recollection of their own failures, no understanding of economic policy, and no access to calculators.”
Not even McMegan’s calculator, apparently.
Culture of Truth
Does anyone really think his resignation would satisfy them?
catclub
@General Stuck: “I still can’t believe the wingers voted yes to automatic big cuts in defense spending, on top of already announced cuts by Obama, and for that matter, cuts to medicare providers. Dems got a heads we win, tales you lose in that deal.”
There are many ways this could work out, but we already know that one congress cannot bind any future congresses. Second, depending on how the automatic cuts are written, even those might not even be binding on this congress. Third, we know that ‘cuts’ are typically relative to some constant percentage increase per year ( which might be larger for DOD than other departments) so those cuts have always been somewhat notional when you call them big.
Fourth, I would not be surprised to find plenty of democrats who go through the mandatory cuts for all, when the supercommittee fails, but then agree to an emergency plus-up for defense, because Leon Panetta told them even worse things than we imagined might happen. The GOP will agree to THAT emergency bill but not find a similar emergency for other parts of the budget. Now who gets heads and who gets tails?
So the charade is likely to continue.
Mark S.
@redshirt:
Maverick. Tire Swing. This is great news for John McCain!
I forgot how much the jokes write themselves when you’re talking about John McCain.
Napoleon
@sherparick:
My hometown in Ohio host the largest county fair in the state every year. The only larger fair is the state fair. This is the grandstands that still host all the shows every year:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rBXcCbvHKx0/TmTPx_j9fwI/AAAAAAAAADs/hePprRVXPgQ/s1600/Canfield+Cock.jpg
catclub
@Kristine: And yet they can reliably get 44% of the vote nationwide, without even trying. In my state it is probably more like 55%. Just think what they could do with a popular candidate or two.
Silver Owl
Giving corporations everything they ask for with the bonus of killing people, poisoning our land,water and air with impunity, cooking books, committing fraud and tanking the economy with zero consequences is pretty much how the economy got screwed in the first place.
We’re dealing with functional sociopaths not people that have any kind of self-control nor any stake in keeping any nation, community and resources strong and healthy.
scav
@wilfred:
Well, apparently Perry’s magical mutant skill is nullifying reality itself that doesn’t conform to his (and his state’s) political agenda. (no, no, you don’t get points if you guess it involves the environment or climate: too obvious). If mere reality doesn’t conform to agency policy, it gets deleted from reports. I’m working on the new tourist campaign brochures for TX (they all work best with the special film trailer voice).
TX: Gravity Asks Permission.
TX: Bigger than Truth.
catclub
@kindness: “John McCain has plans for you.”
Well, at least he is telling what his plan is, (See Charles Pierce’s blog) same old plan as ever. Unlike his plan for capturing Bin Laden, that was a _secret_ plan he would only unveil after he was elected. The nation did not deserve it if he was not president. BTW, multiple choice MITT also apparently has a secret plan to fix the economy (Plan 9 with added magic underpants?
Underpants gnomes working with the gnomes of Switzerland?).
cinch your belt in a notch, sync your ipod, synchronize your automatic transmission gears. sinc(x) is sin(pi*x)/(pi*x)
General Stuck
@catclub:
All of what you say is true, but the basic deal as it was agreed to was for automatic “triggered” cuts to departments and programs, like medicare providers, and defense, that liberals should support. I don’t doubt that dems and Obama will pare down defense cuts, with possible ’emergency’ amendments, but not completely. And they are in the drivers seat to shape those reverses in cuts to defense to their liking. And the same for medicare provider cuts, that dems support, can be moderated to not overdo them, but enough to hopefully reduce the rapid rate of health care spending inflation to a degree.
And as far as anything congress and the president put forth now as not binding of future congresses, that is generally true for all of these deals. But it would take affirmative action, or more acts of congress to “nullify’ the supercommittee agreement to ‘automatic’ cuts, as I understand how it was structured.
And it gives dems on the supercommittee more leverage to get what they want from goopers, and to give up less themselves, because the triggered auto cuts favor prog positions.
kindness
@catclub: But I drive a stick shift.
Yutsano
Oi. Grandpa Walnuts has been eating at McDonald’s again and got confused.
The Moar You Know
Why does John McCain hate America?
I’m not being snarky, I’m fucking serious.
IrishGirl
McCain has been using the Rand Playbook ever since he lost the 2008 election! On a daily basis on local radio and news I get to hear the crazy things McCain and Kyl say. Some of it is just plain nuts. I should write a book called “Shit My Senator Says” (BTW, TM!)
Meg
@Bill E Pilgrim: I thought her calculator does not go to the billions.
Comrade Javamanphil
@The Moar You Know: Because you are on his lawn, with your underwear hanging out and smoking that wacky tabbacky and listening to the hippity-hop. Also, too, lost big time to the black guy.
catclub
@kindness: Actually I should have left out automatic. There are synchronizers for manuals as well.
catclub
@The Moar You Know: America did not elect him, so America does not deserve his love.
And he is letting us know it.
Mark B.
@Meg: Meghan’s calculator has 3 output values. One, two, and many. Many is shorthand for ‘too many for Meghan to count.’ Interestingly 1+1=many … or 1, sometimes. Meghan arithmetic is not deterministic.
piratedan
it would be nice, if McCain actually produced some evidence of the job killing regulations that the various Federal agencies were actually producing and implementing that are preventing businesses from doing business.
Trot ’em out here Johnny Boy, lets see it in black and white and take you at your word. You know, do the work you were elected to do and prove your point by giving us evidence. If you say it, back it up.
Kristine
@catclub: If they keep disenfranchising voters–upwards of 5 million and counting so far–they won’t need a popular candidate. ‘Tis a worry, oh yes it is.
Thymezone
McCain has been senile for twenty years. Why it has taken America so long to notice is beyond me. Here in Arizona, it’s been common knowledge for a long time. The man barely knows what day of the week it is.
Roger Moore
@The Moar You Know:
Because America didn’t elect him President. SATSQ.
scav
@Thymezone: Well, it’s very nice of you to attempt to share his specialness, but in this instance . . . ?
pablo
McCain…a laff riot!
patrick II
@The Moar You Know:
McCain has Irish Alzheimer’s — all he remembers is the grudges.
John PM
If McCain’s current outbursts are not sufficient reason for Congressional term limits, then I do not know what is.
maya
@kindness:
Say, they could combine this with their anti-abortion measures:Three jobs for every foetus!Or;For every foetus aborted America loses three jobs.
“There is just so much WIN in my plan that you’ll all regret you didn’t make me
KingPresident.You’ll see.”ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@sherparick:
In a thread yesterday I posted a link to an article (titled “The rise of the new Confederacy”) which laid this out very clearly. Their beliefs do not require any empirical justification, in fact quite the reverse: the more absurd they are the more vitally important it is to believe in them anyway, and the greater the degree of moral purity you earn by sticking to your guns regardless of the evidence. What they’ve done is to take the logic of intensely devout religous faith (“we believe because is is impossible”) and applied it to secular matters. In fact in the mind of the movement conservative there is no longer any such thing as a meaningful distinction between the secular and the sacred; everything is a test of faith in a Manichean world, with all the moral and spiritual implications that carries.
I have two takes on this. First the comic:
Will the last person to leave the room please turn out the Enlightenment?
Now the tragic: there is no way to deal with people like this short of a war of religion. They are irreconcilable and will not accept any sort of compromise at all. They want to take us back to the 15th Century, but what we are going to get instead is something like the conflicts of the 17th Century.
Zifnab
Obama’s plan will kill jobs. Lots of jobs. OVER 9000 JOBS!1!1!1
piratedan
@Thymezone: and we couldn’t nominate a real Dem to run against him thanks to the ratfucking done to the Dem party in AZ. We can only hope it doesn’t go down the same path with Kyl.
magurakurin
@Thymezone: So, Arizonans willingly and knowingly elected a senile fuck back to the Senate?
Like I said, fuck you very much, Arizona.
Thymezone
@piratedan:
One of my favorite pastimes is trying to figure out which of these two is closer to the perfect representation of Satan. Kyl, or McCain. Either of them could be the Beast. Or perhaps the Beast is a duo, a two-headed thing of such horribilitude that it takes two heads to express all the evil?
I don’t know. I am really out of my element on this since I don’t believe in Satan in the first place.
Thymezone
@magurakurin:
Yes, the fact that America could only put up a 42% voter turnout in the last congressional election just proves once again that Arizona is to blame for all of the country’s ills. I feel ya.
Thymezone
@The Moar You Know:
Because it didn’t elect him President?
Grumpy Code Monkey
It’s still a complete mystery to me how McCain wasn’t pilloried and consigned to the dustbin after the whole Lincoln S&L mess. Keating literally bought him off (and Glenn, and Cranston, and DeConcini, and that other guy whose name escapes me).
I can’t think of any bigger red flag that says, “HEY YOU IDIOTS, THESE PEOPLE DON’T WORK FOR YOU” to voters.
The man is a crook, a crank, and a coot all in one handy package. The sooner he explodes in an apoplectic fit, the better off the rest of us will be.
RSA
*rein
It’s a horse-riding metaphor. /pedantry
scav
@RSA: Sliding in under the rein/reign cover, here’s a little OT goodish news that won’t go anywhere but brings a warm feeling to the gut: Still more investor types voting against the reign/rein of the Murdochs: NYT and Guard (Guard of course has the longer list).
handsmile
And how many bobble-heads will be nodding in rapturous admiration when the loser of the 2008 presidential election snorts and splutters out talking points from this new GOP “jobs bill” come Sunday morning. Oh, how they’ll all laugh when he jokes about his little “billions and billions” exaggeration!
It get so crowded on the tire swing
In January of this year, Steve Benen retired his tabulation of McCain’s appearances on Sunday morning gab-fests since January 2009. At that time, it was 27.
General Stuck
@scav:
Even in the life of media moguls, a little rein must fall.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@magurakurin:
Two words: Strom Thurmond
Bill E Pilgrim
@Meg: I must have missed that one, what I remember is her citing some figure to prove a point and being off by a factor of ten.
Of course, Obama’s “regulations” destroying a million or even thousands or you know, any, jobs is still right wing fantasy so it’s all sort of moot whose calculator he’s using.
I take this sort of thing from McCain as an admission that hey, since we’re just making this stuff up anyway, what difference does it make what number we use?
scav
@General Stuck: In Spain it falls mainly on the plains, but yes, elsewhere there are hopes of it falling on the moguls, fancies, kites and 3D-entities as well.
ornery
Sure dude, but what does Sully think?
PurpleGirl
@The Moar You Know: We didn’t see his gloriousness and elect him president.
Amir Khalid
@Plethded:
So John McCain wants to make me an American? I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about this. Is it good news, or bad?
Sloegin
You don’t understaaaand man… those thousands of evuuul regulations will all merge together into a giant job killing commie terminator from the future. Old Man McCain has returned to warn us, can you imagine the legislative horror?
Every street corner will have a stop sign, public buildings will have a wheelchair ramp… pilots and drivers and interns will be forced to sleep occasionally so they don’t kill people, farmers will be prevented from spraying raw pig sewage on their crops, etc.
It’s a crazy future-town, maaan.
Villago Delenda Est
@piratedan:
This.
Give us some examples. Show how the regulation “kills jobs” and does absolutely nothing else. Demonstrate it. Show your work.
They can’t do it, because it’s cant. Pure and simple.
Villago Delenda Est
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
The Founders were much closer in time to that period, and they did not want to see those times return. Thus no religious test for public office (something that 17th Century England was notorious for) and separation of church and state.
These stupid motherfuckers don’t seem to understand that these concepts protect them if they’re a minority religion, and every last one of them is a member of a minority religion, even if they aggregate into a Protestant “majority”, they still have, as Emo Phillips once hilariously pointed out, bones of contention even amongst themselves.
Do they want some idiot with the power of the state to decide who’s a heretic and who is not?
amk
The rethugs realize they fucked up big time on AJA with their 100% No vote. Not even one fucking rethug had the balls to vote against their caucus. Fucking wimps.
At they didn’t expect Obama to come swinging at them the moment they voted against it.
Now it’s all bluster to get away from the flak. And they couldn’t find anyone better than this ignorant, senile motherfucker ?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Amir Khalid: No, you’ll just be another illegal immigrant, the way the Native Americans and Mexicans-who-were-in-Texas-longer-than-the-whites are.
Woodrowfan
but Obama once said there were 57 states and he mispronounced “corpsman” so it doesn’t matter!!!!
PurpleGirl
@Villago Delenda Est: THey are convinced that they will be the rulers and will be doing the deciding as to who is privileged.
A thought I had was if there are billions and billions of jobs created, we will have to open our borders to all kinds of immigrants.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Villago Delenda Est: That’s the question I always want to ask them: “Which version of Christianity will be the state religion?” Hopefully it will involve speaking in tongues.
dimmic rat
I’m calling it. McCain goes on the Sunday talkies and doubles down.
“Obama is so bad tha.t his policies will cause unemployment around the entire world!” or something equally ridiculous
Villago Delenda Est
@PurpleGirl:
As long as the brown stay in their place, no problem.
Of course, they won’t stay in their place. They’ll realize they have superior numbers, and all the sudden, the former masters find themselves in a world of fucking hurt. No long term planning.
America’s “conservatives” have no Bismarck around to get them out of the corner they’re happily painting themseves into.
Ben Cisco
@kindness: McCain isn’t smart enough to have come up with this on his own. I blame the Wayans.
Legalize
McCain’s billions reminds me of a local wingnut radio host of now national prominence. He owns a couple of shitty sports bars locally, and claims on his radio show all the time that his bars pump literally “billions and billions” into the local economy every year, because he and his partners are smart private business men. He’s been saying that shit for decades. I thought it was impressive when I was 12.
EDIT: some of you probably have a good idea who I’m talking about. JenJen?
Judas Escargot
@piratedan:
…and one of the strongest potential Dem candidates for AZ Sen was also, you know, shot in the head. She survived, but isn’t likely to ever be able to run for Senator now.
How fortunate for them.
ciotog
What a telling gaffe. He clearly was thinking of corporate profits that could be lost as a result of modest regulation, probably after being lobbied by Bank of America or something. But he had to couch it in terms of jobs, because that’s the buzzword these days.
Woodrowfan
@Legalize:
He’s not from Cincinnati is he?
Tone In DC
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Lulz. I needed that.
Epicurus
And to think, this man wanted to be our
latex salesmanPresident. I don’t think so….ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Villago Delenda Est:
Dead-on the money. The Founders were almost as close in time to the English Civil War of the 1640s, and the even more horrifying Thirty Years War in North-Central Europe, as we today are to Lincoln and the US Civil War. The prospect of a 17th Cen. style religious conflict haunted them, and was a non-trivial concern given that (pace Kevin Phillips) the American Revolutionary War had a strong ethno-religious component in terms of who fought against whom.
We have so forgotten that lesson, and it doesn’t help that it seems like nobody in our schools is teaching the deep connections between the US Revolutionary War, the drafting of our Constitution and the tragic European history which preceded it. The idea that the USA sprang ab inito from the heads of Washington, Jefferson and Madison like Athena from the brow of Zeus may have served us well as a unifying foundational myth in the early days of the Republic but we are paying a terrible price in terms of ignorance and its consequences for it today.
grandpajohn
@magurakurin:
Why not? Hell we did it for years here in SC. They were just following our example
Legalize
@Woodrowfan:
*Ding*
piratedan
@Judas Escargot: I know Judas, I worked the phones for her last election. Scary thing is, if there hadn’t been an even wingnuttier candidate on the ballot, she would have lost to Jesse Kelly last go around. The latest redistricting fiasco at the state level looks like it splits Dem majority Pima County into five different congressional districts, nifty how that works, they create two “safe” Dem seats, looks like five safe “red” seats and the rest are 50/50 (supposedly) setups. No grouping according to geograpic or economic interests, the usual gerrymandering in play….
http://www.blogforarizona.com/blog/2011/10/airc-update-a-plan-to-divide-and-conquer-baja-arizona.html
Morbo
@Thymezone: Seven heads, ten horns, so there’s room for five more.
Maude
@efgoldman:
#91
He’s an across the board hater. It’s a version of equal opportunity hate.
PurpleGirl
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Another thing few people think about or remember is the Court of Star Chamber, how it operated and what happened to the people tried there. Our founders, though, wanted to avoid such an abuse of judicial powers. Unfortunately, it seems we have been reverting to such secret, non-judicial actions.
schrodinger's cat
Old Bitter McCain has never been able to get over the fact that he was beaten by that one.
Bill Murray
@Amir Khalid:
As with all news, it’s good news for John McCain
TenguPhule
Can we give McCain back to Korea?
slag
@The Moar You Know:
Because America didn’t vote him most popular.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Legalize: Aah, Willie, that asshole. I got to pay him back in a minor way in a courtroom once (made him wait until the end of the docket in reference to a comment he made about our office…) It was fun, but that was when he was just a minor annoyance in the early 1990s. Fucker.
JWL
You neglected to mention the most important “it doesn’t matter”.
It doesn’t matter that the people of this country overwhelmingly voted Obama into the White House. Where the GOP is concerned, it never has.
trollhattan
@TenguPhule:
He old, but he not THAT old.
Also, too, if y’all think McCain is the worst thing to come out of Arizona, you’re clearly forgetting the other John, er, Jon: Kyl. He exists primarily to make walnuts appear sane.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Epiphany time: What McCain is referring to is the minimum wage. Without that law, we could create billions of 50cent/hr jobs, where everyone would be forced to take four in order to survive in their tent cities. Just think of all the jobs. Win for everyone!
SensesFail
@sherparick:
This.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@SensesFail: Gotta love their binary thinking. If they ever turn on businesses it’ll suddenly be that business cannot do anything right.
ruemara
Shorter John McCain: Resign, you arrogant N***er. I am really struggling on the not hating these people thing. Sadly, I am not any sort of saint. But I wouldn’t mind being an avenging angel.
Mike G
McGramps is as sharp at numbers as he was at flying planes.
Kyle
@sherparick:
This is evangelical/fundie Xtian dog whistle.
I have talibangelical relatives who talk like this. They think it’s inherently virtuous and morally superior if they ‘believe’ something sanctioned by authority, even if it’s complete bullshit and disastrous in practice.
Sometimes it seems the bigger the disaster and more magical the idea the better, because that proves how much ‘belief’ they have to hold onto it despite the evidence.
jimmiraybob
That sounds about right. By my calculations that’s 5-7 jobs per man, woman, child and infant* in America (excluding 1% of course) if they want to maintain Real American citizenship status (also known as Gold** Membership).
*no moochers in the plan – however, compassionate conservative principles will allow for the availability of infant work credits, in extreme emergency cases, that can be purchased by parents and older siblings allowing them to substitute their labor.
Apologies if the math’s already been done. And by math I mean interpretation of a gut rumbling.
**errata: should read coal membership
FlipYrWhig
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Rick Perry’s all over that. He’s an expert on subject-crown relations in the 1500s.
gocart mozart
Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/republican-jobs-plan-6513602#ixzz1amdLhDNq
rikyrah
@Linda Featheringill:
you are on point
Citizen Alan
@Judas Escargot:
At the risk of turning this thread into an Obot vs. Firebagger shouting match (which I promise I do not want), I do think it was a really bad decision for Obama to appoint Janet Napolitano as DHS head. She was the best chance to beat McCain in 2010, and by putting her in his administration, Obama (a) ensured Grandpa Crazypants would run effectively unopposed, (b) allowed the rise of the Jan Brewer freak parade, and (c) effectively ended Napolitano’s rising political future, since she is now indelibly associated with the DHS and its subsidiary goons (like TSA, among others) in the minds of most politically aware Americans. Honestly, I’ve always suspected that the Obama team deliberately tanked all efforts to unseat McCain out of an idiotic belief that Republicans would be appreciative of Obama’s magnanimity in victory (sparing his defeated opponent the added humiliation of losing his Senate seat as well as the White House), which just shows how naive they all were and are.
twiffer
@Villago Delenda Est: “Do they want some idiot with the power of the state to decide who’s a heretic and who is not?”
yes they do, because they assume it will be one of them.
NR
@Villago Delenda Est:
Since Obama agrees with him (reference his recent action on environmental regulations), he doesn’t have to.
The reality of our political system is that once there’s bipartisan consensus on something, facts don’t matter anymore. So the corporations bought both major parties, and now here we are.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Citizen Alan:
Agreed. I’m less questioning of Obama’s motives for doing so, however. Seems to me that picking people to staff the executive branch is a near overwhelming task which the POTUS-elect has little time to focus on until after the election has been won and in Obama’s case there was little luxury of time because (1) with the Fall 2008 financial collapse the moral authority of the W administration (or what they had left after all the prior debacles) was imploding right before our very eyes in real time and O needed to give people a sense that he was filling that vacumn as quickly as possible after Nov 2 in order to maintain a sense of stability and purpose re: the govt during an time of perceived crisis, and (2) He rightly perceived DHS as a source of extreme political peril to his administration in the sense that if another major terrorist attack had happened on his watch, especially early on, it would have all been over in terms of his admin’s political capital. The GOP would have been triumphant, effective immediately. And for that reason he needed the sharpest possible person in that cabinet seat and in this case J.N. filled the bill.
But no question that pulling J.N. out of Arizona tipped over a very unfortunate set of dominos.
Triassic Sands
And here I thought the US population was about 310 million.
Now, I find out Obama’s regulations are costing billions and billions of jobs. What does that make the unemployment rate?
1,000%? 2,000%? 10,000%?
Damn, things are worse than I thought. And to think that businesses are sitting on quadrillions of dollars of excess cash and refusing to hire new employees. It boggles the mind.